Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Casting Gag:
    • This was at least partially a coincidence, as he had already played Admiral Cartwright earlier in the film series, Brock Peters plays an anti-Klingon racist. Brock actually had problems doing Cartwright's anti-Klingon rant during the classified meeting because it was morally unpleasant for him personally. Multiple takes had to be done and pieced together. (That is, he had problems getting the lines out. According to the DVD, he was supportive of the message itself.)
  • Deleted Scene: Rene Auberjonois filmed a small role as a Starfleet member initially presented as being an ally to Kirk and Spock, only to be revealed as an aid to the conspirators. His scenes were cut for the theatrical release, reinstated for the VHS and DVD, only to be cut again on the Blu-Ray.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • Gene Roddenberry. Again. He had a hard time with Saavik being the traitor.
    • Klingon blood is pink for the first and only time in the entire Star Trek property because had it been red, the film would have been slapped with an R rating.
    • A Chekhov's Gun example is subverted slightly via Executive Meddling. At the film's start, we learn that the Excelsior has been cataloging gaseous anomalies... but in its Big Damn Heroes moment, it's the Enterprise that interestingly just had the same technology installed recently to create a gas-seeking torpedo to find Chang's ship.
  • Fan Nickname: Star Trek VI: The Apology.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Captain Von Trapp is the Big Bad, for one.
    • Guess who plays the Federation President, dumbass.
    • The Mole is Samantha from Sex and the City.
    • Martia the shapeshifter is Iman; model, host of Project Runway Canada, and David Bowie's wife.
    • Kirk was right not to trust Gorkon. He's really Evil. Zing!
    • The lieutenant who appears for moment at Sulu's door to give a report is a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo by Christian Slater.
      • His mother Mary Jo Slater is the casting director, and Chris was a trek fan, so that's how he got his cameo.
    • Kirk and McCoy's defense attorney is Worf! No really, he is!
    • Colonel West is Odo!
    • The Klingon Judge is Robert Easton. Yes, that Robert Easton.
    • So, Tom Robinson, even though you are cleared of rape in the 20th century, you can't help but continue to harbor hatred and resentment to a dying race that stands against everything you hold dear? I-rony!
    • DRAAL expects the Federation to abide by the articles of Intersellar Law.
  • Network to the Rescue The film might have never been made (or at least would have had to contend with a budget barely any bigger than that of Star Trek III: The Search For Spock) had the new head of Paramount not been a friend of Nick Meyer's.
  • Recycled Script: Accidentally, as the writer didn't know there had been an episode of the series where Kirk fought a clone of himself. Though it does still work as twenty years of special effects advances allowed this fight to be much more convincing than the last one, which was mostly done through single shots of both Kirks.
  • Recycled Set: This movie was filmed while Star Trek: The Next Generation was still in production. As a result several of the TV show's sets found their way into the movies. However, these sets were originally designed for the first Star Trek movie and late redressed for television. Some sets, such as corridors and crew quarters had a few different paint jobs and cosmetic touches, however, others were a bit more obvious:
    • Main engineering of the Enterprise-A was essentially the Enterprise-D's main engineering set with different graphics in the displays and a different paint job.
    • The officer's mess hall was the Enterprise-D's observation lounge set. This is why the little Enterprise statues that are present in that set during the first four seasons of the show mysteriously disappear.
    • The Federation President's office is the Enterprise-D's Ten Forward with some curtains and different lighting.
  • Throw It In: General Chang was supposed to have hair; however, Christopher Plummer preferred his bald look, so General Chang became bald.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: Or intentional, as this movie could only have been made in the midst of the end of the Cold War of 1990-91.
  • What Could Have Been: Okay, make yourself comfortable, because this could take a while...
    • Harve Bennett, the man who co-wrote and produced every Star Trek film between Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan and Star Trek V the Final Frontier, originally pitched a completely different sixth movie entirely. This movie would have been a Prequel, featuring the characters of Kirk, Spock, Bones and Scotty; recast as younger actors and meeting each other for the first time at Starfleet academy. This may all sound very familiar with the benefit of hindsight. The story would have been about Cadet Kirk's one true love, and her death -- the thing which drives him towards adventure, and which never allowed him to settle down and have a family. The movie would have featured cameos from William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy at the start and end of the film, where they visit the grave site of the girl that Captain Kirk has never allowed himself to ever forget.
    • Bennett's story was seen as very risky in 1990 (recasting the roles of Captain Kirk and Mister Spock? Get outta town!), and was eventually shut down by Executive Meddling -- the suits simply didn't feel that the movie going public at the time could ever accept such a radical departure. They pushed for Bennett to write a more traditional Star Trek, with all the original cast. Bennett refused to do this, and walked from the project. Nicholas Meyer, Denny Martin Flynn and Leonard Nimoy knocked together the eventual version in something of a hurry (they had to have the movie out in time for the 25th anniversary of the original series), so its probably quite surprising that the final movie turned out as well as it did.
    • Even the story they eventually went with could have been a lot deeper. In the novelization, the Klingons were responsible for a massacre on the Federation colony of Kudao (which the Klingon government claimed was a rogue action), and Chang's bird-of-prey attacked a science station on the planet Themis inside Federation space, which critically injured Kirk's love interest, Carol Marcus. Had they kept this in, it would have provided more recent context for why the Klingons were so mistrusted, and another personal reason why Kirk hates the Klingons so much-- considering that David's death happened ten years or so before the events of Star Trek VI.
    • The original idea for the opening was to have Kirk and Spock round up the officers for their final mission. This would have shown their fates and why they were so eager to return. Scotty would be struggling to understand the cloaking device on the stolen Bird-of-Prey. Uhura would be hosting a talk radio show. Chekov would be playing chess with higher life forms, gloating about his "superior Russian strategies". McCoy would be surrounded by insufferable doctors. Kirk himself would be in bed with Dr. Carol Marcus. However, the budget would not allow for such a pricey sequence, so it was scrapped.
    • And if they'd gone with Saavik as the one to betray Starfleet, and if the film versions of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock had followed the novelizations by having Saavik and David fall in love, it would have provided an excellent personal reason for Saavik to wish the Klingons dead.
  • You Look Familiar:
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