Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Retrospective/Review - Star Trek Retrospective, Part 7

as the 1980s came to a close the star trek movie franchise was in trouble after riding high with a trilogy of successes the fifth installment star trek v the final frontier was met with poor reviews was disliked by fans and was a box office bomb many who worked on the difficult production believed they had played a part in killing the feature film series for good but harv bennett a producer on the film series since the wrath of khan felt it was necessary for there to be another big screen outing for star trek's 25th anniversary in 1991 once again star trek had stumbled but just as it had done before the movies had a chance to soar one last time although harv bennett was the one who pushed for another big screen installment his idea was a radical departure from the previous films he revisited an idea ralph winter had for star trek iv a prequel which would tell the story of how kirk spock and mccoy first met at starfleet academy bennett proposed a framing device where deforest kelly as dr mccoy would tell the story to a class of academy graduates the flashback story would then feature younger actors playing the famous characters in what bennett described as a pre-enlightenment federation this federation would be extremely flawed with prejudice against aliens as a prominent part of the story bennett's treatment also featured james kirk's father who goes missing during a warp drive experiment partly overseen by montgomery scott the climax to the treatment would see the familiar crew come together to defeat a new villain of some kind paramount executives demanded bennett find some way to include william shatner and laird nimoy in the film bennett obliged adding them to the framing story but his second draft was also rejected allegedly paramount chief fred mancuso blamed bennett for the failure of star trek v and wanted someone else to create the story for star trek vi in my opinion this is extremely unfair on bennett whose tireless efforts and outsider approach to star trek helped rejuvenate the franchise and delivered many successful films while his idea for an academy year's story may not have been right for the time we've seen how successful a similar idea can be with the characters unfortunately after years of hard work on the film series bennett decided to call it a day he left the project and left the star trek franchise for good actor walter koenig suggested his own idea which he codenamed to flanders fields in his story the romulan empire joins forces with the federation to go to war with the klingon empire the regular crew of the enterprise with the exception of spock are forced into retirement after being deemed obsolete when spock and his new crew are captured by mysterious worm-like alien creatures the retired crew have to whip themselves back into shape and rescue them by the end of the story all main characters except spock and mccoy are killed off eventually mancuso asked leonard nimoy to come up with a new story for the sixth film which was to be a swan song for the original cast while nimoy worked to devise his idea nicholas meyer was also asked to come up with a story premise but meyer confessed he had nothing eventually nimoy and meyer both sat down in a meeting and it was there nimoy suggested what if the wall comes down in space you know the klingons have always been our stand-ins for the russians meyer later recalled being immediately captivated by the idea enthusiastically replying to nimoy oh wait a minute okay we start with an intergalactic chernobyl big explosion we got no more klingon empire from there the entire story simply spilled out of meyer meyer deliberately included references to contemporary politics after all the same year star trek v was released the berlin wall fell and the soviet union was on his last legs meyer envisaged the character of chancellor gorkon whom he likened to mikhail gorbachev but also drew from anwar sadat mahatma gandhi and abraham lincoln for inspiration on the eve of peace between the federation and the klingon empire gorkhan would be shockingly assassinated and the blame placed on captain kirk and his crew while kirk and mccoy were imprisoned by the klingons spock and the rest of the crew would work to uncover the truth and avert potential disaster while meyer worked on the script with his friend denri martin finn meyer's wife suggested he direct the film as well this hadn't occurred to meyer but nimoy in paramount was supportive of the idea because of the favoured nations clause and nimoy and shatner's contracts if nimoy directed another star trek film paramount could potentially be drawn into a dispute with shatner's agency hiring meyer avoided this and so meyer signed on to direct his second star trek film the writing process was a tough one with meyer and finn constantly haggling with paramount execs over budget constraints and with the cast over character notes a protracted sequence at the start of the film in which various members of the crew were all recruited one by one for the mission had to be removed eventually the script was finished by october of 1990. the film was given the title the undiscovered country in reference to a shakespeare quote spoken in the film and was one of the unused titles for the wrath of khan gene roddenberry still maintaining his ceremonial position as creative consultant hated the finished script just as with the wrath of khan roddenberry felt meyer's approach to star trek was far too militaristic and objected to kirk expressing strong prejudice toward klingons among a mountain of other issues roddenberry and meyer had a famously antagonistic relationship since their meetings during the wrath