Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Difference between revisions

After an environmental calamity, the Klingons' infrastructure collapses and their leader sues for peace. [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|Does This Remind You]] of the end of the [[Cold War]]? It should. The [[Iron Curtain]] was coming down at the time of production and the Klingons had always been stand-ins for the Soviets. Kirk, ever the cynical cowboy, still doesn't trust the Klingons, but is volunteered by Spock to escort their leader to the peace talks without asking him first. But Kirk is not the only one who doesn't want peace - a mysterious conspiracy with accomplices from both sides of the conflict means to drive the Federation and Empire into a full-scale war, framing Kirk and McCoy for murder in the process.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

{{quote|'''Chang''': Dr. McCoy...Would you be so good as to tell me, what is your current medical status?

'''Bones''': Aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good!}}

** The red blood only appears in the extended cut. The reason the Klingon blood is pink in the film was to avoid a rating higher than PG. Ironically, Klingon blood is quite red everywhere else save this film.

* [[And the Adventure Continues...]]: The end narration:

{{quote|'''Kirk''': Captain's log, stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man, where ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|no one]]'', has gone before.}}

'''Kirk''': ''...it's cold.''}}

* [[Continuity Nod]]: Sulu mentions at the end of IV that he hopes the ship they're being sent to is the Excelsior. In this film he turns up as a starship captain... commanding the Excelsior.

*** [[All There in the Manual|The novelizations]] of the previous movies explain it - Sulu's promotion has come through in ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Wrath of Khan]]'', but he's still on the Enterprise training cruise as a favor to Kirk. Then, because Genesis and the events surrounding its creation result in such public backlash, Excelsior is given to the guy in ''[[Star Trek III: The Search For Spock|The Search for Spock]]'' because Sulu needs to be kept 'available' for debriefings and such.

* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Pretty much the main cast.

* [[Credits Pushback]]: The signatures at the end generally get [[Edited for Syndication|clipped]] thanks to this practice.

* [[Description Cut]]

** {{spoiler|Worse. I seem to recall that at the start of the film, SULU mentions they've been on a three-year mission "charting gaseous anomalies", so the Excelsior would have the equipment. Script-writer confusion abounds!}}

*** {{spoiler|Not so, more a case of a combination of executive and cast meddling (see the reference to Shatner insisting that the ''Enterprise'' save itself, above). This is also explained in the novelization as being Starfleet's current ongoing giant research project of the past few years, so most ships were carrying equipment for gaseous anomalies, not just the ''Excelsior''. Admittedly this could have been somewhat fixed by modifying Sulu's opening narration to something like "for the past three years ''we have been leading the fleet'' in cataloguing gaseous anomalies in planetary atmospheres", but alas, l'esprit de l'escalier...}}