star trek 6 dinner scene

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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An interstellar cataclysm cripples the Klingon Empire's homeworld, leading to their Chancellor seeking peace with the Federation. But covert acts attempt to thwart the peace process with the assassination of the Klingon Chancellor. With Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy as the prime suspects, the Starships Enterprise -A and Excelsior must attempt to uncover the truth before the conspirators can plunge the Federation and Klingon Empire into fullscale war!

• 1.1 Prelude
• 1.2 Act I – The Mission and Catastrophe
• 1.3 Act II – The Trial and Spock's Investigation
• 1.4 Act III – The Rescue and Revelation
• 1.5 Act IV – Realizations and Confrontations
• 1.6 Epilogue
• 2 Log entries
• 3.1.1 Hamlet
• 3.1.2 Julius Caesar
• 3.1.3 King Henry IV, Part II
• 3.1.4 King Henry V
• 3.1.5 The Merchant of Venice
• 3.1.6 Richard II
• 3.1.7 Romeo and Juliet
• 3.1.8 The Tempest
• 3.2 General quotes
• 4.1 Landmarks
• 4.3 Story and production
• 4.4 Sets, props, and costumes
• 4.5 Miscellaneous
• 4.7.1 Concept art
• 4.7.2 Production gallery
• 4.8 Merchandise gallery
• 4.9 Production history
• 4.10 Different versions
• 4.11 Apocrypha
• 5 Awards and honors
• 6.1.1 Opening credits
• 6.1.2.1 Second Unit Photography
• 6.1.3.1 Library computer references
• 6.1.3.2 Unused Material
• 6.1.3.3 Unreferenced material
• 6.1.4 Timeline
• 6.2 External links

Summary [ ]

Prelude [ ].

" I cannot confirm the existence of Praxis. "

An explosion erupts, creating a massive subspace shock wave .

Aboard the USS Excelsior , Captain Hikaru Sulu takes a sip of tea , reads a report handed to him by his science officer Dimitri Valtane , and records his log :

Excelsior emerges from the shockwave

Suddenly, red alert klaxons sound on the bridge as the subspace shockwave reaches the Excelsior , throwing Sulu and his crew to the deck. Sulu orders helmsman Lojur to turn Excelsior into the wave and the ship clears the disturbance. At his post, Valtane locates the origin of the shockwave – Praxis , a Klingon moon , which Sulu notes is the Empire 's key energy production facility. Sulu orders communications officer Janice Rand to hail the moon and offer their assistance, then asks Valtane for more data. Valtane, perplexed, says that he can confirm Praxis's location... but not its existence. An image appears on the viewscreen: Praxis, or rather barely half of it, ripped in two by some catastrophe, to the disbelieving horror of Sulu and the rest of the bridge crew. Rand reports that she has intercepted a message from Praxis and puts it up: the viewscreen is filled with the grisly image of a Klingon officer , standing on a deck heaving beneath his feet and surrounded by flames, shouting desperately at the pickup. The message abruptly cuts off and is replaced by an official transmission from Klingon Brigadier General Kerla , speaking for the Klingon High Command . Kerla explains that there has been an "incident" on Praxis, but that everything is under control and Federation assistance is not required, warning the Excelsior to obey treaty stipulations and remain outside the Neutral Zone .

Rand asks Sulu if they should notify Starfleet and Sulu simply replies: " Are you kidding?! "

Act I – The Mission and Catastrophe [ ]

" Ladies and gentlemen, the C-in-C. "

Two months later on Earth , the senior crew of the USS Enterprise -A assembles for a meeting at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco . The C-in-C of Starfleet opens the meeting, bluntly stating that the Klingon Empire has only fifty years of life left in it. Federation Special Envoy Spock announces that the destruction of Praxis has polluted the Klingon homeworld 's ozone so badly that the planet has only fifty years remaining without diverting resources from its significant military expenditures. At the behest of Vulcan ambassador Sarek , Spock has opened a dialogue with Klingon Chancellor Gorkon , who wishes to end all hostilities between the Empire and Starfleet, proposing the dismantling of all starbases in and around the Neutral Zone. The Military aide asked Bill that are they talking mothballing the Starfleet, but Bill said that their "exploration and scientific programs would be unaffected." Admiral Cartwright interrupts, vehemently objecting, saying the Klingons must not be offered safe haven in Federation space, suggesting Starfleet use military force in order to dictate terms from a superior position. Captain Kirk agrees that giving the Klingons free reign in Federation space is a "terrifying idea." However, Spock counters, arguing that they must act now to support the Gorkon initiative before conservative elements in the Klingon Empire can seize control and try to fight to the death.

Spock has volunteered the Enterprise and its crew to welcome Gorkon and his aides aboard and escort their ship to a peace meeting on Earth. Kirk protests that he is hardly the man for the job but is overruled and commanded to extend full diplomatic courtesy. Verbally sending the Enterprise on its way, the commander in chief thanks the assembled Starfleet officers and reminds them the meeting they've just had is classified, dismissing them too.

At this point, Kirk is left alone with Spock, who reminds him of an old Vulcan proverb that " only Nixon could go to China . " Kirk is angry that Spock would volunteer the Enterprise without consulting him. Spock states that his father requested he open the negotiations with the Klingons. Though Kirk knows that Spock's father is the Vulcan ambassador, Kirk is furious at Spock for forcing him to treat the Klingon "animals" like honored guests after what they did to his son ; Spock knows how he feels about the Klingons, but reminds Kirk they are dying. Kirk snaps, " Let them die! " Upon Spock's somewhat startled reaction, Kirk asks Spock if he has realized that the Enterprise crew is due to stand down in just three months time, saying that they have all done their "bit for king and country" and Kirk says that Spock should have trusted him. They stand in the conference hall in silence, looking at each other from opposite ends of the long conference table.

" Regulations specify thrusters only while in spacedock. "

Soon after, Captain Kirk and party are ferried to the Spacedock One aboard SD-103 and board the Enterprise . Upon arriving at the bridge, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy meet Lieutenant Valeris , a young Vulcan female and the first Vulcan to graduate at the top of her class at Starfleet Academy , who is volunteering as helmsman. " Let's get this over with. Departure stations, " Kirk announces to his crew. After an awkward moment when Kirk orders Valeris to depart Spacedock at one quarter impulse power despite regulations specifying thrusters only, the Enterprise departs Spacedock and the Sol system to rendezvous with Gorkon's battle cruiser , Kronos One .

A photo of Kirk's son David Marcus

Valeris then interrupts Kirk in his quarters. She informs him that the Enterprise is almost upon arrival at the rendezvous point. Valeris then tells Kirk how much of an honor it is to serve with him. Kirk tells her she piloted well out of Spacedock and Valeris tells him she has always wanted to try it.

" History is replete with turning points, lieutenant. You must have faith. "

Later, Valeris discusses logic and philosophy with Spock in his quarters in terms of their current mission. Spock says history is replete with turning points and she must have faith that the universe will ultimately unfold as it should. When Valeris begins to ask if that is logical, Spock points out a simple fact that has taken him a lifetime to learn; logic is only the beginning of wisdom and not the end. Spock is soon to retire, with this being his last voyage on the Enterprise as a member of the crew and he intends for Valeris to replace him. Valeris states that she could only succeed Spock. Upon this, an announcement is made through the ship's intercom that all hands are to report to duty stations as a Klingon battlecruiser has arrived off the Enterprise 's port bow.

Upon rendezvous with Gorkon, Captain Kirk reluctantly, but formally, invites the Chancellor and his staff to have dinner aboard the Enterprise at 1930 hours as guests of the Federation. Valeris then suggests opening up the supply of Romulan ale that is aboard, thinking it may help the evening progress more smoothly. Kirk compliments her thinking and leaves the bridge. " Guess who's coming to dinner? ", Commander Chekov quietly says.

Later, in the transporter room , Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scott are on hand to greet Gorkon and his party. All behave cordially on the surface. Gorkon introduces his daughter, Azetbur , his military adviser, Brigadier General Kerla , and General Chang , his chief of staff . While Gorkon is dignified and gracious, offering Spock his sincere gratitude for his actions towards peace, Chang, who has an especially smug, obnoxious demeanor, tells Kirk that he has so wanted to meet the great Captain Kirk, " warrior to warrior " out of admiration. " Right, " Kirk coldly replies. He leads the Klingon delegation out of the room, thinking they might enjoy a brief tour of the vessel.

" I offer a toast – the undiscovered country – the future. "

Shortly afterward, both Kirk and Gorkon's staff dine together. Gorkon gives a toast to "the undiscovered country – the future". Spock recognizes the line from Hamlet , specifically from act III, scene I, and Gorkon tells Spock that one has never read Shakespeare properly until reading the text in "the original Klingon." McCoy diplomatically offers a toast to Gorkon, calling him " one of the architects of our future. " The dinner proceeds with surface pleasantries gradually melting to reveal angry hostility. In particular, Chekov says the Federation believes all worlds have the sovereign claim to inalienable Human rights and Azetbur points out that this statement is racist and that the Federation is little better than a homo sapiens only club, " present company excepted, of course, " Chang adds. Chang tells Kirk that they all need breathing room, which Kirk points out is the same thing Hitler said in 1938 , which offends Chang. Thinly masking his disappointment, Gorkon simply quips that they have a long way to go.

As the Klingons prepare to leave, Kirk sarcastically jokes that they must do this again sometime. Gorkon says he knows Kirk doesn't trust him, and offers that " if there is to be a brave, new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it. " Chang walks up to Kirk before leaving, telling him " parting is such sweet sorrow, " and steps onto the transporter platform while Kirk shakes his head. Once the Klingons are safely beamed off the ship, the entire senior staff relaxes, observing that the Klingons exhibited poor manners; Spock notes that they were little better. " I'm going to sleep this off. Please let me know if there's some other way we can screw up tonight, " Kirk says before leaving. McCoy announces he is going to find a pot of black coffee . Spock raises his eyebrow.

" We're hit…! "

Lying down to sleep, and nursing a terrible hangover, Kirk is summoned to the bridge by Spock. Sensors are picking up an enormous amount of neutron radiation which appears to be emanating from Enterprise (which an equally hungover Chekov painfully jokes that it is only the size of his head). A photon torpedo shoots out and strikes Kronos One . The entire bridge crew immediately jumps into action, as a second photon torpedo knocks out the gravity. Kirk asks Scotty if Enterprise actually fired and Scotty denies it as according to the inventory the ship still has her entire complement of torpedoes.

As the Klingons begin floating helplessly about, a transporter beam engages and two men in Starfleet uniforms with closed helmets and gravity boots begin walking through the corridors, shooting every Klingon they come in contact with, including Gorkon.

" Why that cunning little Vulcan. "

When auxiliary gravity is restored on Kronos One , Gorkon is discovered, mortally wounded. A furious Chang accuses Kirk of defiling the peace they're striving to work for, and saying that he'll blow them out of the stars. Kirk denies that they fired, although the ship's data banks say they did according to Spock. Kirk orders that the Enterprise surrender, much to the surprise of the bridge crew. He prepares to board Kronos One leaving Spock in command – where he'll be able to get Kirk out of trouble. Spock subtly slaps a small black patch on Kirk's back. McCoy decides to go too in case they need a doctor. " Uhura, tell them we're coming and tell them we're unarmed! ", Kirk says.

When they materialize on Kronos One , Kerla asks if Kirk has "lost his mind." Kirk swears they genuinely do not know what has happened and that they only want to help. Kerla reluctantly allows them to follow him to Gorkon, who is badly wounded. Chang tells him about the torpedoes, the gravity, and the assassins. McCoy tries to save Gorkon but fails due to his lack of knowledge of Klingon anatomy. Before dying, Gorkon reaches up to Kirk, grasping the back of his head, and begs him not to let it end this way. General Chang has Kirk and McCoy arrested for murder under article 184 of Interstellar Law .

Act II – The Trial and Spock's Investigation [ ]

On the Enterprise Uhura relays the news of their arrest. Spock then formally assumes command of the ship and begins a full-scale investigation. When Chekov asks what will happen if they cannot piece together what transpired, Spock says then " in that case, Mr. Chekov, it resides in the purview of the diplomats. "

" This President is not above the law! "

On Earth, the Klingon Ambassador is speaking with the Federation President in his office in Paris , defending his government's decision to arrest Kirk and McCoy for the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon. The president has ordered a full-scale investigation too, but the Klingon ambassador says that by the articles of interstellar law Kirk and McCoy must stand trial in a Klingon court. Sarek and Romulan ambassador Nanclus concur. As the Klingon Ambassador leaves, the commander-in-chief, Admiral Cartwright, and Colonel West enter. They propose a plan they call Operation Retrieve , to rescue Kirk and McCoy, West states that they could go in and get Kirk and McCoy in less than 24 hours with acceptable losses in manpower and equipment. The president asks what would happen then if they precipitate a full scale war and West frankly states " Then Mr. President, we can clean their chronometers. " Nanclus tells the president that the Klingons are vulnerable and there would never be a better time to strike them. Cartwright says that the longer they wait, the less accessible the hostages become. The president then dismisses everyone saying he'll keep all this in mind. Everyone except for Sarek leaves the president alone. At the door, the C in C stops and reminds the president that Kirk and McCoy have literally saved the planet . The president knows this and tells the C in C that they are now going to save it again… by standing trial.

Uhura receives a message from Starfleet Command ordering them to return to Earth immediately. Both she and Chekov agree they cannot abandon the captain and Dr. McCoy. Valeris tells the both of them how 400 years ago on the planet Earth, when workers felt threatened by automation, they flung their wooden shoes called sabots into the machines to stop them, thus coining the word " sabotage ." Uhura comes up with a response that Enterprise 's backup systems are all inoperative. " Excellent. I-I-I mean, too bad, " Chekov says.

Azetbur, now Klingon Chancellor, communicates with the President. She says in one week she will attend a peace conference at a neutral, secret site on the condition that they will not extradite Kirk and McCoy and that the Federation will make no attempts at a military extraction. If they do so, the Klingons will consider it an act of war.

" War is… obsolete. As we are in danger of becoming. "

After ending the transmission to the Federation President, Azetbur's advisors (including Kerla) suggest attacking the Federation now while they still can, or else the Federation will take advantage of Praxis' destruction and enslave them. Azetbur stands up to them, saying that war is obsolete, as they are in danger of becoming. One of her advisors sneers, "better to die on our feet than live on our knees!" Azetbur firmly says that her father wanted peace, and Chang, standing aside in the corner, speaks for the first time, reminding her gently that her father's wishes got him killed. Azetbur stands her ground, saying the peace process will go forward, but adds, with resolve, that Kirk will pay for her father's death.

Spock's investigation is proceeding. The computer says that Enterprise fired and the torpedo inventory says they didn't, so they'll have to inspect each torpedo visually.

" If the gravitational field was not functioning, how could these men be walking? "

The trial begins, with Chang as prosecutor and Colonel Worf as Kirk and McCoy's defense attorney. In a Klingon trial on Qo'noS, the prosecution and defense question witnesses at the same time. The first witness says the murderers were wearing magnetic boots, a fact which, while viewing the trial back on the bridge of the Enterprise gets Spock to thinking. Chang then begins questioning McCoy, starting with McCoy's current medical status, to which McCoy jokes " other than a touch of arthritis, I'd say, pretty good! " Chang tries to impugn McCoy's medical competence and questions whether he really tried his best to save Gorkon. McCoy says he desperately tried to save Gorkon as he was the last best hope for peace. The judge then excuses him.

Chang then turns to Kirk and calls him "the architect of this tragic affair." Chang accuses Kirk of plotting to kill Gorkon as revenge for the death of his son, a charge Kirk denies. Worf objects, stating Kirk has not been identified as the assassin. Chang enters into the record an excerpt from Kirk's personal log:

Kirk admits that he did indeed say this. Chang uses a number of examples from Kirk's record to show that it's possible he arranged for Gorkon's murder, such as his demotion from admiral to captain for insubordination. Kirk is maneuvered into stating that of course he is responsible for the actions of every member of his crew. The judge finds both guilty as charged, which carries a death penalty. Worf argues that the bulk of the evidence against his clients is circumstantial and begs the court to consider this upon sentencing. The judge agrees then commutes their death sentences to life without parole on the penal asteroid of Rura Penthe , known throughout the galaxy as the aliens' graveyard .

On Excelsior , where Sulu and his crew have also been watching the trial, the captain directs that a message be sent to Enterprise , telling them that Sulu and the crew of Excelsior stand ready to assist them.

With the trial concluded, Spock asks Valeris to replay the footage of the torpedo launch. Scott insists that all the Enterprise torpedoes have been visually accounted for, and there is no way the ship could have fired. Spock repeats a maxim of one of his ancestors: " once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. " If Enterprise could not have fired, it must have come from a cloaked ship, probably a Bird-of-Prey , hiding underneath Enterprise . Scotty objects that a Bird-of-Prey cannot fire its weapons while cloaked, but Spock rejoins that apparently this one can. Unfortunately, they have no evidence, only a theory which happens to fit the facts available. Chekov argues that if there was a cloaked ship, the assassins must have beamed onto Gorkon's ship from there, not Enterprise , but Spock reminds him that someone was responsible for firing the torpedoes or making the false entry in the ship's data banks; either way, the person or persons responsible are aboard Enterprise . Spock puts Valeris in charge of a search for two pairs of gravity boots.

" … only a magnetic shield prevents beaming. "

Kirk and McCoy are taken from Qo'noS, along with a group of other prisoners, to the frozen wasteland of Rura Penthe, an appropriately harsh place protected only by a magnetic shield. On arrival at the prison, they are greeted by the warden, who warns them that escape is quite impossible, and that anyone who is disobedient or fails to work hard enough will be punished via exile from prison to the surface where nothing can survive; a fact which is graphically demonstrated when a naked prisoner is dragged out and thrown into the snowy wastes to rapidly freeze to death. Inside the prison, Kirk almost immediately has an altercation with a large alien, but is rescued by an exotic looking woman, Martia .

In the galley, Spock and Valeris observe the search going on. When Chekov asks Valeris why the assassins didn't simply vaporize the boots, she pulls a phaser out from a weapons locker and vaporizes a nearby pot. An alarm goes off and she deactivates it, explaining to Chekov that you cannot fire an unauthorized phaser set to vaporize aboard a starship. Scotty and Uhura come in wanting to know who triggered the alarm by firing the phaser. They continue to stall for time by claiming malfunctioning equipment. Uhura reminds Spock that they have lost all contact with Kirk and McCoy. Spock notes this but says that if he knows Kirk well, by this time he is deep into planning his escape.

" Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place. "

Meanwhile, Kirk is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with another alien, and is surprised when he wins. Kirk informs McCoy and Martia that he was lucky the brute had knees. Martia tells Kirk that that was not his knee, noting that not all species have their genitals in the same place. Martia offers to help Kirk and McCoy escape. That night in their bunks, Kirk admits he'd gotten so used to hating Klingons and that it never even occurred to him to take Gorkon at his word. Martia comes in, gives Kirk a big kiss and tells him where to meet her to plan an escape.

Act III – The Rescue and Revelation [ ]

Aboard Excelsior , Sulu's officer tells him that Starfleet wants to know what has happened to the Enterprise . Sulu states that he nor the Excelsior personnel know anything about the Enterprise and dismisses the officer. Now Sulu is getting really worried.

" If the shoe fits, wear it! "

In the transporter room, Chekov finds some small dried remains on the transporter platform and takes a sample of it to Spock, who discovers that it is Klingon blood, which must have been floating through the Klingon ship and got tracked back to Enterprise by the assassins walking through it. Spock notes this as the first piece of evidence to corroborate their theory and therefore expands the search to include all uniforms aboard ship. Valeris eventually finds the magnetic boots; however, they are in the locker of a crewman whose feet are shaped differently from Humans'; the boots couldn't possibly be his much to Chekov's surprise.

Martia as the Brute: " They don't take girls. "

Martia, appearing as a small Human girl

Kirk and McCoy get into a lift for mining duty and discover that Martia is a shapeshifter. She changes bodies several times in the course of leading them out of the range of the magnetic shield. Uhura and Spock have noted Kirk's exit from the beaming shield as well. Spock orders the ship to Rura Penthe. It seems that what he put on Kirk's back was a viridium patch which enabled him to track the captain.

" We is condemning food… things and… supplies to Rura Penthe… over… "

The Enterprise passes into Klingon space and gets the attention of a Klingon listening post. If they respond while using the universal translator , the sentries would pick it up. In badly broken Klingon , Uhura identifies her ship as a freighter, IKS Ursva , headed to Rura Penthe to "condemn" food, supplies and "things." The Klingons at the listening post are fooled and end up making a Klingon joke, in which the Klingons and the Enterprise crew forcibly laugh at.

" Not me, you idiot, him!"

As Martia produces warm clothes and other supplies and lights a flare for heat, Kirk realizes that Martia is setting him and McCoy up to be killed. She's spoken previously of a huge reward to the person who gets them, and the flare is a dead giveaway. Martia changes into a duplicate Kirk and they fight, rolling all over the snow before being stopped by a jackal mastiff , Klingon guards, and the warden. Kirk and Martia (still appearing as Kirk) stand next to each other. Kirk convinces the warden to shoot Martia, since they don't want any witnesses. Kirk then asks who wanted them killed. Just before the warden can identify the culprit, Kirk and McCoy are beamed out of the cave – with Kirk swearing the whole way up.

Materializing on the transporter pad, Kirk asks Spock if he couldn't have waited just two more seconds, as the warden was about to explain the whole thing. When Chekov sheepishly asks if they want to go back, McCoy answers " Absolutely not! " Kirk adds, " It's cold. " Chang finds out about this from the commandant and prepares to intercept the Enterprise .

Sitting in the Enterprise 's officers' mess , Scott discovers two sets of uniforms with Klingon blood on them. Scott runs up to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Chekov in a corridor and they subsequently find Yeomen Burke and Samno , both dead, killed by a phaser stun at close range. They were the ones on guard in the transporter room when Gorkon and party first beamed aboard the Enterprise . To lure out the assassin, an announcement is made over the ship's intercom ordering the court reporter to sickbay and that statements will be taken from Burke and Samno, as if they are merely injured. Someone walks into the darkened sickbay with phaser in hand – it is revealed to be Valeris. Valeris is stunned to see Kirk and her mentor Spock in the bio-beds instead of the dead crewmen. Hurt and angry over her betrayal, Spock challenges Valeris to shoot him (while Kirk prefers she doesn't), and violently slaps the phaser out of her hand. McCoy emerges from the shadows and informs her that the operation is over.

On the bridge, Valeris claims that as she did not fire the crew has no proof against her, but Kirk does. He reminds her that his personal log was used as evidence against him at the trial; she must have recorded him talking on his personal log that night when Valeris was standing outside his doorway. Valeris dodges the accusation by accusing Kirk and the entire ship of betraying Starfleet. When McCoy calls her on it and asks her what she thinks she's been doing, she says she's been working to save Starfleet. She doesn't believe Klingons can ever be trusted, and reminds Kirk that they killed his son and how he said to " let them die " rather than help, and Kirk can't help but feel ashamed that he made such a statement. She reveals that some Klingons conspired with Starfleet officers to kill their own Chancellor – how trustworthy can they be? McCoy ponders the concept of peace between the Klingons and Federation being so unacceptable to members of both sides that they worked together to prevent it (while implying the irony that the conspiracy actually proves that Humans and Klingons actually can coexist and work together). Kirk demands the names of her co-conspirators, and Valeris claims she does not remember. " A lie? ", Spock asks. " A choice, " she replies.

"Names , lieutenant! "

Spock slowly walks up to Valeris near the viewscreen and forces her into a mind meld , discovering that the conspirators include Admiral Cartwright, General Chang, and the Romulan Ambassador, Nanclus. Kirk asks where the peace conference will be held, so Spock looks further into her mind to the point it causes her physical pain, but Valeris ultimately does not know where the peace conference is. The Enterprise contacts the Excelsior and Sulu tells Kirk that the conference will be held at Camp Khitomer , beginning later that day.

Act IV – Realizations and Confrontations [ ]

Later, in Spock's quarters, Kirk admits that he couldn't get past the death of his son and that it took Gorkon's death to get him to realize how prejudiced he was. Spock admits he was prejudiced by Valeris's accomplishments as a Vulcan and speculates that he and Kirk – with their inflexible thinking – are obsolete.

The Khitomer conference begins, as Enterprise drops out of warp and races towards the planet at impulse. If Chang's ship is there, it's cloaked, and the only means of detecting it would be the same surge of neutron radiation that occurred when Gorkon's ship was fired upon. Tension mounts on board the ship as they get ever closer to transporter range. With just over 40 seconds to go, Chang contacts Kirk over subspace and asks him, " warrior to warrior ," to admit that Kirk prefers for the Federation and Klingons to remain enemies, and continue slaughtering each other in glorious combat: " Once more unto the breach, dear friends… "

Then, with another quote of "to be or not to be…" in Klingon, Chang signals his gunner, and the Bird-of-Prey opens fire with photon torpedoes . With the cloak in place, Enterprise's shields take a pounding, but they cannot return fire. Although Chang continues to taunt Kirk, Uhura tries but fails to locate the source of his transmissions.

Excelsior is hurtling to Khitomer at maximum warp. Aboard the bridge, which is trembling with the force of acceleration, helmsman Lojur warns, " She'll fly apart! " Sulu retorts, " Fly her apart then! "

On Khitomer, Azetbur's speech has begun and a Klingon stands up and walks out carrying a briefcase. Admiral Cartwright nervously watches, sweat dripping down his face.

" Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war! "

In space, Enterprise continues to take heavy damage, and Scott warns their shields are collapsing. A minor explosion on the bridge prompts Kirk to order auxiliary power, but Spock reports that the auxiliary circuits have been destroyed. Watching Enterprise attempting to evade, Chang quotes The Merchant of Venice :

Spock realizes that even with her cloak in place, the Bird-of-Prey's impulse engines will still vent plasma exhaust ; Uhura suggests using the equipment they have on-board to catalog gaseous anomalies as a guidance system. Spock asks McCoy to help him "perform surgery" on a photon torpedo to enable it to do so. " Fascinating! ", the physician says. Kirk continues to order evasive maneuvers in an attempt to mitigate the torpedo impacts across the hull.

Enterprise continues to suffer heavy damage, but before she can be crippled, Sulu arrives with Excelsior , taking some of the pressure off Enterprise as Chang chooses to divide his attacks between opponents. However, Chang has merely been slowed down: with his ability to fire while cloaked, Chang is still running circles around both ships.

At Khitomer, the Klingon who left has found a vantage point on an upper level and is cutting a small hole in one of the glass panes to aim a weapon at the President.

Chang relentlessly fires Shakespeare quotations such as:

and continues firing torpedoes, weakening Enterprise 's shields to the point that it takes a direct hit on the ventral-port side of the saucer section that ruptures the hull. Spock and McCoy complete their modifications to the photon torpedo, and with a great deal of satisfaction, Kirk gives the order to fire. It homes in on the cloaked Bird-of-Prey and lands a direct hit, but not before Chang gives his last Shakespeare quote from Hamlet :

Enterprise and Excelsior then target the location of the explosion, unleashing a barrage of torpedoes that destroy Chang's now decloaked (and shield-less) ship.

" It's Colonel West! "

The Enterprise crew beams down just in time for Kirk to knock the president out of the way of the would-be assassin's phaser rifle blast. He identifies himself to the dazed president. Cartwright orders them arrested and Spock retorts "Arrest yourself!" displaying a handcuffed Valeris. McCoy says that they have a full confession just as the Klingon assassin is about to shoot Valeris. At that moment, Scott kicks in the door to the assassin's hiding place, and shoots him just before he can kill Valeris. He falls through the glass pane to the floor. The Commander In Chief and Colonel Worf rush to the body and find out that it's not a Klingon; it's Colonel West. Cartwright takes advantage of the ruckus and tries to flee but is thwarted when Sulu, armed and accompanied by two security guards, transports from Excelsior and holds him there.

The Khitomer Conference saved

A confused and angry Azetbur demands to know what is going on. Kirk tells her this is all about the future and that history has not ended quite yet. Thinking of Gorkon's reference to the future as "the undiscovered country," Kirk notes that people can be very frightened of change. Azetbur tells Kirk he's restored her father's faith and Kirk tells her she's restored his son's. At that moment, the room breaks out into applause as the remaining Enterprise officers (including Sulu) walk up and join Kirk on the platform.

Epilogue [ ]

As Enterprise and Excelsior rendezvous above Khitomer , Kirk and crew reenter the bridge and exchange pleasantries with Captain Sulu. " Nice to see you in action one more time, Captain Kirk. Take care, " Sulu says as Excelsior moves away from the Enterprise , departing Khitomer. " By God, that's a big ship, " McCoy says. " Not so big as her captain, I think, " Scott adds. Chekov muses, " So… this is good-bye. "

The last flight of the Enterprise

" I think it's about time we got underway ourselves, " Kirk mentions. Uhura then tells Kirk that they've received direct orders from Starfleet Command to return Enterprise to Spacedock for decommissioning. The crew looks around at each other, emotional that their time together as a crew is now coming to an end.

Spock contemplates that for a moment and then remarks, " If I were Human, I believe my response would be 'Go to Hell .' If I were Human. " When Chekov asks for a course heading, Kirk tells him " Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning. "

Uhura steps over near Scott and everyone watches as Enterprise heads off toward the stars on one final voyage.

Log entries [ ]

• Sulu: " Stardate 9521.6, Captain's log, USS Excelsior , Hikaru Sulu commanding. After three years , I have concluded my first assignment as master of this vessel, cataloging gaseous planetary anomalies in Beta Quadrant . We're heading home under full impulse power. I'm pleased to report that ship and crew have functioned well. "
• Kirk: " Captain's log , stardate 9522.6. I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy. It seems to me our mission to escort the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council to a peace summit is problematic at best. Spock says this could be an historic occasion, and I'd like to believe him, but how on Earth can history get past people like me? "
• Kirk: " The Enterprise hosted Chancellor Gorkon and party to dinner last night; our manners weren't exactly Emily Post. Oh, note to the galley: Romulan ale no longer to be served at diplomatic functions. "
• 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 no one – has gone before. "

Memorable quotes [ ]

Shakespeare [ ].

" I thought I would assume a pleasing shape. " (Act II, Scene II)

" The undiscovered country. " (Act III, Scene I)

" To be, or not to be. " (Act III, Scene I)

Julius Caesar [ ]

" Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war! " (Act III, Scene I)

" I am constant as the northern star. " (Act III, Scene I)

King Henry IV, Part II [ ]

" Have we not heard the chimes at midnight? " (Act III, Scene II)

King Henry V [ ]

" Once more unto the breach, dear friends. " (Act III, Scene I)

" The game's afoot. " (Act III, Scene I)

The Merchant of Venice [ ]

" Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge? " (Act III, Scene I)

Richard II [ ]

" Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. " (Act III, Scene II)

Romeo and Juliet [ ]

" Parting is such sweet sorrow. " (Act II, Scene II)

The Tempest [ ]

" Our revels now are ended. " (Act IV, Scene I)

General quotes [ ]

" Do we report this, sir? " " Are you kidding? "

" I must protest. To offer Klingons safe haven within Federation space is suicide. Klingons would become the alien trash of the galaxy. "

" I don't know whether to congratulate you or not, Jim. " " I wouldn't. "

" There is an old Vulcan proverb. Only Nixon could go to China. "

" Don't believe them! Don't trust them! " " They're dying. " " Let them die! "

" You must be very proud. " " I don't believe so, sir. " " She's a Vulcan all right. "

" I've never trusted Klingons and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy . "

" History is replete with turning points, Lieutenant. "

" Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end. "

" Guess who's coming to dinner? "

" I offer a toast. The undiscovered country … The future. "

" In space, all warriors are cold warriors. "

" Human rights. Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a homo sapiens only club. "

" We need breathing room. " " Earth, Hitler, 1938. " " I beg your pardon. "

" If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it. "

" Did you see the way they ate?! " " Terrible table manners! " " I doubt that our own behavior will distinguish us in the annals of diplomacy."