of khan and the meetings for star trek vi were even worse during the first meeting nicholas meyer stormed out of the room after only five minutes meyer especially objected to roddenberry giving notes on the character of savic who in early drafts was set to return meyer said i created savic she was not jeans if he doesn't like what i plan on doing with her maybe he should give back the money he's made of my films maybe then i'll care what he has to say tragically gene roddenberry died soon after these meetings took place and meyer has since expressed deep regret concerning his behavior it was meyer who suggested dedicating the film to roddenberry's memory in meier's initial drafts savic would be revealed as part of the conspiracy to spark continuing war between the federation and klingons originally meyer wanted kirsty ali to reprise the role but she proved unavailable due to her commitments to shooting cheers robin curtis was unfortunately not asked therefore savik was instead changed to a new character valeris for whom kim cattrall was cast for the production design of the film meyer worked closely with the director of photography hero narita to modernize the look of star trek and do something visually distinct from the wrath of khan narita was under constant time and budget constraints but was generally successful in achieving the look he wanted that of a more darkly lit style avoiding the bright stagey look of some previous star trek films hermann zimmermann returned to server's production designer creating new interiors for the klingon battlecruiser konos 1. the bridge of the enterprise was a much more difficult task although the set from star trek v had been sent to storage while it was temporarily placed in a parking lot a freak weather accident destroyed the entire set save for a few pieces beyond salvage a new bridge set needed to be built from scratch which could also pull double duty as the excelsior bridge but maya ran into trouble with paramount executive david kirkpatrick whose strict control of the budget simply would not allow the building of a new set obviously meyer was incensed as this set was crucial to the film the standoff became so bad that at one point kirkpatrick ordered star trek six be cancelled altogether however a few weeks later paramount president stanley jaff who had taken over from mancuso by that point understood meyer's request for additional funding and the film was put back into production the bridge of the enterprise was modified somewhat much of the carpet used in star trek 5 was removed zimmerman also added console extensions to spock and uhura's stations so they didn't have to be constantly facing the wall and could more easily talk to the other crew members as part of the cost-saving measures of the production many sets from previous movies were reused as well as sets from star trek the next generation the dining room for example was a redress of the enterprise d briefing room spock's quarters were a redress of data's quarters although they were also a redress of kirk's quarters from the wrath of khan the federation president's office was a redress of the 10 forward set the transporter set also came from tng with a control booth constructed around the main console and diana troy's office was modified into the ship's galley the corridor sets were also reused however meyer insisted on making them darker and more claustrophobic to better echo the submarine feeling which he felt was much more dramatic for the new klingon characters several notable additions joined the film's cast rosanna de soto was cast as gorgon's daughter as it burr while for gorkon himself david warner made his second appearance in the star trek franchise as the character for the villainous general chang the late great christopher plummer was cast nicholas meyer was an enormous fan of the actor's work and wrote the role specifically with him in mind plumber's famed shakespeare work was why meyer included the shakespeare quotes in chang's dialogue while being a fan of the original series plummer was apprehensive about taking on the role as he was not enthusiastic about being buried under klingon makeup initially he turned the part down but after subsequent phone calls from meyer and nimoy the actor was assured his makeup would be different and therefore easier to work in plumber was enthusiastic about working alongside william shatner the two had known each other for quite some time and had a friendly rivalry ever since shatner worked as plumber's understudy for a stage production of hamlet in the 1950s did he upstage you once when you were sick yes it was in 2056 michael langham's production of henry v and i suddenly got oh god i got this awful pain in my tummy and i thought christ it's syphilis why did you think syphilis why didn't you think food poisoning don't ask me that okay but it wasn't it was it wasn't was it so i went to the hospital and they filled me with morphine it was a kidney stone that had to be removed and god they're painful unbelievable so i but halfway through the evening i came out of the morphine stuff and i started wandering down the corridors of the hospital and the nurse stopped me and said where do you think you're going i said i'm gonna i forgot a performance tonight and she said no you haven't you're going right back to your little dad and she and she took me back to bed and i was convinced i was going to do it but bill shatner was my understudy so he went on as henry v and what he did was he he didn't do what i did at all when i stood up to make a speech he would sit down and do his video he did the opposite of he did the opposite of everything i did and i knew that son of a was going to be a star once cast plumber enjoyed the part taking particular