Star Trek VI :The Undiscovered Country (Part 1)

 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Part 1)

Release date: December 6, 1991

Stardate: 9521.6

So long-time readers of this blog are aware of three things:

1) I am the Queen of the Clusterfuck

2) This often ends up involving weird tech issues, which means that

3) I am Newton Pulsifer

Here is what has conspired in the months since my last post:

- The charge cord for my laptop frayed. Seemingly out of nowhere. One day, it was fine. The next day, shot to hell. It gave me a partial charge, then died.

- Ordered a new one online. Plugged it in, charged my laptop once. Now there's the smell of ozone. "I think you fried the battery."

- Ordered a new battery. Charged my laptop again, but it did not charge. "It's probably the charge port," said Legolas. "My brother can fix it when we see him next."

- We moved halfway across the country to where Legolas' brother lives. (Not because of the laptop, we were moving here anyway.)

- Legolas' brother has not been available.

- "You can use my extra, older laptop," offers Gimli. Y'all, this laptop... it is so slow. It takes longer to boot up than it took for a website to load on landline internet in 1995. But it will allow me to write my blog.

- We are staying in temp housing where all of the utilities are covered by the "rent payment." Including wi-fi. The free wi-fi here is spotty as hell. 

- Star Trek 6, and all of their other movies, have left streaming services. ALL streaming services. "I can pirate it for you," offers Gimli. "But their servers have been overloaded because people don't want to pay for 50 streaming services, so sometimes it doesn't work."

This blog entry brought to you by a slow laptop, spotty wi-fi, and a pirated copy of this film, which sometimes just cuts out for no reason.

We're starting out with another memorial placard, to remind people that Gene Rod died, just in case you forgot, or you don't watch Next Gen, or you're just feeling sentimental. I guess it's nice. No birth or death dates though, which is a bit unusual.

The opening credits take about the same amount of time as the Enterprise making its way to the center of V'ger. I'm already bored, and we haven't done anything.

Fortunately, a big-ass explosion follows the credits, so at least there's that.

Captain Sulu's Log, 9521.6: "Finished my first three-year mission as the captain of the Excelsior. Heading home from the Beta Quadrant."

Noice.

I like that our boy Georgie got a promotion. And the writers stopped making him fall for every trap baited with drugs. Let the man drink his tea and make smooth jokes.

But here comes a huge energy wave from that explosion, to ruin his good time.

He yells for shields, but it's already pretty much on top of them. The ship rocks, and people fall out of chairs. Interestingly, we also see crew members falling out of bunks elsewhere on the ship. Don't see a lot of that kind of thing. I like "below deck" content. The bridge is nice, but I like to see other parts of the ship, too.

Once they drag themselves back into chairs, and get damage reports, science officer Dimitri Valtane calls out that the wave came from Praxis, a Klingon moon.

"Shit," groans Sulu. "They had an energy production facility there."

Oh, yay. Space Chernobyl.

Sulu asks the comms officer to call the Klingon High Command and ask if they need help, and oh, hey. It's Rand.

I know I don't like TOS Rand, but Films Rand seems to have gotten her shit together, and I like that Grace Lee Whitney was included. As of film 5, she was credited with the rank of Lieutenant, which is way better than her Search for Spock credit of  "woman in cafeteria" (fucking RUDE, y'all).

Valtane tells Sulu that he can't confirm the existence of Praxis.

"Fuckfuckfuck," says Sulu, and he has Valtane put it up on the viewscreen.

Oops. There's like, a chunk left.

"Garbled message from Praxis," announces Rand.

Holy crap, how?

The short communication shows an injured Klingon at a piece of equipment, and he tries to choke something out before the the whole thing ends in fire. It's then interrupted by some pre-recorded a-hole Klingon, Brigadier Kerla, speaking on behalf of the High Command. And just like with Chernobyl, he's decided to go casual.

"There's been a small incident on Praxis, but we're taking care of it. Don't cross the Neutral Zone, and don't violate the treaties. No bigs. Klingons out."

The Excelsior crew stands with jaws on the floor. Sulu smells bullshit.

"Oh, fuck that guy!" he rages.

A funny-ish moment:

Rand: "Do we report this, sir?"

Sulu: "Are you kidding?"

We hop back to the Alpha Quadrant, and head straight for San Francisco, home of Starfleet Headquarters. It's two months later.