" Valeris, do you know anything about a radiation surge? " " Sir? " " Chekov? " " Only the size of my head. " " I know what you mean. "

" We come in peace and you BLATANTLY defile that peace! And for that, I shall blow you out of the stars! " " We haven't fired! " " Captain, according to our databanks we have. Twice. "

" Don't let it end this way, Captain. "

" This president is not above the law. "

" Then, quite frankly, Mister President, we can clean their chronometers. "

" Sir… Those men have literally saved this planet. " " Yes, Bill, I know that. And now they're going to save it again. By standing trial. "

" I'll bet that Klingon bitch killed her father! "

" Doctor McCoy, would you be so good as to tell me your current medical status? " " Aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good! "

" James Tiberius Kirk… What would your favorite author say, Captain? Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. Tell us your sad story Kirk, Tell us how you planned to take revenge for the death of your son. " " That's not true. " " Objection! Captain Kirk has not been identified as the assassin! " " Sustained. "

" Do you deny being demoted by these charges?! Don't wait for the translation!! Answer me now!! " " I cannot deny it. " " You were demoted? " " Yes. " " For insubordination? " " On occasion, I have disobeyed orders. "

" An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. "

" This is the gulag Rura Penthe. There is no stockade. No guard tower. No electronic frontier. Only a magnetic shield prevents beaming. Punishment means exile from prison to the surface. On the surface, nothing can survive. Work well, and you will be treated well. Work badly, and you will die. "

" If my surmise is correct, those boots will cling to the killers' necks like a pair of Tiberian bats. "

" I'm Martia. You're Kirk and McCoy, I presume. " " How did you know that? " " We don't get many presidential assassins. "

" I was lucky that thing had knees. " " That was not his knee. Not everybody keeps their genitals in the same place, Captain. "

" What is it with you, anyway? " " Still think we're finished? " " More than ever. "

" Perhaps you know Russian epic of Cinderella? If the shoe fits, wear it! "

" Mr. Scott, start your engines. " " Aye, aye sir. "

" Leave me. I'm finished. " " No! Bones, I'm wearing a viridium patch on my back. Spock slapped it there just before we went on Gorkon's ship. " " Why, that cunning little Vulcan. "

" An accident wasn't good enough. " " Good enough for one. Two would've looked suspicious. Killed while attempting escape … now that's convincing for both. "

" I can't believe I kissed you. " " Must have been your lifelong ambition. "

" Isn't it about time you became something else? " " I like it here. "

" Kill him! He's the one! " " Not me, you idiot! HIM! "

" Who? Who wanted us killed? " " Since you're all going to die, anyway, why not tell you? His name is…! "

" Couldn't you have waited just two more seconds!? " " Captain? " " He was just about to explain the whole thing! " " You want to go back!? " " Absolutely not!! " " It's cold! "

" First rule of assassination. Kill the assassins. "

" You have betrayed the Federation. All of you. " " And what have you been doing? " " Saving Starfleet! "

" Then we're dead. " " I've been dead before . "

" Thank you, Captain Sulu. " " Don't mention it, Captain Kirk. "

" You were right. It was arrogant presumption on my part that got us into this… situation. You and the Doctor might have been killed. " " The night is young. "

" You're a great one for logic. I'm a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread. "

" Is it possible that we two, you and I, have grown so old and so inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness? "

" Do you want to know something? Everybody's Human. " " I find that remark… insulting. "

" Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing. "

" I can see you, Kirk. " " Chang. " " Can you see me? Oh, now be honest, Captain, warrior to warrior. You do prefer it this way, don't you, as it was meant to be? No peace in our time. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends. "

" Come on. Come on! " " She'll fly apart. " " Fly her apart, then! "

" Doctor, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a torpedo? " " Fascinating! "

" I'd give real money if he'd shut up. "

" We've got a heartbeat! "

" Where's that damn torpedo? " " It's ready, Jim. Lock and load! "

" Some people think the future means the end of history. Well, we haven't run out of history quite yet. "

" You've restored my father's faith. " " And you've restored my son's. "

" Once again we've saved civilization as we know it. " " And the good news is, they're not going to prosecute. "

" Nice to see you in action one more time, Captain Kirk. Take care. "

" So… this is goodbye. "

" Captain, I have orders from Starfleet Command. We're to be put back into Spacedock immediately. To be decommissioned. " " If I were Human , I believe my response would be: Go to hell! If I were Human. "

" Course heading, Captain? " " Second star to the right. And straight on 'til morning. "

Background information [ ]

Landmarks [ ].

• This is the second of two Star Trek productions (the other being Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ) between 1986 and 2005 to be produced without any involvement from Rick Berman .
• Although this is the final Star Trek film to feature the entire Star Trek: The Original Series cast together, only Nichelle Nichols ( Uhura ) and DeForest Kelley ( McCoy ) make their final official Star Trek appearances in this film (Kelley's appearance as an admiral in TNG: "Encounter At Farpoint" the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation had occurred four years previously). James Doohan ( Scotty ) would appear in TNG : " Relics ", and then with William Shatner ( James T. Kirk ), and Walter Koenig ( Pavel Chekov ) in Star Trek Generations . George Takei ( Hikaru Sulu ) appeared in VOY : " Flashback " and Leonard Nimoy ( Spock ) appeared in TNG : " Unification I " , " Unification II ", Star Trek , and Star Trek Into Darkness .
• Chronologically, McCoy, Spock and Scotty appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation long after the events of this film.
• This movie is the first canon instance of Sulu's first name, Hikaru (Japanese for "shining"), being stated. Prior to the film, it was commonly used in the novels (and reportedly approved by Gene Roddenberry and George Takei ( citation needed • edit ) ), but had never been made official.
• This is currently the only Star Trek movie shot in Super 35 format instead of anamorphic . ( citation needed • edit )
• The film was nominated for two Academy Awards . It was nominated for "Makeup" and "Sound Effects Editing." It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation" and five Saturn Awards , winning for "Best Science Fiction Film."
• Leonard Nimoy co-wrote the story for this final outing of the TOS cast. Likewise, the final outing of the TNG cast ( Star Trek Nemesis ) was co-written by one of its cast members, Brent Spiner .
• The film confirms Kirk's middle name, which had previously been established in the animated series episode " Bem " as "Tiberius," for the first time in live action production.
• Finally, just before the closing titles roll, the signatures of the seven main cast members from The Original Series are displayed one by one, writing themselves on the starfield.

Members of the film's cast with Nick Meyer

• Rene Auberjonois ' role as Colonel West was cut from the theatrical release, as Gene Roddenberry was uncomfortable with ideas that were presented in his scenes. ( citation needed • edit ) The scenes were later restored for the VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD release, but the BluRay release contains the theatrical cut. Auberjonois later played Constable Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .
• Michael Dorn only found out he had a role in this film as Worf's grandfather when Nicholas Meyer and Herman Zimmerman were walking past the soundstages for Star Trek: The Next Generation and informed him about it. [1]
• The only actors, aside from the original cast, to appear in both this film and in Star Trek: The Motion Picture are Grace Lee Whitney ( Janice Rand ) and Mark Lenard . In both films, Whitney appeared as Janice Rand, whereas Lenard appeared as Sarek in The Undiscovered Country and a Klingon captain in The Motion Picture . This was the penultimate appearance of Rand, who went on to appear in the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Flashback ". She is a lieutenant jg in this film, although "Flashback" incorrectly depicts her as a lieutenant commander at the time of the film's setting. Some of the comics set around the time of Sulu taking command of Excelsior not only support her lieutenant commander rank, but imply that she was also the Excelsior 's first officer.
• Rand was supposed to be the character that wakes up Sulu to inform him that Starfleet was looking for the Enterprise instead of Christian Slater 's character. Slater was a huge fan of the show and his mother – Mary Jo Slater , the movie's casting director – petitioned heavily to get him a part. ( citation needed • edit )
• Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn and Kurtwood Smith would later star together in the Deep Space Nine fifth season episode " Things Past ", where Auberjonois plays Odo, Dorn plays Worf and Smith plays Thrax .
• This is Rene Auberjonois and John Schuck 's fourth film together. The first was MASH , followed by Brewster McCloud , and McCabe & Mrs. Miller .
• Merritt Butrick appears posthumously as David Marcus , via a photo in Kirk's quarters.

Story and production [ ]

• The Undiscovered Country was almost never made as a Star Trek film, not only due to the dismal box office receipts of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , but also for an unbroken string of, for Paramount Pictures , disappointing yet very expensive film releases as well, leaving the studio deeply in the red, only aggravated by a worldwide recession . However as seen on the Star Trek VI DVD set and also according to William Shatner 's Star Trek Movie Memories , Paramount, specifically its president Frank Mancuso, Sr. – who had been intimately involved with Star Trek ever since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – , did not really want to end the Original Crew run on The Final Frontier low note, especially with the 25th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise coming up, and wanted one more film, but found himself seriously hampered by the strictest of budget limitation: under NO conceivable circumstance was a potential new film to exceed the budget of The Final Frontier , not even by one dollar. It was at this point that Harve Bennett proposed his Starfleet Academy prequel , featuring a brand new, and thus far cheaper, cast, and was green lighted by Mancuso to go into pre-production, and proceeded as such, until Gene Roddenberry vehemently objected, and with him the fanbase and the secondary cast. But it was only when the (at the time) head of Paramount Communications (formerly Gulf+Western, owner of Paramount Pictures), Martin Davis , found out about the Academy concept and furiously demanding an Original Crew film be made, that Bennett's project was scrapped on the spot. Because nobody had thought of informing the highest boss, nearly eighteen months of valuable pre-production time had been lost. Because he wanted to do the prequel, and Mancuso no longer dared to continue, Harve Bennett left Star Trek after a decade with the franchise. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 347-348; Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, pp. 24-30)
• Earlier, a revised draft of Bennett's script featured a scene in which Kirk flashed back to his days at Starfleet Academy , allowing William Shatner and others to reprise their Original Crew roles as cameos – Bennett's effort to appease Roddenberry's ( et al. ) criticisms, before his project was scrapped altogether. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 343-345)
• Thoroughly chastized by his boss Davis, Mancuso subsequently turned to Leonard Nimoy in May 1990 to get a completely new film, featuring the entire Original Crew , started. It was during this meeting that Nimoy suggested the contemporary real world Gorbachev / Perestroika / Glasnost events as an allegory for the Federation and the Klingon Empire as basic story line, which was enthusiastically embraced by Mancuso. Informed that Bennett had gone, Nimoy requested to return Nicholas Meyer into the fold as co-writer and director, which was also embraced by Mancuso. In the early summer Nimoy and Meyer had an extended meeting at his holiday address in Cape Cod where they essentially hammered out the details as eventually featured in the film, though they became seriously hampered by studio politics through trying to burden the pair with the woefully inadequate dilettante Konner / Rosenthal "writing" duo. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 349-363) As the upper studio echelons were at the time, for the aforementioned reasons, embroiled in a tumultuous and very messy power struggle, derisively called the "The Studio Shuffle" in the contemporary press, the executive sponsors, Sid Ganis and Teddy Zee , of the Konner/Rosenthal duo were a short time later kicked out, and so were they, without having made a single noteworthy contribution whatsoever – according to both Nimoy and Meyer, what little they did turn in, immediately and literally trashed by (other) executives upon reading, was blatant plagiarism of their own story outlines. Yet Nimoy and Meyer (their relationship having actually become strained because of executives playing the one against the other in this matter, as it only became later apparent to both men) were too premature in their relief of being rid of the interloping duo, as the latter, near the end of the production, started legal procedures against both men for writing credits, partially succeeding, and nearly stripping Nimoy of any and all creative credit. ( see below ) Incidentally, Paramount veteran of 31 years Mancuso was also gone less than a month after he had approached Nimoy, unceremoniously fired over the telephone by Davis. [2] (X)
• When Nimoy was reaching out to Meyer, the latter was working in London, UK, working as writer/director on the MGM film Company Business (featuring Kurtwood Smith , he to subsequently play the President of the United Federation of Planets in The Undiscovered Country ), which ironically, had a similar glasnost theme. However, Meyer felt that the producers had "butchered" the film, and being vocal about it, it had at the time led in the industry grapevine to the rumor that it was this that led him to recycling the theme in The Undiscovered Country . For the remainder of the year Nimoy and Meyer, now reinforced by scriptwriter Denny Martin Flinn (he actually wanted, as it was Meyer who brought him in), communicated with each other by phone, fax and the early email, which however, made them susceptible to the studio politics as played by Ganis and Zee. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, pp. 28, 30; [3] ) Incidentally, before Nimoy even contacted Meyer at his holiday address, Meyer had already been informed by Davis and Mancuso, when the latter two were in London, that a "thirty million dollars" sixth Star Trek film was green-lighted. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 354-358, )
• When the Klingons return to their ship after the dinner on the Enterprise , Chang speaks a Klingon phrase into his communicator (without English subtitles). Chang says "daHmacheH" which, in English, means "Ready to return now." During the dinner, Azetbur says a unsubtitled Klingon phrase that, when translated to English, means "Daddy" or "Father."
• Originally, a prologue was planned for the film, in which it was established that, before they all got the call to reassemble: Kirk was in a revitalized relationship with Carol Marcus ; McCoy was making a nuisance of himself by showing up drunk at medical celebrity events (as he despises the hypocrisy of it all); Spock's status was "classified;" Uhura had become a radio show hostess; Scotty was working as an engineering professor; Chekov was competing as a not altogether successful chess grandmaster (losing to Betazoids – which was another attempt to tie in the Original Crew franchise with that of Star Trek: The Next Generation ); and Sulu was working as a taxi driver on some backwater alien colony . A fully worked-out prologue sequence, approved for shooting, had already been scripted by Co-Script Writer Flinn. Last-minute mandatory budget limitations, however, forced the creative production team, much against their grain, to scrap the entire prologue sequence, leaving only the introductory Original Crew scene at Starfleet Command instead. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 26; Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 376-378)

Element from a proposed scene from storyboard

• An early storyboard draft featured HMS Bounty in spacedock being disassembled by Starfleet engineers, under the supervision of Professor of Engineering Scott, before he got the call to meet up with his fellow former crew-members. This actually was part of the above-mentioned planned prologue of the film.
• It was originally intended for the Vulcan traitor to be Lt. Saavik , but the role was instead assigned to Lt. Valeris as a new character. According to William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories , this change was vehemently resisted by Gene Roddenberry , who felt that Saavik was too popular a character to be handled this way. Meyer (thoroughly fed up with the disruptive and incessant interlopings of Roddenberry, ever since he came aboard Star Trek , a decade earlier), could not care less what Roddenberry's thoughts on the matter were, rightfully claiming that the character was his creation, not Roddenberry's, and proceeded as planned. Yet, Meyer wanted only Kirstie Alley to reprise the role, but as she was at the peak of her popularity with Cheers at the time and her asking price was far too high. Only when Alley turned out to be unavailable, was it then decided to change the character, instead of casting yet another actress for the same part. Kim Cattrall initially refused the role as she was under the false impression that she had to portray Saavik, but jumped at the opportunity when she learned that that was not to be the case, as she considered Saavik "just a girl", whereas Valeris was a woman. Ironically, Cattrall had auditioned for the role of Saavik for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . To her big disappointment, Robin Curtis had never been considered to reprise the role of Saavik for this film. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 31; Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 374-375) Other stories say that Kirstie Alley refused Nicholas Meyer's requests that she reprise the role, as she was uncomfortable about her weight, and that she did not want to look overweight onscreen in the form-fitting uniforms. ( citation needed • edit )
• Many of General Chang's quotes and the subtitle, "The Undiscovered Country," come from Hamlet's " To be or not to be " soliloquy, by William Shakespeare . Chang also quotes or paraphrases Richard II , Julius Caesar , The Merchant of Venice , Henry IV, Part II , Henry V , and The Tempest .
• Chang's demand, " Don't wait for the translation! Answer me now! " is a reference to Adlai Stevenson 's similar demand of Soviet Union representative Valerian Zorin at the United Nations during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. ( Star Trek Encyclopedia )
• Nichelle Nichols objected to the scene in which the crew desperately searches through old printed Klingonese translation dictionaries in order to speak the language without the standard universal translator being used. It seemed more logical to her that Uhura, being the ship's chief communications officer, would know the language of the Federation's main enemy, or at least have the appropriate information in the computer. However, director Meyer bluntly overruled her. Chekov can be heard explaining at the beginning of the scene that " a universal translator would be recognized ". ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD -special feature, " text commentary ") In the alternate reality of Star Trek Into Darkness, Uhura — who may have had a different education from that of the Prime Uhura — does speak Klingonese (or as she and Captain Kirk refer to it, "Klingon").
• Uhura originally had a line " Would you let your daughter marry one? " (that is, a Klingon), but the line had to be cut because Nichols absolutely refused to say it. Chekov's line " Guess who's coming to dinner? " was also originally Uhura's, but Nichols considered it also to be racist and declined to say it. The line was moved to Chekov. It was a reference to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner , the first major film to deal with interracial marriage, in which Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Sidney Poitier starred. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 365-366; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD-special feature, "text commentary")
• On the Special Edition release of Star Trek VI , it was revealed that Brock Peters ' scene in the council chamber had to be shot in numerous takes, as he was very uncomfortable with the racial undertones in his lines that the Federation take the opportunity to "bring them to their knees", which was itself, a reference to another film in which that line was said about African Americans.
• The perceived racism toward the Klingons was of great concern to Roddenberry as well, as he felt there was no place for it in his Star Trek universe, but his considerations were entirely ignored by both Meyer and Nimoy. Aghast, he then summoned a meeting, even though Roddenberry had no formal say in the film whatsoever. Complete with heavy legal representation, a very charged meeting followed between the two sides, which quickly turned into a shouting match as Meyer finally unleashed his years of pent up frustration with Roddenberry in full. In later years Meyer came to regret his behavior. " He was not well, and maybe there were more tactful ways of dealing with it, because at the end of the day, I was going to go out and make the movie. I didn't have to take him on. Not my finest hour. ", a rueful Meyer recounted in 2011. Roddenberry died a few months later. ( [4] (X)  ; Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 366-367) Meyer remained regretful of his behavior as he reiterated the incident as recent as 2016 when he retold the story in Roger Lay, Jr. 's 50th anniversary documentary Star Trek: The Journey to the Silver Screen (Chapter 5: "End of an Era: Charting the Undiscovered Country") .
• In December 1990 a finalized script draft was turned in to the studio, and this version was approved to go into production. Meyer, finished in London, relocates to Los Angels later that month. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 30)
• However, less than a month later in early January 1991, the original, immovable studio budget restriction decree reared its ugly head in full force, as David Kirkpatrick , who had replaced Teddy Zee as the Paramount Motion Picture Group President in another round of "The Studio Shuffle", demanded a detailed budget breakdown for the script as submitted. Somewhat falsely reassured by the remarks Davis and Mancuso made to him in London the previous spring, Meyer came back with a total figure of US$40 million dollar. Kirkpatrick's reply was short and to the point; It would not do. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, pp. 33-35)
• A desperate scramble among the creative staff ensued to trim as much as possible of the budget as possible; the entire prologue was (albeit painfully) scrapped, scenes were trimmed, all planned set construction for new starship interiors was abandoned (though a new Kronos One corridor set did get build ultimately), the planned live-action shoots in Alaska for the Rura Penthe scenes were scrapped as were plans for new studio models and other visual effects elements. Starship sets were to be entirely recycled from Star Trek: The Next Generation , which was concurrently in production, but was slated for its summer hiatus, when filming of The Undiscovered Country was planned to start, and only existing studio models were to be used. Major cast and crew even agreed to deferred payment of (part of) their wages. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, pp. 35-36)
• Co-Producer Steven-Charles Jaffe , a former Trekkie , was so desperate to see the film come to fruition that he even went as far to suggest dropping Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) as the visual effects vendor for the film, instead going for a cheaper company. However the Associates & Ferren visual effects debacle for the previous film was still very much fresh on the minds of his colleagues, and no one was willing to go that far. However, the planned 110 visual effects cuts were whittled down to just 51. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 35)
• With an absolute, rock-bottom downward revised budget of US$30 million dollar Meyer returned to Kirkpatrick & co. and vigorously and emotionally made a case for it. Kirkpatrick strictly adhered to the US$25 million dollar the previous film had originally been budgeted at, but was willing to up the budget with US$2.5 million to the total that film had actually cost, but not a penny more. Moved to tears, Meyer knew that the film could not be made for that amount and continued to make a passionate plea for it. After Kirkpatrick had deliberated with his colleagues, the verdict came back: The film was canceled. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 368-371)
• Yet, a few weeks later, with all activity on the film halted and production crews sent home, Meyer received a call from interim Paramount Pictures President Stanley R. Jaffe (not related to producer Jaffe), standing in for the released Mancuso, who had heard that the production was in trouble. Informed by Meyer that he could not make the film as he was shy of US$2.5 million dollars, Jaffe succinctly retorted, " Okay, you've got it, " effectively canceling Kirkpatrick's cancellation decision. Instead, it became Kirkpatrick who got "canceled" in April as a result of yet another round in "The Studio Shuffle". ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 371, 393)
• One of the major reasons Meyer could not budge from his budget was that there was one of the most expensive sets that absolutely had to be built, and that there was no way around it: the refit- Enterprise bridge set . The original set had a few months earlier been temporarily stored on the outside studio parking lot, in order to make room for other sets. A freak weather event completely wrecked the set beyond salvation, save for some parts such as the two turbolifts . ( Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Special Edition) DVD-special feature, "text commentary") However, once rebuilt, the set had to do double duty as the USS Excelsior bridge as well by means of reshuffling the variable wall panels, as the original, more cavernous Excelsior bridge set had already been struck years earlier, shortly after its use in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . Ironically, the Excelsior bridge scenes were shot first, before it became the Enterprise bridge. ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD-special feature, "text commentary") Aside from his intimate familiarity with The Next Generation sets (which he had helped design and built), it was one of the most overriding reasons why Production Designer Herman Zimmerman was brought in, as he was the one who had been responsible for the bridge redesign as featured in The Final Frontier . In the process, it has also explained why The Next Generation 's USS Enterprise -D received a new battle bridge , as it had been the (heavily re-dressed) original refit-bridge that had stood in for it in the early seasons of the series. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 35)
• Trimming down the visual effects cuts to 51 turned out to be too ambitious, as 30 of the originally jettisoned effects sequences had to be produced by ILM and inserted after all, in order to make the film "cut" well. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 35)
• While the studio had no budget from new studio models, one was actually constructed as something of a labor of love by ILM staffers John Goodson and Bill George , the SD-103-type . The script had a scene featured which both men felt needed embellishment, and so, of their own volition, they constructed the model. ( Cinefex , issue 49, p. 48) The model went on to later become the Sydney -class . It has made The Undiscovered Country the feature in which the fewest new Star Trek starship designs were featured. George incidentally turned out to be a stickler for detail; As he was aware that the Excelsior now a new and smaller bridge, he made the effort to replace the originally larger bridge module on the Excelsior -class filming model with a smaller one, in order to reflect the change. ( American Cinematographer , January 1992, pp. 58-59)
• Reportedly, William Shatner was champing at the bit to assume the director's role for the film in order to redeem himself for The Final Frontier , but as writer Flinn had dryly noted, " It's amazing what three million dollars will accomplish. " As Shatner had, already since Star Trek: The Original Series days, entered into a mutual "favored-nation clause" covenant with Nimoy which stipulated that, simply put, what the one got so did the other, this meant that Nimoy was to receive the same remuneration for his portrayal of Spock alone – and thereby discounting his writer's fee. However, it was also the reason why Nimoy, already being two for one in director's chores, declined the original offer by Mancuso to direct the film himself, instead opting for Meyer. It is not only for Star Trek that star cast salaries had habitually inflated exponentially with each sequel, and it had been one of the overriding reasons why Bennett's "Academy"-project was green-lighted originally, but also one of the reasons why Meyer could not give in any further to the budget demands of Kirkpatrick. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 244, 350; Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 30)
• Also on the DVD (and in his memoir Star Trek Movie Memories ), William Shatner stated that he was unhappy with the final cut of his interchange with Spock in the Council Chamber, as he felt that it made Kirk seem too cynical and bitter. He originally had done the scene in one take, adding a dismissive wave after his comment to " Let them die! " which was subsequently edited out of the final film despite Meyer promising Shatner that he wouldn't do that, according to Shatner.
• The dinner scene in the officers' mess as scripted was originally longer, and filled with a bit more build up and escalating comments between the Federation and Klingon crews. The scene was originally to build almost to blows, when Gorkon says the line " It seems we have a long way to go. " [5] (X)
• The first scene at Rura Penthe was heavily influenced by The Bridge On the River Kwai , where the commandant of the POW camp gives a similar speech to the new British prisoners.
• According to Denny Martin Flinn in a 2003 audio commentary for The Undiscovered Country , Martia's alien language exclamation " Fendo pompsky " became a popular gag among the crew. Used in place of certain expletives, the line was even embroidered on the inside of the production crew jackets.
• The romantic comedy Frankie and Johnny was filming at nearby soundstages on the Paramount Pictures lot during production. Director Garry Marshall arranged for William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , and DeForest Kelley to appear in full Star Trek costume and makeup, out of camera shot, behind a door in one scene, to elicit genuine surprise from star Al Pacino when he opened it. [6]
• The poster artwork for the film was designed by John Alvin , who took over from previous Trek poster artist Bob Peak . Alvin was asked to design the poster in the style of Peak's.
• Co-producer Ralph Winter provided the film with a remarkable coda. Though understandably proud of what he and the creative team had achieved, he had second thoughts on Bennett's abandoned "Academy"-project, reasoning in hindsight that it would have instituted a long-term studio strategy for a sustainable Star Trek live-action production line, as opposed to the somewhat chaotic, spur-of-the-moment planning as hitherto employed. " With a long term plan you could milk this forever, " Winter mused. ( Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #5, p. 35) As it so happened, Winter got his wish sooner than even he could have foreseen, as David Kirkpatrick's immediate studio successor turned out to be Brandon Tartikoff . Brought in at the tail-end of the production of The Undiscovered Country , Brandikoff was yet to leave his mark on Star Trek by exactly doing that, what Winter had imagined.

Sets, props, and costumes [ ]

• General Chang's eyepatch had the Klingon crest painted on the heads of each rivet. The makeup artist painted them on for fun and they were never intended to be seen. ( citation needed • edit )
• Kirk and Spock 's quarters (Data's quarters, which were originally Kirk's quarters from Star Trek: The Motion Picture )
• Transporter room ( Enterprise -D transporter room)
• Sickbay ( Enterprise -D sickbay)
• Laboratory ( Beverly Crusher 's office)
• Officers' mess hall (the dining room, redress of Enterprise -D observation lounge )
• Engineering (clear redress of the Enterprise -D engineering; they simply replaced the display graphics and repainted some surfaces)
• Corridors (retouched with more metallic appearance)
• Galley (redress of Counsellor Troi's Office, later the USS Sutherland bridge)
• Captain Kirk's quarters featured two different maps of the Milky Way galaxy created for early TNG episodes ( TNG : " Conspiracy ", " The Emissary ")
• Captain Sulu's coffee table was a bit more than a cute addition to the Excelsior bridge. Beneath it was the support for an apparatus used to shake the whole bridge set during the Praxis explosion. As a side note, you may also notice the coffee cup that broke had no markings on it like the one Sulu was drinking from moments earlier. It was such a nice cup, the prop department didn't want it damaged. A similar table, likely for the same reason, can also be seen on the Enterprise bridge as well, between the captain's chair and the helm/nav console. ( citation needed • edit )
• Pfaltzgraff made the china used in the film, and sold 3,000 sets of reproductions. The company logo can be seen at the bottom of the aforementioned broken cup. [7]

Federation President's office in Paris

• The office of the Federation President is a redress of Ten Forward . A viewscreen is located in place of the art ornament behind the bar counter, and the walls are painted with some shade of brown. ( Star Trek Encyclopedia  (2nd ed., p. 502)) The doors for the set accidentally retained the TNG style insignia during filming, and this can clearly be seen in the film.
• One of the models of the original USS Enterprise in Kirk's quarters was built by writer Ronald D. Moore when he was eleven.
• The book used by Uhura while frantically searching for a linguistic reference of the Klingon language while entering Klingon territory is actually the 1951 catalog for the "Alloy Steel Products Company, Inc.". ( citation needed • edit ) Interestingly, the title of the modified book states Introduction to Klingon Grammer , in which "grammer" should be spelled as "grammar".
• Several props and costumes from this movie were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay, including a Rura Penthe miner's mask [8] , a Vulcan Khitomer attendee's costume [9] , a Klingon court attendee lot [10] , a Klingon canteen [11] , and a Klingon uniform lot, partially worn by Scott Leva . [12] Also sold off was a desk lamp, which was featured during the Starfleet staff meeting. It was designed by F.A. Porsche and labeled as model "Jazz". [13]

Miscellaneous [ ]

• Gene Roddenberry saw the movie two days before he died . According to William Shatner 's Star Trek Movie Memories (1995, p. 394), Roddenberry, after seeing the film, gave thumbs up all around, and then went back and phoned his lawyer, Leonard Maizlish , angrily demanding a full quarter-hour of the film's more militaristic moments be removed from the film, but Gene died before his lawyer could present his demands to the studio.
• Originally, director Nicholas Meyer wanted to bring back composer James Horner , whom he worked with on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to score The Undiscovered Country . However, Horner turned the offer down, saying his "career had moved past Star Trek ." Meyer then offered the film to composer Jerry Goldsmith , but he turned it down, citing the poor results of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , which he had also worked on. The film eventually went to composer Cliff Eidelman . According to the liner notes for the soundtrack album, Meyer's original concept for the score was to adapt Gustav Holst's The Planets , but getting the rights to the music proved too expensive. (Eidelman's score therefore pays homage to Holst, most notably in the opening credits where the score bears a close resemblance to "Mars," the first movement from The Planets .) An excerpt from The Planets was used a few years later in the trailer for Star Trek Generations . Eidelman was picked because of his extensive knowledge of Holst's "The Planets", having written his master's thesis on the complete suite.
• This movie and Star Trek: The Motion Picture are the only Star Trek films released before the alternate reality films not to use the opening fanfare from the " Theme from Star Trek " in the main title music.
• According to William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories , the original story credits for the film were to be " Story by Leonard Nimoy and Nicholas Meyer, Screenplay by Denny Martin Flynn " as nothing from the original submission by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal were used in the final film. According to Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, Konner and Rosenthal went to the Writers Guild of America for arbitration as they felt they should deserve story credit. The WGA spoke to Nimoy and he showed them his notes where he had initially come up with the story idea for the film and they initially sided with Nimoy. However Konner and Rosenthal appealed again and eventually the WGA changed the credits to " Story by Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal , screenplay by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flynn, " leaving Nimoy out of the credits. An incensed Nimoy contacted his lawyer and said if this weren't resolved by the end of the upcoming weekend, he would immediately sue Paramount and the WGA over the matter. Nimoy's lawyer reportedly worked non-stop over the weekend, working with Meyer's attorney, with Konner and Rosenthal's attorney, until finally coming up with a credit which was acceptable to all: " Story by Leonard Nimoy and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal, Screenplay by Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flynn. "
• The galley scene was quickly written into the movie just to demonstrate that you can't fire a phaser (set to kill) on board the ship without triggering an alarm. (This raises the question as to why a phaser locker is in the galley. The answer could be found as early as " The Corbomite Maneuver ". While the Enterprise is being towed by Balok 's ship, Yeoman Janice Rand brings hot coffee to the bridge. Dr. McCoy asks her how she made coffee when the "power was out" in the galley. Her pragmatic answer was, " I used a hand phaser and zap – hot coffee. ")

Is this worth $240?

• The blue food at the dinner scene was so disgusting that actors had to be bribed to eat it. Each actor was offered twenty dollars for every bite. Shatner did it, and won $240, before throwing up. (According to Leonard Nimoy, it was chunks of squid treated with blue food coloring.) Reportedly, Shatner was the only member of the cast able to swallow any of it, and the first time Shatner ate the colored squid, he turned and looked right at Nick Meyer and said, " Where's my twenty? " Meyer called " cut! " and pulled out the twenty and gave it to Shatner. ( William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories )
• Spock attributes the quote " If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth " to an ancestor. This quote (and numerous variations) derives from the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle . Fans, noting the similarities between the characters of Spock and Holmes, have long speculated that Spock might be a descendant (on the side of his Human mother, Amanda Grayson ) either of the fictional Holmes or the historical Doyle; the first such speculation is found in a Ruth Berman article in Spockanalia in 1966. ( citation needed • edit ) Writer/director Nicholas Meyer, a Holmes fan, wrote the well-received Sherlock Holmes novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and adapted it into an Academy Award-nominated screenplay.
• During the search of all uniforms on board the Enterprise , a crewman takes off the cover of a power conduit. When he moves to put the cover down, you can see production markings on the back.
• At the dining room, you can see paintings of many dignitaries, including Surak, founder of Vulcan philosophy and American President Abraham Lincoln . The Enterprise crew met recreations of both of them in TOS : " The Savage Curtain ". Another painting is of an unnamed Andorian dignitary.
• After the first day of shooting, someone noticed that Valeris 's jacket was trimmed in Sciences division gray, not cadet and trainee red, to match her cadet red turtleneck undergarment. Since re-filming would have been too expensive, it was quickly decided to just let it pass. ( citation needed • edit )
• Valeris also wears the incorrect rank insignia of lieutenant commander , although exclusively being referred to in both dialogue and credits as a lieutenant .
• During the Battle at Khitomer, Uhura mentions that the Enterprise is carrying equipment to study gaseous anomalies. In the beginning of the film, Sulu states that the Excelsior is also on a mission to study gaseous anomalies. It is not clear whether this is done intentionally, as the Enterprise 's mission is strictly escort duty for the Chancellor's ship.
• The sets for the Excelsior and Enterprise- A bridges were redresses of the same set, which were made up of modules to be rearranged, as needed.
• In the final shot of the Enterprise bridge crew, the helmsman's chair is left empty, symbolizing that Sulu is not present.
• In the credits at the end of the movie, Uhura is misspelled " Uhuru ."
• The final scene also has the characters standing in a staged lineup. The producers wanted it known that it was the last movie.
• The final captain's log was actually shot on the bridge of the Enterprise . This, however, was the last scene shot. Instead of using a dubbed log, they recorded it live. ( citation needed • edit )
• The Khitomer hall was represented by the Brandeis-Bardin Institute , located in southern California.
• The footage of the Enterprise -A in spacedock is actually modified footage from Star Trek IV (budgetary constraints, as well as the disappearance of the spacedock interior miniature from ILM's archives, dictated its use). This marks the second time that footage shot for a previous film was re-used for a second time (the other being the Genesis sequence from Star Trek II , which also appeared in Star Trek III and Star Trek IV ).
• The Bird-of-Prey explosion from this film was later used in Star Trek Generations .
• For some unknown reason, the art on the label for the special features disc of some editions of the Special Collector's Edition features an upside-down close-up image of the Enterprise -B while still in drydock from the film Star Trek Generations ; Paramount Home Entertainment later corrected this problem by reissuing it as a silver labeled DVD. A similar error occurs on the HD and Blu-ray editions of the film, with the Enterprise -B on the back cover.
• During the dinner scene, Kirk says that having Romulan ale is " One of the advantages of being a thousand light years from Federation Headquarters . " Given that 78 years later, a faster and more advanced USS Voyager would expect to take seventy years to travel seventy thousand light years, one may infer that it would take far longer than a year for the Enterprise to reach the rendezvous point with Kronos One . It is more likely that Kirk was speaking metaphorically and not quoting an exact figure.
• A scene in the script and novelization took place on Excelsior just after Sulu's conversation with Kirk, where Valtane was to have told Sulu, " Do you realize you've just committed treason, sir? " Sulu was supposed to reply something along the lines of " I always hoped that if I ever had to choose between betraying my country or betraying my friend, I'd have the courage to betray my country. " This exchange remained in the novelization.
• The events of this film were later revisited in VOY : " Flashback ", in which it is established that Tuvok served as an ensign aboard the Excelsior . External footage of the Excelsior and the Praxis explosion wave were reused directly from the film, but all other scenes were specially re-shot, partly to include Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ, who had not appeared in the film originally, but also because the movie's actors had aged significantly since the film was shot, meaning new footage of the actors filmed for the episode would not have matched any of the reused movie footage.
• As with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , this film shows Spock having full command of the Enterprise . In fact, this is the only film in which Spock actually gives Kirk orders.
• Spock references the events of this film during TNG : " Unification II ", citing his guilt over committing Kirk to be a negotiator in the Klingon peace talks and the consequences that followed.
• After TOS : " Whom Gods Destroy " and TAS : " The Survivor ", this marks the third time that a shapeshifter has assumed the form of Captain Kirk.
• A similarly extended, establishing prologue was later envisioned for the subsequent movie, Star Trek Generations , but it too, though partially filmed, was scrapped for budgetary reasons, as well as for running-time considerations.
• NBC, Star Trek' s former network, fittingly premiered Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country on November 6, 1994, a good 12 days in advance of Star Trek Generations 's nationwide release. It was the first time any kind of Star Trek was seen on The Peacock Network since Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973.