care with his klingon dialogue originally the klingon language inventor mark oakrind came up with the famous to be or not to be translation as forgive my poor cling on here however plumber didn't like the way this phrase sounded and wanted something a little punchier okrand instead came up with tachpa and plummer gave this his thumbs up another minor klingon character was the klingon defense attorney played by michael dorne myra nimoy told the actor he was playing the grandfather of his next generation character wharf renee obergenois was cast in the role of colonel west although his scene was later cut from the theatrical release his character does appear in the home video release auberginoid would later play odo in star trek deep space nine for the role of martia a prisoner on rura pente who helps kirk and bones escape supermodel iman was cast the role of the federation president was played by kirtwood smith who was working with meyer on the film company business when meyer got the call regarding star trek six gracely whitney who played janice rand early in the original series had made a handful of cameos in previous star trek movies and was given another as excelsior's communications officer a more bizarre cameo in the film is that of christian slater the actor was an enormous star trek fan and begged his mother who worked as the film's casting director for a part in the movie allegedly he was so happy to appear in the film he kept his starfleet uniform afterwards [Music] filming began on the 16th of april 1991 on a number of fixed sets and locations because of the strict budget control and lack of studio space the shooting schedule and script were in constant need of revision however meyer was good at thinking on his feet and often said art thrives on restrictions to this end the film was shot in super 35 rather than anamorphic lenses because of its greater flexibility maya and narita borrowed techniques from citizen kane such as letting sets fall into darkness this meant deliberately not lighting the edges of a set to save on construction costs for the dinner scene the prepared food was dyed blue and purple to appear more alien but this resulted in the actors not wanting to eat the meals to get around this meyer offered a 20 bounty for any shot captured of the actors actually eating their food apparently william shatner assisted in collecting these bounties by eating an entire purple dyed squid for the courtroom scene a forced perspective miniature of the set was created to cheat the size of the room the miniature was filled with over 60 klingon action figures who were moved around using sticks for the rura pente scenes a second unit was sent to alaska to shoot doubles of shatner into forest kelly walking across a glacier the close-up shots of the actors were filmed later on a sound soundstage for the actual prison abandoned mining caves at griffith park in california were used filming at night to give the illusion of being underground the scenes for the final battle of the film were shot later in the schedule as the sequence necessitated blowing up several pieces and the type budget would make it difficult to repair them meyer arranged for the last scene to be shot to be the last scene of the movie when the enterprise goes off on one last flight originally the dialogue was much more somber but meyer made some last minute rewrites for a more optimistic tone integrating a quote from peter pan as kirk's final line emotions ran high as the final take finished the cast and crew raised a glass of champagne in celebration with some of them holding back tears for the visual effects paramount made sure not to repeat the mistakes of star trek v and industrial light and magic returned for star trek vi however due to the strict budget control no new models could be built the enterprise miniature was the same one used since the motion picture as well as the klingon battle cruiser the excelsior bird of prey and earth space stock models were all reused from star trek three but we received the models to do six and they showed up and the enterprise was in a big crate and we pulled it up and and that was a beautiful model it was about eight feet long had a gorgeous paint job and just a really it was a showstopper that was one of the most beautiful ships that we've ever worked with but we opened up the crate and much to our dismay two things that happened one the wiring umbilical which was about two inches in diameter solid with all the various wiring that went to the internal neons the blinking lights you know all the internal electronic stuff had been just hacked off right at the side of the ship so there was that and then the other thing was the entire bottom of the saucer had been spray painted flat white so all that beautiful paint had just been obliterated so that uh both of those things were really problematic and really time consuming to correct when you work on a number of these films your mindset especially as a designer is okay what can we do different you know you've got your audience out there and they want to see something new and different so yeah the the idea that the photon torpedoes like a cannonball let's see it go right through the thinnest part of the the dish wouldn't that be cool and that was an idea we proposed and ultimately got in the film and to do that we made a large saucer it's about 10 feet in diameter and built a section of it that we could replace typically if you're going to do pyro or those kinds of physical events with things coming apart usually build three just so you've got enough to cover yourself because you usually don't get it the first take that was a composite shot where we shot the large scale enterprise model and then we built a large scale section for a