Why The Undiscovered Country Is Actually Star Trek's Best Series Finale

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▶Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction: 1991
02:49 - Star Trek VI, or A Farewell to Hams
19:45 - What Star Trek VI Is
23:58 - What Star Trek VI Is Not
33:43 - Star Trek VI Compared With Other Trek Finales
37:01 - Conclusion: To Sum Up
39:48 - Shoutouts, Plugs and Announcements

#startrek #videoessay #startrektos #startrektheoriginalseries

[graemebart]

I think the Peter Pan quote was a great way to end the run. It's the perfect lead-in to that shot of the Enterprise "riding off into the sunset" while calling back to a story about eternal youth. Kirk struggled with middle age and desk duty in the Wrath of Khan. Now he's allowed to end his adventure on his own terms, with a blend of acceptance and nostalgia. There is no fan service to beat us over the head with call backs and references. Merely a subtle hint of the youthful, adventurous spirit that still resides within him as he flies of into retirement is enough for the audience to understand his emotional state.

[nystria_]

Undiscovered Country has long been my favourite Star Trek movie.

Also, pretty sure Kirk is a veteran of the Klingon war, which would've happened when he was a much younger officer. Plus all the times they tangled throughout the original series. David's death either pushed him over the edge or is just a convenient excuse for already lingering hatreds.

[OpinionsNoOneCaresAbout]

Damn straight Uhura's saved the day. And the galaxy. And the future of the Federation.

RIP Nichelle.

[GeoffreyToday]

I was 12 when Star Trek VI came out. I had just started attending a new school, and was in this period where I didn't have many friends. I had never been a popular kid at my old school, and that trend continued at my new school. I remember waiting in line for the premier of STVI with my parents at the local shopping center. I saw a couple of other kids from my school there, and I worked up the nerve to go say hi. That was how I found my people in my new school. One of them became my best friend, and still is today. We even had a Star Trek podcast once upon a time. I loved STVI, and still do. Next to TWoK it's my favourite Trek movie, and the two often trade spots depending on my mood any given day.

[coasterblocks]

The finale of Voyager has one redeeming moment for me after Kim proposes his insane plan to Paris:
Kim “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Paris “I left it in that nebula and I’m NOT going back for it!”
Gives me a good laugh every time.

[st.anselmsfire]

Colonel Worf was the right way to do fanservice. He made sense, and you didn't actually need to know anything to see what was going on. On top of that, he was his own character, not simply, "hey, look, it's Worf's grandfather." The new creative team needs to take notes.

[ATADSP]

I rewatched TOS, TAS and the TOS movies earlier this year, and I teared up a bit during Kirks final log entry at the end of Star Trek VI. It was an amazing capstone, and I loved it.

[madmen]

Let's not forget the really iconic credits with the main cast signatures... It really was a perfect send off despite the Scooby Doo ending. Nothing wrong with a little camp in a trek movie.

[OpinionsNoOneCaresAbout]

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

I mean...

[TightPantsJack]

It always bugged me that this movie was the one and only instance where Klingons had Pepto Bismol flowing through their veins. I wish Star Trek kept that canon.

Aside from helping the film avoid an “R" rating, it was an important tidbit for the deleted “Scooby Doo" twist at the end.

[tyson]

“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning” was the perfect last line.

[st.anselmsfire]

I know people get weird about Spock quoting Sherlock Holmes as "an ancestor of mine, " but the actual person who wrote that was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who very well could be an ancestor of Amanda Grayson.
Or maybe Sherlock Holmes is a real person in Trek and Data is playing fan fiction with the life of an actual dude.
Or maybe "is Sherlock Holmes a real person?" is a weird question to ask when the guy that says it is half-alien.

[nytwyng]

Way back in my college science-fiction films class, I did a paper comparing and contrasting Meyer's ST II and VI. There are a lot of thematic similarities (insert "It's like poetry; it rhymes" joke here). Both deal with the crew coping with growing older in a changing galaxy, and coming out the other side with a renewed sense of youth. (In II, Kirk explicitly states, "I feel young, " and in VI, he quotes Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up.)

One thing that fits with some of what you talked about - and maybe I've been reading too much into this for the 30 years since I wrote that paper - is that if you add an "E" to the end of the primary antagonist's name, the crew spends the movie learning how to overcome the fear and obstacles that are put in their way by change. I don't know if that was intentional in the writing of the movie or just a happy accident, but it struck me all those years ago and has stayed with me.

[philipjay]

Hey, the Starfleet laundry division cameos in this one.... LoL

[kwaktak]

ST VI not only brought closure to TOS for me, but it also brought closure to the Cold War in a way. I was born the year TOS was canceled so my first memories were of it in syndication while at the same time the Cold War hung over our way of life. I came to see that the Klingons were the interpretation of the Soviets and it was nice to see a futuristic society that still clung to hope. When I graduated high school I joined the Navy and was immersed in that Cold War mindset for a time, until one day the Berlin wall fell and while on deployment to the Mediterranean our president met with Soviet Premier Gorbachev and glasnost came to be. I recall there being a sense of accomplishment and when I went home ST VI came out soon afterward.

As a child I was always made aware of how TOS was topical for the 1960s and much like that, ST VI brought the TOS era to a close in a similarly topical way.

[bemasaberwyn]

The thing that I like most about Undiscovered Country is that it explains how the peace is achieved which was alluded to all the way back in the original series episode that established the Klingon neutral zone(because of the Organians) and the pilot of next-gen which had debuted four years earlier( with a junior officer on the bridge who was a Klingon). So it would not only connects first series to the new series but it also was eluded to years before

[deadstrobe]

You brought back some good memories here!

I played hooky the day Star Trek VI premiered. It was my freshman year of high school. My older brother took me to the theater for the first showing of the day. And the line around the building was truly a sight to see! This was an event film in the best way.

And, when I got back to school the next day, I was berated by my math teacher for taking a sick day … just to see Star Trek VI.

But it was worth it. ;-)

[ttintagel]

The Undiscovered Country was the first Star Trek film I saw in the cinema. I was recovering from surgery, running a fever, and supposed to be in bed taking it easy, but no way was I going to miss this movie I'd been waiting for. It's hard to convey to younger people just what it felt like for the Cold War to finally be ending and to have that mirrored up on the big screen.

[ErekLich]

This movie is, in fact, really good overall! Sulu is more badass in this one movie than most Captains manage in an entire season!

[bobcarn]

This was always my favorite Trek movie. It has everything in it that made Star Trek great. I think it holds up as well today as it did then.