In Star Trek VI , during his trial, Bones says that he has been the ship's surgeon for 27 years. He took the post from Mark Piper at some point in 2265 , after " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", or in early 2266 , before " The Corbomite Maneuver ". This statement establishes a time frame for the film from 2292 to 2293 .

The film ends with the last voyage of the ship and crew. The prologue of Star Trek Generations is set more precisely in 2293, or 78 years before 2371 . In the prologue, a news reporter and Scotty talk with Kirk about how he has settled down into his retirement, suggesting that the retirement from the previous film is still a very recent thing for him.

StarTrek.com , Star Trek Chronology , and Star Trek Encyclopedia  (3rd ed., p. 691) use the year 2293. Memory Alpha uses this year as well.

Behind the scenes [ ]

Concept art [ ].

Production gallery [ ]

Merchandise gallery [ ]

Production history [ ]

• 5th draft script: 28 December 1990
• Start of principal photography: 11 April 1991
• End of principal photography: 2 July 1991
• Screening for Gene Roddenberry (2 days before his death): 22 October 1991
• Hollywood, California premiere: 3 December 1991
• US theatrical premiere: 6 December 1991
• CD soundtrack : 10 December 1991
• Comic adaptation : 1991
• Australia theatrical premiere: 1 January 1992
• Novelization : 1992
• UK theatrical premiere: 14 February 1992
• Japan theatrical premiere: 28 February 1992
• Germany theatrical premiere: 5 March 1992
• Hungary theatrical premiere: 1 May 1992
• Netherlands theatrical premiere: 5 June 1992
• Spain theatrical premiere: 19 June 1992
• US LaserDisc: 25 June 1992
• France theatrical premiere: 22 July 1992
• Japan LaserDisc: 10 February 1993
• VHS: 25 August 1993
• UK network television premiere: 7 January 1995 on BBC1
• UK LaserDisc: 1996
• France LaserDisc: 1996
• Widescreen VHS: 2 April 1997
• Region 1 DVD: 26 January 1999
• Special Edition Region 1 DVD: 27 January 2004
• Special Edition Region 2 DVD: 1 March 2004
• iTunes Store: 2006
• Blu-Ray: September 2009

Different versions [ ]

• Aspect ratios. The film was originally filmed and edited in Super 35 (4-perf). It was composed for multiple aspect ratios (meaning that all the important action had to be centered in a fairly small part of the frame). Every release is a reduction (croppings) from the original, never-released full frame using so-called "soft mattes". For theatrical release, the master was reduced to the usual 2.39:1 aspect ratio used for anamorphic 35mm projection (all the other Trek movies were filmed in this ratio, using anamorphic lenses instead of Super 35). A 2.20:1 version was also prepared for 70mm release (the same was done with all the previous Trek films). The film has never been commercially available in either theatrical aspect ratio, until the Blu-ray release. The non-widescreen television broadcasts and VHS releases were reduced to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, thus easing up the matte on the top and bottom, but cropping some of the sides. Early widescreen VHS and laserdisc transfers and the first DVD release were opened up to yet another ratio, 2.00:1, and then centered high on the screen with space at the bottom for subtitles, but was non-anamorphic. The Special Edition DVD release was opened up to the same 2.00:1 ratio, but was anamorphicly enhanced for widescreen TVs. Which portion of the full frame is used varies from shot to shot, rather than being a purely mechanical reduction – and the choices are made differently in each release, including the two 2.00:1 releases. Apparently the 2.00:1 is the director's preferred aspect ratio. However, for the May 2009 Blu-ray release, the film was made available in its original theatrical ratio of 2.39:1 for the first time.
• Extra scenes and edits. Until 2009 , the theatrical cut had never been released commercially in English (however has aired on TV a few times before then). The original 1992 home video release added back in the "Operation Retrieve" scenes (originally, the scene in the president's office ended with the line " This president is not above the law "), the scene between Spock, Scotty and Valeris directly before the trial, and the unmasking of Colonel West on Khitomer (just a few shots are added: Colonel Worf touching West's blood and saying " This is not Klingon blood " between Cartwright trying to escape and Sulu stopping him, the actual unmasking and the C-in-C and Worf looking at each other directly after). These scenes remained in all subsequent commercial releases until 2009 . The 2003 Special Edition DVD release re-edited the scene when Scotty is drinking coffee from a mug and drawing on a blueprint (using alternate shots) and added in flash frames of Cartwright, Chang, and Nanclus during Spock and Valeris' mind meld and slight alternate takes during her interrogation on the bridge. The original cut, albeit with the 2.00:1 aspect ratio, was present on the 1993 dubbed German VHS release. It was also released on iTunes, cut at 2.00:1 (640x320). The various releases of the movie on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in 2009 featured the original theatrical cut in its original aspect ratio.
• The end credits had a different format for the theatrical version. It featured the Starfleet Insignia at the top and the screen split between a white background and dark lettering and the other side with a dark background with white lettering.

Apocrypha [ ]

• Star Trek VI was adapted into novelization by Jeanne M. Dillard .
• A comics adaptation was written by Peter David and drawn by Gordon Purcell and Arne Starr .
• A novel and comic sequel to the events of this film, The Ashes of Eden , written by William Shatner and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens , depicts a plot created by a Klingon-Romulan alliance, staged in Chal, a homeworld populated by a race of genetically-engineered Klingon-Romulans. Kirk is called there by a native of the planet, Teilani, to help her people with this crisis.
• The conference at Khitomer was explored again in the non-canon Star Trek novel Assignment: Eternity .
• The novel Provenance of Shadows established that McCoy started doing research at Starfleet Medical and other novels have had McCoy as Chief of Starfleet Medical as well. " Encounter at Farpoint " clearly establishes that McCoy was an admiral at that point in time .
• According to the novel The Star to Every Wandering , at the time of Star Trek Generations , Chekov was working a ground assignment on Earth waiting for an executive officer position to open up. It's likely he was assigned to Excelsior as executive officer shortly thereafter (according to the non-canon novel The Sundered , he took the post of executive officer on the Excelsior ), eventually commanding two starships on his own before becoming an admiral.
• In the movie, Uhura said she was supposed to be chairing a seminar at the Academy, and The Lost Era novels established that she was going to do that very thing when she was recruited for Starfleet Intelligence and eventually rising to become an admiral and head of Intelligence by 2360 at the latest.
• The Starfleet Corps of Engineers novels have established that Montgomery Scott eventually became the head of the Corps of Engineers and other books established Scott as having helped to design and work on building the USS Enterprise -E . In fact, the novel Ship of the Line , which dealt with the actual launch of the Enterprise -E, established that Scott was acting chief engineer for the ship's shakedown cruise with Geordi La Forge as his first assistant chief.

Awards and honors [ ]

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country received the following awards and honors.

Links and references [ ]

Credits [ ], opening credits [ ].

• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• James Doohan
• Walter Koenig
• Nichelle Nichols
• George Takei
• Mark Lenard
• David Warner
• Kim Cattrall
• Rosana DeSoto
• Christopher Plummer
• Kurtwood Smith
• Brock Peters
• Paul Rossilli
• John Schuck
• Leon Russom
• Michael Dorn
• Mary Jo Slater , CSA
• Cliff Eidelman
• Marty Hornstein
• Brooke Breton
• Ronald Roose
• Herman Zimmerman
• Hiro Narita
• Gene Roddenberry
• Leonard Nimoy and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal
• Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn
• Ralph Winter and Steven-Charles Jaffe
• Nicholas Meyer

Closing credits [ ]

• Kirk – William Shatner
• Spock – Leonard Nimoy
• McCoy – DeForest Kelley
• Scotty – James Doohan
• Chekov – Walter Koenig
• Uhuru [sic] – Nichelle Nichols
• Sulu – George Takei
• Lt. Valeris – Kim Cattrall
• Sarek – Mark Lenard
• Excelsior Communications Officer – Grace Lee Whitney
• Admiral Cartwright – Brock Peters
• Chief in Command – Leon Russom
• Federation President – Kurtwood Smith
• Chang – Christopher Plummer
• Azetbur – Rosana DeSoto
• Chancellor Gorkon – David Warner
• Klingon Ambassador – John Schuck
• Klingon Defense Attorney – Michael Dorn
• Kerla – Paul Rossilli
• Klingon Judge – Robert Easton
• Klingon Officer – Clifford Shegog
• Klingon Commander – W. Morgan Sheppard
• General Stex – Brett Porter
• Excelsior Officer – Jeremy Roberts
• Excelsior Engineer – Michael Bofshever
• Excelsior Navigator – Angelo Tiffe
• Helmsman Lojur – Boris Lee Krutonog
• Excelsior Communications Officer – Christian Slater
• Martia – Iman
• The Brute – Tom Morga
• Klingon Translator – Todd Bryant
• Behemoth Alien – John Bloom
• First Klingon General – Jim Boeke
• Munitions Man – Carlos Cestero
• Young Crewman – Edward Clements
• Martia as a child – Katie Jane Johnston
• Prisoner at Rura Penthe – Douglas Engalla
• Second Klingon General – Matthias Hues
• Nanclus – Darryl Henriques
• Sleepy Klingon – David Orange
• Military Aide – Judy Levitt
• ADC – Shakti
• Crewman Dax – Michael Snyder
• Donald R. Pike
• Ed Anders (as Excelsior crewman in sleep wear )
• Jeff Bornstein (as Excelsior crewman in sleep wear )
• Eddie Braun (as Excelsior bridge crewman )
• Charlie Brewer (as stunt double for Brett Porter )
• Gary Baxley
• Brett Davidson (as Excelsior crewman in sleep wear )
• B.J. Davis (as Burke )
• Dorothy Ching-Davis (as Excelsior crewman in sleep wear )
• Maria Doest (as Excelsior crewman in sleep wear )
• Joe Farago (as Excelsior bridge crewman )
• Sandy Free (as Excelsior bridge crewman )
• Joy Hooper (as Excelsior crewman in sleep wear )
• Jeff Imada (as Stunt double for George Takei )
• Jeffrey S. Jensen
• Robert King
• Scott Leva (as Excelsior bridge crewman / Klingon transporter officer )
• Alan Marcus (as Samno )
• Cole McKay (as Excelsior bridge alien crewman )
• Eric Norris
• Noon Orsatti (as Excelsior bridge crewman )
• Deeana Pampena (as Stunt double for Grace Lee Whitney )
• Gary T. Pike (as Gorkon's soldier / Klingon officer )
• Donald B. Pulford (as Stunt double for William Shatner )
• Joycelyn Robinson (as Excelsior bridge crewman / Stunt double for Iman )
• Danny Rogers
• Don Ruffin (as Excelsior bridge crewman / Chang's assistant / Klingon officer )
• Spike Silver
• Erik Stabenau (as Excelsior bridge crewman / Stunt double for Rene Auberjonois )
• Douglas E. Wise
• Katy E. Garretson
• Nilo Rodis-Jamero
• Dodie Shepard
• Steven-Charles Jaffe
• William Hoy
• Scott Farrar
• Michael J. Mills
• Thomas R. Bryant
• Mickey S. Michaels
• Eugene C. Nollman
• Alan S. Kaye
• Louise Nielsen
• Ron Wilkerson
• Kirstin R. Glover
• Robert Morey
• Richard M. Stevens
• Gregory Schwartz
• John Beyers
• Charles Lang
• Keith Barber
• John Cybulski
• Ian Christenberry
• Jeff Durling
• Thom Embree
• Michael Katz
• Daniel Cook
• Dennis Flanderka
• Arnaud Peiny
• Gene S. Cantamessa
• Steve G. Cantamessa
• Mark R. Jennings
• Terry D. Frazee
• Donald E. Myers
• Donald Frazee
• Logan Frazee
• Eugene Crum
• Scott Lingard
• Joseph C. Sasgen
• Brian McManus
• Gilbert A. Mosko
• Gerald Quist
• Ron Walters
• Edward French
• Richard Snell Designs, Inc. ( Richard Snell )
• Greg Cannom
• Janice R. Alexander
• Carol A. O'Connell
• Don L. Hulett
• Jamie Buckley
• Richard Beck
• Edward G. Fitzgerald
• Elaine Maser
• Christine Heinz
• Joseph R. Markham
• Robert M. Moore
• Adrienne Childers
• Daniel Candib
• Scott Caldwell
• Michael Hofacre
• Richard Sellmer
• George Watters II
• F. Hudson Miller
• R. J. Palmer
• Frank Howard
• Bruce E. Bell
• Suhail F. Kafity
• Thomas Fucci
• Fred Stafford
• Bobbi Banks
• Victoria Martin
• Matthew Harrison
• Marva Fucci
• Maggie Ostroff
• Greg Thompson
• Marcy Stoeven Gibbens
• Jonathan Phillips
• Alan Howarth
• John Paul Fasal
• David Lee Fein
• Bunny Andrews
• Robin K. Eidelman
• Barbara Harris
• Jeffery J. Haboush
• Michael Herbick
• Greg P. Russell , CAS
• James Cavarretta
• Gary Ritchie
• Mark McKenzie
• William Kidd
• Carl Fortina
• Bob Bornstein
• Twentieth Century Fox
• Armin Steiner
• Rhonda Baer
• David Trotti
• Sheila Barnes
• Laurie Gauger
• Richard J. Bayard
• Cliff Bergman
• Mike Apperson
• Gary A. Clark
• Henry S. Coia
• Jan Glaser , CSA
• Wendy Engalla
• Chuck Maytum
• Michael McCusker
• Rebeca R. Brookshire
• Mary Beth Gentle
• Deborah L. Krainin
• Mary Jo Fernandez
• Brent Lon Hershman
• Brian Wensel
• Mindy Sheldon
• Debbie Tieman
• Scott Russell
• Michael H. Okuda
• Bob Hoffman
• Scott Benton
• Roland Armstorff
• R. Harrison Gibbs
• Russell Alan Steele
• Buffee Friedlich
• Aaron M. Albucher
• John Downer
• Gerald L. "Jerry" Sater
• Marc Okrand
• Brian Wallace

Second Unit Photography [ ]

• John V. Fante
• Christopher T. Gerrity
• Andrea Walzer
• Frank Del Boccio
• Frank Parrish
• Bob Crockett
• Clinton O. Johnson
• Cinema Research Corporation

Negative Cutting

• Theresa Repola Mohammed
• David Oliver Pfeil
• Industrial Light and Magic , a Division of LucasArts Entertainment Company Marin County, California
• Peter Takeuchi
• William George
• Bradley Kuehn
• Jil-Sheree Bergin
• Michael McGovern
• Peter Daulton
• Patrick Sweeny
• David Hanks
• Katie O'Neill
• Patrick Turner
• Robert Hill
• Scott Anderson
• Eric Armstrong
• John Berton
• Richard Cohen
• Joe Letteri
• Jim Mitchell
• Joe Pasquale
• Alex Seiden
• Gail Currey
• Jon Alexander
• Donald Clark
• Jeffrey Doran
• Selwyn Eddy III
• Keith Johnson
• Patrick Repola
• Kenneth Smith
• David Karpman
• Jennifer Lee
• Thomas Rosseter
• John D. Whisnant
• Debra Wolff
• Michael Ellis
• Robert Fernley
• Nelson Hall
• Lisa Vaughn
• Bruce Walters
• Charlie Clavadetscher
• John Graves
• Steven Reding
• Eric Swenson
• Thomas Bertino
• Kathleen Beeler
• Rebecca Petrulli-Heskes
• Sandy Houston
• Terry Molatore
• Jack Monogovan
• Ellen Mueller
• Carolyn Rendu
• Wes Ford Takahashi
• Gordon Baker
• Christopher Green
• Peter Crosman
• Shari Malyn
• Joshua Pines
• Randall K. Bean
• George Gambetta
• Timothy Greenwood
• Preston Richards
• Lawrence Tan
• Jon Foreman
• Brian Gernand
• Jon Goodson, Jr.
• Richard Miller
• Alan Peterson
• Eben Stromquist
• Paul Theren
• Wim Van Thillo
• Charles Wiley
• Richard Demolski
• Robert Finley, Jr.
• Ross Lorente
• Craig Mohagen
• David Morton
• Charles Ray
• Carol Lee Griswald
• Alia Almeida Agha
• Nancy Luckoff
• Tina Matthies
• Matte World – Marin County, California
• Craig Barron
• Michael Pangrazio
• Krystyna Demkowicz
• Paul Oehlke
• Joel Hladecek
• Wade Childress
• Peter Kuran
• Al Magliochetti
• Kevin Kutchaver
• Linda Henry
• Tim Segulin
• Rick Hannigan
• David Tucker
• Jacqueline Zietlow
• Pacific Data Images
• Les Dittert

Production Support

• Karen Logan
• Barbara Cimity
• Cliff Boule
• Nina Salerno
• Randy Weeks
• Craig Newman
• Katie O'Hara
• Pete Martinez
• Monte Swann
• Jeffrey Harstedt
• WildFire, LA
• Foam Tec, Inc.

Rear Screen Projection Compositing by

• MCA Compact Discs and Cassettes
• Music by Alexander Courage
• Technicolor ®
• Panavision ®
• Alaska Film Commission
• Alaska Helicopter Company
• Dave Archer Studios
• Pfaltzgraff
• Durand International
• David Keith Anderson as Enterprise -A crewmember
• Rene Auberjonois as Colonel West
• Lena Banks as Federation president's assistant
• Terrence Beasor as Klingon voices
• Robert Bruce as Klingon officer
• Faith Burton as Starfleet flag officer
• Eddie Caldwell as Romulan
• Max Cervantes as Daz
• Barron Christian as Klingon assistant to Commandant
• Dragon Dronet as Klingon spectator
• Andre Dukes as Klingon Rura Penthe guard
• Douglas Dunning as Alien delegate
• Joe Durrenberger as Klingon officer
• Farrel as Klingon General
• Mark Gonzaga as Vulcan delegate
• Trent Christopher Ganino as Klingon judge
• Clay Hodges as Klingon officer
• Klingon officer
• Klingon helmsman
• Bruce Koski as Alien delegate
• Tony Lawson as Klingon
• Susan Lewis as Enterprise -A officer
• Beau Lotterman as Romulan delegate
• Daryl F. Mallett as Rura Penthe prisoner
• James Mapes as Zelonite official
• Marin as Enterprise -A crewman
• Patrick Michael as Enterprise -A crewman
• Claude Nemeth as Klingon Rura Penthe guard
• Dennis Ott as Knee Jerk Alien
• Jim Portnoy as Starfleet flag officer
• Khitomer flag bearer
• Klingon spectator
• Evans Ricciardi as Starfleet flag officer
• Denise Lynne Roberts as Enterprise -A crewmember
• Richard Sarstedt as Romulan delegate
• Eric A. Stillwell as Klingon spectator
• Geraldine Sylvester-Bush as Vulcan delegate
• Kevin G. Tracey as presidential adviser
• Roma Lee Tracy as silver tube amazette alien dignitary
• Guy Vardaman as Klingon officer
• J.D. Walters as Klingon
• Clint Zehner as Rura Penthe prisoner
• Five Klingon Kronos One crewmen
• Four presidential advisers
• Three Klingon Rura Penthe guards
• Klingon judge
• Romulan delegate
• Tellarite delegate
• Zelonite ambassador
• Zelonite official
• Female USS Excelsior security officer
• Male USS Excelsior security officer
• Greg Gault as stunt double for David Warner
• Dennis Madalone as a Klingon officer
• Stunt double for Christopher Plummer
• Patrick Michael as stand-in for Leonard Nimoy
• Joycelyn Robinson as stand-in for Iman
• Lita Stevens
• Kenny Studer
• Jim Thompson
• Martin Valinsky
• Philip Weyland as stand-in for William Shatner
• David Abbott – Special Makeup Effects Artist
• Aaron Albucher – Assistant Production Accountant
• Dave Archer – Artwork Provider: Paintings
• Margaret Bessara – Prosthetic Makeup Artist: David Warner , Kurtwood Smith , and Robert Easton
• Tom Boyd – Musician: Oboe
• Barney Burman – Special Makeup Effects Artist
• Rob Burman – Special Makeup Effects Artist
• Mary Burton – Makeup Artist: Iman
• Cogswell Video Services, Inc. – Visual Effects Unit Video Assist Company
• Danna Edwards – Costumer
• Robert Fletcher – Costumes Design
• Christopher Gilman and Dilligent Dwarves Effects Lab – Prop and Wardrobe Creator and Provider
• Kristin R. Glover – Camera Operator
• Nancy J. Hvasta Leonardi – Assistant Makeup Artist
• Jeff Kleeman – Development and Production Executive for Paramount Pictures
• Norman Ludwin – Musician: Bass
• Iain McCaig – ILM Storyboard Artist
• Mike McCarty (for Dilligent Dwarves Effects Lab ) – FX artist: Ran parts for Klingon costumes
• Steve Neill – Special Makeup Effects Artist
• Scott Schneider – Model Maker
• Marlene Stoller – Hair Artist
• Rick Stratton – Makeup Artist
• Todd Tucker – Special Make-Up Effects Artist
• Danny Valencia – Hair Stylist
• Karen Westerfield – Prosthetic Makeup Artist
• Philip Weyland – Dialogue Coach

References [ ]

19th century ; 1938 ; 2223 ; 2266 ; 2290 ; 2343 ; 24-hour clock ; Aamaarazan ; abduction ; accident ; act ; act of war ; Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise ; address ; admiral ; admiration ; advocate ; aft ; agenda ; aide-de-camp ; alarm ; alien ; Alpha Quadrant ; ambassador ; ambition ; amount ; anatomy ; ancestor ; annals ; answer ; architect ; arrest ; arthritis ; article ; artificial gravity ; ash ; assassin ; assassination ; automation ; attack ; author ; auxiliary circuit ; auxiliary gravity ; auxiliary power ; back ; back-up system ; battle cruiser, Klingon ; battle stations ; beaming ; beaming shield ; bearing ; behavior ; Beta Quadrant ; Beta Quadrant sector ; black ; blood ; " bloody "; boat ; boatswain's whistle ; " Bones "; bow ; bridge ; brigadier ; Brotherhood of Aliens ; bug ; Burke ; Camp Khitomer ; capital ; cardiac arrest ; career ; chairing ; chameloid ; chain of command ; Chancellor of the Klingon High Council ; Chang's Bird-of-Prey ; charge ; chief of staff ; chimes ; China ; choice ; Christ, Jesus ; chronometer ; Cinderella ; circuit A ; circumstantial evidence ; citizen ; citizenship ; civilization ; client ; cloaking device, Klingon ; close range ; club ; coat ; Code blue ; coffee ; cold warrior ; colleague ; colonel ; commander in chief ; commandant ; communications station ; commutation ; computer ; comrade ; Concise History of the Klingon Empire, A ; condolences ; conference ; confession ; confiscation ; conspiracy ; Constitution -class ; Constitution II -class ; control tower ; conversation ; Coon, G.L. ; coordinates ; course ; court ; court reporter ; creature ; crew quarters ; crewman ; cruise ; crime ; damage report ; data ; data banks ; daughter ; Davis ; day ; death ; death sentence ; decommissioning ; deflector shield ; degree ; demotion ; departure stations ; depiction ; dialogue ; dilithium ; dinner ; diplomacy ; diplomat ; diplomatic corps ; diplomatic function ; dockmaster ; doctor ; Earth ; Earth Cold War ; Earth year ; echo bar ; economy ; Efrosian ; electronic frontier ; energy production facility ; engine room ; Enterprise -A, USS ; epic ; error ; evening ; evidence ; Excelsior -class ; Excelsior , USS ; excerpt ; exile ; existence ; exoneration ; exploration ; exploration program ; explosion ; extradition ; extremist ; eyepatch ; fact ; faith ; father ; Federation ; Federation headquarters ; Federation members ; Federation President ; Federation-Klingon Cold War ; Federation space ; feeling ; feet ; first officer ; flag of truce ; flare ; flatbed shuttle ; forgery ; " for king and country "; France ; free will ; freighter ; friend ; fuel ; full ambassador ; future ; galley ; gang ; Garden of Eden ; gas ; gavel ; general ; generation ; genitals ; " give real money "; graveyard ; gravitational field ; gravity ; gravity boot ; ground ; guard tower ; guest ; guilt ; gulag ; hailing frequency ; Hamlet ; hand ; handcuffs ; head ; hearing ; heart ; heartbeat ; helm ; helmsman ; Henry IV, Part I ; Henry IV, Part II ; Hitler, Adolf ; Holmes, Sherlock ; hostage ; hostility ; hour ; Human ( homo sapiens ); Human rights ; idea ; idealism / idealist ; idiot ; "If you eliminate the impossible..." ; ignorance ; impulse power ; information ; insubordination ; intercept course ; interstellar law ; Introduction to Klingon Grammer ; jackal mastiff ; joke ; judgment ; Julius Caesar ; K't'inga -class ; key ; kiss ; Khitomer ; Khitomer Accords ; Khitomer Conference ; Khitomer conspiracy ; kill setting ; king ; Klingon Bird-of-Prey ; Klingon Empire ; Klingons ; Klingon High Command ; Klingon frontier ; Klingon history ; Klingon Neutral Zone ; Klingon Defense Force uniforms ; Klingon space ; Klingonese ; knee ; Kobayashi Maru scenario ; Kronos One ; laughter ; level ; Lincoln, Abraham ; " linguistic legerdemain "; light ; light year ; listening post ; listing ; livelihood ; location ; logic ; lunatic ; lying ( lie ); machine ; madam ; magnetic boots ( gravity boots ); Marcus, David ; master ; medical status ; medical tricorder ; meeting ; Megazoid ; Merchant of Venice, The ; meteor shower ; midnight ; Milky Way Galaxy ; military advisor ; military budget ( budget ); military operation ; mine ; mission ; mission of peace ; model ; money ; month ; moon ; mooring ; morning ; Morska ; mothballing ; motive ; multiple choice ; murderer ; mythology ; name ; NAR ; neck ; negotiation ; neutral zone ; neutron radiation ; news ; night ; Nixon, Richard M. ; Northern Star ; obedience ; objection ; officers' mess ; Okrand ; Okrand's Unabridged Klingon Dictionary ; olive branch ; Operation Retrieve ; opportunist ; order ; oxygen ; ozone ; pair ; pardon ; Paris ; parole ; patricide ; peace ; peace conference ; peace summit ; peace talks ; peace treaty ; penal asteroid ; penal colony ; permission ; personal log ; Pfaltzgraff ; phaser ; photon torpedo ; physics ; piano ; place ; plasma ( ionized gas ); plasma exhaust ; plate ; pollution ; port (facility); port (side of ship); port gate ; Post, Emily ; pot ; Praxis ; prejudice ; president ; prison ; prisoner ; progress ; problem ; prototype ; proverb ; pulse ; punishment ; Qo'noS ; question ; quarters ; rank ; reality ; refuse ; rendezvous ; report ; reprieve ; resource ; result ; retirement ; revenge ; reward ; risk ; Romulan ; Romulan ale ; Romulan government ; Romulan border ; rose ; rudder ; Rura Penthe ; Russian ; sabot ; sabotage ; Saboteurs ; safe haven ; safety precaution ; Salak ; Samno ; San Francisco ; saucer ; scene ; science station ; scientific program ; Scots language ; screaming ; SD-103 ; SD-103 type ; second ; secret ; sector ; Sector 70 ; seminar ; sensor ; sentence ; service record ; Shakespeare, William ; ship's bell ; ship's surgeon ; shoe ; shouting ; show trial ; sickbay ; silent running ; size ; slave ; smell ; smoking ; sniper rifle ; son ; sorrow ; space station ; Spacedock One ; special envoy ; species ; speculation ; Spoken Languages of the Klingon Empire ; sponsor ; starbase ; starboard ; Starfleet ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Command ; Starfleet Command Intelligence Database ; Starfleet Headquarters ; Starfleet regulations ; state dinner ; statement ; stern ; stockade ; story ; stun setting ; subspace ; subspace channel ; subspace message ; subspace transmission ; subspace shock wave ; suicide ; surface ; surgeon ; surgery ; surrender ; table ; table manners ; tail pipe ; targ ; tear ; tear duct ; Tempest, The ; terrorism ; territory ; theory ; thing ; thousand ; three-year mission ; thruster ; Tiberian bat ; tickling ; toast ; torpedo bay ; torpedo launcher ; torpedo room ; touch ; tour ; translation ; transporter pad ; transporter range ; transporter room ; trash ; trial ; truth ; universal translator ; universe ; Ursva ; value ; vessel ; viridium patch ; volunteer ; Vulcan ; mind meld ; walking ; warp drive ; warrior ; weapons locker ; web ; week ; wisdom ; Wise, D. ; witness ; wood ; word ; worker ; wound ; year ; Z-axis ; Zelonite

Library computer references [ ]

• Starship Mission Assignments : Ahwahnee , USS ; Challenger , USS ; Constellation , USS ; Eagle , USS ; Emden , USS ; Endeavour , USS ; Helin , USS ; John Muir , USS ; Kongo , USS ; Korolev , USS ; Lantree , USS ; Oberth , USS ; Potemkin , USS ; Republic , USS ; Scovill , USS ; Sector 21185 ; Sector 21186 ; Sector 21290 ; Sector 21399 ; Sector 21803 ; Sector 21835 ; Sector 21836 ; Sector 21837 ; Sector 22849 ; Sector 22858 ; Sector 22956 ; Sector 22958 ; Sector 23094 ; Springfield , USS ; Starbase 24 ; Starship Mission Assignments ; Whorfin , USS
• Operation Retrieve star chart : Alpha Bayard ; Alpha Beaird ; Alpha Cooper ; Alpha Crum ; Alpha Glover ; Alpha Johnson ; Alpha McCusker ; Alpha Meyers ; Alpha Saunders ; Alpha Suhr ; Apperson's Asteroid ; Arnold's Planet ; Baber Nebula ; Barnes Nebula ; Barnett's Star ; Bergman's Planet ; Beta Christenberry ; Beta Cook ; Beta Flinn ; Beta Friedlich ; Beta Garretson ; Beta Gonzales ; Beta Lingard ; Beta Michaels ; Beta Penthe ; Beta Penthe I ; Beta Penthe II ; Beta Penthe III ; Beta Penthe IV ; Beta Penthe V ; Beta Penthe VII ; Beta Penthe system ; Beta Schwartz ; Beta Sternbach ; Breton's Planet ; Brookshire's Planet ; Buckley's Planet ; Cantamessa's Star ; Cole's Star ; Constitution II -class; Cybulski's Planet ; Delta Hart ; Downer's Star ; Excelsior -class ; Farrar's World ; Foster Nebula ; Frazee's Nova ; Friedlich Nebula ; Gamma Fitzgerald ; Gauger Star ; Gullory Nebula ; Harstedt's Planet ; Hershman's Star ; Hodges Nebula ; Jaffeworld ; Latonaworld ; Meyer's Star ; Molly's Star ; Moreyworld ; Narita's Planet ; Nimoy's Star ; Nollman's Planet ; Nuzzo Station ; Operation Retrieve star chart locations ; Okrand Colony ; Rao-Beyers ; Rooseworld ; Sasgen's Star ; Sector 21166 ; Sigma Trotti ; Stevens Nebula ; Theta Gentle ; Theta Hulett ; Wenselworld ; Winter's Nova ; Wise Nebula ; Zimmerman's Star
• Federation star chart ("The Explored Galaxy") : Aldebaran ; Alfa 177 ; Alpha Carinae ; Alpha Centauri ; Alpha Majoris ; Altair VI ; Andor ; Ariannus ; Arret ; Babel ; Benecia ; Berengaria VII ; Beta Aurigae ; Beta Geminorum ; Beta Lyrae ; Beta Niobe ; Beta Portolan ; Camus II ; Canopus III ; Capella ; Daran V ; Delta Vega ; Deneb ; Eminiar ; Fabrini ; First Federation ; Gamma Canaris N ; Gamma Trianguli ; Holberg 917G ; Ingraham B ; Janus VI ; Kling ; Kzin ; Lactra VII ; Makus III ; Marcos XII ; Manark IV ; Memory Alpha ; Mudd ; Omega IV ; Omega Cygni ; Organia ; Orion ; Pallas 14 ; Phylos ; Pollux IV ; Psi 2000 ; Pyris VII ; Regulus ; Remus ; Rigel ; Romulan Neutral Zone ; Romulus ; Sarpeid ; Sirius ; Talos ; Tau Ceti ; Theta III ; Tholian Assembly ; Vulcan

Unused Material [ ]

democracy ; economics ; employment ; gunboat diplomacy ; prerogative

Unreferenced material [ ]

Arc ; Bayard, D. ; Brookshire, R. ; Cantemessa, G. ; Downer, J. ; Flinn, D.M. ; Garretson, K. ; Glover, K. ; Hulett, D. ; Jaffe, S.C. ; Michaels, M. ; Morey, R. ; Narita, H. ; Rodis, N. ; Sector 21185 ; Sector 21290 ; Sector 21399 ; Sector 21803 ; Sector 21835 ; Sector 21837 ; Sector 22849 ; Sector 22956 ; Sector 23006 ; Tathwell, D. ; Thomas, C. ; Wise, D. ; Zimmerman, H.