pyro piece and we shot that upside down so it looked like it was in the vacuum of space and they were it you can't just blow anything up you also have to structure the model in such a way that when it does explode it looks like it's metal pulling back so i think we used some very thin lead that was a big operation to put that all together build this in large section of the ship engineered the pneumatic part and all the breakaway sections to come out of it while the miniature effects didn't break any new ground relying on motion controlled camera techniques as ilm had done since the first star wars movie new computer-generated effects were required first was the shock wave from the praxis explosion meyer's reference for the computer graphics team was the wave from the poseidon adventure the shockwave nicknamed the praxis effect became a very popular asset even being used for the death star explosion and the special edition of star wars any hope for the assassination sequence the team were required to create floating zero-g blood effects the colour of the blood wasn't allowed to be red as the film would be deemed too violent and resulted in r rating therefore the colour was changed to violet although as someone who is colorblind i've always seen the klingon blood as being pink for the zero gravity effect a number of camera tricks were used to enhance the wire work whenever possible the actors would be mounted on gimbals rather than hung from wires for the shot of the two klingons flying down the corridor after being shot the set was mounted on one end with the camera looking up at the two stuntmen being hung from wires when the klingons were hit by the phaser blasts the two stuntmen were simply pulled up to the top of the set for the phaser beams themselves ilm employed the use of photoshop which was co-created by one of their in-house artists john knoll for martia's morphing effect ilm used similar techniques to the ones used for the t-1000 in terminator 2 judgement day the kirk doppelganger was achieved using a classic split screen effect for the film's score nicholas meyer approached james horner as the two had worked well together on the wrath of khan however horner was unavailable at the time meyer then asked jerry goldsmith but due to the failure of star trek 5 goldsmith was apprehensive about returning to the franchise and so he turned down the offer after listening to several demo tapes from composers meyer was quite taken by then 26 year old cliff eidelman's work meyer compared his musical vision to igor stravinsky's the firebird as well as gustav holtz the planet suite meyer was impressed by how quickly idleman was able to submit his work and after paramount executive steve charles jaff compared his compositions to bernard herrmann idleman was given the job idleman chose not to mimic the work of horner or goldsmith reasoning i couldn't do james horner as well as james horner idleman wanted to add some extra musical texture to the score utilizing instruments from around the world as well as integrating klingon speech like the aforementioned tachpa into the choir and although idleman didn't reuse horner's main theme he did re-incorporate spock's theme from the wrath of khan this time made to sound much more ethereal to commemorate star trek's 25th anniversary and build a hype for the sixth film paramount held marathon screenings of all star trek movies in select cinemas across the united states and re-released the films on home video in a brand new box set the production had been a tough one under strict deadlines and a tight budget but on the 6th of december 1991 the final outing for the original series cast star trek vi the undiscovered country was released after the low point of the final frontier the undiscovered country is a breath of fresh air and i won't beat around the bush i absolutely love this movie it's easily one of the best big screen outings for the entire franchise and i personally rank it as being just as good as the wrath of khan nicholas meyer's hitchcockian sense of pacing and tension is on top form here the surgically precise editing and economic camera movement establish a fantastic rhythm in every scene which ensures every joke lands every twist is shocking and the final battle at the end is an intense edge of your seat finale i said before in my wrath of khan retrospective that my one gripe with that movie was that it felt a little bit cheap at times but hiro narita's cinematography for star trek vi goes a long way in making sure the lower budget isn't reflected in the movie's visuals letting certain backgrounds fall into darkness while using overhead reductive lighting creates crisp clear images while also retaining a lot of depth this is helped by the more graphics heavy designs of the enterprise and excelsior bridges which add a lot of color to the background ilm's visual effects work is excellent as always the movie easily has the best beauty shots of the refi enterprise model and by this point the optical compositing techniques were essentially flawless the cg effects haven't aged quite as well but none of them really stand out as being especially bad looking they comfortably perform their function as intended cliff idleman's score for the film is one of the most unique in the franchise but it's truly outstanding the dark foreboding tone of the opening is especially memorable but there's also many wonderful uplifting cues throughout but it's the mix of unique textures which really bring the music to life the wide selection of percussive instruments and the use of choir make all the klingon-centric tracks especially enjoyable the heavy drums and sheer power of the brass featured in the action cues perfectly complement the great editing and direction in