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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

There's Klingons on the starboard bow.

Kirk is playing up his racism tremendously and is both angered and supremely hurt by Spock's actions. Stunned by Valeris' questioning of his orders, but gives a not quite sweet smile and reminder of what he said. Despite some friction, giving Spock a knowing look after is a nice show that their friendship is still intact. Practically throwing a tantrum while he dictates the captain's log, chucking his stuff about the place. Somewhat self aware of his problems, but believes he's incapable of change. Has a few brainfarts when they pull up to the Klingon ship, but eventually manages to invite them to dinner. Gets plastered and compares them to nazis, then feels like shit and tries to sleep off his fuck up. Genuinely appalled when torpedoes start flying. Manages to charm his way around in the gulag. Wracked with guilt when he realises how bigoted he is. Clever to see through Martia's plan. Annoyed by a poorly timed rescue.

Shatner has some fun briefly being Martia.

It becomes clear pretty early on that one of the prime reasons Spock is doing this is for Kirk's benefit. Tries to warn Valeris away from making the same faux pas as Saavik. Continues to be in harmony between his two halves and attempts to pass on his wisdom to Valeris. Pretty great line about logic there, too. Pretty much the only decent attendee to the dinner party on our heroes' side. Has a truly aghast reaction to Kirk's Hitler comment. Frankly, Nimoy's expression shocked me more than the comment itself. His anger at Valeris is also quite a stunning move. Batting the gun out of her hand. Don't really like that he forced a mind meld on her. Broods in the dark. Nice human moment at the end.

McCoy is mostly in snark mode. Some great desperation when trying to save Gorkon. Proper offended at being called incompetent. Exhausted by Kirk always finding someone to snog. Steals a catchphrase.

Scotty has immense pride in the ship (which is well deserved considering the absolute state of it last movie). Takes some time to cotton on to lying about the engine. Uhura has a great moment of tutting when Valeris shows she's a bit too professional. Quite casual on the bridge now, as well. I'd have thought shed already know a decent bit of Klingon. Chekov offers the chair when Kirk enters the bridge, but the captain's immediate BSOD leaves him awkwardly stood there and unsure what to do with himself. Fails miserably with Dax.

Sulu finally has Excelsior and quite prim and proper as a captain. Having a cuppa on the bridge is lovely. Despairingly sarcastic to his underlings. At least he's loyal. Noticed that he never really shares a scene with the other main characters. Is that due to Shatner and Takei's animosity?

Valeris is fine. Like Saavik before her, she's a little overeager and, also like Saavik, I'd have been happy to see her a main character going forward, which makes it such a shame that shes rather obviously the traitor. Telling off the racist guards is a fantastic moment, even if its hypocrisy. I was a bit taken aback by her blasting the cooking pot. Looks completely violated after the meld and, yeah, my sympathy is going to her there, despite the assassination.

Gorkon carries himself far better than Kirk, even understanding where he's coming from and wisely musing on the difficult task ahead of them. The other Klingons get a few great individual moments, but the highlight is their awkward attempts to imitate the humans whilst trying to seem natural at the dinner party. I like that they have an appreciation for Shakespeare. Chang is quite hamtastic and he's delightfully obvious in his villainy, though the Shakespeare quotes almost wear out their welcome.

Roddenberry gets another tribute. The opening theme has a similar tension and anger to The Wrath of Khan, but with an added touch of mystery. We literally explode into action once the credits are finished. Some of it may be stock footage, but it is a delight to see the hyper detailed film designs of ships and such again. The explosion looks great, too. Tables are used a lot, alongside long shots, to indicate emotional distance: Kirk is kept at a remove from Spock and, later, Gorkon. As it is primarily about making the final statement on Kirk's character, we quite intimately see him make the captain's logs. Music isn't present during the dinner scene to highlight the tension and the camera angles almost have us view it from the Klingons' perspective. The torpedo launch is incredibly sudden, which adds to the confusion of what follows. The Klingon blood is needlessly gratuitous, especially as its pretty appalling CGI. The way it dribbles at the camera makes me wonder if I should be wearing 3D glasses. Decent oner showing the desolation of the Klingon ship. The trial scene is brilliant from start to finish.

Nice bleak shots of the snowy wasteland. Some busy work with the uniform hunt. Decent comedy bit with the speed learning of Klingon. Using darkness to briefly obscure Valeris' identity is needless. We get the return of spinning intimacy for the mind meld. Nice to play the conference and space battle simultaneously. It amazes me how, even though I've been watching Picard and crew for a while, these characters are instantly familiar from the moment they appear. It's like they never left.

There are two things going on here. Firstly, the Klingon empire is still a stand in for the Soviet Union, with the plot basically being a Sci-fi allegory for the real life winding down of tensions going on in that period. At the same time, though, there's a recognition that some of TOS's politics, including, but not limited to, how they treated their soviet stand ins, are quite problematic. Add this to TNG being far more idealistic and deliberately trying to look forward, rather than only accidentally doing so and we have quite a disconnect in this franchise. Playing up Kirk's bigotry and then resolving it is how Star Trek picks a lane and elects to have TOS's legacy be the optimism that the fans always saw in it, whilst also setting up some lore to explain the friendly Klingons in the other show. That final captain's log is all the old guard bowing out gracefully. It's been Picard's show for a while. And Kirk has finally grown enough as a person to recognise it.

Not my favourite film of the hexalogy, The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home are sharing that space, but a bloody good installment and a fitting ending for these characters.

And full circle, indeed. We're back to Time's Arrow next.