Timeline [ ]

External links [ ].

• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at StarTrek.com
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at Wikipedia
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country script  at Star Trek Minutiae
• " Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Stardate: 9521.6

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Screen Rant

Strange new worlds’ klingon dinner foreshadows star trek 6 34 years later.

One of the main events of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8 is a Klingon dinner that's very similar to the one in Star Trek 6.

WARNING: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War."

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8 explores the impact of the Klingon War on Pike's crew, particularly their prejudices against Klingons.
• The dinner scene in Strange New Worlds resembles a similar event in Star Trek VI, with both featuring high-ranking Klingon officials attempting to promote peace.
• Both Strange New Worlds and Star Trek VI involve the murder of a Klingon advocating for peace, but the significance and outcome of these deaths differ between the two stories.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' Klingon dinner scene calls to mind a very similar event depicted in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . Strange New Worlds season 2 has continued the first season's premise of depicting the adventures of the USS Enterprise in the 23rd century, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). While the show's storylines are more episodic, the main characters' arcs are serialized, and season 2 has begun delving into the backstory of several important characters more deeply, particularly in regard to the Klingon War.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8 featured the show's most in-depth look at the effects of the Klingon War on Pike's crew to date. The arrival of Klingon Ambassador Dak’Rah (Robert Wisdom) on the Enterprise caused a number of the crew who fought in the war to struggle with their prejudices against Klingons, especially Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), who was revealed to have a bloody history with Dak'Rah. However, Captain Pike's insistence on diplomacy led to a tense dinner that bore a striking resemblance to another scene in an earlier franchise project.

How Strange New Worlds’ Klingon Dinner Compares To Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

There are a lot of similarities (and some differences) between the Klingon dinners that take place in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . For one thing, both dinners happen under the same context: a high-ranking Klingon official attempting to help his people and the Federation put their differences aside and begin working toward peace. A few key characters are also present at both dinners, namely Uhura and Spock. Spock, in particular, plays a very similar role in each scene, attempting to act as a mediator when tensions are high.

Related: Strange New Worlds’ Klingons Set Up Spock’s Star Trek 6 Story

The main differences show up in the amount of hostility present and certain parallel characters' roles. In Star Trek 6 , the tension between the Klingons and the Enterprise crew is a bit more overt, whereas in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds hostilities are reined in intentionally on both sides. Captain Pike and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) also play entirely different roles in their respective dinners. Pike, who harbors no specific ill will towards Klingons, is the voice of reason along with Ambassador Dak'Rah, while Kirk actively antagonizes his Klingon guests due to his own prejudices.

Klingons Are Murdered In Strange New Worlds & Star Trek VI

Another big similarity between Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8 and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is that the climactic events of both focus on the murder of a Klingon. Star Trek 's Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) and Ambassador Dak'Rah are both murdered by Starfleet officers in their respective stories. Although the murders take place for different reasons, Gorkon and Dak'Rah are interesting parallels to each other as two Klingons preaching peace with the Federation. While Dak'Rah's morality is more in question than Gorkon's, it's clear that both were attempting to enact real change before their deaths.

Unfortunately for Dak'Rah, his death ends up meaning a lot less than Gorkon's. Gorkon's murder and the subsequent plot to sabotage the Klingon-Federation peace talks it uncovers go down in Star Trek history as the first real step towards peace on both sides. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , however, ends its exploration of the Klingon War's effects in a much darker place with Dr. M'Benga's murder of Dak'Rah. While M'Benga does finally fulfill the last bit of his mission from the war, he becomes retraumatized in the process. Ultimately, while Strange New Worlds and Star Trek 6 's Klingon stories parallel each other, their messages are very different.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Film / Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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"There is an old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China ." — Spock

The One With… the Cold War IN SPACE!

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth movie in the Star Trek film series, released in 1991.

It is a grand finale for the classic Trek crew ( as played by the original actors, at least ) which resolves the previously ongoing conflict between the Federation and the Klingons with a Tom Clancy ''IN SPACE!'' storyline. In part because of its more political themes and real-world connections, The Undiscovered Country is Darker and Edgier than its predecessors.

After an environmental calamity, the Klingons' infrastructure collapses and their leader sues for peace. 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 never wanted 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.

Nicholas Meyer, the director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , returned to the helm for this one. As evidenced by the page quote, the film lacks anything resembling subtlety, but its tongue-in-cheek satire and heavy-handed morality tale are just as good if not better that way. If nothing else, it's considered much better than The Final Frontier . In any case, most fans consider it a worthy send-off for the original cast.

While this is the finale for the majority of the TOS cast, Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov appear in the next film to "pass the torch" of the film franchise to The Next Generation .

The Undiscovered Country includes examples of the following tropes:

• 2-D Space : Subtly averted. When the Enterprise and Kronos One first rendezvous, they are not aligned in the same plane. Enterprise very diplomatically adjusts to match the Chancellor's ship. Later, the Bird-of-Prey fires one of its torpedoes perpendicularly to the plane of the saucer section of the Enterprise , damaging it extensively, and indicating that Chang is constantly moving his ship around Enterprise to attack it from all angles. It's especially prominent on the one hit we see the Excelsior take; at an almost perpendicular vector to her ventral saucer.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene : Before the climactic battle, Kirk and Spock wonder if they've both gotten too old to still be useful in a changing galaxy.
• Actually Pretty Funny : During the trial, Chang asks McCoy for his "medical status." McCoy replies "Aside from a touch of arthritis, pretty good." One Klingon in the audience laughs uproariously, everyone else is dead silent. . . but Chang grins in response and congratulates McCoy on his "singular wit", a Stealth Insult that McCoy has used up all of his.
• Alien Blood : The Klingons have Pepto-Bismol pink blood in this film (and only this film until Lower Decks used it as well), in order to keep a PG rating. Becomes a minor Chekhov's Gun in the final act when an assassin is identified as not being Klingon because he has red blood, but only in the extended cut. The Star Trek staff (particularly Mike Okuda) Hand Waved this by claiming the pigment change to be a side-effect of microgravity.
• All There in the Manual : The bizarre joke the Klingon border guard makes is smuggler's code; he knows they aren't who they say they are but thinks they're just illegal traders and just can't be bothered to bust them.
• And the Adventure Continues : The end narration: 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 no one , has gone before.
• Apocalypse How : One destroyed mining planet and the near-irrevocable atmospheric desolation of the Klingon homeworld (which, thanks to the Federation, would ultimately be saved).
• For her part, when Excelsior takes a hit on the chin, we see the shields dissipate the impact with no visible damage to the hull, although an interior shot demonstrates that her crew has gone into Damage Control mode. note  And when you consider what happened when this movie was revisited in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback", where the Excelsior took a lot of damage, this is also a Downplayed Trope as well.
• Scotty does note "She's packing quite a wallop," indicating the Bird-Of-Prey's weapons are more powerful than Klingon standard. Though also note, this design of starship could No-Sell V'Ger's One-Hit Kill plasma bolts.
• Artificial Gravity : A rare example where artificial gravity actually fails.
• Artistic License – History : Valeris repeats as truth the story that the word "sabotage" comes from Luddites throwing their wooden sabot shoes into the machinery during the Industrial Revolution. This is a popular folk etymology, but it is not true. "Sabotage" is derived from the noise and clumsiness wearing the shoes had, which would have a possibility of fouling equipment, but by accident, not deliberately.

• Ask a Stupid Question... : When Janice Rand asks if they're going to report the destruction of Praxis to the Federation, Sulu whirls on her incredulously and asks, "Are you kidding ?!"
• Burke and Samno are killed by Valeris after the attempt to hide the evidence backfires. Lampshaded in the same scene. Kirk: First rule of assassination: kill the assassins.
• Similarly, the commandant of Rura Penthe offs Martia the shapeshifter as soon as their role in Kirk and McCoy 's "attempted escape" is fulfilled.
• Bad Vibrations : Captain Sulu's vibrating teacup heralds the shockwave from the exploding Praxis at the beginning of the film.
• The strategy works because Chang doesn't have any choice but to fire on Excelsior too. Chang's goal isn't to destroy Enterprise , though he'd be happy to do so, he just needs to keep reinforcements away from Khitomer until the Federation President is dead. To accomplish this he has to keep both ships under fire to prevent them from lowering their shields and beaming security forces to the planet to stop the assassination.
• Kirk's plan to draw out the mole (Valeris) by having a "court reporter" summoned to Sick Bay urgently to take statements from the (actually already dead) assassins Burke and Samno .
• A failed Batman Gambit exists in the conspirators' original plan. They were banking on Kirk getting gun-happy after Chang got Kronos One back in fighting shape, shooting back, and destroying Kronos One. What happens instead? Kirk surrenders in a hasty attempt to de-escalate the situation. Chang then has to engage in Xanatos Speed Chess to compensate.
• The assassins specifically kill Kronos One 's chief surgeon, which leaves Gorkon's fate in the hands of a physician who doesn't know much about Klingon physiology, Dr. McCoy .
• Beam Spam : Zigzagged. There are plenty of hand phaser shots, but when it comes to spaceborne combat, only torpedoes are used in the film note  This is justified, at least for Chang; leaving his phasers on long enough to do damage would allow the Enterprise to target the beam's source. With torpedoes, he can fire and immediately change course to a new location, giving his enemy no time to react and target him .
• Big Bad Duumvirate : Though Chang acts as the main villain for most of the movie, he's part of a larger conspiracy which includes Lieutenant Valeris, Admiral Cartwright, Colonel West, and the Romulan Ambassador.
• Sulu and the USS Excelsior swooping in to even up the fight against General Chang and his Bird-of-Prey. While the original plan was to play this trope straight, the end result is a slight subversion; Excelsior doesn't do much but provides a second target at first, giving the Enterprise a much-needed breather. Once Chang's ship is revealed by the first hit on its hull, though, Sulu takes full advantage of the reveal to add his ship's weight to the fight. Sulu states quite explicitly that he knows all the Excelsior is on their arrival is another duck in Chang's shooting gallery. Captain Sulu: Alright... now we've given them something else to shoot at.
• In the novelization, Enterprise is specifically described as trying to hold out until Excelsior can arrive with better sensors and stronger shields. Compare Wellington deciding to hold on at Waterloo until Blucher could arrive with the necessary reinforcements to beat Napoleon, but it being the British who, in shooting Napoleon's Old Guard to a standstill, triggered the French rout.
• Big "OMG!" : Sulu's reaction to the incoming Planar Shockwave . "My... God ! Shields! Shields! "
• Bluffing the Murderer : "Code Blue Urgent: Court reporter to Sickbay. Statements to be taken..."
• Brigadier Kerla responds to Excelsior 's message after the explosion of Praxis. Kerla: There has been an incident on Praxis, however, everything is under control, we have no need for assistance.
• Starfleet orders the Enterprise to report back after the assassination, but they are still trying to root out the assassins. Uhura: We are experiencing technical malfunction; all backup systems inoperative. Chekov: Excellent. I-I mean — too bad.
• The Enterprise wasn't the only one pulling this. Kirk: You realize that by even talking to us, you're violating regulations. Sulu: I'm sorry, Captain. Your message is breaking up. Kirk: Bless you, Sulu.
• Borrowed Catchphrase : When Spock invites Doctor McCoy to help him rig up a plasma-seeking torpedo to take down Chang's cloaked Bird of Prey. McCoy : Fascinating!
• Broken Pedestal : Valeris to Spock, and vice versa.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer : The main difference between Valeris and Saavik is that Valeris has a tendency to defy regulations. For example, she fires a phaser on the kill setting, which triggers every alarm on the Enterprise , in order to demonstrate why the conspirators didn't just disintegrate the magnetic boots and uniforms used in the assassination. She is also the one who suggests breaking out the very illegal Romulan Ale for dinner with the Klingons. It also counts as Foreshadowing , showing that Valeris is reckless and doesn't seem to care much for rules... or for the safety of her shipmates. Someone like that shouldn't be trusted.

