Yesterdays Movies on Tuesday: Star Trek The Undiscovered Country 1991
Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country is sadly the last film in the Star Trek franchise to have the whole original crew of the starship Enterprise together before Paramount moved on with The Next Generation cast in films. Because of the critical and financial disappointment of Star Trek: The Final Frontier, the sixth film in the franchise was uncertain but the 25th anniversary was on the way and Paramount wanted to have something to celebrate. Early production on a sixth film began with Paramount looking for a new story to retire the original crew. If you look at the wikipedia entry for this film, Star Trek 6 could have been a lot of different stories ranging from a prequel (origin story) to an alliance with the Romulans and a war with the Klingons. Obviously, that didn't happen. When Leonard Nimoy approached Nicholas Meyer about ST6, he suggested "what if we took down the wall" meaning the neutral zone between the Federation (United States) and the Klingon Empire (Soviet Union) mirroring our very own history - peace. It's all history from there - Meyer started writing a story and script, then eventually decided to direct the last TOS film in the franchise.
It's strange looking back on this film because I saw it in theaters, which was my first Star Trek theater experience, and now after four Next Generation films we're back to the beginning with these characters again.
When a Klingon moon called Praxis explodes the Klingon Empire is thrown into chaos. Their only hope for survival is to end hostilities with the United Federation of Planets - to create peace between the two long time enemies because the Federation can help. Starfleet chooses the USS Enterprise, who's senior staff is near retirement, to escort the Klingon Chancellor to Earth but a plot unfolds that is meant to spark war between the UFP and the Klingon Empire, burning the hope of peace between these powerful empires. The Chancellor is assassinated, Kirk and McCoy are imprisoned and the galaxy hangs in the balance on Captain Spock's next move, who's now in command of the Enterprise. From a script by Nicholas Meyer, he directs William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, Deforest Kelly as Dr. McCoy, James Doohan as Scotty, George Takei as Captain Sulu, Walter Koenig as Chekov and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Joining the cast is Christopher Plummer as General Chang, Kim Cattrall as Valeris, David Warner as Gorkon, Iman as Martia, and returning from Star Trek 4 is Brock Peters as Admiral Cartwright.
Right off the bat, I'll say this about the first six Star Trek films. If your looking to see the past films after you see the new film in theaters, your best bet is to watch Star Trek 2, 3, 4 and 6 (this one) because that's the best combination this series has to offer if your looking to see more.
Star Trek 6 is a fantastic film - lets just get that right out of the way. I love all Trek films anyhow, I'm bias, but if you look up past reviews from this film you'll see that they're mostly positive. Some would argue that it's the best film in the franchise, even more so than The Wrath of Khan, but I don't know if I'd go that far. Still, however, there is no denying that this film is superior to most of the other films. In short, it has a solid story that is relevant to the times considering the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union fell. Along with that, we saw great special effects which were a massive improvement from the previous film; we had emotional performances with great dialog; we heard an amazing score from Cliff Eidelman; a kick ass villain thanks to the awesome Chris Plummer; and closure to a television series and film series with these characters, granted we see some of them again in the next film.
There are some Star Trek films that are a must see, like this one, and those films are The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home. So after you check out Star Trek which premieres on May 8th, or if you want to see a little big of back story (even if the new film is a prequel) I implore you to go out, borrow or rent, this film along with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th film in the franchise. People might look at Star Trek as a geek stereotype but that's because they've never seen these movies. After you get a dose of Khan, life after death, time travel, and an epic peace between two powerful long standing enemies, you'll never look at Star Trek the same way. In fact, you'll love it.
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-Phil
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