the final battle and make a relatively small scale set piece feel massive while it may not be what i and other trekkies think of as the quintessential star trek musical sound it's truly brilliant work when it comes to the cast everyone is on top form here after the embarrassing elements of the final frontier where shatner's ego clearly got the better of him he thankfully returns to the more mature nuanced captain kirk of the second film and does a great job here as well the classic banter and clashing perspectives between kirk spock and mccoy is back with more witten charm than ever before just about everyone in the regular cast gets some kind of big moment for their last outing chekhov has most of the funniest lines but uhuru and scotty are also given plenty to do during the hunt to expose the conspirators sulu becoming captain of the excelsior is straight up awesome though george takei slips into the big chair with ease and honestly it's a shame we didn't see more of this it's the supporting cast though who feel like they're almost trying to steal the film from the regulars even christian slater's wee appearance is great while valeris is kind of a carbon copy of savic catral's subtle sarcasm and wit make her a unique presence her betrayal of spock and his resulting actions are actually very dark though with the forced mind-meld in particular being quite disturbing de soto's asset burr is as tough as a mountain rock face the complete embodiment of klingon leadership material just like captain sulu i want to see more of this character david warner meanwhile has the natural heir of a villain but this is subverted with his reasoned and even warm presence at times but it's christopher plummer who not only tries he succeeds in stealing the movie his enthusiasm for the character is clear as day with him relishing every single line of dialogue an alien yelling shakespeare quotes in the middle of battle sounds silly in concept but plummer's wonderful scenery chewing makes it all work basically everything he says is instantly quotable i don't know if he was consciously trying to upstage his friend and rival william shatner but i think he succeeded the political allegory of the end of klingon federation hostilities mirroring the end of the cold war is on point and woven into the events nicely but looking back at it from a more modern perspective the same allegory also works as a way to close the book on this era and star trek as well the klingons as villains is such an iconic element of the original series and the 23rd century set stories in general the klingons transitioning into new kinds of characters is a nice meta-textual way of moving the star trek franchise forward therefore the themes surrounding being afraid of the future and the fierce resistance to change can also be seen as a commentary for the audience itself it's these familiar characters who many fans see as embodying the very spirit of star trek telling those same fans to look forward to the future and see where star trek might go next star trek sticks the undiscovered country may start things off dark and foreboding but it ends things on a heartwarming optimistic note it's charming thrilling and a work of real love for these characters after the disappointment and or embarrassment of the final frontier the undiscovered country is a testament to the hard work and determination of the makers of this movie to ensure this swan song ended things on such a soaring high [Music] upon release star trek six was greeted with a reaction comparable to the often lauded wrath of khan critics and fans were largely very pleased with this last bow praising the action writing and character-driven story the film opened with over 18 million dollars the highest opening weekend of the series by that point and went on to gross 96 million dollars worldwide matching the success of its better received previous installments it also sold well on home video and its novelization became a best seller the movie was nominated for two academy awards and won the saturn award for best science fiction film that year the success of the movie even made some of the cast briefly considered pursuing a seventh film but after 25 years they knew it was time since the original series debuted all the way back in 1966 the first family of star trek entertained millions worldwide in outer space adventures on the big and small screen the series had gone from a cancelled low budget show to a blockbuster film franchise the cast had gone from a group of actors to icons of pop culture but with their last feature film complete it was time for all of them to move on and it was time for star trek to reinvent itself for a new generation [Music] thank you for watching if you like these videos subscribe and hit the bell icon to stay up to date on my new uploads if you want to help the channel grow join my patrons or my youtube members where you can see videos early as well as some other exclusive content speaking of which i'd like to quickly thank all of my patrons and members who are now appearing on screen have a good one and as always live long and prosper you

Channel: Rowan J Coleman

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Keywords: star trek, star trek 6 the undiscovered country, star trek 6 the undiscovered country retrospective.review, star trek 6 the undiscovered country review, star trek 6 the undiscovered country movie review, star trek 6 movie review, star trek movie review, star trek movie, star trek 5 the final frontier, star trek the original series, star trek 2 the wrath of khan, oliver harper, oliver harper star trek, star trek retrospective, rowan j coleman

Id: jSaexUJKwac

Length: 27min 9sec (1629 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 04 2021