• A floor panel explodes in Spock's face, reminiscent of how he "died" in the Kobayashi Maru simulation .
• The shot where Spock speculates on the Bird-of-Prey's weakness is from the exact same angle as the one where he speculates on Khan's "two-dimensional thinking" .
• Romulan Ale, being both illegal and leaving a terrible hangover.
• When Spock wants to go to the Klingon ship but Kirk overrides him, Spock says "Perhaps you're right," and puts his hand on Kirk's shoulder like he's going to administer the nerve pinch... and puts the viridium patch on his shoulder.
• The Klingon Ham - bassador from The Voyage Home is back too. And this time, he actually has some valid points to assert instead of just bluster.
• The design of the makeup for Christopher Plummer shares a number of similarities with the design of the smooth-browed Klingons from the Original Series, particularly the moustache, and his more subdued ridges.
• In TNG's "Unification: Part II", which was made to promote this film , Spock tells Picard that because of how badly negotiating peace with Klingons almost went during this film, he opted to take matters into his own hands trying to negotiate unification between the Vulcans and Romulans . With Gorkon's assassination and Kirk and McCoy almost getting executed, Spock was unwilling to risk anybody's life but his own.
• Captain Sulu of the USS Excelsior has the honor of opening the movie this way.
• A log entry that Kirk makes early in the movie (about how much he hates Klingons) becomes a Chekhov's Gun when it's used against him at his trial, and a Chekhov's Boomerang when he realizes that Valeris was listening outside his door when he recorded it, and provided the quote to her fellow conspirators .
• Kirk ends the movie by recording his final log entry as captain of the Enterprise .
• This was at least partially a coincidence, as Brock 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.)
• William Shatner also got his start as a Shakespearian actor, and at one point was actually Christopher Plummer's understudy.
• Central Theme : Spock joins Kirk in feeling his age and disappointment in time passing them by, and Gene Coon’s Soldier vs Diplomat conflict comes back from the series, Chang taunting Kirk on how they’re both warriors, and Kirk trying to be a diplomat (and surrender instead of fight) proves a Spanner in the Works for the bad guy plan.
• Characterization Marches On : Sulu has adopted a more authoritarian, strict (but fair) personality as a captain, contrasting his easygoing, affable one in prior movies and the TV series.
• Kirk's personal log. It is initially used to incriminate Kirk at his trial, but comes back later when Kirk realizes that Valeris, who was outside of his quarters at the time of his recording, must have given it to the Klingons.
• The pink Klingon blood. Some of it floats into the path of one of the transporting assassins; later, it is discovered on the transporter pad by Chekov and Scotty. In the extended cut, when the "Klingon" sniper is shot at the peace conference, Worf quips that the (red) blood does not belong to a Klingon. It turns out that it is actually human blood, that of Colonel West.
• The Phaser Alarms. Firing a phaser on a kill setting triggers the alarms, as Valeris demonstrates in the kitchen when Chekov asks why the assassins didn't vaporize their incriminating clothing. When Burke and Samno are found dead , McCoy wonders why they were not vaporized and Chekov replies (while comically making it sound like a dumb question) that it would set off the alarm. Valeris had used a phaser on stun to the head at point blank range to kill them; her inability to dispose of the bodies leads Kirk to his plan to flush out the assassin by saying that they had survived and were willing to talk about everything.
• A Chekhov's Gun example is left hanging on the wall when Kirk pulls out a concealed pistol of identical make: in a Captain's Log , Sulu mentions the Excelsior is cataloging gaseous anomalies. Apparently, the Enterprise had been doing the same, since they have the equipment on board and use it to track the cloaked Bird-of-Prey. note  Legend has it that Excelsior was supposed to fire the modified torpedo but Shatner demanded that the Enterprise do it, hence the discontinuity.
• Burke and Samno, seen in the transporter room when Gorkon and his party beam aboard, are later revealed to be the two assassins responsible for his death. The extended cut takes this further: they make disparaging remarks about the Klingons after the party has left the room, only to be stopped by Valeris .
• Colonel West, seen only in the extended cut. He is the architect of the plan to rescue Kirk and McCoy from Rura Penthe, and is later the sniper shot dead by Scotty .
• Admiral Cartwright is another, albeit minor, example: his unease of peace with Klingons makes him a party of the plot to shoot the Federation President .
• Chewing the Scenery : Chang in the final showdown; especially " Cry havoc!!! ... and let slip the dogs of war!" where it's not so much that he's shouting it at the top of his lungs, but that he's shouting it at the top of his lungs while spinning in his self-rotating captain's chair . Chang: I am constant as the Northern Star! McCoy : I'd give real money if he'd shut up.
• Comic-Book Adaptation : By DC Comics.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like : If Spock had waited a few more seconds before his Teleportation Rescue , Kirk would have had the details of who wanted him killed. Kirk: Couldn't you wait for a few more seconds? He was about to explain the whole damned thing!! Chekov: You vant to go beck!? McCoy : Absolutely Not!!! Kirk: It's cold!!!
• Sulu mentions at the end of The Voyage Home 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 . Even earlier than that, when the ship is first shown in the beginning of The Search for Spock , Sulu is gawking in amazement at it. Scotty also continues his nonplussed attitude about the ship, preferring to tip his hat to her Captain instead.
• During Kirk and McCoy 's trial, General Chang brings up Kirk's demotion in Star Trek IV, simultaneously referring to the events of Star Trek III that precipitated it. Chang: Indeed, the record shows that Captain Kirk once held the rank of Admiral and that Admiral Kirk was broken for taking matters into his own hands in defiance of regulations and the law!! [whirls on Kirk] DO YOU DENY BEING DEMOTED ON THESE CHARGES?! DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION!! ANSWER ME NOW!! note  Which is a great allegorical reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis , when UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was questioning the Soviet ambassador as to whether the Russians were moving missiles to Cuba: "Don't wait for the translation, answer 'yes' or 'no'!"
• The Enterprise -A tracks the cloaked Klingon vessel using its emissions, in the same way, the Enterprise -D does in "The Emissary" , set over 70 years later. It's stated in the TNG episode that this is possible due to the age of the Klingon ship, suggesting that this incident might have quietly led Klingon R&D to figure out how to fix that little design flaw.
• Kirk takes his own advice from “Balance Of Terror” and keeps his bigotry to his own quarters. Unfortunately for him, Valeris is listening and gives the statement that he’s never forgiven Klingons to the other side.
• When Spock is being tested on Vulcan in The Voyage Home , one of the questions has to do with a starship being followed so closely that sensors show it occupying the same space as its pursuer. Here, the first sign anything is amiss comes when sensors pick up a surge in neutron radiation that seems to be coming from the Enterprise, when it's really from the cloaked Bird-of-Prey following her.
• Cool Old Guy : Pretty much the main cast.
• Cool Starship : Excelsior finally gets to strut her stuff after her Epic Fail three movies ago . McCoy : My God, that's a big ship. Scott: Not so big as her captain, I think.
• Covers Always Lie : The main poster has the Enterprise battling a Klingon K'Tinga cruiser and Bird-of-Prey at the same time. It only fights a Bird-of-Prey in the movie, although the K'Tinga cruiser attempts to engage earlier in the film.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable : Bones, miracle doctor that he is, can revive someone with no pulse by straddling them and beating on their chest. But only after trying several more sophisticated techniques , including inserting some sort of medical device into the open chest wound. The Klingons who witness this are absolutely horrified. The patient dies after delivering his last words despite the doctor's best efforts.
• Crazy-Prepared : Gorkon, according to the novelization. He expected something to happen to him on his way to Earth, so he used his influence among his allies to ensure that Azetbur would succeed him as Chancellor. He also suspected Chang to have a part in a betrayal, hence why he tells someone to find him when Kronos One loses artificial gravity.
• Creative Closing Credits : The cast's signatures are written out on screen before the credits.
• Creator's Culture Carryover : As unlikely as it may seem, the Klingon court of the 23rd century is shown to be very similar to American courts of the 20th century, with the accused being questioned publically by the prosecutor, defense attorney Worf throwing in an "objection!" every now and then, the judge overruling them, etc.
• The space battle has Scotty doing his usual thing while the Enterprise is pummeled by torpedoes. We can also see crewmen running around with fire extinguishers on the Excelsior .
• Damage control of the political kind is shown in the opening scene. When Sulu and the Excelsior send a message offering assistance after Praxis explodes, a message from a Klingon miner screaming for help is blocked and replaced by a political response, acknowledging an internal incident, but refusing any assistance.
• Deadly Environment Prison : The underground Klingon labor camp Rura Penthe where Kirk and McCoy are imprisoned has nothing preventing prisoners from escaping — except the extreme cold and storms of the surface, where death by exposure would be a certainty (technically, there's also a magnetic field to prevent escape by transporter, but it only extends so far and it would be possible to walk out of it if not for the deadly climate). In fact, prisoners are threatened with expulsion to the surface if they don't work.
• Of Kirk again. This time, his Fantastic Racism makes him an easy Fall Guy for Gorkon's assassination.
• The Klingons in the original series were based on racist stereotypes and it wavered on whether Kirk and others were right to distrust them (with episodes like "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove" coming down on the side that Kirk isn't all that different from them), so they were the right candidates for a full-blown racism plot.
• Dedication : To Gene Roddenberry, who passed away weeks before the film's release.
• Defensive Feint Trap : Kirk attempts one of these when Chang's Bird of Prey attacks the Enterprise upon arriving at Khitomer. He orders the Enterprise into a reverse, confusing Chang momentarily, but only enough to give the Enterprise some breathing room and a few extra seconds for the Excelsior to arrive.
• Description Cut : After Kirk and Bones are sentenced to life imprisonment. Spock: If I know the Captain, he is already deep into planning his escape. [cut to Kirk getting his ass kicked]
• When meeting Valeris and hearing of her academy accomplishments. Kirk: You must be very proud. Valeris: I don't believe so, Sir. McCoy : She's a Vulcan, all right.
• During Kirk and McCoy's incarceration on Rura Penthe. McCoy : Three months before retirement... What a way to finish. Kirk: We're not finished... McCoy : Speak for yourself. One day, one night: [makes throat slitting sound] Kobayashi Maru . Kirk: Bones, are you afraid of the future? McCoy : I believe that was the general idea that I was trying to convey. Kirk: I don't mean this future. McCoy : What is this, multiple choice?
• During the battle with Chang, as the general's hammy snippets of Shakespeare are broadcast throughout the Enterprise . Chang: I AM CONSTANT AS THE NORTHERN STAR! McCoy : I'd give real money if he'd shut up.
• During the start of that same battle after the first torpedo hit. McCoy : Well this is fun.
• Deus ex Machina : The Enterprise is getting owned by the cloaked Bird-of-Prey, and then suddenly the crew realizes the ship just happens to have some never-before-mentioned equipment to catalog gaseous anomalies that can be used to totally obliterate the enemy ship. What makes this particularly bad is that Sulu and the Excelsior are the ones performing this task at the beginning of the film. The true explanation is a combination of executive and cast meddling (Shatner insisted that the Enterprise save itself). This is also explained in the novelization as being Starfleet's current ongoing giant research project of the past few years, so most ships other than Excelsior are carrying equipment for gaseous anomalies. The Star Trek Timeline also establishes this as well, with Enterprise and Excelsior specifically being mentioned so as to explain how Enterprise also had the equipment. 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...
• Disposable Woman : The book version has Carol’s settlement attacked by Klingons just as she and Kirk were getting closer (and she’s been avoiding him for three books), just to give him apparently more excuses to hate them.
• The whole film is an allegory about the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. It was released less than a few weeks before the Soviet Union actually fell. The coup that briefly deposed Mikhail Gorbachev happened in Real Life while the film was still in production. Gorkon is a clear expy of Gorbachev, as both were reform-minded leaders of a dying empire who felt co-operation with the Federation (or the West) was key for their survival.
• In addition, Praxis exploding and contaminating the Klingon homeworld is a clear reference to Chernobyl , which Gorbachev said bankrupted the Soviet Union due to containment and decontamination.
• Don't Answer That : Colonel Worf tells Kirk this during the trial. The judge insists otherwise.
• Dramatic Downstage Turn : Occurs when Kirk and McCoy are lying in their prison beds.
• Dramatically Missing the Point : Spock initially doesn't get Valeris's concern over this upcoming peace. Nicholas Meyer described the scene in Spock's quarters as Valeris having a mental breakdown, which, being a Vulcan, happens so subtly that even Spock fails to notice.
• Dramatic Shattering : Sulu's tea cup rattles off the captain's coffee table and falls to the deck when the Excelsior gets buffeted by the shockwave. Not a moment after it's in pieces on the deck, alarms and klaxons start blaring. Notably, it is not the same teacup which Sulu drinks from — the decoration was seen by the prop team as too nice to ruin.
• After the disastrous dinner, several still-drunk senior officers immediately return to duty. Chekov, in particular, is noticeably struggling to make it through his watch. Later, Chang uses this as evidence against Kirk and Bones during their trial. Kirk : Valeris, you know anything about a radiation surge? Valeris: Sir? Kirk: Chekov? Chekov : Only the size of my head. Kirk: (rubbing his head) I know what you mean.
• The watchman at the Klingon observation post is clearly hammered, which makes Uhura's task easier when she has to bluff her way past him in Klingon without the aid of the universal translator.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom : The explosion of Praxis that kicks off the events of the movie. Excelsior's visual enhancement shows that more than half the moon has been vaporized. The real-world analogue is the Chernobyl plant disaster that weakened the Soviet Union just enough to get the ball rolling.
• Eiffel Tower Effect : The Office of President of the Federation is in Paris.
• Elderly Ailment Rambling : Invoked by McCoy when he and Kirk are on trial for murdering Chancellor Gorkon, and he's asked about his medical standing. He replies, "Aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good." His effort at levity actually does get one Klingon to laugh.
• In-Universe , this is the end of the cold war between the Federation and Klingon Empire, which has defined Alpha Quadrant politics for decades. Going forward, the Federation and Klingons will be occasionally frosty, but ultimately solid friends and allies.
• Out of universe, this movie marks the end of the TOS era. Going forward, the TOS characters are largely relagated to cameos and guest roles on future Star Trek productions, at least until the reboot (which is an Alternate Universe created by time travel anyways).
• End-of-Series Awareness : While the films that continued in the original timeline after this would focus on the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast and there's later be Kelvin timeline 's Continuity Reboot , this film was the last adventure that the entire original crew would have together and, as seen by Kirk's final lines, it wasn't subtle about it, either.
• Engineered Public Confession : During the trial, Kirk's log entry in which he says, "I have never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I've never been able to forgive them for the death of my boy," is presented as proof of his motive for assassinating Gorkon. This fact is later used to incriminate Valeris as a conspirator, since it was she who was outside his quarters' open door unnoticed at that moment.
• For all the Jerkass tendencies that Kirk has about "letting the Klingons die", he turns a complete 180 when Gorkon's ship is attacked, and not of his own doing either. While Shatner's recoil was cut, Spock's aghast reaction makes Kirk look down, still ashamed of himself.
• Valeris falls for a trap that exposes her as the mole. Spock is part of the trap. He tells her that logically she must shoot him to have a chance of getting away. She cannot bring herself to do it.
• The conspirators need to get rid of the magnetic boots, but can't throw them out or destroy them. Rather than let a random innocent be accused, they hide the boots in the locker of a crewman whose species' feet are so large and abnormally shaped (compared to humans) that it is flatly impossible that he could have worn them.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good : The first thing that throws a wrench into the conspirators' plan- they assumed that, with Kronos One bearing down on him preparing to fire with a snarling General Chang spitting vitriol at him, noted Military Maverick and Klingon-hater James T. Kirk would leap at the chance to fight the Klingons again. They underestimated Kirk's actual sense of duty and dedication to the ideals of the Federation, preferring to surrender if it was the only way to prevent a war.
• The Romulans are also involved, likely just to destabilize the other two major powers of the Alpha Quadrant.
• Evil Twin : Martia, the shapeshifter who takes on Kirk's shape during their fight.
• Explosive Overclocking : The Excelsior is really bookin' it to Khitomer in the climactic scene, with galactic peace hanging in the balance. (The entire ship is rumbling from exceeding maximum safe warp speed.) Sulu: In range? Helmsman: Not yet, sir. Sulu: Come on, come on! Helmsman: She'll fly apart! Sulu: Fly her apart, then!
• Valeris, for Saavik.
• In relation to Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Spock is Holmes and Chekov is his Watson.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway : No matter which form she takes, Martia the shapeshifter keeps her eye color.
• Face Death with Dignity : Chang. Offering only a resigned, "to be, or not to be."
• Face Palm : Uhura's response to Chekov believing he has the culprit and missing the very obvious fact that their suspect can't fit in the incriminating boots.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner : Chang : "To be..." ( seeker torpedo careens about on the view screen looking for a target) Chang : "Or not..." (seeker torpedo gets a bead on their ship's exhaust trail, bridge crew braces for impact) Chang : "To be...?" (seeker torpedo flies straight towards the viewscreen's point of view, Chang averts his gaze, the whole bridge explodes on the torpedo's impact)
• Faking Engine Trouble : Starfleet orders the Enterprise to return to Spacedock, but since Chancellor Gorkon's assassins are on board, to keep them from escaping the crew keep coming up with reasons not to return, at one point telling Starfleet Command the warp drive is malfunctioning.
• False Flag Operation : The two assassination attempts. General Chang's special Bird-of-Prey makes it look like the Enteprise fired on Kronos One . Towards the end, Colonel West disguises himself as a Klingon and attempts to shoot the Federation President.
• Fantastically Challenging Patient : When Bones tries to save the wounded Klingon Gorkon, he doesn't actually cut Gorkon open, but he does insert some sort of medical device into the open chest wound. As Bones points out while trying to treat Gorkon, Klingon anatomy is not the same as Human anatomy, and Bones has no medical training in helping Klingons. Gorkon ends up dying of his wounds .
• The film really runs with this, which even caused some behind the scenes problems for most of the cast. In the film, it provides Character Development for some, especially Kirk. He goes from " Let them die" and "I never could forgive them for the death of my boy," to "I was used to hating Klingons" and "Gorkon had to die before I realized how prejudiced I was." By the end Kirk realizes that while he didn't kill Gorkon, he had an indirect involvement in his murder due to his reputation. Gorkon's sincere wish for peace and imploring of Kirk to see it through with his last breath moves Kirk to re-evaluate the Klingons as a whole, as well as himself.
• With regards to the behind the scenes problems, according to director Nicholas Meyer, Brock Peters found Admiral Cartwright's words during the briefing scene to be so offensive he needed several takes to get them all out note  Though he was supportive of the message itself, and apparently agreed having his character voice it would add to the impact . In a similar vein, Nichelle Nichols refused to speak the line "Guess who's coming to dinner?" — an intentional reference to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner — which is heard prior to the Klingons' visit to the Enterprise . The line was instead given to Walter Koenig.
• Fate Worse than Death : Being sent to Rura Penthe . Uhura: (quietly) Rura Penthe? Chekov: Known throughout the galaxy as "The Aliens' Graveyard". Scotty: Better to kill 'em now and get it over with.
• Likewise — or at least during the original release in late 1991 — it was a foregone conclusion that Bones and Spock will at least both survive the events of the film given their crossover appearances decades later in TNG's Pilot episode and "Unification".
• While Kirk and Spock are arguing about the mission after the briefing, notice the figure standing in the shadows behind Kirk? It's Valeris, setting up her role in the movie.
• After the Klingon party leaves the transporter room, crewmen Burke and Samno make vaguely racist comments about the Klingons until Valeris starts bossing them around. All three are conspirators.
• Gorkon has a pretty good idea as to who betrayed him once the shooting starts.
• Spock and Scotty discuss the possibility that someone has hacked the Enterprise 's computers. Then Valeris slides down into the room.
• Kirk's Captain's Log entry about how much he hates Klingons is used against him at his trial. Who heard him recording that log? Valeris.
• One of the missing magnetic boots is found in Dax's locker, seemingly implicating him in the assassination...except his bizarre feet prove that he couldn't have worn it. Guess whose visibly dismayed look the camera focuses on. It's...well, you get it by now...
• Final Speech : Gorkon begs Kirk with his dying breath to save the peace process, leaving Kirk shocked by cognitive dissonance. It also serves as emphasis to the foreshadowing above. He knows Kirk didn't pull this stunt. Gorkon: [weakly] Don't let it end this way, Captain...
• Freeze-Frame Bonus : As Kirk declares that he needs to board Kronos One after the torpedo hits, watch Spock's right hand as he slips a viridium patch on Kirk's shoulder. It's easy to miss as you are likely to pay more attention to Kirk ordering Uhura to tell Kronos One that he is coming aboard to assist.
• From Bad to Worse : Disaster steadily builds throughout the film, with Kirk and Spock arguing over saving the Klingons, a drunken dinner that goes very badly, the Enterprise firing on the Klingon ship, a Kangaroo Court for Kirk and McCoy's trial, them only getting out thanks to a Bed Trick played on Kirk, and Spock having to Mind Rape Valeris, looking like he’d rather die than have to do it.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy : The Klingon border guards are shown to be quite amused at the crew's stumbling Klingon, but then make a weird joke about it and send them on their way anyway. The explanation didn't make its way into the movie, but basically they're just lazy ( and drunk ) and think the crew is part of a smuggling ring that's bribing them.
• Gender Is No Object : Scenes of the crew quarters aboard both Enterprise and Excelsior reveal that enlisted crew share bunk space regardless of gender, rather than having segregated male and female berths.
• General Ripper : Chang. And Admiral Cartwright too, it seems.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper : Subverted. The boots of the conspirators are found in the locker of Crewman Dax ( no relation )... who has large webbed feet that don't fit. Chekov: Perhaps you know Russian epic of Cinderella ? If shoe fits, wear it. [drops magnetic boot at Dax's feet and smiles triumphantly] Spock: Mr. Chekov... [gestures at Dax's decidedly nonhuman feet. Uhura facepalms.]
• Glass Cannon : Chang's Bird-of-Prey may be able to use its weapons while cloaked, but it still can't use shields at the same time. Although it's able to do quite a lot of damage to both the Enterprise -A and Excelsior while they're unable to effectively fight back, once they do pinpoint its location, they make short work of it.
• Godwin's Law : Kirk makes a comparison between the Klingon's request for "living space" with Hitler's demands for Lebensraum at the diplomatic dinner (whilst not being very diplomatic). Needlessly to say, this comparison goes down really really badly. Becomes worse when the two Klingons most likely to get it are the traitorous conspiratorial one obsessed with Earth culture and the one who had probably done his research on their planet and history for the forthcoming peace talks. I.e. the two worst of the group to offend with the comparison. However, the latter understood Kirk's old prejudice perfectly and didn't hold it against him, and the former probably goaded Kirk to say that.
• Got Volunteered : Kirk and the Enterprise are volunteered to escort Chancellor Gorkon to the peace conference without his knowledge, with Spock "personally vouching" for him. He is not amused. Spock: I have personally vouched for you in this matter, Captain. Kirk: You have personally vouched...? [...] How could you vouch for me? That's...arrogant presumption.
• Grand Finale : Advertised as such, with Star Trek: The Next Generation going strong and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in development, this movie was intended as a swan song and made explicit in the end. The following Trek movie Star Trek: Generations serves as more of a coda for Kirk.
• Groin Attack : Kirk gets in a fight with a big blue alien and ends it by kicking the alien in the knee. Or so he thinks. Martia: That was not his knee. [beat, Kirk and McCoy look confused] Martia: Not everybody keeps their genitals in the same place, Captain. Kirk: Anything you wanna tell me? Martia: [big grin]
• Gunship Rescue : Downplayed, as the Excelsior arriving on the scene in the climax doesn't do much more than give Chang another target (although it does take some heat off the battered Enterprise ). Once they find a way around the cloak, however, their combined firepower makes short work of the Bird-of-Prey. Sulu: Target that explosion and fire .
• William Shatner vs. Christopher Plummer. The survivors likely envy the dead.
• At one point it's Shatner vs. Shatner, which reaches hamageddon levels. Kirk: I can't believe I kissed you. Martia-as-Kirk: Must have been your life-long ambition!
• Hangover Sensitivity : Poor Chekov is visibly struggling to make it through his bridge watch after the Romulan Ale-soaked diplomatic dinner; prompting Kirk to grumble about his own hangover.
• Hard-Work Montage : The crew of the Enterprise searching for uniforms with Klingon blood.
• The Heavy : General Chang is the most prominent antagonist for the Enterprise , but he is really only the enforcer of an interstellar conspiracy, not its leader. It's not even clear if he is the most highly-ranked Klingon who is party to it, or which side initiated the conspiracy in the first place.
• Heel Realization : Kirk realizing his intolerance of the Klingons made him the perfect patsy for Chancellor Gorkon's assassination . During his prison stay, Gorkon's last words haunt him as well. Kirk: Gorkon had to die before I realized how prejudiced I was.
• He Knows Too Much : The assassins are killed before they can be discovered and interrogated. Valeris is nearly killed herself at the end, when she's presented as evidence against the conspiracy, but Scotty shoots the would-be assassin first.
• High-Tech Hexagons : Sulu's tea table on the Excelsior 's bridge is an illuminated oblique hexagonal prism. note  Behind-the-scenes, this helped mask one of the gimbals used to shake the bridge set.
• His Name Is... : The warden of Rura Penthe engages in a little Just Between You and Me with Kirk and McCoy , but an inopportune rescue by Spock ruins the reveal.
• Hoist by His Own Petard : Kirk and McCoy would have never escaped if Chang hadn’t ordered the Gulag warden to help them escape. Instead, Kirk and McCoy would have simply languished in prison, the Enterprise would have been waiting around in Klingon space for nothing, the Federation President’s assassination would have gone on as planned, and Chang and his crew would have lived... at least until the Federation–Klingon War.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs : Colonel West: ...Now, we have the technology to— President Ra-ghoratreii: Yes, yes I know. But suppose you precipitate a full-scale war? Colonel West: Then quite frankly, Mr. President, we can clean their chronometers * clocks .
• Homage : The speech that the warden gives Kirk and McCoy upon their entry to Rura Penthe is a paraphrase of Colonel Saito's speech to captured British P.O.W.s in The Bridge on the River Kwai . For comparison: Colonel Saito: If you work hard, you will be treated well. But if you do not work hard, you will be punished! A word to you about escape. There is no barbed wire, no stockade, no watchtower. They are not necessary. We are an island in the jungle. Escape is impossible. You would die. Rura Penthe Warden: This is the gulag Rura Penthe. There is no stockade. No guard tower. No electronic frontier. Only a magnetic shield prevents beaming. Punishment means exile from prison, to the surface. On the surface, nothing can survive. Work well, and you will be treated well. Work badly, and you will die.
• Spock's briefing indicates that saving Qo'noS is economically impossible for the Klingon Empire, which spends far too much on the military, not that it's technologically impossible, echoing a common understanding of reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the peace treaty and eventual integration into the Federation, saving Qo'noS presumably became a more realistic prospect.
• Homing Projectile : Enterprise is only able to counterattack Chang's cloaked Bird of Prey by mounting equipment for gaseous anomaly tracking into a photon torpedo's guidance system. Once launched, the torpedo follows the invisible trail of plasma exhaust from the Bird of Prey's impulse engines until it hits its target.
• Honor Before Reason : General Chang hailing Captain Kirk before attacking counts as this as well, as he risked sacrificing the element of surprise to do so even considering his ship's advanced cloaking device. Then again, he considers Kirk a Worthy Opponent and presumably saw it fitting to formally challenge him before engaging him.
• Human Outside, Alien Inside : As Bones points out while trying to treat Gorkon, Klingon anatomy is not the same as Human anatomy, and Bones has no medical training in helping Klingons. Gorkon ends up dying of his wounds.
• Valeris argues that the Klingons are untrustworthy because they've conspired with the Federation to assassinate their own chancellor, when that very same conspiracy plans to assassinate the Federation president. Not to mention the fact that she herself is in on the conspiracy...
• Azetbur accuses the Federation of this in her Inhumanable Alien Rights rant, saying they profess a dedication to equality but are really a " Homo sapiens only " club. Another Klingon immediately acknowledges the presence of Spock, who is half-Vulcan (and identifies as Vulcan rather than human). But then again, getting into the reasons why Spock serves with a human crew and not a Vulcan crew wouldn't help the Federation's case either.
• I Did What I Had to Do : Spock's reaction to the forced mindmeld with Valeris is made entirely of this trope.
• Identical Grandson : Michael Dorn portrays Colonel Worf, the grandfather and namesake of his TNG -era character. There was going to be a scene showing Colonel Worf talking with his young son, Mogh, but it was unfortunately cut. Downplayed in that the make-up for Dorn was significantly different than the TNG Worf note  TNG Klingon make-up generally enlarged the size of their head with large crests, whereas Klingons in this film were more subdued which in turn makes it more of a family resemblance than actually being identical.
• IKEA Weaponry : The sniper rifle used at the conference.
• Inciting Incident : The Praxis explosion and resulting Planar Shockwave .
• Inconvenient Summons : Kirk and McCoy are caught by the warden of Rura Penthe trying to escape, and are about to be executed, so Kirk figures he might as well ask who's behind the conspiracy. The warden decides to oblige. Hilarity Ensues . Kirk: "Killed while trying to escape." McCoy : Damned clever if you ask me. Kirk : It's a classic. Klingon Warden : That's what he wanted. Kirk : Who? Who wanted us killed? Klingon Warden : Since you're all going to die anyway, why not tell you ? His Name Is... Enterprise : (transporter beam!) Kirk: [dematerializing] Oh! Not... SON OF A... Klingons : [start shooting futilely] Kirk : [rematerializing back on the Enterprise ] OF A BI... BI... BI... Dammit to hell! Of all the... son of a... Couldn't you have waited two seconds? Spock : [utterly perplexed] Captain...? Kirk : He was just about to explain the whole thing! Chekov : You vant to go beck!? McCoy : Absolutely not! Kirk : ...It's cold!
• I Need a Freaking Drink : Just after the diplomatic dinner on the Enterprise , McCoy leaves the transporter room proclaiming, "I'm going to go find a pot of black coffee." Ironically, he's already drunk at the time, making this "I need to sober up" .
• Instant Emergency Response : Valeris firing a phaser set to disinergrate not only sets off an alarm, but summons security along with half the ship.
• Though it has been pointed out that the Germans made the same claim in the 1930s and that in conjunction with Chang's echoing of Nazi talking points was an intentional choice to by the production staff to lead into Kirk's retort.
• Likewise, Spock's deadpan humor is on display when he says that "Only Nixon could go to China" is an "old Vulcan proverb."
• Spock gets in another one when he quotes Sherlock Holmes as something an ancestor of his said. Either he's saying a Vulcan had the same thought, or he's related to Arthur Conan Doyle on his mother's side.
• Chekov gets one more "invented in Russia" gag in this, the final TOS movie. Chekov: Perhaps you have heard Russian epic of Cinderella ? If shoe fits, wear it!
• Incoming! : Chekov when the Bird-of-Prey is blasting away at them. Rather than shouting it, he mutters it with resignation .
• Incoming Ham : "I can see you, Kirk. Can you see me?"
• Invisibility Flicker : Klingon warships have to decloak before they can fire. Except Chang's. Even then, the exception is briefly lit up by its own torpedoes every time it fires one.
• Several times Valeris asks Spock, "A lie?" and he responds that it is something else (e.g. "An error"). After she is caught as a traitor , he asks her, "A lie?" and she responds, "A choice." Which is a callback to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan : Saavik: You lied? Spock: I exaggerated.
• When Kirk and Chang first meet, Chang says "I've always wanted to meet you, Captain. One warrior to another?" Later, during Chang's Incoming Ham moment he says, "Now be honest Captain, warrior to warrior. You do prefer it this way, don't you? No peace in our time, as it was meant to be." His last sentence is also a Call-Back to Kirk calling him out on demanding "breathing room" earlier via Godwin's Law .
• Ironic Echo Cut : Spock: "If I know the Captain, by this time, he is deep into planning his escape." Cut to Kirk getting the crap kicked out of him in a prison brawl.
• Irony : The conspiracy to prevent Klingon/Federation cooperation proves Klingon/Federation cooperation is possible.
• Kirk believes this, for not taking Gorkon at his word, and also for his prejudice as a whole against Klingons.
• Spock blames himself for being too idealistic and putting Kirk in a nearly untenable position, and for being blinded by pride for his protege, who turned out to be a traitor .
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine : William Shatner was once Christopher Plummer's understudy. Here they play enemies.
• General Chang was actually confused over his silverware napkin roll until he watched the Federation delegation use theirs.
• Jerkass Has a Point : The Klingon ambassador is an ass, but even Sarek has to admit that he's correct in his legal interpretation that the Klingons have every right to try Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy for Gorkon's assassination. Of course, that was General Chang's plan all along.
• Just Between You and Me : Subverted; Kirk and McCoy are beamed out before the warden can give them a name.
• Kangaroo Court : Kirk and McCoy's "trial". At least their defense lawyer (Worf's Identical Grandfather and namesake, Colonel Worf) is actually trying. Indeed, his efforts are likely the only reason they aren't executed immediately.
• The Kingslayer : The assassination of Klingon Chancellor Gorkon threatens to derail the burgeoning peace process between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. While Kirk initially takes the fall for it, Spock launches an investigation aboard the Enterprise to find the two hitmen, which he does... though only after they've been killed to protect the rest of the conspirators.
• Kirk Summation : Happens one last time. Kirk and Spock set a trap for The Mole on the Enterprise sabotaging peace talks between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. Spock sees it's Valeris. Spock: You have to shoot. ( Valeris stares in shock ) Spock: If you are logical, you have to shoot. Valeris: ( pause ) I do not wish to . ( Spock gets out of of the biobed and imposes himself at Valeris, daring her to shoot him square in the chest ) Spock: What you want is irrelevant , what you've chosen is at hand ! Kirk: (popping up out of another biobed) I'd just as soon you didn't. ( Spock angrily smacks the phaser from Valeris' hands ) McCoy : (emerging from shadows) The operation is over.
• Large Ham : Christopher Plummer as Chang, rivaling even Khan. Lampshaded when McCoy exclaims, "I'd give real money if he'd shut up."
• Laser Cutter : The prisoners on Rura Penthe are shown using laser guns to burn away the rock around dilithium crystals.
• Latex Perfection : The Klingon assassin is Starfleet's Colonel West with some rubber on his forehead .
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall : The TOS cast was aware that this would be their last story together, and it shows in the film.
• Lensman Arms Race : The Fire-While-Cloaking device is a game-changer, allowing klingon ships to not even need to decloak to engage a target. A klingon warship so equipped could simply fire just one torpedo and move to another position to become untouchable, as the Enterprise and Excelsior experienced. Unfortunately, it was doomed before the end of its first real engagement: Not only did peace breaking out make it unneeded, but Starfleet ingenuity developed a hard counter on the fly with off-the-shelf parts in the first engagement by adapting gaseous anomaly cataloguing sensors to a photon torpedo guidance system , homing in on the impulse exhaust trail that not even cloaked ships can avoid emitting.
• Lethal Harmless Powers : Even when set on "stun", a phaser can be deadly at extreme close range. Yeomen Burke and Samno find this out the hard way.
• Like a Surgeon : The modification of a torpedo to target a cloaked ship is treated like a surgery, mainly to justify McCoy assisting Spock with it and to toss in some jokes.
• Literary Allusion Title : To William Shakespeare . Allusions to Shakespeare were a regular occurrence in episode titles in The Original Series . The Undiscovered Country was likely intended to be a nod to tradition. Gorkon's Title Drop during the dinner on board the Enterprise directly references this allusion.
• Macross Missile Massacre : Once Chang's Bird-of-Prey is revealed, the Enterprise and the Excelsior torpedo the hell out of her until she explodes. Downplayed, as it's something like a total of seven torpedoes.
• Magic A Is Magic A : It's once again emphasized that a bird-of-prey must decloak before it can attack. The existence of a bird-of-prey that isn't so limited is a major game-changer and a dire threat that our heroes are scrambling to overcome.
• Make It Look Like an Accident : Subverted. Once outside the Rura Penthe shield, Kirk notes that they couldn't just have himself and McCoy killed in an "accident". Martia clarifies that an accident would have only been reasonable for one, so the conspirators required a more "convincing" alternative. Kirk: An accident wasn't good enough. Martia: Good enough for one. Two would have looked suspicious. Killed while [transforms into Kirk] attempting to escape? Now that's convincing for both .
• Make Sure He's Dead : Part of Kirk's effort in Bluffing the Murderer . Valeris is forced to enter sick bay in order to "finish" the job of "killing" Burke and Samno, who are actually already dead.
• Make the Bear Angry Again : A Recycled In Space variant.
• Sulu and everyone else on the Excelsior bridge at the beginning, when they see the Praxis Shockwave hurtling towards the ship: Sulu: My... God! Shields! SHIELDS!
• The entire senior staff of the Enterprise has one at around midnight, all severely hung over (Except perhaps Spock). Spock talks about a peculiar sensor signature, they all commiserate about their hangovers... and then a torpedo comes seemingly out of the Enterprise and slams into Kronos One . Kirk: What's happened?! Spock: We have fired on the Chancellor's ship! (Bridge crew all start scrambling at their stations to assess the situation)
• When Kirk's log entry, in which he says "I have never trusted Klingons, and I never will..." is played in the trial, everybody in the Federation realizes how screwed Kirk and McCoy are now. (Not to mention revealing that The Mole is aboard the Enterprise .)
• Chang and his crew slowly gets this look all over their faces during the finale when the Enterprise fires out the Homing Projectile that gradually works its way toward them...
• Meaningful Name : "Praxis" is an accepted custom or practice. When the Klingon moon Praxis is obliterated, it makes the Klingon Empire reconsider their longtime hostilities with the Federation, making them do the same towards them.
• Metaphorically True : Spock says that his lies are "An error" and "An omission." Valeris then says that her lie is "A choice."
• In the novelization, it's very different: Valeris is terrified by the knowledge that Spock could force his way into her mind with his superior mental training, but Spock doesn't do this. He gently inquires telepathically and she is so relieved that she yields without resistance. As to whether the threat of mind rape is morally superior to actual mind rape, YMMV.
• In a promotional interview for the film, Cattrall revealed that her character and Nimoy's have a mind meld, and then crowed "I got to have safe sex with Mr. Spock!" Um...yeah, not so much.
• It has to be added that the actual scene is not as bad as this exchange makes it sound. Nimoy's acting make it painfully apparent that it isn't something Spock takes on lightly, and he is almost as badly affected as Valeris. His voice cracks badly as he delivers the information ( especially when concluding after deep-digging that she doesn't know the conference's location), and he is clearly struggling to hold it together himself.
• The Mole : Valeris.
• Mood Whiplash : Kirk and his officers are on the bridge, struggling to make it through their shift while in the grip of a Romulan ale hangover, when a photon torpedo suddenly hits Qo'noS One .
• Morton's Fork : Chang gets Kirk to admit that he's disobeyed orders in the past, then asks him if he was either obeying or disobeying orders when he arranged the assassination of the Chancellor. Such a blatant trap is easily avoided by Kirk (he cannot speak to actions he did not witness), but in turn allows Chang to lead him into admitting that he would be responsible if his men were involved (which they were).
• Murder by Inaction : Kirk refuses to help the Klingon by proclaiming they can just die for all he cares.
• Spock has this aura to him after he Mind Rapes Valeris to get the information to spot the Presidential assassination.
• In a more minor example, Kirk has this reaction after he bites out "LET them die!", especially when the words are later thrown back in his face by Valeris .
• The novelization, at least, provides a slightly more rational explanation for why they were scrambling to look up Klingon phrases in old paper books, instead of using the Universal Translator — namely, that the same saboteur(s) who had altered the ship's logs to make it look like the Enterprise had fired on the Chancellor's ship also wiped the Klingon language data from the memory banks to keep the Enterprise from crossing Klingon space without giving themselves away as soon as someone tried to establish communications with them. The books were part of Uhura's personal collection, not part of the ship's library, so the saboteur presumably didn't know about them, or didn't have any opportunity to destroy them.
• Nichelle Nichols has previously pointed out the obvious logical flaw about the scene: Given that Uhura was the ship's communications officer, and that the Klingon Empire was a hostile foreign power, she would have learned the Klingon language as part of her training. It simply makes no sense that Starfleet would send the Enterprise on such a delicate diplomatic mission without proper preparation.
• Worf's Identical Grandfather .
• Bones' exasperated, "What is it with you?!'' after Kirk kisses Martia . Kirk: Still think we're finished? Bones: More than ever.
• This exchange: Kirk: I can't believe I kissed you! Martia (as Kirk): Must have been your life-long ambition!
• Near-Villain Victory : The Big Bad nearly destroys the Enterprise and the conspirators nearly succeed in assassinating the Federation President, but the Excelsior helps buy the Enterprise time to complete its Plasma-Seeking Torpedo to find and kill Chang so they can get to the planet in time to save the day .
• Never Trust a Trailer : Trailers for the movie showcased a scene of Kirk getting phasered and vaporizing . Turns out it was just a shape-shifter . Also, the shot used in the trailer lasts a lot longer than the near-instant fate of the character involved.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain : Kirk and McCoy wouldn't have been able to escape Rura Penthe if not for the villains' plot to engineer an escape attempt to have an excuse to kill them.
• No Gravity for You : One Klingon tactic involves doing this to an entire boarded ship.
• No-Paper Future : Subverted when Uhura is trying to pass for a Klingon ship at Morskika Post. Since she can’t use the Universal Translator , she and the crew flip through Klingon books to formulate a proper Klingon response.
• No, You : When Admiral Cartwright demands the crew of the Enterprise arrested for crashing the Khitomer Conference, Spock responds by saying, "Arrest yourself!" while holding up Valeris, revealing to him that they know everything .
• No OSHA Compliance : This is cited as one of the reasons for Praxis exploding. Overmining and under-regulation turned it into a disaster waiting to happen, just like its real-life inspiration .
• Noble Bigot : Despite their grievances against the Klingons, the Enterprise crew, including Kirk, who initially was unable to forgive the Klingons for his son's death , still pursue their crusade for interstellar peace between Starfleet and the Klingons.
• Not So Stoic : Spock is legitimately angry when Valeris is revealed to be The Mole and it shows when he slaps the phaser out of her hand with a clear look of anger on his face.
• Official Presidential Transport : The Klingon battlecruiser that carries Chancellor Gorkon to the rendezvous with the Enterprise is Kronos One ( Qo'noS Wa '), Kronos (also rendered as Qo'noS) being the name of the Klingon homeworld.
• That Ominous Klingon Chanting is actually Hamlet's To be, or not to be? in its original Klingon .
• KIRK! KIRK! KIRK! KIRK! KIRK! KIRK!
• Kirk gets two of them during the movie: Once, when McCoy tells him that he doesn't know anything about the Chancellor's anatomy, let alone if the Klingon leader will live, and the second when he is being questioned and Chang forces him to admit to guilt by association in the Chancellor's death.
• When Crewman Dax is questioned about the assassination after the gravity boots were found on his locker, the crew realize his webbed feet cannot possibly fit into those boots. Cut to Valeris having a dismayed reaction on her face. We later find out that she too was in the plot, and her face was actually a very subdued Oh, Crap! when she realizes Burke and Samno clumsily disposed of evidence that can now be used against (potentially) all three of them. This sets her off to kill both Burke and Samno in an effort to hide her role in the assassination. She gets another one of these moments when she is exposed as The Mole in Sick Bay.
• Chang has a brief moment when Enterprise fires the torpedo that can home in on his ship...but rather than freak out about it, he decides to Face Death with Dignity .
• Admiral Cartwright has this expression when Spock shows up with Valeris in tow, as the whole conspiracy is about to be revealed. And then again when he tries to book it , only for Captain Sulu and two of his men to beam down with phasers drawn, cutting off his escape.
• Older and Wiser : The TOS crew by this time. Spock shows this in his private conversation with Valeris: Spock: History is replete with turning points, Lieutenant. You must have faith. Valeris: Faith? Spock: That the universe will unfold as it should. Valeris: But is that logical? Surely we must— Spock: Logic, logic, logic ... logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations : Kirk and Spock's chat before the final battle. Kirk is regretting that his distrust towards Klingons made him the perfect patsy for the assassination and made refuse to see Gorkon as earnest, while Spock is beating himself up about being too biased towards Valeris and her achievements to notice her hidden agenda. .
• Only One Finds It Fun : When McCoy is on the witness stand during the trial, he is asked about his medical status. He answers, "Aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good." One Klingon laughs, but everyone else is silent.
• Only One Plausible Suspect : Towards the end of the movie we discover there's a traitor aboard the Enterprise . Since the movie has only one major character among the Enterprise crew who's not a series regular , it's not very hard to guess who the traitor could be. If they'd gone with the original plan for Valeris to be Saavik instead it might have been harder to predict, not to mention considerably more shocking.
• Only Sane Man : Chancellor Gorkon.
• The Klingon miner on Praxis shouting for help just before the moon's explosion. In the novelization , Sulu reflects that he's never seen abject terror on a Klingon's face before and never thought he would.
• Later, when he's about to interrogate Valeris via a non-consensual mind-meld , he roughly yanks her around to face him, and pulls her close when she tries to get away.
• When Kronos One recovers from the attack it turns around ready to attack the Enterprise , with Chang vowing revenge. Kirk immediately surrenders rather than raise shields, as submitting to them is the only course of action to continue peace talks. The crew knows the reasons why, but are stunned because this is Captain James Tiberius Kirk surrendering to the enemy.
• Orbital Shot : The forced Mind Meld.
• Our Presidents Are Different : President Target of the United Federation of Planets and Chancellor Target of the Klingon Empire.
• Kirk surrendering the fight when the Klingon ship recovers and prepares to return fire. The Enterprise almost certainly would have won, but in doing so would have kicked off a war between the two powers (undoubtedly the conspirators' plan). He is doing everything possible to keep the chance for peace alive after what happened. Uhura's response says it all. Kirk: Signal our surrender. Uhura: Captain!? Kirk: We surrender!
• Spock is legitimately hurt and angry over Valeris' betrayal, and makes no attempts to hide it. Even throwing logic in her face by outright daring her to shoot him. You can see the scorn on his face as he slaps the phaser out of her hand.
• During the climax as the conspirators are preparing to kill the Federation president, one of them, Admiral Cartright , is shown with sweat soaking his face.
• One of the engineers in the Enterprise 's engine room is dripping nervously as well, as an invisible foe is probably lurking around Khitomer, waiting to tear the Enterprise apart.
• Peace Conference : The First Khitomer Accord, ending decades of hostility between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner : Sulu: Target that explosion and fire.
• Precision F-Strike : Though remarkably tame, it is certainly one for Spock after hearing the Enterprise is to be decommissioned : Spock: If I were human, I believe my response would be, "go to hell." ... If I were human.
• Prevent the War : The Enterprise 's crew has to figure out the plot to assassinate Gorkon and jail Kirk in order to save the peace conference and stop war from breaking out.
• Properly Paranoid : In a subtle moment, Spock refuses to explain how Enterprise will be able to track Kirk and McCoy , only that they can, no doubt holding his cards close to the vest since he knows Enterprise has a mole on board. As it turns out, he's standing in front of the mole without even realizing it, making any such paranoia even more justified.
• Public Domain Canon Welding : Hinted at when Spock states that, "An ancestor of mine maintained that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." This is, of course, a Sherlock Holmes quote. Since Holmes is established as fictional in other Star Trek media, fans usually interpret this as Spock declaring himself to be a descendant of Arthur Conan Doyle via his mother.
• Questionable Consent : The book makes it more explicit that Martia pushes themself on Kirk, kissing and “spooning”, and he doesn’t resist due to wanting to get out of there, but still feels sick whenever they touch him or leer after.
• Realpolitik : Kirk is among the more skeptical officers when it came to the Klingon peace treaty, but is volunteered by Spock to lead the first diplomatic envoy. The fact Kirk was anti-Klingon was being used to give legitimacy to the peace talks, a more compliant officer would have made the Klingons question their commitment and the Federation would worry about being too submissive. When Kirk objects, Spock quotes an Old Vulcan Proverb "Only Nixon could go to China," making it absolutely clear what the movie was trying to reference.
• Recycled In Space : Although the theme of the movie is an allegory for the end of the Cold War , the plot is basically the trope Make the Bear Angry Again (a popular plot in contemporary thrillers) applied to the Klingon empire.
• Revenge Before Reason : Kirk certainly walks the line at first. Kirk: They're animals! Spock: Jim, there is an historic opportunity here. Kirk: Don't believe them! Don't trust them! Spock: They're dying. Kirk: Let them die!
• Revision : This is the first Trek production to establish "Chancellor" as the title of the leader of the Klingon empire — in the second-to-fourth seasons of TNG note  chronologically after this film, of course, but made and released before it , Klingon leaders K'mpec and Gowron had been referred to only as "Leader of the High Council". note  In fact, the title of chancellor wouldn't resurface until DS9 's The Way Of The Warrior . It's also the first time the Klingon homeworld is named as "Qo'nos" (Kronos); an early TNG episode had previously suggested it was called " Kling ".
• After Gorkon and his staff leave the transporter room on the Enterprise, the two Starfleet security officers left behind begin talking to each other about how disgusting the Klingons are , only to be brought up short by a disapproving Valeris who tells them to get on with their work. Watching it with the knowledge that these two, Burke and Samno, would be the assassins of Gorkon and Valeris is their superior in the conspiracy means that what Valeris actually means is "Stop clowning around making yourselves look suspicious and get ready to carry out your mission".
• After it's shown that Crewman Dax, whose locker the magnetic boot was found in, couldn't possibly have been the one who wore it, we cut to Valeris, who has a look of obvious dismay on her face. Knowing the above point about her role in the conspiracy, it's likely she was thinking "Those idiots !"
• Riding into the Sunset : In this case, going to warp toward a nearby star. Or Neverland , as Kirk alludes.
• Rousing Speech : Kirk, in the aftermath of averting the assassination, though it's rather more poignant than rousing. Azetbur: What's happened? What's the meaning of all this? Kirk: It's about the future, Madam Chancellor. Some people think the future means the end of history. But we haven't run out of history just yet. Your father called the future "the undiscovered country." People can be very frightened of change. (Azetbur glances at Lt. Valeris held in Spock's custody) Azetbur: You've restored my father's faith. Kirk: And you've restored my son's.
• Running Gag : Multiple people come charging into the galley wondering why a phaser discharge alarm sounded in there after Valeris demonstrates to Chekov how the assassins couldn't simply vaporize their incriminating footwear with a phaser; Uhura, Scotty, a security offer decked out in armor with his own phaser in hand... Chekov spends the rest of the scene having to tell everyone it's alright each time it happens. It does conveniently bring Uhura down with news about Starfleet Command's increasingly demanding order to return to port, as well as Scotty so Spock can solve the problem by order him to "have trouble with the warp drive" .
• Scenery Porn : The aerial shot of Kirk, McCoy and Martia trudging across the wastes of Rura Penthe (in actuality the Knik Glacier in Alaska) is stunning.
• Praxis must be really close to the neutral zone in order for the Excelsior to have been caught in the Planar Shockwave . (It is said to be a subspace shockwave rather than a plain old STL shockwave.)
• The Excelsior is said to be returning home on impulse power, which is unlikely unless they were already near their destination (or taking some time to perform maintenance on their warp drive). It would take years to travel between stars at sublight speeds note  The distances are so great, in fact, that any sublight travel is, effectively, not traveling at all compared to warp speed . This is likely out of necessity to the plot as it would be the ship being hit by the Planar Shockwave . note  During production of Star Trek: The Next Generation , there were a lot of shots of the Enterprise -D on impulse power, and a behind-the-scenes Technical Manual explained that warp speeds can only be sustained for periods of time before they need to drop out of warp and recalibrate. The producers indicated that warp effects were actually expensive to produce which is why these stock impulse shots were used. Presumably the Excelsior needs to do this as well, given that it is an earlier vessel than the Enterprise -D.
• The image is obvious CG. It’s not an actual photo of Praxis, but a computer representation of what remains of Praxis given various data available from the sensors.
• Screen Shake : Present as usual for Trek — and also enforced , as the bridge sets were built on gimbals to allow them to actually shake.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here : Admiral Cartwright tries to high-tail it as The Plan to assassinate President Ra-ghoratreii falls apart — only to run into Captain Sulu and his team, phasers at the ready.
• See the Invisible : Once the plasma-homing torpedo hits Chang's Bird-of-Prey, the Excelsior and the Enterprise are able to target the resulting explosion. Their continued fire soon knocks out the cloaking shield, rendering the Bird-of-Prey visible just before it comes apart.
• Shapeshifting Squick : Kirk is a little weirded out when the female alien he made out with shows up as a furry male alien. McCoy : What kind of creature is this? Last night, you two were— Kirk: Don't remind me.
• Ship Tease : Very subtly between Spock and Valeris, reflected in their UST-filled nightcap and his emotional response to her betrayal. This is likely a remnant of the original script, which was to have the established character of Saavik instead of Valeris (reflecting the fact Spock and Saavik were strongly implied to have mated in Star Trek III and a deleted scene in Star Trek IV had established that Saavik was pregnant with Spock's child; in the Expanded Universe novels, Spock and Saavik eventually marry.)
• The last line before the final voice over is a reference to the 1953 Disney film Peter Pan (the directions to Neverland). Kirk: Second star to the right ... and straight on till morning.
• To Sherlock Holmes , when Spock says, "One of my ancestors once said, 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" Gene Roddenberry had established as part of Spock's Backstory that Arthur Conan Doyle , creator of Sherlock Holmes, was one of Spock's ancestors on his mother's side.
• Chang's demand that Kirk not wait for the translation of a question, but answer it immediately, is straight from an earlier (pre-TOS, in fact) US-Soviet confrontation, the Cuban Missile Crisis . In that case, it was Adlai Stevenson insisting that the Soviet delegate to the UN answer simply yes or no as to whether they were putting missiles in Cuba.
• The Warden's speech is almost a word-for-word paraphrasing of Saito's "There is no escape" speech from The Bridge on the River Kwai .
• The Translation Convention device listed below that demonstrates the Klingons at Kirk and McCoy 's trial are speaking their own language through interpreters. A very similar device was used several decades earlier in the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg (which incidentally featured a young William Shatner in a supporting role).
• Rura Penthe shares its name with the penal colony from the 1954 film adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea .
• Its very title is from Hamlet : "[D]eath — the undiscovered country, from whose bourne/No traveler returns". (III.i)
• Martia: I thought I would assume a pleasing shape.
• Gorkon: A toast. To the undiscovered country — the future!
• Chang: To be... or not... to be...
• Chang: Have we not heard the chimes at midnight? note  A slight misquote converting the original play's statement, "We have heard the chimes at midnight..." into a question.
• Chang: Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
• Chang: The game's afoot.
• Chang: Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!
• Chang: I am constant as the northern star. note  Bones: I'd give real money if he'd shut up .
• Chang: Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge? note  He abbreviates the delivery a bit and leaves out "Kill us, do we not die?".
• Chang: Let us sit upon the grass and tell sad stories of the death of kings.
• Chang: Parting is such sweet sorrow.
• Chang: Our revels now are ended.
• Silent Whisper : Right after the bodies of Chancellor Gorkon's killers are found, Kirk takes Spock aside and they have an inaudible conversation. At the end Spock says, "Possible." It turns out to be an idea to lure the killers' killer out.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor : Valeris.
• Slasher Smile : William Shatner gives a great one as Martia!Kirk, when saying, "killed while trying to escape."
• Slow Clap : After Kirk saves the peace summit, the participants all start up. Including the "Ass" in Ambassador who hates him.
• Snowy Screen of Death : From what's left of Praxis, followed by a transmission from Brigadier Kerla saying that everything's under control .
• So Once Again, the Day Is Saved : Having saved the Federation so many times, the TOS crew can joke about it: Kirk: Once again, we've saved civilization as we know it. McCoy : And the good news is, they're not going to prosecute!
• Space Cold War : One of the more blatant allegories to come out of this period.
• Nothing new to Trek , but this movie subtly does a lot to give the feeling that the Enterprise is a naval vessel in space, right down to the computerized ship's bell dinging in a few scenes.
• Even moreso for this movie's Bird-of-Prey, which is the only one in the entire franchise to use a large ship's wheel at the helm.
• The explosion of Praxis sends out the space equivalent of a tsunami, which happens to be at the exact height in space to hit the Excelsior .
• The climactic battle gives the impression of two surface warships attempting to hunt down an enemy submarine. It does have 3D aspects, as enemy fire comes from all directions and heights. No one ever saw, for instance, the saucer section of the Enterprise being struck from below . The torpedo tearing through the saucer is inspired by cannonballs tearing through wooden ships.
• If ships having to uncloak to attack are like a diesel submarine needing to surface for air and to run the engines, then a ship that can fire while cloaked is like a nuclear submarine, with no need to surface at all. Thus, the gas-seeking photon torpedo is like an acoustically-guided anti-sub torpedo.
• Azetbur's ascension to the Klingon Chancellery also ends up being a major wrench in the conspiracy. She continues the Gorkon initative rather than abandon it out of vengeance or wrath against the Federation for her father's murder. This, combined with Colonel Worf's defense, results in the Klingon Judge commuting Kirk and McCoy's death sentences to life imprisonment during the Trial in the interest of the peace process. Look closely at Chang's reaction after the Judge's commutation; he's not happy, and knows this has just made things more complicated for the conspirators.
• Spot the Imposter : The reason Martia is able to escape is the same reason the Warden is able to figure out she isn't Kirk when he kills her: she took off her leg cuffs. Of course, given the Warden's plans for Kirk and McCoy , it wouldn't matter if he chose wrong anyways. There are a couple other giveaways as well: Martia always has gold eyes, and she points above Kirk instead of at him, since she is used to being shorter than him.
• State Visit : In the aftermath of the Praxis explosion, the Federation extends an invitation to the chancellor of the Klingon Empire to come to Earth to initiate negotiations that would result in the end of the Space Cold War .
• Standard Female Grab Area : Spock to Valeris when they mind-meld and after she's revealed as the traitor .
• Sticky Shoes : The assassins boarding Kronos One after the artificial gravity is disabled wear magnetic boots, allowing them to calmly stomp around shooting everyone in their path as they flail about helplessly.
• The scene where the Enterprise glides towards the spacedock doors is a reuse of the "zoom in on Enterprise " shot from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , just with the Excelsior removed and the background tint changed to blue.
• The second trailer has a minor scene from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , of the Enterprise getting shot by a torpedo.
• The Excelsior racing at top speed and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey exploding are re-used as stock footage in the next movie, Star Trek: Generations .
• Suicide by Cop : The book has Kirk briefly consider suicide by fighting with Klingons, as it’s preferable to retiring and dying an old man in bed, before deciding he can’t drag his crew down with him.
• Kirk and his officers are visibly hung over at their bridge shift after drinking too much Romulan ale — until a photon torpedo suddenly hits Kronos One . Then again, nothing suddenly causes you to gain focus like the prospect of interstellar war starting on your watch...
• Unfortunately subverted in the case of Dr. McCoy trying to revive Gorkon. In combination wtih his lack of working medical knowledge of Klingons, his hands are unsteady and slightly clumsy, still affected by the Romulan Ale he drank during the state dinner. No matter how shaken awake by the whole diplomatic catastrophe unfolding he may be, his mental acuity and motor skills are still impaired by intoxication. Chang is quite ready to bring that up during the show trial .
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute : Valeris in place of Saavik.
• Swivel-Chair Antics : Chang is so hammy that he spins his chair in ecstacy during the battle. Chang: CRY HAVOC! And let slip the dogs of war! ( Evil Laugh )
• Tactful Translation : The subtitles compensate for the Klingon listening post operator's lazy apathy by translating his simple utterance of just the post's name (Morskika) into, "This is Listening Post Morskika."
• It's quite nicely worked in, but Kirk's remark in the end speech that "some people think change means the end of history" is likely a jab at neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama's proclamation (and epynonymous book) that the collapse of Soviet communism meant that liberal bourgeois democracy was the only option for developing countries and was, thus, "the end of history".
• Starfleet Colonel West is inspired by USMC Col. Oliver North, who was implicated in the Iran/Contra scandal.
• Teleportation Rescue : Kirk and McCoy are saved from their impending murder "for attempting escape" at the hands of the Rura Penthe warden by the transporters. Shame about the timing, though.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill : After the modified photon torpedo hits and disables the cloaked Bird of Prey, it is dead in the water but still intact. Sulu's response with the Excelsior , and then Kirk's with the Enterprise-A , is to then pound it with torpedo after torpedo until it is completely obliterated. Slightly justified though because while the torpedo crippled the Bird of Prey and, presumably, killed Chang, it was still cloaked — just briefly exposed by the explosion — and so could still potentially be a threat.
• When The Excelsior finally gets on the scene at Khitomer in the climax, Captain Sulu knows that all he and his ship and crew can do at that time is be another target for the invisible foe and take pressure off the battered Enterprise . True enough, moments later, Chang orders a torpedo strike that uppercuts right into Excelsior 's saucer section, sending damage control teams scrambling and emergency bulkheads dropping. Sulu: All right... now we've given them something else to shoot at.
• Non-Verbal example — as Chang speaks his "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner while a torpedo streaks towards them, two of his men can be seen behind him bracing themselves for the impact of the torpedo and the subsequent barrage to follow.
• Title Drop : Subtitle Drop. In the ill-fated dinner scene , Gorkon proposes a toast to "the undiscovered country," earning bemused stares from the audience as well as the main cast before he explains he meant "the future." The cause of the confusion is that within the context of Hamlet 's speech, "the undiscovered country" is death . Which Spock himself points out in the novelization. Gorkon's counter-argument has a good point. And, considering what happens to Gorkon in his next scene, actually makes quite a bit of sense .
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth : Chancellor Gorkon. Dr. McCoy describes him as "the last, best hope for peace."
• Too Good for Exploiters : The Klingons sue for peace, because their hostility toward the Federation is unsustainable in light of the accident on Praxis, their moon and previously-key-energy-production facility. Unfortunately, there are those on all sides, Humans, Klingons, and even the Romulans, that want the hostilities to continue, because they exploit the benefits, jobs, and even the control, that come with their current political position.
• Took a Level in Jerkass : Admiral Cartwright. He was previously shown in a more heroic light in Star Trek IV . However, here he comes off as a racist jerk during the briefing, and this is even before we find out he is a part of the conspiracy .
• Touch Telepathy : After Spock realizes that Valeris is a traitor and murderer , he grabs her by the head and performs a forced Mind Meld on her to learn the details of the conspiracy .
• Tracking Device : The viridium patch that Spock slaps on Kirk's back just before he and McCoy beam onto Kronos One .
• Trailers Always Spoil : The fact that there is a Bird-of-Prey involved, and that Chang is commanding it.
• During the trial, the Klingons begin in their own language, then the camera cuts to a box where translators are giving a running translation in English, which is being piped through radio-like devices that Kirk and McCoy are listening to. When the camera cuts back to General Chang, all spoken dialogue for the rest of the scene is in English, but it's still clear the Klingons are speaking their own language, particularly when Chang yells at Kirk not to wait for the translation before answering a question.
• This trope is mostly avoided for all other scenes involving the Klingons on their own, however. Subtitles are used in all-Klingon scenes in almost all movies.
• For some reason, it almost always switches to English whenever Chang starts talking, sometimes right after some untranslated Klingon. Maybe Christopher Plummer had trouble chewing scenery in Klingon.
• Tricked into Escaping : The villains want Kirk and McCoy dead, not just imprisoned, but don't want to be too obvious about it. They arrange for the pair to meet someone with whom they can team up in an "escape attempt", which the commandant can then violently quash. Kirk eventually realises that the situation didn't add up. (Kirk, of course, would certainly have attempted escape on his own, but it would have taken time to learn the layout and find his best option.) Kirk: She didn't need our help getting anywhere. Where did she get these convenient clothes? And don't tell me that flare is standard prison issue. It's to let them know where we are. [...] An accident wasn't good enough. Martia: Good enough for one. Two would have looked suspicious. [shape-shifts into Kirk] Killed while attempting escape? Now that's convincing for both.
• The first is Brigadier Kerla admitting that "there has been an incident on Praxis." Yeah, an entire moon exploding goes well beyond just "an incident."
• The second is Spock opening a briefing at Starfleet Command with "Two months ago, a Federation starship monitored an explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis." By "monitored," he means that the Excelsior was knocked off course and nearly shaken to pieces by the Planar Shockwave .
• Unwanted Rescue : At least not for a few more minutes after Kirk's captor explains the plans.
• Villain Has a Point : Both sides of the conspiracy to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon and the Federation President are partially proven to be correct in their paranoia, when Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine later show their fears coming true. The Federation does corrupt Klingon society to the point that a Starfleet officer later becomes the one to decide who would become the next Klingon chancellor, while the Klingons later betray the Federation and launch a war against them after abandoning the Khitomer Accords (albeit, largely due to the influence of a Changeling mole ).
• Wasn't That Fun? : After General Chang's Bird-of-Prey first opens fire on Enterprise at Khitomer: McCoy : This is fun.
• We Need to Get Proof : Spock logically figures out that the only ship that could have torpedoed Kronos One is a cloaked bird-of-prey, but as they're not supposed to be able to fire while cloaked, it will take more than their word to convince Starfleet. Valeris: We must inform Starfleet Command— Scotty: Inform them of what ? A new weapon that is invisible? "Raving lunatics", that's what they'll call us! They'll say that we're so desperate to exonerate the captain that we'll say anything. Spock: And they would be correct. We have no evidence. Only a theory which happens to fit the facts.
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future : Or at least the Klingons will on their prison planets. Then again, it's Rura Penthe, the Klingon equivalent of a gulag. The warden outright calls it "the gulag Rura Penthe" during his introductory resistance is futile speech. Hardly meant to be comfortable.
• "Signal our surrender." Derails the firefight between Enterprise and Qo'noS One that the scene appeared to be leading to. It even shocks the bridge crew: Uhura: Captain? Kirk: We surrender!
• During the last scene: Uhura: Captain, I have orders from Starfleet Command. We're to put back to Spacedock immediately... to be decommissioned.
• Wham Shot : The torpedo hitting Kronos One .
• Spock's disturbed reaction to Kirk's desire to see the Klingons die off. note  In commentaries, Shatner expressed dismay that they cut out a subsequent self-dismissive gesture from Kirk suggesting it was impulsively said.
• This was prompted by Spock "volunteering" the Enterprise and crew for the peacekeeping mission. Considering just two films ago, Kirk was accused by the Klingons of developing the Genesis device as a superweapon, he seems like a poor choice — but the implication is that the Klingons respect Kirk's legendary fighting abilities and will deal better with a tough guy than a nice guy. The conspirators have no problem leveraging this reputation to frame Kirk for Gorkon's murder.
• The dinner scene spreads a lot of the blame around to all of the main characters — with the exception of Spock, who really is trying — who drink too much Romulan ale and come off as bigoted against Klingons. That most of Enterprise 's senior staff returned to duty still drunk from dinner is used as evidence of gross negligence against Dr. McCoy in their trial.
• Spock seems to be giving himself one after he publicly Mind Rapes Valeris for information on the conspiracy .
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? : When the prison warden finds Kirk and McCoy outside, he shoots the shape-shifter who was helping him immediately, but inexplicably agrees to explain who is behind the conspiracy before shooting Kirk and McCoy . This gives them enough time to escape.
• Why Isn't It Attacking? : The climactic Battle of Khitomer has the Enterprise under attack from General Chang's bird-of-prey, which can stay cloaked while attacking, causing Kirk to initially order his ship to pull back. Both commanders on either side ask this question about the other: Kirk wonders why Chang does not press his advantage; Chang wonders if the Enterprise is backing up because they detect him, and wants to make sure they cannot ascertain his exact location before attacking the larger ship.
• Why We Are Bummed Communism Fell : The whole film is a metaphor for the fall of communism, and even seemed to predict the failed coup that preceded the final collapse of the USSR.
• Wicked Cultured : General Chang might be willing to plunge the quadrant into war, but damn if he can't quote Shakespeare with the best of them!
• Wild Hair : The Federation President's mustache almost earned its own acting credit.
• Worthy Opponent : In the novelization, Chang spends his last seconds reflecting on his own mortality, and that being beaten by the likes of Kirk is no disgrace. Even in the film, the mere fact that Chang considers Kirk a "warrior" is a testament to his respect for him as an adversary.
• Would Hit a Girl : Kirk punches Martia. Of course, she’s a shapeshifter, so he doesn’t know whether she’s really female or not.
• Wrong Genre Savvy : Kirk still thinks he can do what he did constantly in the original series, and seduce someone to help get out of a bad situation. Not so much, as she's a shapeshifter setting him up, and even calls him out for his narcissism.
• They are expecting Kirk to fight it out after the Chancellor is killed, but when he surrenders they put him in a show trial and schedule a new assassination attempt at the peace conference.
• They send Kirk to an inescapable Penal Colony but know he would probably find a way to escape, so they use a stooge to "help" him and betray him later.
• They believe Kirk would never find the location of the conference, but have a ship ready to deal with him if he does.
• You Cannot Kill An Idea : Gorkon's fight for peace continues on despite his assassination. His daughter Azetbur, who becomes chancellor, continues his efforts, and Gorkon's sacrifice challenges Captain Kirk's prejudice against Klingons. Gorkon: Don't let it end this way, Captain .
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame : A downplayed example, but Kirk is obviously not thrilled to be greeted by Chang "from one warrior to another".

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The shapeshifting Martia takes on the form of Captain Kirk and fights the real one.

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A Thanksgiving Look At Great Meals In Star Trek History

| November 26, 2008 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 95 comments so far

Mmm Mmm Trek We at Trekmovie agree that food shared with family and friends is the best feature of Thanksgiving. Because Star Trek represents the real human experiences as much as it does future science and alien worlds, it is no surprise that big banquets and shared meals are a staple of the various episodes and movies. Many of the dinner scenes from Star Trek are used to show cultural differences and have good characters moments. While Trekmovie staff and readers cannot all sit down for a meal together to express thanks for our shared friendship and love of Trek, we could offer the next best thing. Here is a list of some of the best food moments in Star Trek history as way to say thank you to fellow fans around the world.

MOVIES: Klingons come to dinner ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ) Perhaps no other meal time scene in Star Trek has the symbolism and meaning than when Kirk and the crew have the Klingons over for dinner on the Enterprise. The meal itself was impressive from its variety of foods from both cultures, but it was the conversations that were the most delicious. The themes discussed during the dinner scene echo through the entire film and is an important setting for the movie. The scene beautifully illustrates the differences, yet also the commonalities, of the Klingon Empire and the Federation. From a character point of view, Captain Kirk and Chang get into a verbal confrontation (with Kirk delivering his debate-winning line of "Earth. Hitler. 1938.") Meanwhile, Spock and Gorkon try to salvage the dinner with diplomacy. The table itself is colorful with blue fish and bright flowers. Although it was on a starship and full of exotic foods and aliens, anyone with large extended family gathering for a meal can relate to some of the tensions at Kirk’s table.

TOS: Ambassadors Reception ("Journey to Babel") What is not to love about the "Journey to Babel" dinner scene? It has everything that makes TOS unique and fun. It has weirdly shaped and colorful fruit, and ice cubes that look like play dough. It was aliens galore, including little copper colored men, Tellarites, Andorians, and Vulcans (including Spock’s father). The scene has great banter between Spock and McCoy and we learn much about the Vulcan culture.

TNG: Kurn’s dinner ("Sins of the Father") Down in Whoville, Picard carves the roast beast! This is another culture clash dinner scene that also reveals something about the characters, and it is one where the food takes center stage. Especially good is Kurn’s dismissal of the food as well prepared yet not very tasty, as he picks up the roast beast and studies it. It also good to see characters following traditions such as the "father" carving the meal, and its nice that it is Picard in that role. The setting is vibrant, with a great floral display (good thing Evorian Regent Cuzar from Star Trek: Insurrection wasn’t there).

DS9: Jake brings a date to dinner ("The Abandoned") "She is a Dabo Girl. She’s dating my son. I don’t want to like her." While not a lavish event, this dinner scene shows that a shared meal can bring people together. Ben Sisko, the most culinary of Trek’s captains, invites Jake’s girlfriend Mardah to dinner where he made Creole shrimp with Mandalay sauce which he said "has bite to it." Through the meal and conversation, Ben learns more about Mardah, and to his surprise, things about his son, including that Jake likes to write. A great scene with nice father and son moments that shows that a good meal can break through barriers and get people to understand each other better, and what could be more Star Trek than that? And besides, who wouldn’t want a dinner prepared by Ben Sisko?

VOY:  Dinner of lost civilizations ("Year of Hell, Part 2") A great scene from one of Voyager’s best moments, this dinner shows some good conflict between Tom Paris and Chakotay, and complicates the villain Annorax. The buffet features foods from many different worlds, some lost because of the Krenim timeship. The use of the Malkothian culture’s drink by Annorax to explain his mission is excellent, as is the use of the drink to solidify his and Chakotay’s cooperation.

ENT: Archer, Trip and T’Pol’s first meal ("Broken Bow") It is the character interaction and moments that make this a great scene, not the sparse and intimate table setting. Like TUC, this scene helps to show the differences between aliens, here between Humans and Vulcans. It also establishes the conflicts between Archer and Trip with T’Pol. We are reminded in this scene that Vulcans are vegetarians, and T’Pol’s artistically arranged salad is in stark contrast to Trip’s steaks. The moment where T’Pol cuts her breadstick in half and uses a fork, while Trip is using his hands to eat, is classic.

And from all of us at TrekMovie.com, have a great Thanksgiving

Thanks to Trekcore.com for the images.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone

I could eat up this subject with a spoon!

Mmm…. food sounds good right now.

Peace & Happy Thanksgiving

Good to see thanksgiving in star trek, hey anthony how about a discussion about canon and the timeline.

Happy Thanksgiving from your Canadian neighbors.

I remember last month’s turkey…mmm

As a Canadian, it’s like celebrating twice because our Thankgiving is in October.

The problem is what do you do when you outlive your friends?

Spock must be lonely, that’s why he went back in time.

hmmm… where can I find some Romulan ale to help me get that much sleepier after eating all that turkey..?

Happy Thanksgiving from another Canadian neighbor.

I guess on a slow night I can finally post something! TrekMovie.com, I enjoyed the selections you served tonight! Happy Thanksgiving to the Star Trek Universe!

Happy Thanksgiving.

I could use Charlie Evans to make a real turkey appear in my oven, sure would save time and effort!

I just came back from Canada. Great food there. Happy Thanksgiving.

On a quiet night let’s talk about canon and the timeline and how, there could conceivable be no canon for the new movie because the future would have been altered by Kirk and co and Picard and co going back in time. It’s like the butterfly effect. For example, just going back in time with the Borg blowing up the missile site would effect the future, forget about what Picard said to Riker about finding a quiet place to live and getting out of histories way, it’s too late. Cochrane knows the future, has seen 24th century Starships, knows about his legacy, it would all change the timeline and the canon, that’s why the changes in the new Star Trek movie all fits together so well.

I guess you guys had to pick a great meal to represent each series, but honorable mention should go to Riker’s supper with the Klingons in which he manfully gulped down some Gagh!

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Sorry, EU friends, we Americans will be sleeping late, watching our football, a parade, and eating and drinking too much on Thursday, and spending our remaining cash on Friday.

Enjoy work! ;-)

A great list , however there is one glaring omission of note .

Commander William Riker’s pre-transfer feast before transfering over to the Pagh , while Captain Picard and Doctor Pulaski did their very best not to get sick from seeing and smelling all the Klingon foods in the second season episode “A Matter of Honor”

I’m thankful that after 40 years we are still quoting and debating minutia about this show. Yes, it’s a franchise owned by a huge multi-media corporation, but it is also a heartfelt creation from many talented people. We should all be so lucky to leave such a legacy.

Best meal was TNG’s “Family.”

“The crew has to eat synthesized meatloaf, I at least want it to LOOK like Turkey.” Capt. James T. Kirk-Charlie X

Best quote ever :) Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Annorax’s line in Year of Hell, as mentioned in the article, about the meals coming from races wiped form history was one of the most potent lines of the series, IMO. Very effective and eerie.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, Anthony, and all of the rest of trekmovie.com!

Happy Thanksgiving to all in the Trek family and to all Live Long and prosper.

hey, what happened to the brazilian and spanish article??? you guys censor it??

or was it Italian? Well, whatever the article is gone. what happened to it???

You know what was another great food scene in TNG? That episode with the 3 ambassadors onboard, and it turned out that they were assigned to experience different human emotions, and the guy that was assigned to experience pleasure became absolutely fixated on dessert.. :) Good times.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

For those desiring a real Thanksgtiving turkey, hold off until May 2009. :D

All too easy. But, in the meantime…

Happy Thanksgiving from Dark Matter, Champion of Earth Zero.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.’–Hamlet Act I Scene III

Now I’m hungry …

Hungry for the new Trek Movie!

Anthony Brooks Fellows

final warning for trolling and thread hijacking comments to https://trekmovie.com/about/feedback

RE: Italy article There was an article that was posted briefly but I determined that due to the translations from english to italian and back to english too much was lost, I am having it looked at and will hopefully repost.

Happy Thanksgiving and Frohes Erntedankfest!

“Note to the galley: Romulan ale no longer to be served at diplomatic functions.”

I don’t think that was TNG… I think it was either Voyager or Enterprise… I wish I could remember it’s bugging me…

Oops… nevermind it was TNG, the episode “Liasons.” There was one in ENT or VOY with some kind of ambassador or someone obsessed with food, tho…

i love your articles, Anthony. Truly.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. So grateful to share cyber space-time with all of you here.

You, too, Iowagirl.

Thanks, Bob, for your kind separate post just for me, endorsing that I’m not “everybody”…:D

Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Pass the qagh…

Totally unrelated, but here is my version of the new trailer. It’s my project at college:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ounWaXWbaw&fmt=18

My favourite trek meal:

Beans cooked with a secret ingredient to a time honoured recipe by generations of McCoys – topped off with a fire, good friends, marshmellows and row row row…

@Iowagirl Multi-Linguistik???? Hmmm…interesting!

#31 Shane … it was indeed TNG – seventh season’s “Liaisons.”

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Anthony, many thanks to you for maintaining this site, a terrific daily indulgence! Well done!

“I could use Charlie Evans to make a real turkey appear in my oven, sure would save time and effort!”

Yeah, but if you’re not nice to him, he’ll either make you go away or turn you into a turkey and make you appear in your own oven. LOL

hey did anybody notice that the dinner scene in Star Trek 6 was a redress of Ten Forward Lounge from TNG? If you look carefully at the windows from both those scenes in Star Trek VI and TNG’s “Sins of the Father”, you’ll notice that they’re identical.

26; 31 & 32: The “Liasons” indulgent ambassador plotline *was* completely reused for Voyager’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”, featuring Scott Thompson of The Kids in the Hall as the “wacky ambassador” this time.

If TNG and (and all shows and movies after), truley were “canon”, wouldn’t they all have “play-dough” food?

Just “food for thought” :-D

Happy Turkey Day!

Wow, this is one stupid, contrived, forced, uber-geeky thread.

Thank you! That’s the one I was thinking about.

Yeah, I’ll make it or I’ll die trying…:D

I am thankful for this site so that along with the latest information I can get my daily dose of irritation from reading the comments of Star Trek XI cheerleaders! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving. The years seem to grow shorter and shorter between them.

I wonder if there is a “Thanksgiving” day that is celebrated in the Trek future as a result of the Humans first contact with Vulcans. The parallels are similar.

Morning, Bob and Anthony. And a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. The wife and I are preparing to armor up and throw down in the kitchen for the next several hours, in order to feed spawn, grandspawn, and spawn-in-laws. LOL This year, Tom Turkey is getting charcoal smoked over a pan of German white wine and a heap of hickory wood. Mmmmmmm…….

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Star Trek 6, The Dinner Scene....

Discussion in ' Star Trek Movies I-X ' started by Hoshi_Mayweather , Jul 27, 2007 .

A beaker full of death Vice Admiral Admiral

guardian said: Why not come out and make clear what you are saying? Which I believe is--- the cast was so old and their acting so weak they couldn't even get through the scene without flubbing their lines, so no full scene exists. Is that right?? Click to expand...

Plum said: ^^^ Yea I'm not sure what you know Beaker. Take after take is how it's done, after all. Click to expand...

Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

In the Trek Anniversary special aired near the time TUC was released, more of the dinner scene was shown. I have it on an old VHS tape somewhere...  

Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

As far as I'm concerned, awkward editing is smack on for a scene intended to portray awkwardness... And I like the final version's flow of things better than the above scripted one. Just out of curiosity, where do they get port and starboard mixed? Timo Saloniemi  

Timo said: Just out of curiosity, where do they get port and starboard mixed? Click to expand...

Right, thanks! Although the Trek practice (reflecting today's practice) would have the thruster designations correct in that instance. "Starboard thrusters" means "use thrusters to go starboard" in the TOS movie and TNG/DS9/VOY context, just like "aft thrusters" means "use thrusters to move aft". The old Royal Navy had the opposite practice: if they wanted to turn right, they specified how the hardware should be used. They commanded "over to port" because you needed to move the lever of the rudder to port to make the ship turn starboard - even after wheels rather than simple levers had been adopted for moving the rudder. That's micromanaging; modern navies take the macromanaging view where one specifies where the ship should be going, not where a particular lever should be pulled or a switch flipped. A starship doesn't really have "starboard thrusters" - it has thrusters distributed all across the hull, and if these are used in the right combination (no doubt automatically managed by the computer), they move the ship port, starboard, forward, aft, up or down as commanded. Similarly, the ship doesn't actually have a rudder, but the command "right standard rudder" is still relevant and concise (not to mention the way the modern USN uses the terminology). Timo Saloniemi  

Timo said: Right, thanks! Although the Trek practice (reflecting today's practice) would have the thruster designations correct in that instance. "Starboard thrusters" means "use thrusters to go starboard" in the TOS movie and TNG/DS9/VOY context, just like "aft thrusters" means "use thrusters to move aft". Click to expand...

guardian Commodore

So your original post implied nothing and you just wanted to convey that you read that they couldn't get through the whole scene in a single take and that accounts for why it was cut down---the fact that they couldn't get through the whole scene withouts many takes. Okay, sorry I misunderstood.  

guardian said: So your original post implied nothing and you just wanted to convey that you read that they couldn't get through the whole scene in a single take and that accounts for why it was cut down---the fact that they couldn't get through the whole scene withouts many takes. Click to expand...

Plum Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

A beaker full of death said: Plum said: ^^^ Yea I'm not sure what you know Beaker. Take after take is how it's done, after all. Click to expand...

...Or flipped the visuals. Or perhaps "moving from right to left" is mandatory for any scene that wants to convey that the subject is "returning" from somewhere? (No, seriously!) Anyway, Trek is remarkably consistent about using "starboard thrusters" for "turning the ship starboard on thrusters" - the one piece of technobabble they haven't managed to get wrong, despite the obvious risks. Timo Saloniemi  

Timo said: Or perhaps "moving from right to left" is mandatory for any scene that wants to convey that the subject is "returning" from somewhere? (No, seriously!) Click to expand...

So a 5 page scene, with 10 speaking actor parts and all the coverage involved that took 35 or 40 takes seemed like a lot to Koenig??? Wow, that really shows how little work in major set-piece scenes he did in his later career. If he thought that was an 'inordinate' amount of takes I really question his judgement. Maybe he was just way more used to sitting at nav and having the lines spoken to the viewscreen. I still think the scene was cut because they wanted to shorten the lead-up to the 'action' parts of the movie, not any technical reasons. Thanks for posting that article!!  

Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

guardian said: If he thought that was an 'inordinate' amount of takes I really question his judgement. Click to expand...

Nebusj Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

guardian said: So a 5 page scene, with 10 speaking actor parts and all the coverage involved that took 35 or 40 takes seemed like a lot to Koenig??? Wow, that really shows how little work in major set-piece scenes he did in his later career. Click to expand...

^^Was that an attempt at sarcasm? Can't tell. At any rate, I know a 5 page scene of that type is hard. It was probably the whole day's shooting. 10 actors speaking lines, multiple camera angles, many takes, coverage, reaction shots etc. His comment made it seem HE thought it was particlarly hard is what caught my eye--or he just exaggerated to tell a better story. In any event of the 41 lines (by my script count) that were cut, Kirk, Chang, Gorkon lost none and Spock & McCoy lost a combined 7. So the 34 other cut lines were divided between Scott, Uhura, Chekov, Kerla & Azetbur---Wow a big surprise there. Did all the re-takes and line flubs affect only the stuff spoken by the minor characters or is this just another case of speeding up the pace of the movie by getting rid bits of stuff done by the supporting cast? I think the latter, but everyone's entitled to their opinion. It is a fact, that the dinner was the major scene for the supporting actors besiders the usual stuff at their regular posts. It must have looked meatier than usual when they read the script and said, "finally I get to say something beisides exposition and tech dialouge." Hopefully, the HD DVD release will give us lots more deleted scenes than the previous release to boost sales and we'll all get to decide for ourselves.  

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Strange New Worlds' Dinner Party Echoes a Key Moment in the Star Trek Movies

Strange New Worlds explores the trauma of the Klingon War at an ill-fated dinner party. Decades later, a similar party exposes the exact same wounds.

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War," now streaming on Paramount+.

To a certain extent, Star Trek is defined by relations between the Klingons and the Federation. The Original Series made them implacable enemies: brutal warriors who used fear and cunning to conquer by any means possible. That carried over into the first wave of movies -- notably Star Trek III: The Search for Spock -- before Captain Kirk and his crew finally made peace with their old foes in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes place early in that process, picking up on Star Trek: Discovery's cues about the impact of the war in the years before Kirk became captain of the Enterprise. Season 2, Episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War," goes further in its efforts to depict the long, slow process of peace. One scene stands out: a dinner party held onboard the Enterprise intended to help the two powers reach a better understanding. It matches a similar scene in Star Trek VI , which takes place over 30 years later in the franchise timeline. Both scenes demonstrate how difficult it can be to close old wounds.

RELATED: REVIEW: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 8 Dives Back Into Wartime Intensity

Klingons and Humans Take a Long Road to Allegiance in Star Trek

Star Trek: The Next Generation made waves among the faithful with Mr. Worf: the first Klingon to ever join Starfleet. It reflected franchise creator Gene Roddenberry's hopes for a more optimistic future, where even the Federation's most hated enemies could become allies. Worf went on to become one of the saga's most popular characters, while the Klingons morphed into imperfect but honorable friends. Their shining moment came during The Dominion War on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , fighting side by side with Starfleet to save the Alpha Quadrant.

To quote another Star Trek series, it's been a long road from there to here. Klingons in The Original Series were unrepentant foes, with Captain Kirk happy to give as good as he got. That culminated in the death of his son David in Star Trek III , for which he blames the Empire as a whole. Star Trek VI brings those wounds to the surface, as the Klingons are forced to seek peace or risk extinction, and Kirk struggles to let go of his wounds. He shares that trepidation with the movie's antagonist, General Chang, who wants to end things in one final apocalyptic clash with the Federation and finds plenty of eager allies on the other side to help. Kirk ultimately stands in his way, and buries his hate in order to forge a future where Klingons like Worf can stand with Starfleet.

The film's dinner scene reflects those challenges, as the Enterprise hosts the Klingon ambassador Gorkon. It's a disaster, with the two sides exchanging thinly disguised jabs and Kirk's obvious hostility conflicting with his standing orders to be a good host. "I see we have a long way to go," Gorkon announces gloomily at the meal's end. He'll be assassinated within hours, and the galaxy brought to the brink of war yet again before the Enterprise crew saves the day.

RELATED: Strange New Worlds' War Episode Features a Star Trek TOS Cameo

Strange New Worlds Uses a Similar Scene to Make the Same Point

The wounds reflected in Star Trek VI are still fresh in Strange New Worlds , which takes place just a few years after the end of the Klingon War. "Under the Cloak of War" uses extended flashback scenes to convey the reality of it, as Chapel and M'Benga witness a massacre of civilians while working a field hospital near the front. As with Star Trek VI, a Klingon ambassador arrives onboard the Enterprise with the war over, but peace is still fragile. Again, the dinner goes poorly, with Lt. Ortegas struggling with her war memories and Chapel and M'Benga. And again, the evening ends in murder, as M'Benga takes shocking revenge on the ambassador for the massacre.

The similarities speak to how long those wounds will linger, and how much enmity remains decades later. "If there is to be a brave new world," Gorkon tells Kirk in Star Trek VI, "our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it." Strange New Worlds shows that same generation in much younger days, revealing the truth of Gorkon's words and the root cause of all that hate.

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stream every Thursday on Paramount+.

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a masterpiece until it's a franchise movie

Entertainment Geekly's 'Star Trek' series looks at Nicholas Meyer's clever political fantasy.

Darren is a TV Critic. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFranich for opinions and recommendations.

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise – and the release of Star Trek Beyond , the 13th feature film in the series. To celebrate this big year, and ponder the deeper meanings of Trek ‘s first half-century, the Entertainment Geekly column will look at a different Star Trek film each week , from now till Beyond. This week: The end of the Cold War, with more forehead ridges. Last week: William Shatner versus God . This Friday: Kirk meets Picard.

At the beginning of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , the opening credits play over a starscape. Opening credits always do that in Star Trek . But something’s gone wrong this time. Cliff Eidelman’s score is minor-key, insinuating, infesting . It puts you on edge. The final credit flashes onscreen: “Directed By Nicholas Meyer.” The name fades. The camera holds. The stars shine dark. And then the universe explodes.

There is no true form for a Star Trek movie, no single blueprint that can explain the architecture of the best adventures of the Enterprise . I hope that this column series is, in some ways, argument against the modern strain of enjoyment that demands all our branded content fall into some prefabricated cinematic style and narrative strategy: that strain of thinking that praises the karaoke achievements of Star Wars 7 and Jurassic Park 4 , the sanctimonious originalism that hails superhero movies for doing something “right” instead of doing something new, the sell-out intellectualism that didn’t get furious just now reading the phrase “branded content.”

What is a Star Trek movie? In the last few weeks, we have watched a dreamy lithium brain burp about consciousness and pajamas , a whimsical comedy about humanity’s unsteady relationship with the natural world , and a testosteronic action farce about whether God exists .

One of those movies is a perfect act of human endeavor; the other two are not, but I support their ambition and their lunacy, appreciate the chintzy let’s-solve-the-universe egotism of asking The Big Questions using bald space beauties and giant floating heads and purple space haze and “Row Row Row Your Boat.” In the grand scheme, the Enterprise starts to feel like the Clamp Center in Gremlins 2 : Less a place than a thousand states of mind piled atop each other. (Level 20 is where the crew gets funny; Level 31 is where Kirk feels sad; Level 42 is where they meet the Greek Gods; on Level 87 everyone quotes Shakespeare.) Star Trek can be everything, can take you anywhere: That’s how cinema is supposed to work.

I don’t think the franchise has had a more clear-eyed filmmaker than Nicholas Meyer – and I don’t think it has had a more sustained stream of excellence than the first 50 minutes of Undiscovered Country . Meyer made The Wrath of Khan , a clever epic composed out of faces and reaction shots. Meyer had a low budget, but Melville didn’t have special effects when he wrote Moby Dick . I love Khan , but Undiscovered Country begins on another level, thematically deeper, richer in its perspective on the personalities onscreen. The Klingons are in trouble: A moon has Chernobyl’d, they’re running low on energy, the whole civilization is dead in this generation or the next. Leave it to Meyer to make “the problem of limited resources” the inciting incident for his adventure. Resources shouldn’t factor much into Roddenberry’s utopia – but as Undiscovered Country makes clear, Meyer doesn’t believe in utopia, doesn’t trust Starfleet, doesn’t quite trust the dictionary definition of “hero.”

We cut to Starfleet headquarters. Another subtle sign that we’re in uncharted territory: We’ve gotten plenty of San Francisco establishing shots in this series, but this is the first time we’ve seen the Golden Gate Bridge at night, a gloaming settling over the Marin Headlands.

There is a top-secret meeting of Starfleet’s top people: Classified. The Klingons have opened up a line of diplomacy. They want to negotiate for peace, or something like it. Meyer takes Starfleet seriously as a force that is deep-down a military concern. So if you come to Undiscovered Country from The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine or even the last few movies — where Starfleet is a place that finances adventures for families and friends, essentially some combination of the French Government and Google that employs everyone to do whatever they would like to do — you might be a bit dizzy to hear how the top brass talks about Starfleet in this scene. (Meyer admires the terse toughness of bureaucratic soldier lingo: “C-in-C” instead of “Commander-in-Chief.”)

What does it mean, if they aren’t at war anymore? “Are we talking about the mothballing of Starfleet?” someone asks. There is immediate, angry debate. One Admiral voices opposition. Peace is madness; if the Klingons are weak, we strike now . We are immediately aware that there are two sides to this argument, and see how Meyer positions those two sides, with two familiar faces at the center:

Spock doesn’t just advocate peace: He is the reason for these negotiations, the Federation Special Envoy to the Klingons. Kirk didn’t know that, and is shocked by this whole meeting. “This is a terrifying idea,” says Kirk. “The Klingons have never been trustworthy.” He’s entitled to his opinion. But Captain Kirk, hero of the galaxy, isn’t sitting at the table because Starfleet wants his wisdom. They need his brand recognition. They are sending Kirk to meet with the Klingon chancellor and escort him through Federation space. What a statement that will make: The enemy of the Klingons, welcoming them with open arms. This will be his final mission: A glorified escort mission.

“I have personally vouched for you in this matter, Captain,” says Spock. “ You ,” Kirk spits. “Have personally,” he sputters. “ VOUCHED?” he demands, decades of friendship betrayed in a moment. See how Meyer gracefully moves into a close-up: Kirk looking up and offscreen left, the camera ever-so-slightly above him, so that he looks small and cornered; Spock staring down and offscreen right, the camera staring up at him, so that he looks frustratingly imperious.

And see how, as the meeting breaks up, Meyer leaves them on opposite sides, never further apart.

Undiscovered Country cost more than Wrath of Khan , but if you’re looking, you can feel the same stretching. After Final Frontier ‘s soft box office, the budget for this film was cut down — shades of the budgetary reduction from the bloated Motion Picture to the lean Khan . There are sets in this film redressed from The Next Generation ; Kirk’s bedroom is also Spock’s bedroom (wasn’t it always, teehee.) None of that matters for Meyer; it might even be a boon for him. He knows how much mileage you can get out of two well-motivated characters.

“They’re animals ,” Kirk yells. “Don’t believe them! Don’t trust them!” Spock is droll. He quotes an old Vulcan proverb: “Only Nixon could go to China.” But Spock is also clear, and poignantly human. He calls Kirk “Jim.” He says, plainly: “They’re dying.”

“Let them die ,” says Kirk.

We’re used to the idea of “darkness” now, as a mode of entertainment. Most of that darkness is aesthetic, shadows and dirt and shaky cameras. Sometimes that darkness actually permeates the movie — but even then, it can feel like a pose, an abstraction of political reality. (See how much fun we have debating if The Dark Knight is liberal or conservative!) Undiscovered Country is clear on its politics. This is the end of the Cold War, rendered spaceward. Spock believes the point of war is peace; Kirk thinks war ends when there’s only one side left. Think of how so many big movies this year bend over backward to find some way for their heroes to fight; think of how, minutes into Undiscovered Country , Captain Kirk hates Mr. Spock.

It’s not that simple, of course. Nothing in this movie is. Kirk is angry, but ruminative. We find him on the Enterprise , in his quarters, pacing in a circle. “I’ve never trusted the Klingons,” he monologues. “And I never will.”

You notice things in this scene. The cruddy smallness of Kirk’s room, for one: a gray dormitory with some ornate artwork hung on bland walls, a small bed with little comfort for a man cusping on 60. And that’s another thing. In Wrath of Khan , Kirk worried about getting old. He doesn’t voice that now, but only because there’s no use worrying; he is just old . His hair gone gloriously gray, his belt buckled too-tight against his stomach. There is nothing pitiful about this: Quite the opposite. Shatner-as-Kirk looks majestic in Undiscovered Country , like any god in ruins. In the shadows of his cruddy cabin, he looks like a man who thought he was free until he woke up imprisoned. “How on earth can history get past people like me?”

Meyer’s camera shoots with clarity, but as a writer he loves grand statements, references, clear-cut homages. We cut to Spock in his own room, where he is talking to his latest apprentice: a young Vulcan officer named Valeris, an avatar of the younger generation played with helplessly seductive wit by Kim Cattrall. We find her looking at Spock’s painting: Marc Chagall’s Adam and Eve Expelled From Paradise .

Soon enough, there are Klingons aboard the Enterprise . Their leader is Gorkon, his name an explicit blending of Gorbachev and Lincoln; he is even styled to look like Abraham Lincoln, and the first great surprise of the film is how David Warner plays this role with softness, charm, even a bit of whimsy. He is a graceful guest: “You have my thanks,” he tells Kirk. He has brought his daughter with him: You feel immediately that he is proud of her, not just as a father but as a fellow politician. You may feel, in fact, that Gorkon is — in this moment, in this movie — a far more convincing leader than Kirk, someone who smiles at this curious new moment in history instead of raging against the dying of the light.

The next scene is, I think, my favorite scene in any of these Star Trek movies. It’s a close call, truly, a race between Spock’s sacrifice in Khan and the V’Ger odyssey toward meta-orgasmic cosmic awareness in The Motion Picture and everything on Earth in Voyage Home and Kirk asking what in the world God could do with a starship in Final Frontier and the Borg Queen seducing Data in First Contact and Worf saying “Assimilate This” in First Contact and Chris Hemsworth saying “Let’s call him Jim” in Star Trek ’09 .

But: There is a dinner. The camera starts on Kirk, looking a bit too rehearsed and stiff as the waiter pours Romulan Ale into his glass.

The camera pulls back, and we get a balanced image of two people: Christopher Plummer’s Chang on the left, Kirk on the right. These characters have only just met, but note how Meyer ever-so-subtly establishes them as equals here — and how he contrasts Kirk’s stiffness with Chang’s caveman-at-the-dinner-table curiosity.

Chang doesn’t seem to understand the purpose of a napkin — and as the camera pulls back, Kirk unfurls his own napkin. It is one of the best single pieces of physical acting Shatner has ever done: You can feel patrician disgust, and you marvel at all of Kirk’s barely-bottled aggression coming uncorked.

The camera keeps moving back across the table, so we see the two sides. They are dining together, separated.

The shot ends at the far end of the table. If Kirk is on one end, Gorkon must be on the other — and, with perfect timing, the waiter comes around to fill his glass. But you can look closely and see Gorkon’s warm smile. His costume is more ornate than Kirk’s, but he seems more comfortable. We pay attention to this strange Klingon. Kirk seems so petulant; we have the strangest feeling, helped along by Meyer’s framing, that Kirk is boy at a table for grown-ups.

He gives a toast: “To the undiscovered country.” It’s a reference, Spock informs us: “ Hamlet , Act Three, Scene One.” Sometimes, when characters in a movie call out the movie’s reference, it can feel too cute, or on-the-nose. But in Nicholas Meyer’s Star Trek , characters call out references because they are smart, and they are delighted by how smart the other characters are. And in Meyer’s view, with intelligence comes dry wit: “You have not experienced Shakespeare,” says Gorkon, “Until you have read him in the original Klingon.”

The conversation that follows flows, patiently and logically. McCoy and Scotty try to make welcoming small talk. One of the Klingons praises Kirk’s Draper game: Isn’t Romulan ale illegal? Chang tests Kirk: Would he be willing to give up Starfleet? Shatner and Plummer were old pals — Bard obsessive Meyer must have loved that his hero and villain performed together at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival — and you can feel their delight as equals, and you can feel that Chang and Kirk see each other clearly, and know that they don’t quite belong at this table, and don’t want to.

Kirk tries to change the topic of conversation; he says something diplomatic. “Come now, Captain,” says Chang. “There’s no need to mince words. In space, all warriors are cold warriors.” The tone of the conversation changes, like ripples turning into waves. Gorkon’s daughter has a philosophical dislike for the Federation: It’s a homo sapiens club. (Oh sure, Spock, a half-human — and he’s the only alien sitting on Starfleet’s side of the table.) The Klingons believe that Starfleet wants to annihilate them — if not their species, then their culture. Chang quotes Shakespeare: “To be or not to be.” He tells Kirk: “We need breathing room.”

Kirk can’t help himself. “Earth, Hitler, 1938.” Explaining that gag takes a while — it refers to Spock’s line about Hamlet , it refers to Hitler and the concept of “ lebensraum ” — but what you feel most of all in that moment is how completely Kirk has failed. Chang smiles: He has forced the Captain of the Enterprise to reveal his petty side. Gorkon smiles too, but much more sincerely, and sadly: “I see we have a long way to go.”

The Klingons leave, but not before Gorkon gives Kirk a personal message. “You don’t trust me, do you?” he says, always smiling that sad smile, as if he’s seen this movie before but takes great relish in watching it again. “I don’t blame you,” he tells Kirk. “If there is to be a Brave New World, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it.”

Our generation: What a thing to say! What a moment of unity! You may dislike how completely Undiscovered Country rips its central story from the headlines, you may yearn for science fiction with a less clear allegory, but the joy of this film is how it makes the Klingons Soviet only to make some of the most convincing, fully-fleshed-out, three-dimensional Soviet characters ever to appear in a Hollywood entertainment. Consider that, circa 1991, the Russian bad guy was merely being pushed into a new phase — now renegade Cold Warriors instead of official party members — and consider how, up until this point of the movie, the most likable character has been the onscreen symbol of everything our heroes used to fight against.

As if to underline just how diminished Kirk is, we cut to his quarters. It might be the next morning, although who can tell in space. There’s no complicated way to say this: He is hungover, the kind of hungover where you go to sleep with your clothes on.

And then it all goes to hell. On the bridge, Kirk looks out his viewscreen and sees something impossible: A photon torpedo coming out of the Enterprise , without his command, without any torpedoes leaving the torpedo bay. They hit the Klingon ship and cripple it. Gravity departs, and the Klingons float: fearsome warriors made to look silly, the primitive effects only heightening their own diminishment. Onboard, two men dressed in Engineer attire go on a killing spree.

The assassination scene is strange and haunting and arguably marred by gloopy primordial floating-blood special effects, but it has a kooky power. One Klingon’s arm gets shot off, and he’s too horrified to even make a correct sound. Then the assassins shoot Gorkon, and we can see blood pour out of both sides of his body, and we leave him floating in air, his insides out.

Gravity returns; the Klingons are furious. Kirk is desperate to salvage whatever is left of this mission, so he beams over with McCoy — a show of good faith, an attempt to bring real medical help to beings in need. They bring the still-breathing Gorkon onto a table. The way Meyer frames the shot, you’re reminded of some of those illustrations from your history books, of the dying Lincoln surrounded by desperate men.

By all visible signs, the Klingons’ good faith has been betrayed. The Federation needed Kirk to go on this mission as a sign of good faith, and now, as another sign of good faith, the Federation must stand back as Kirk gets brought up on war crimes. What follows is a grand and merry gag of justice; one character calls it a “show trial.” What a show! Chang is the Grand Inquisitor, forming a coherent case against Kirk. They know he hates Klingons; they have the Captain’s Log to prove it. (We didn’t use this language back then, but how remarkable that, here in his last adventure as Captain, Kirk gets hacked.) The set is a mockery of justice, with Kirk and McCoy under a spotlight, and the assembled Klingons arranged as a mob from the Reign of Terror.

“It’s a goddamn show trial,” says a Starfleet Admiral. Soon enough, we’ll discover that the Admiral who says that is a traitor — that, in fact, Kirk has been set up by a traitorous cabal on all sides of the neutral zone. But we remember how this movie began with Kirk being set up — by Spock, his nominal friend, to be a hero of peace against a nemesis Kirk would rather eradicate. Anyone who declares that Undiscovered Country is a dated remnant of Cold War politics is missing the movie’s deeper, smarter point.

This isn’t a movie about the end of the Cold War, no matter all the savvy references therein. (At one point, Chang quotes Adlai Stevenson from the Cuban Missile Crisis: “Don’t wait for the translation, answer me now !” At another point, Kirk quotes Fukuyama: “Some people think the future means the end of history …”) It’s a movie about the start of the period after the Cold War, when things will be less certain. Undiscovered Country is the movie where you can spot the beginning of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica , developed by Ronald D. Moore, a Star Trek renegade, like Meyer fascinated by the military, like Meyer frustrated by the antiseptic and stilted inhumanity of Roddenberry’s utopia. Consider that, in Undiscovered Country , Spock uses his mind meld not for empathy nor mutual understanding, but as a weaponized form of interrogation. See how Meyer’s camera tilts as Spock digs into his apprentice’s mind; see the horror on her face, and see how everyone else on the Enterprise looks on, in quiet affirmation.

Consider, too, some deeper truth about the Valeris arc. Spock considers her his successor; she is his great hope for the future, and she is the only person onscreen young enough to represent some next generation of Starfleet. But she is a traitor. She has followed the path of logic — and logic tells her that only one side can triumph. You recall how, in Sopranos , the show constantly positioned Tony as an elder looking down on a new generation: Christopher Moltisanti, Brendan Filone, Matt Bevilaqua, Jackie Junior. And you recall how many of those young men wound up dead — some of them by Tony’s hand! — so that The Sopranos really did feel like the end of history, with old men raging against their dying light just long enough to kill all the sons and daughters who could replace them.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Undiscovered Country doesn’t go that far, or that deep. Maybe it can’t. The show trial is the movie’s high point, a hilarious mockery of justice witnessed by the whole galaxy. Then Kirk and McCoy go to space prison, and the film never quite recovers.

I should be clear: This film is never bad, and it is a wild romp. This is the rare politically minded work that actually deserves some comparisons to The Manchurian Candidate . There is the sniper assassin, sure, but there is also the familiar Manchurian nightmare logic that powers the conspiracy. Why, exactly, is the Starfleet cabal in bed with the Klingon cabal, if all both sides want to do is eliminate each other? Isn’t it ironic that, in attempting to stop the talks that will unite their societies, they are actually the first real proof that a Klingon-human union is possible?

“They conspired with us to assassinate their own chancellor,” explains Valeris. “How trustworthy can they be?” We asked them to be evil, and they were evil, which proves they are evil : a loop-de-loop of logic which feels more honest about our shaky ethical realities than any coherent argument ever could be.

Meyer has great fun with Kirk and McCoy on one last away mission, and even seems to be making light fun of the Kirk-ian hero’s journey. In the space gulag, Meyer constantly shoots Kirk up against a much taller alien being. A beautiful come-hither prisoner played by Iman tongue-wrestles Kirk like a moth to a flame — but that’s just a gag, because Iman is actually a tall androgynous beast-changeling.

Kirk’s riotous freak-out at this revelation has a poignant subtext: He thought he still had it with the ladies, but maybe the ladies have had it with him. But Meyer is also sensitive enough to let Kirk and Spock have a final one-on-one conversation, both of them commanding the frame.

“We’re both extremists,” says Kirk. “Reality is probably somewhere in between us.” Imagine that: Here at the end, Kirk and Spock seem to finally understand what they have always symbolized. “Everybody’s human,” says Kirk. “I find that remark insulting,” zings Spock. In another movie, in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, with two lesser actors, this might all feel too cute, too self-aware. But history permeates this conversation, and sadness, and hard-won truth.

(Compare this to, say, Civil War, when Iron Man says he used to be Captain America’s friend, and Captain America does everything for his friend Bucky, and you find yourself struggling to remember any time these characters have just been friends , onscreen, humans who seem to know each other, not chess pieces getting pushed around a three-dimensional board.)

But I find that the ambition departs Undiscovered Country at the midpoint. You feel so much under the surface in the first half: Kirk vs. Spock, Klingons vs. Humans, the old generation vs. the new one, extremists vs. moderates, the audacity of hope vs. the way wisdom slipstreams helplessly into cynicism. You yearn to see some sort of reckoning for all these issues. Instead, this happens:

That is Captain James T. Kirk pulling an In the Line of Fire to rescue the Federation president. Consider the distance between Kirk in that moment — a diving headfirst jump, a daring act of action-heroism — and the Kirk who soliloquizes in his quarters, a lonely old man pondering his place in the cosmic joke of history, no longer able to hold his liquor, incapable of holding back his own bias. The back half of Undiscovered Country reminds you a bit of the back half of The Magnificent Ambersons , when scenes get longer and the staging gets more stilted — The Motion Picture director Robert Wise started directing!

It’s not that bad, really: I love how, in the final battle, Chang can only speak in quotes: Now Henry V , now Neville Chamberlain, now Hamlet one last time. I love how the film finds room for the graceful send-off of Sulu, now a Captain in his own right.

Without ever underlining the point, Meyer makes it clear that Sulu is the next generation: a Captain who is patient, and clever, and who is willing to bend the rules but perhaps less offensively Kirk-ian about breaking them. (When we meet Sulu on the Excelsior , he spent three years “cataloging gaseous planetary anomalies in the Beta Quadrant.” You imagine Kirk would get bored with that work — but Sulu looks happy, peaceful, positively thrilled to catalog the cosmos.)

But Undiscovered Country becomes less impressive as a single film when it becomes more recognizable as franchise production. Of course Kirk starts getting into fights and jumping through the air: Isn’t that just so Kirk ? At the film’s beginning, the political situation is so tense that even within Starfleet — even at a Starfleet meeting where the Commander-in-Chief declares that they have won , that the Klingon Cold War is over — hostility reigns, arguments flourish, conspiracies are formed. By the film’s end, Kirk gives a short speech, and the assembled cosmos cheer him.

It’s like watching The Manchurian Candidate become Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , but I don’t imagine those terms apply for most viewers or the filmmakers. You can feel the ceiling of ambition that a franchise descends upon drama. Sure, you can ask some provocative questions, but in the end, the answer is Kirk.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

And yet I love Star Trek , and I am moved to tears by the final sequence, and so maybe I am part of the problem. The film ends happily for all of our favorite people, but Meyer knows how to ground that joy in melancholy, how to earn the sense of an ending. Kirk and his crew walk onto the bridge — and it takes us a second to notice that the bridge is empty besides our old favorites, that all the background Enterprise crewpeople have given them space for final act. Uhura relays the message from HQ: The ship should return to Earth and be decommissioned. The look on Kirk’s face is one of the most wonderfully sad images I can think of.

But the look doesn’t last. Spock makes a joke, and Kirk has a line: “Second star on the left right…and straight on till morning.” Uhura stands up to get a better look out the viewscreen, and Meyer’s camera gracefully advances forward. It is a lovely send-off, quiet like blockbuster movies are never quiet now, framed just right.

Franchise machinery so often triumphs over the cinematic machinery. You watch Undiscovered Country and suspect there was a more complete version of the movie. Perhaps a version where Kirk and Spock were not fated to agree, or a version where the end of the Fake Cold War doesn’t lead to what appears to be complete galactic peace. Maybe that version of the film would note further how Valeris takes her inspiration from Kirk — and would wonder how Spock, as a tutor, could inadvertently guide his apprentice in the wrong direction. If we’re to believe the trailers, Star Trek Beyond wants to ask some serious questions about Starfleet. Actually, when I interviewed Simon Pegg, he mused generally about the film’s ideas: “Is the Federation a good idea? Is it just colonialism?” Those questions get brought up in that great dinner scene — and then get forgotten.

But: If I condemn Undiscovered Country just a bit for hitting familiar notes, can I also praise it for hitting those notes so perfectly? For letting the Enterprise sail off into space, and fade into history? We praise Roddenberry rightfully for his supreme hopefulness — his vision of a future where everything went right. But maybe we should also praise Meyer for the more brutal, tough, sensitive optimism he brought to his movies. At the beginning of Undiscovered Country , the camera holds on a starscape, and there is a blinding light, and an explosion, and then all falls to chaos.

At the end, a great ship moves into a starscape, and fades from our view. Like before, there is a great light. But it does not blind us. It reaches out, in love and friendship, welcoming us home.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

A brief postscript:

I haven’t paid much attention to Uhura, Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, or even McCoy. In part, that’s because the movies also don’t always pay much attention to them. McCoy gets some good lines, but he’s never quite the third opponent you want in the ring with Spock and Kirk. There are whole movies that only use Sulu and Uhura for reaction shots — which is still a better fate than the much-abused Chekov, who gets burned in Motion Picture and brainbugged in Wrath of Khan and goes tumbling into a head injury in Voyage Home . Scotty is Scotty, and only in the brief sorrowful aftermath of the attack in Khan does he get called upon for anything besides boisterous vaudeville.

None of this is a problem, really, and their collective chemistry gives Voyage Home its unique energy (and provides Final Frontier with a barely-earned goofy charm.) Much is often made about how Star Trek ‘s vision was multicultural and progressive from the beginning, but yesterday’s liberalism becomes tomorrow’s conservatism, and I suspect you could watch some of these movies now with a raised eyebrow. (Seriously, how come Uhura doesn’t go on the mission in Search for Spock ? No girls allowed?)

This is all just to say that, in Undiscovered Country , Meyer uses several different strategies for making the crew feel like a real crew again. The film doesn’t have as many showcase standout moments for the supporting cast as Voyage Home — which Meyer helped to write — but it incorporates them all together more than any other film. There’s the scene where someone fires a phaser onboard the ship, and first Uhura and then Scotty both run into the room, yelling “Did someone fire a phaser?” There’s the scene where the whole crew attempts to help Uhura understand Klingon on a radio. There’s a graceful shot after the Klingon envoy leaves, and the camera holds on Kirk’s officers as they unclench, unzip their tight clothes, generally all look ready to go to bed.

The movies never entirely treat the rest of the crew as complete characters. (Even McCoy doesn’t have much to do besides provide moral support for Kirk.) And every actor has their own fascinating story. Uhura was supposed to give a big speech in Undiscovered Country in perfect Klingon, but instead there’s the wacky scene with the Klingon dictionaries — oddly reductive, when you consider that such a great communications chief can’t speak the language of Starfleet’s main rival. (The new movies give Uhura a “xenolinguistics” specialty.) In her memoir, Nichelle Nichols recalls how uncomfortable she was with some of the film’s overtones, and how she flat-out refused to say the phrase, “Guess who’s coming to dinner.”

In his own memoir, George Takei is more open about his frustrations with Star Trek and with the frequently shabby treatment received by Sulu (and anyone not named “Kirk” or “Spock”) by various studio heads. After Undiscovered Country , some of the Trek crew retired and some receded; time passed, and some died. Takei has only ascended in the last quarter-century, such that there may come a time — maybe it’s already here! — that Sulu is considered a more central part of Trek iconography than McCoy. Much as I love Takei in these movies, I think his finest turn as Sulu came years later, in the Voyager episode “Flashback.” It’s a sidequel to Undiscovered Country , focusing on Sulu’s actions onboard the Excelsior. It’s not a great episode of television, but it’s a thrill to see Takei in the Captain’s Chair. Oddly, Sulu as a commander has most in common with Gorkon: They both have a way of smiling in the face of their enemies.

These movies didn’t always service the supporting cast — and you could argue, carefully, that a couple of the movies simply didn’t need them. ( Search for Spock would be a better movie if Kirk went off on his rescue mission alone — if even his closest friends and crewmates didn’t support him.) But they were an important part of the series, providing this franchise with the kind of texture you used to get from character actors in the studio era. The last couple films have overcorrected, maybe too much, turning the crew into a banter-y band of Shondabots. I adore the straightforward work of Nichols, Takei, DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan: Their professionalism becomes their characters’ professionalism.

In conclusion, in The Undiscovered Country , Nichelle Nichols gives a masterful performance with a GIF for all occasions.

THE WHOLE MOVIE IN A NUTSHELL:

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Kishida cracks jokes and invokes ‘Star Trek’ as he and Biden toast US-Japan alliance at state dinner

President Joe Biden listens as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks ahead of a toast during a State Dinner at the White House, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden makes a toast with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a State Dinner at the White House, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden, center right, and first lady Jill Biden, right, welcome Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, center left, and his wife Yuko Kishida for a State Dinner at the White House, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Kristi Yamaguchi, right, and Yukiko Saegusa arrive at the Booksellers area of the White House for the State Dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden for Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and wife Kishida Yuko, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arrive at the Booksellers area of the White House for the State Dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden for Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and wife Kishida Yuko, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pose for a photo with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko Kishida by the Grand Staircase in the Cross Hall of the White House during a State Dinner at the White House, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Evan Ryan, Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary, arrive at the Booksellers area of the White House for the State Dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden for Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and wife Kishida Yuko, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Robert De Niro and Tiffany Chen arrive at the Booksellers area of the White House for the State Dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden for Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and wife Kishida Yuko, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Tables are decorated during a press preview at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, for the State Dinner for Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

FILE - This April 2, 2012 file photo shows singer Paul Simon performing at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, April 2, 2012. Simon will sing for guests at Wednesday’s White House state dinner for Japan. The White House says he’s one of first lady Jill Biden’s favorite musicians. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)

Former President Bill Clinton listens to toast by President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a State Dinner at the White House, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida exchanged warm toasts to each other and the close alliance between their nations as top figures from business, sports and politics looked on during Wednesday night’s state dinner.

Top figures from business, sports and politics turned up for a lavish state dinner honoring Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The White House on Wednesday served up a maximum dose of pomp to honor the close U.S. ally.

After a day of wide-ranging talks and a joint news conference, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden welcomed Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and wife Yuko Kishida back to the White House Wednesday evening for a lavish state dinner.

US President Joe Biden and visiting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida enjoyed a dinner out in Washington DC on Tuesday evening.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cracked jokes and invoked a touchstone of American culture as he quoted from “Star Trek” at Wednesday’s state dinner , telling guests at the White House that he hoped the “unshakable relationship” between his country and the U.S. would “boldly go where no one had gone before.”

“I would like to propose a toast to our voyage to the frontier of the Japan-U.S. relationship with this word: boldly go,” Kishida said, quoting the iconic opening monologue of the original “Star Trek” series.

Kishida, who spoke in English, and President Joe Biden exchanged warm toasts to each other and the decades-long, alliance between their nations as top figures from business, sports and politics — including an ex-president — looked on. The two leaders, who expressed a genuine friendship, pledged to continue to knit together their countries’ interests in the face of global challenges.

Biden , 81, said he and Kishida, 66, came of age as their countries forged a strong bond in the decades after they were pitted against each other in World War II.

“We both remember the choices that were made to forge a friendship,” Biden said. “We both remember the hard work, what it has done to find healing.”

“Tonight,” Biden continued, “We pledge to keep going.”

As the White House served up a maximum dose of pomp to honor its close U.S. ally, notable guests included Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were on familiar turf for the event. The former president declared it “feels great” to be back before casting an appreciative eye at a portrait of his wife from her first lady days that was on display nearby.

Guests in bright spring colors and lots of shimmery gowns chatted politics and talked shop as they strolled in — that meant eclipse chatter from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson (“fabulous” view in Ohio!) and an assessment of Biden’s electoral prospects in Wisconsin from Gov. Tony Evers (looking good!).

But on a day when the inflation news from Washington was less than encouraging, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell shot past reporters without stopping to chat. Olympic figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, in a purple gown, said she didn’t expect to be out campaigning for Biden but nonetheless seemed bullish on his reelection. Actor Robert De Niro supplied the night’s Hollywood quotient and seemed to channel one of his tough-talking characters when he was asked for his thoughts about the 2024 election.

“What do you think?” he retorted.

On a warm spring evening, the Bidens came stepped onto the North Portico to welcome Kishida and his wife, Yuko, who stood out in a flowing royal blue gown on the red carpet.

Inside, Jill Biden , wearing a beaded sapphire gown, had transformed the State Floor of the White House into what she called a “vibrant spring garden” for the evening. The floor of the famous Cross Hall was decorated with images giving the nearly 230 guests the feel of walking over a koi pond, a nod to fish that symbolize “friendship, peace, luck and perseverance,” the first lady said at a media preview Tuesday.

Guests at the head table with the Bidens and Kishidas included the Clintons, De Niro and Japanese pop duo Yoasobi.

Kishida, in his toast at the dinner, enthused over the splendor.

“First and foremost, to be honest my breath is taken and I’m speechless in front of such a huge number of prominent American and Japanese guests,” he said.

A state dinner is a tool of U.S. diplomacy, an honor doled out sparingly and only to America’s closest allies. In the case of Japan, the president has granted that honor for just the fifth time to an ally that he sees as a cornerstone of his policy toward the Indo-Pacific region.

Kishida is on an official visit to the United States this week. The state dinner is Biden’s first this year.

The guests included plenty of Biden family members, including granddaughter Naomi and her husband, Peter Neal. Business moguls also were in force, including JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Labor luminaries United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and United Steelworkers President David McCall were also in attenddance. Both unions have endorsed Biden for reelection.

Dry-aged rib eye steak, cherry blossoms and the music of Paul Simon were also part of the evening. Simon opened his after-dinner performance by playing guitar and singing two of his major hits, “Graceland” and “Slip Slidin’ Away.”

Guests dined on a meal that was designed to highlight the “bounty of spring” in Japan and the United States: a first course of house-cured salmon that was inspired by a California roll and an entree of rib eye with shishito pepper butter, fava beans, mushrooms and onions. Dessert was salted caramel pistachio cake with a matcha ganache and cherry ice cream.

Some of Jill Biden’s favorite flowers, including sweet peas, roses and peonies, were arranged alongside imported cherry blossoms to decorate a mix of round and rectangular dinner tables in the East Room in shades of pink. A few floral centerpieces topped out at 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall.

Tables were set with a mix of place settings representing the administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush. Glass and silk butterflies danced over the tables.

Simon is one of Jill Biden’s favorite artists, the White House said, adding that she chose him as a special tribute to Kishida because the prime minister also admires his music.

Simon’s career spans six decades, including performing as part of a duo with his childhood friend Art Garfunkel. The 82-year-old New Jersey native has earned numerous accolades, including multiple Grammys and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Kishida is the fifth world leader Biden has honored with a state dinner following counterparts from France , South Korea , India and Australia .

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Star Trek Discovery’s Wilson Cruz Keeps Making Television History

For three decades, wilson cruz has been combining acting with activism to ensure that the next generation thrives..

By Randy Shulman on April 15, 2024 @RandyShulman

“I love that you think I have more than one home,” laughs Wilson Cruz, settling in at his New York apartment for what will ultimately become a wide-ranging, two-hour Zoom interview. “I am a journeyman actor who has been cobbling together a career for 30 years. That’s what I am.”

Truth is, Wilson Cruz is much more than that. This is the third time Cruz has been featured on a Metro Weekly cover , and he ensures that a conversation with him feels familiar, like time spent with a best friend. Talking with him is also somewhat of a unique event — spirited, unbridled, utterly free of artifice. He is warm. He is welcoming. He is wise.

Cruz would undoubtedly blush at the thought. But it’s true. He is an LGBTQ icon. He is an LGBTQ activist. As an out LGBTQ actor — one of the first — he has amassed a wealth of credits in roles that frequently elevate and celebrate our community.

He’s guest-starred in shows from Grey’s Anatomy to The West Wing and played recurring roles in Noah’s Arc and 13 Reasons Why . Movie credits include 1996’s Johns , 2003’s Party Monster , and the forthcoming Netflix rom-com Mother of the Bride , starring Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt.

His profile hit warp drive in recent years thanks to an essential role on Star Trek Discovery , the fifth and final season of which is about to launch on the Paramount+ streaming network. Cruz plays the U.S.S. Discovery’s doctor, Hugh Culber, husband to Paul Stamets, the ship’s brilliant engineer and inventor of its revolutionary “spore drive,” portrayed by fellow out gay actor and longtime friend, Anthony Rapp .

Their characters — not to mention their relationship — is groundbreaking for a Star Trek series, which for much of its decades-long history has avoided LGBTQ content of any kind. Discovery changed all that, not just with Culber and Stamets , but in introducing a nonbinary character, Adira Tal, beautifully personified by Blu del Bario beginning in season three.

The show doesn’t diverge so much from Star Trek’s doctrine as it does expand on it, as a good portion of its action is ultimately set 900 years in the future, truly where no human being has ever gone before. The 50-year-old Cruz is visibly bereft that Discovery has come to an end, but he looks at the series as a milestone for both his career and the greater Star Trek universe.

Cruz first made television history in 1994, in the one-season wonder My So-Called Life . He played Rickie Vasquez, the show’s gay teenage character who was coming to grips with his sexuality. Cruz was the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay character on TV, a distinction he wears with pride.

From there, he launched a parallel career in activism and has worked intimately with organizations from The National LGBTQ Task Force and GLAAD to GLSEN, which advocates for LGBTQ visibility and safety in schools. In 2023, he was appointed GLSEN’s board chair.

“What GLSEN does to support young people and students is important,” he says of the organization, which will hold its annual gala in New York on April 29. “They empower young people to become their best version of themselves, to live up to their potential so that they can become great citizens and then become great supporters of young people after them.”

Cruz is outspoken about politics, and it’s not uncommon to see him taking up the fight — with “bark,” as he puts it — on social media. “My father wants me to run for office,” he says. “But that’s not going to happen. I’ve said way too many things online that will come back and bite me in the ass.”

Cruz is worried about our nation’s future and is adamant that people turn up and vote in this election.

“I know that every four years someone says, ‘This is the most important election of our lifetimes,'” he says. “But I hate to tell you that last time was absolutely one of the most important elections in our lifetimes, and this one absolutely is. Because if we get this wrong, there’s no guarantee that we ever get to vote again. And that’s just a fact. [Donald Trump] literally said that he would be a dictator on day one. And if you think that it only meant for one day, you’ve clearly never seen a dictator in your life.”

To those who despise Trump but would prefer to abstain rather than cast a vote for Biden, Cruz is direct.

“Voting is not about falling in love,” he says. “Voting is, whether we like it or not in this country, a binary choice. And our job as citizens is to support the candidate whose priorities and values align as closely with ours as possible.

“Look, I’m not asking anybody to fall in love with Joe Biden. I’m asking them to do what’s best for them. Do what’s best for the people in your life,” he continues. “Who is going to make your life better? Who is going to make the life of the people you love better, and who’s going to make it worse? It’s really night and day. And if you choose not to vote, you might as well vote for the person who is working against you.”

During our conversation, Cruz notes he has some other projects on the horizon but can’t yet reveal them. In the meantime, he is quietly mourning the end of Discovery with the rest of us, somehow assured that in the Star Trek universe, there is frequently no such thing as finality.

“My phone number and email are exactly the same,” he smiles broadly and brightly. “They know where to find me. I am always ready to put on that white uniform.”

METRO WEEKLY: I was looking over your IMDB, and early on, like so many actors, you did a lot of guest stints on popular TV shows. You were even in Grey’s Anatomy .

WILSON CRUZ : You want to know something? In Hollywood, people are always like, “We should work together one day.” People say that to me all the time, and I go, “Mm-hmm,” because it’s well-intentioned, and I’m sure they mean it in some way, but Shonda Rhimes is the only person who said we were going to work together one day and actually follow through.

She wrote this amazing episode — it was right during the conversation around marriage equality, and my role revolved around the difference between domestic partnerships and actual marriage. It was a really great experience.

MW: You were also on The West Wing .

WILSON: I knew you were going to say that. It’s one of my favorite gigs. Can I tell you why?

MW: Please.

WILSON: I did two episodes, but the main episode I was in was called “Access,” I believe, and it revolved around a faux documentary episode around C.J., played by Allison Janney. We got to see C.J.’s life behind the scenes. I played Jack Sosa, who was assistant press secretary for domestic affairs.

It was the only episode of the entire series that they ever allowed improvisation. Usually, it’s precise, but because it was this documentary episode, they wanted it to feel loose and real. Alex Graves, who was the director on the episode, was like, “I’m going to bring you all in each one at a time, and we’re just going to do these interviews and you just answer my questions in character.”

We did this whole improvisation and I answered his questions. The character I played wasn’t necessarily gay, but in that interview, I chose to make him a gay character because we hadn’t seen a gay character on The West Wing — at least not on staff. I had created this whole backstory about how I got into the White House and how I had challenged the White House on some of their LGBTQ stances. He said, “Cut” and was like, “I cannot believe what I just heard.” And the entire thing is in the episode.

MW: You were ready for the White House.

WILSON: That is my job, honey. That is my job.

MW: More recently, your job has been on Star Trek Discovery . Your character, Dr. Hugh Culber, has gone through the wringer on the show. He dies in the first season — that’s not a spoiler anymore — and then comes back to life. But he’s different and has to realign himself. When they first killed Hugh off, did they let you know that you were coming back?

WILSON: I didn’t know right away. In the first season, I was not a series regular, I was a recurring character. I also had another gig at the time, 13 Reasons Why . Star Trek shot in Toronto and 13 Reasons Why shot in Northern California. I was shooting both at the same time. They called me on my first day of shooting the second season of 13 Reasons Why . I had just gone through makeup, my phone rings, and I see it’s [showrunner] Aaron Harberts. I was like, “Maybe he’s calling to wish me luck on my first day.” He was not. He was calling to tell me that my character on Discovery was going to be killed.

I lost it. I couldn’t even fake it. I tried really hard to keep it together and be professional, but I literally lost it because the character of Hugh had already meant so much to me, and I got to work with my friend Anthony [Rapp] . I had bonded with this cast. I had to shake it off because it was my first day at work on 13 Reasons Why . They had to put my makeup back on because I had ruined it.

Two episodes before we shot Hugh’s death [scene], they called me in. They were kind of cagey about it. They said, “Listen, this is Star Trek. Nobody really dies.” I was like, “Oh, what does that mean?” It became very clear that they were going to find a way to bring Hugh back in some form. I didn’t know in what way. Also, I didn’t know if that meant just for the season or going forward.

It became really clear that this character had become a fan favorite, and we wanted to get ahead of the “Bury Your Gays” trope, this trope that continues to be repeated over and over on television and in films where LGBTQ characters are killed off so flippantly.

In between the first and the second season, there was a lot of conversation about how Hugh was going to come back, and I had some input. I’m not taking ownership over it, but they told me what they wanted to do, and I, as an actor, had to find a way into that. If death doesn’t change you, I don’t know what does, right?

If you’re faced with that kind of life-altering, traumatizing experience, you have to question everything. I think you become awed by life and you want to make the most of it. If you think even for an instant that the relationship you’re in isn’t necessarily the one you want to be in, then you start to question whether you want to be in it — or is there a way to change it so that you can be more satisfied within it?

That moment in which he decides to stay on the ship [at the end of season two] is a revolutionary moment for him. He decides he wants to stay because he understands how much Paul means to him, and he’s willing to sacrifice everything to go to this new future, which also gives him a clean slate and an opportunity to reinvent himself within his relationship.

MW: He inevitably serves as an emotional anchor for the crew, especially after the jump in time.

WILSON: And who better than someone who’s been through something even more traumatizing than having to jump into the future? Not only has he jumped into the future, but this is somebody who faced death and came back from it. He sees very quickly in that third season that he is necessary, that these people do need him, and he steps up. That’s what Star Trek , really since its inception, has been about. It’s about how each of us step up and live up to our potential in order to become a part of a team that creates the kind of culture — on our ship, or in our country, if you want to extrapolate it that far — that we all deserve to live in.

MW: In every Star Trek series, the doctor has been an integral and interesting character, starting all the way back with Dr. McCoy from the original series. It’s one of the most important characters within the Star Trek universe. How does it feel to know that you are part of this rare and privileged lineage?

WILSON: Well, now that it’s over, I can say that it was pretty heady. I understood the responsibility. I understood how, for decades, young people would be inspired to become medical professionals because of the doctors that they saw on Star Trek . Like Gates [McFadden, who played Dr. Beverly Crusher on Next Generation ] told me in the very first season, “People are going to want to become a doctor because of you.” I was like, “I don’t know about all that,” but lo and behold, it’s true.

I came to it with great reverence. Me, being who I am, I felt a lot of pressure. I felt some anxiety about it, but that’s just my process, and it allows me to really challenge myself to meet the moment. I wanted Hugh to be flawed in his own way and not perfect, someone who was vulnerable, someone you could see processing.

That’s why, in season four, we see him literally have an anxiety attack on camera. It was important for me because he’s been so busy trying to take care of everybody else — and that’s what doctors do, right? All day, they’re taking care of people, emergencies, people dying, taking care of their staff. At very few moments are they allowed to deal with their own anxieties, their own issues.

I thought it was really brave of them to write a scene where he admits how debilitating the pressure of keeping everybody alive can be at a time when the entire universe, once again, was being threatened, and how that affected him personally. I really wanted him to be three-dimensional in that way. He was not a superhero. He was a human person dealing with superhuman issues and doing the best he could in the moment. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a cost to it.

MW: You dodged a bullet that they didn’t make you an alien and wear a ton of prosthetic makeup like what Doug Jones wears for Saru.

WILSON: [ Laughs. ] Well, darling, I have to tell you what they did make me wear created enough anxiety as it is. I mean, what is more anxiety-inducing than white spandex? Please explain that to me. One false move and I’m the Michelin Man in space. Nobody wants to see that. By the way, the costume seemed to get tighter and tighter as the seasons progressed. I was challenged to continue to look good in it.

MW: I think we needed you shirtless in the show.

WILSON: [ Laughs .] My shirtless scene ended up on the cutting room floor. In season two, I was shirtless in a mirror, having a moment after I came back to life, and it didn’t make it into the cut because apparently it was…

MW: Not ready for prime time?

WILSON: It was distracting, apparently. That’s all they were saying.

MW: Discovery marked an unprecedented moment for the franchise. Not only did we get a gay couple but also a lesbian character and trans and nonbinary actors playing trans and nonbinary roles. The series really embraced and fulfilled the promise of Star Trek , don’t you think?

WILSON: Yeah, I do. I think that even Gene Roddenberry couldn’t visualize, even during his time, just how much diversity needed to be in Star Trek , but I know that his wish was that we would have infinite combinations. Infinite diversity and infinite combinations. What breaks my heart, if I’m going to be honest, is that it took this long for us to have a gay couple — a gay character — as part of the main cast.

What I do love is that this production, specifically, decided to go all-in because we understood that it was an opportunity with this specific cast to go there. We had the kind of actors and writers and support from the network and from the production company to have these conversations and how we could do them in a way that spoke to the issue, but was also part of the plot without it being forced.

I think, in the end, it became about the relationships. That’s why I think [Paul and Hugh] created this chosen family with Adira [Blu del Barrio] and Gray [Ian Alexander]. That’s what we do as an LGBTQ community — that’s what we’ve always done. An older generation sees the needs of the younger generation, and we fight for more inclusivity and push the needle even further in terms of acceptance and the gaining of rights needed for our community.

For me, it was the generation that was living with and fighting AIDS. I joined that fight and used that fight for more visibility. Now, as an elder, I’m looking at this new generation and am saying, “What do you want? What do you need? What kind of world do you want to create?” They want to expand the conversation in terms of gender, and I couldn’t be more for that.

So that was an easy thing for me to fight for. And so on the ship, the analogy is here’s this young nonbinary person who Paul and Hugh kind of see themselves in and feel protective of. It would be a natural instinct to take them under our wing and protect them, allow them to fulfill their potential, and for us to support them in any way that they needed.

And it happened behind the scenes too. Anthony and I saw ourselves in Blu. Anthony and I are two actors who started as kids, came out very early in our careers, and here was Blu, fresh out of college transitioning as they joined the cast, didn’t even know they were going to transition — they just knew that they were nonbinary, but didn’t know that they were going to go through this transitioning process, but felt such support that they could. So it was easy to extrapolate that to the series.

And it fits so comfortably in the purpose I feel of what Star Trek is, which is to see all of us endeavoring to fulfill our potential so that we could be an effective part of a crew that is charged with saving the universe. Because the only way that works, the only way this crew works, the only way our country works, the only way we get to save the universe or save our country, is if we all dig in and commit ourselves to that mission. And the only way you can commit yourself to the mission is if you fulfill your potential and you’re the best version of yourself.

So how do you do that? You do that by supporting each other, by challenging each other to be better, by congratulating and celebrating people when they achieve, by supporting them and giving them the support they need when they fail so that they can do better next time. That’s what we should be doing as a country. And I think that’s what Star Trek Discovery models for people.

MW: I’ve seen the first four episodes of this season so far and while we can’t discuss them here, I think it’s okay to say that I’m really liking the trajectory of this season so far.

WILSON: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not thrilled that this is our last season, but if we were going to go out, this was a great season to go out on. It’s a high note for us. Everything really came together beautifully and it looks unreal. I mean, the special effects of this season are spectacular.

MW: So can you tell us if we’re going to be happy with the way it all ends?

WILSON: I believe you will be, yes. I believe you will be. I was very moved.

MW: Well, you’re now part of its canon, its lore. The fans will forever adore you. What are the fans like? Are they overwhelming?

WILSON: I will say that being a part of My So-Called Life kind of prepared me in a way for diehard fans. You have to remember My So-Called Life was one of the first enormous letter-writing campaigns. This was before the internet. People actually put pen to paper, and apparently, hundreds of thousands of letters made their way to ABC.

But the Star Trek fan base is another story altogether, and I don’t even know how to speak to it because it can be incredibly heart-rending — the things that people share in person at these cons or even online about how the characters move them and help them to be seen in ways that they hadn’t felt before.

It’s incredibly satisfying and really moving, especially around people who’ve said that they’ve been watching since the original, who were LGBTQ people who had longed for that kind of representation and never thought it was going to happen. And it took 52 years. And for them, and for me, that was way too long. But I’m glad it got to be me.

The joy that so many of them felt in seeing our community as a part of the Star Trek universe that is really moving. There is an element of the Star Trek fan base that has some gate-keeping tendencies where if it doesn’t feel like the original, it’s not for them. But like I’ve been saying since the beginning, we never intended our show to be for everybody. That’s why there are so many different series. There’s something for everyone. You have us. You have Strange New Worlds , you have Lower Decks . Soon, you’ll have Starfleet Academy . I mean, there’s something for everyone in this universe. But some fans have not been so kind.

MW: In what way?

WILSON: Well, there have been some homophobic, transphobic things that have been said to us and to me directly.

MW: That seems unfathomable to me. I find it difficult to believe that you can be a fan of Star Trek and be a bigot.

WILSON: You would think so. That’s confusing to us as well. Maybe they’re social media trolls, I don’t know. But I think the fact that our show was so different challenged a lot of people, and some of them lashed out. I’m not going to say that I always went high when they went low, but that’s just me. Sometimes I feel like I have to bark back. I think that’s just the activist in me.

MW: I’ve watched you bark back.

WILSON: That’s the ACT UP in me.

MW: Do you get hurt by their comments?

WILSON: I could sit here and say it doesn’t hurt me, but it hurts in the sense that we put so much of ourselves into this show. I know I do. I put so much care and so much thought and so much of myself and my experience and the experience of people I love into this character, into these relationships, that to be attacked feels personal. It is hard for me to separate it. So yes, it can be hurtful.

Now, can I compartmentalize it and stick it in a drawer and let it go afterwards? Yes. But in the moment and reading it, yeah, I get affected by it. But I also remind myself that this is one person. And there are a hundred people who love the show for that one person who felt it necessary to act out in some way. So I remind myself of that. Also, if you’re ruffling feathers, then you’re doing something right.

MW: Are you going to miss working with Anthony?

WILSON: [ Gets emotional. ] Oh, my God. Working with Anthony Rapp has been one of the most satisfying professional experiences of my life. I’ve learned so much from him. I can be really hard on myself. I can overthink things. I come in looking for the problem in order to solve it. And Anthony comes in very zen — that’s who he is. He’s very centered, and he calms me down in a way, puts me at ease in a way that really makes our scenes really natural and easy. And we’ve had some really tough stuff to play and some really beautiful stuff to play and intimate stuff that can be tricky. And I don’t know that I could have done it as well with anybody else, because we have known each other for 27 years now.

I’ve said this before. We truly created this relationship out of the very real love and respect that we have for each other. We didn’t map it out. We just said, I love you. You love me. The basis for every great relationship is friendship and let’s go from there. And that’s what we did. And we took each moment as it came. It was really beautiful.

He taught me as an actor that it’s wonderful to be prepared, and it’s incredible to do all of that work, but that when you come to the set, it’s really about the relationship between you and that person in the room with you and what happens in the moment. He taught me how to trust myself a lot more. I’m a different actor after having worked with him. I’m a more confident actor because of him.

MW: I’ve been watching a lot of LGBTQ content on television recently and have noticed a passion and genuineness to how we are being portrayed in relationships. We seem to have evolved to a new level.

WILSON: I want to remind you that [ My So-Called Life ‘s] Rickie Vasquez never got to kiss anybody. He longed for that. That was also part of the character — he was this kind of removed person and he was still finding himself, and he was still figuring, he was on the journey of self-acceptance. And so you’re not really kissing people, I guess at that point, if you’re not even willing to admit what it is that you want. But I always wonder what would’ve happened if that series had progressed.

You look at Euphoria , those characters. I like to think of Rickie Vasquez as their much older daddy who kind of paved the way. We had to have a Rickie Vasquez who reached into people’s hearts. Before we got to the sex, we had to get to people’s hearts. And I think Rickie really reached into people and allowed them to see his humanity. For a generation of young people, he really defined who a gay person was. For many of those young people, he was the first gay person of their age that they really could point to alongside [ The Real World ‘s] Pedro Zamora. So we had Rickie Vasquez and Pedro Zamora who humanized this issue.

I remember being in school and being teased for being gay, but the way they teased me was to say that I had AIDS. You know what I mean? That’s what we were dealing with at the time. So I think Rickie laid a path with his heart — big heart — and allowed these new characters to come in and expand on the experience of LGBTQ youth. And what we’re seeing now is revolutionary, and it’s why this generation can expand the conversation now to gender and to trans people, because that is the next conversation. That is how we finally see an inclusive culture, an inclusive country, if we’re willing to do that work.

So much has to be done through politics, through passing laws and bills, but no law can change someone’s mind, right? You have to change hearts and minds in order for legislation to be effective, for people to buy into it. And I think culture, television, film, storytelling does that for people, for us. And then the legislation follows.

So what’s happening right now is that we are having a cultural conversation about young people and gender, and it’s a conversation that I see on a daily basis with my work at GLSEN, right? The way that our schools are dealing with the controversy, so to speak, and the relationship with parents and school boards and teachers and curriculum. But these young people are literally changing the world. They’re changing the way we see ourselves because they see themselves so fully. And they want us to see them as well.

MW: My sense of you is that you are such an empathetic, caring person that it almost feels natural that you would try to help and move the community forward, Wilson. You seem like that kind of person.

WILSON: I appreciate you saying that. I hope so. I hope that I am an empathetic person. I don’t know how to do my work either way. I don’t know how to do either of those jobs without a sense of empathy. I think it’s required. But also, I have to pay it back, right? When I think about everything that was done to clear a safer path for me, for my generation. I was born in 1973, the year that we were taken out of the DSM. We were removed from the list of diseases.

I’m not ignorant to the fact that my life was so much easier than Frank Kameny’s, for instance. You watch Fellow Travelers and you are reminded of how difficult it was to navigate the world as a queer person with no rights. And what keeps me up at night is that people think that those rights are guaranteed, and we could very easily be seeing a future after November where those rights are being stripped. We have a Supreme Court that has literally said they are willing to do it. So I think all of our jobs right now is to be awake to that fact.

MW: Are you married now? I don’t remember.

WILSON: I have been single for 13 years.

MW: How are you single? I don’t get that.

WILSON: My therapist and I talk about it all the time. I haven’t figured it out either.

MW: Do you date?

WILSON: I would love to actually. I am open to meeting someone, but I have a pretty great life. I’ve had some relationships that have not been great, and so I’ve been gun shy. I think that’s part of it lately. So I’m careful about who I invite into my life. I’m holding out for a hero, as they say.

MW: Well, that’s a perfect segue into Mother of the Bride. I really enjoyed seeing Brooke Shields. I grew up at a time when Brooke Shields to me was The Blue Lagoon . And this movie, I think, was very sly about that — there is a moment at Lover’s Cove that feels right out of The Blue Lagoon . It’s a little visual throwback.

WILSON: [ Laughs .] Totally! I didn’t even think about that. I didn’t even make that connection. But you’re absolutely right.

For me, Brooke Shields was Calvin Klein jeans. All I ever wanted — and could not afford — was a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. I’ve told her, I was like, obsessed with her as a teenager. I loved me some Brooke Shields. So meeting her was crazy, and I met her on my very first day in Thailand. I arrived in the middle of the night, and they were all having a dinner. I was like, “Benjamin Bratt and Brooke Shields,” and my head kind of exploded.

She could not have been more generous, more lovely to work with. She was a producer on this. This is her baby. She was the hardest working person on this movie. And she was so much fun to be around.

We were in Thailand, and I have to tell you, it was hot as hell. It was right before the monsoon season. Most of the movie is shot outdoors. So it would start pouring and we’d have to run, cover everything, and then just sit there and wait for it to pass before we could start up again. People would be fanning you at all times because they didn’t want the clothes to look sweaty. I mean, it was hot . And not just regular hot. It was humid. It was like humid-hot. But it was beautiful. It wasn’t a rough gig. I mean, we shot at two resorts. I got a massage almost every other day.

MW: I love the fact that there’s a gay couple in this and no big deal made over it. It’s part of their friendship group.

WILSON: There’s no big [coming-out] conversation between Benjamin Bratt, whose brother I play. There’s not like a sit-down where we have a heart-to-heart. There’s none of that. I think we had a very sibling energy about us. We still do. I love him. He was the main reason why I wanted to do this movie. I’ve been such a Benjamin Bratt fan for so long, and I was like, “Oh, I get to be his brother. Are you fucking kidding me?” And he’s exactly as charming as you expect him to be. He just oozes charm. He’s so debonair. And he looks amazing. He looks amazing. I mean, it’s crazy. MW: I enjoyed seeing Michael McDonald too, although I’ll say that if I was on a set with Michael McDonald, I’d be constantly say, “Do Stuart, do Stuart, do Stuart!”

WILSON: But you know what? You didn’t have to because he’s one of the most natural improvisers in the world. He will go off on a tangent, and I mean literally you’re just like eating popcorn watching. His imagination is insane. We laughed. We just laughed the entire time. He was hilarious.

MW: Thailand just — we have an article up today — made the first steps to approving same-sex marriage.

WILSON: Oh, yes, I saw that. When you’re there, you can see how incredibly accepting it is. We went to a few drag shows there. It’s just part of the world and the culture. I mean, it’s interesting because you can see that there is a fluidity to gender there, and it’s not like they’re having a conversation. It’s just cultural. I think it’s been a part of who they have always been, that there has been an acceptance of a fluidity of gender, and it’s really beautiful. There’s no gawking or anything like this. It’s just the way it is.

MW: I couldn’t help but notice, but most of the time your shirt is off or open. Was that yours or the director’s decision?

WILSON: [ Laughs .] I don’t know that there was ever a question about whether or not it was going to have to be open or not. The girls had to breathe.

MW: You play a lot of gay roles. Do you get tired of being cast as the gay man? I hope that’s not an offensive question.

WILSON: No, I’m not offended. I do play people who happen to be gay most of the time. But I am about to do a movie in the summer where I’m not playing a person who happens to be gay. I’m playing a real life person who happens to be straight and a police officer.

I only have so much say as to what I’m allowed to do in this industry unless I write it and produce it myself, which I haven’t done yet. So the roles that come to me are the roles that come to me. I try to diversify them in my own way and make them singular and precise. They’re all different to me in my head.

But I play people. Now, do I see my work as an artist as political? Yes. I use my work, my characters, to say something about our community most of the time. So it’s why I chose to make my character on The West Wing gay when I didn’t have to. It’s an opportunity for us to be visible. I see my work as a way of having a conversation with the American public about who we are. Because the truth is, most of the time that we see a gay person or a queer person on TV, it’s still usually a gay white man.

So I get to help people understand that we’re more than that. Here’s what I’m going to say. The fact that most of my characters have been gay has been the least interesting thing about all of them. I think the fact that Hugh is gay is literally the least interesting thing about him. He is gay and he’s in love, but he could have been in love with a straight woman and he would’ve been exactly the same person, for me anyway.

The fact that Rickie Vasquez was gay is also the least interesting thing about him. For me, that was a journey of self-acceptance. He just happened to be a gay boy who is learning to accept himself, but young people, of all different stripes, are on that same journey.

I think when creators and producers or writers are looking for actors to play certain roles, and one of them happens to be gay, I end up on a list, and they bring me in and see if what I bring to it is right for them or not, and I’m okay with that. I’m also on the list when they’re looking for a Latino, and I think sometimes they’re like, “Oh, Wilson, that’s interesting.” I also know for a fact that sometimes there’ll be a character where they’re looking for a woman of color or something and they’ll put me on the list and go, “Oh, that might be a different way to go.” You know what I mean? I give people options.

So my job is not necessarily to play a character, it’s to play a human. And if they happen to be gay, that’s just one of the hundreds of things that I consider when I develop the character.

MW: I want to end by coming back to Star Trek . What farewell would you like to say to the fans of Discovery ?

WILSON: I’m just grateful, right? I’m grateful that they went on this ridiculous ride with us. I’m grateful that they supported me through this ridiculously epic journey that this character went through and took the leaps of the imagination that it required.

I’m grateful to those fans out there who fought for this relationship, who defended it vocally online and offline. I’m grateful to all those people who came to me at the conventions and greeted me with hugs when it wasn’t COVID time.

I’m grateful to these fans who saw themselves in this character of Hugh, who opened themselves up to being vulnerable because he modeled that for them. I’m grateful to these families, these parents who used Discovery and this relationship and these characters to have a conversation with their own kids about their gender or their different family.

I’m just really grateful for the entire experience, and the fans are an enormous part of that. I’m just grateful.

New episodes of Star Trek Discovery, Season 5, debut weekly on Paramount+. Seasons 1-4 are streaming in their entirety. Visit www.paramountplus.com .

Mother of the Bride will premiere on Netflix on May 9. Visit www.netflix.com .

The GLSEN Respect Awards Gala, hosted by Peppermint, will be held on Monday, April 29, at Gotham Hall, 1356 Broadway, in New York City. Visit www.respect.glsen.org .

Vatican Calls Gender-Affirming Care a “Violation of Human Dignity”

Document from the vatican's doctrinal office likens surrogacy and transition-related treatments to human trafficking, torture, and genocide..

By John Riley on April 9, 2024 @JRileyMW

On Monday, the Vatican declared that gender-affirming care and surrogacy are among several ills that constitute grave violations of human dignity.

The declaration puts them on par with abortion and euthanasia, classifying them as practices that reject God's plan for human life.

"Infinite Dignity," a 20-page declaration crafted over five years and approved by Pope Francis in March, was released by the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department in charge of religious discipline for the Catholic Church.

The document calls for unconditional respect for human dignity, regardless of "the person's ability to understand and act freely," reiterating Catholic Church teaching that "offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and willful suicide" are contrary to human dignity.

Julio Torres: A Comic Genius with a Unique Voice

Julio torres brings his unique comic vision to the big screen, writing, directing, and starring in the hilarious "problemista.".

By André Hereford on March 26, 2024 @here4andre

READ THIS STORY IN THE MAGAZINE

"There's nothing calculated about the way that I operate," Julio Torres told Metro Weekly in 2019 to discuss Los Espookys , the HBO comedy series, which the former Saturday Night Live writer created with co-stars Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen. "I think we just do things the way that we know how and like to do them. And in my case, I feel like I don't know how to do it any other way."

Torres' singular comic voice and vision -- highly conceptual, sardonic yet heartfelt, and shaped by his experience as the queer Salvadoran immigrant son of an artist -- registers in all he does. The humorous threads connecting his signature SNL sketches, live standup, and Los Espookys are unmistakable in his new film Problemista , Torres' feature filmmaking debut.

‘Thirty’ Gives Black Gay Characters ‘Airtime’ (Review)

The feature-length adaptation of sexy gay black soap opera "thirty" goes long on drama, but comes up short in the execution..

By André Hereford on March 18, 2024 @here4andre

Queer cinema needs more films like Thirty .

Maybe not exactly like Thirty , a feature loosely assembled from episodes of the eponymous VOD series created by Dontá Morrison and co-written with director Anthony Bawn. But films that likewise feature a gay Black couple as the center of the story, or of a circle of friends, come few and far between.

Undeniably the stories are out there, as is the audience, yet, as one Thirty character laments of the media landscape, "white boys get all the airtime."

Thirty lends its air time to the epic trials and tribulations of longtime couple Khalil (Bobby Musique Cooks), a Hollywood stylist, and Tyrin (Brandon Moten), an ad agency owner, and their young and restless friends, most of whom are Black and queer.

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