The rest of the senior crew from the E are here (minus Spock and Sulu), and they're all kind of grumbling about this meeting that could have been an email.

"Um, why am I here?" Chekov asks Kirk uncertainly. He is not a Head Bitch in Charge at Starfleet.

They all sit around an oblong table with a bunch of other top Starfleet officials, and someone brings the meeting to order and announces the C-in-C.

(This is where Starfleet trips me up again regarding hierarchies in their system. I had to rabbit-hole down several pages of Memory Alpha to figure this shit out. The C-in-C is Commander in Chief and senior fleet admiral. He's basically top of the tops, and only answers to the President of the Federation of Planets, who is C-in-C of the whole kit and kaboodle. This C-in-C is named Bill. Yeah, I know. He doesn't get a last name, we only ever hear him called Bill. So, ya know... Head Honcho Bill, it is.)

Bill gets up and tells the group that this is a hella secret meeting, and then reveals that the Klingon Empire is probably only going to last another 50 years. 

Really? How do you know that, Miss Cleo?

But he doesn't say. Instead, he lets Starfleet's "special envoy" tell them.

Spock explains about the explosion and subsequent non-existence of Praxis, and how it's fucked up the environment of Qo'nos so badly that the planet will become unlivable in 50 years.

OKAY THEN, DRAMA LLAMA. NOT THE WHOLE DAMN EMPIRE. ONE FREAKING PLANET.

Anyway, the Klingons have a super-bloated military budget and they can't afford to clean up their atmosphere and run their military, so last month Spock met with the Klingon leader Gorkon to talk about peace and getting rid of the military outposts near the Neutral Zone.

The brass start talking: are they going to do away with the military branch of Starfleet altogether? The answer given is that peaceful shit like exploration and things will continue on, but maybe the military part might go away.

Yeah, I call bullshit. Starfleet only has a military branch because of the Klingons? Like, they've literally encountered no other aggressive people in their travels? Even if that were true, and they formed the military part because of the Klingon Empire, they wouldn't just break it all down and go home because the Klingons waved a white flag.

So then Admiral Cartwright speaks up, and rather than play nice with the Klingons, he suggests that Starfleet take the opportunity to kick 'em when they're down, and defeat the Klingons "once and for all." Geez, this guy could be friends with Worf. He straight-up calls the Klingons space trash. Like, that's not how Starfleet plays. Yes, they have a military branch, and like Picard, they do indeed take people like Worf into consideration, but they're willing to entertain the idea of olive branches more often than not.

But who is speaking up now? Why, it's Kirk, and he agrees with Cartwright!

"Klingons are not trustworthy, and we should take them down."

Okay then, racist.

Fortunately, Spock breaks in with logic: they should move forward with Gorkon's suggestion, lest other voices whisper Grima-like in his ear about going down in a blaze of military glory. And then he and Head Honcho Bill drop the bomb: Spock has volunteered the Enterprise, captained by Kirk, to go meet with Gorkon and escort them back to Earth for a peace conference. This explains why Chekov and "lower brass" are here.

Kirk is flabbergasted and tries to argue that ambassadors would do a better job, but Spock and Bill counter by saying that there are a lot of Klingons who will feel the same way that Kirk and Cartwright do, that they should just fight the Klingons to extinction, and that Spock has personally vouched for Kirk & Co to Gorkon.

Then Bill rushes the meeting to an end, because he doesn't want to fight about it anymore, or maybe he has explosive diarrhea or something. He's just like, "Okay, meeting's over. Hella classified, don't tell anyone." And he's gone.

There's a good Bones moment as they all exit.

Cartwright: (to Kirk) "I don't know whether to congratulate you or not, Jim."

Bones: "I wouldn't."

Everyone leaves, and it's just Kirk and Spock staring at one another from opposite ends of that table.

"What the absolute fuck," spits Kirk.

"There's an old Vulcan proverb," says Spock. "Only Nixon can go to China."

Was... was that a joke? Basically, because Nixon was so anti-communist, only he could open diplomatic relations to China and not be accused of "being soft" on communism. Kirk is Nixon. Mr Kobayashi Maru-gate. How apropos, Spock.

Kirk is not convinced.

"They are dying," says Spock quietly.

"Then let them die!" barks Kirk. He huffs for a moments, then says, "We were supposed to be able to retire in three months."

But that's not a good enough argument.

The senior staff get delivered the E, and there's a Vulcan helmsman there who Spock already knows, Valeris. Spock explains to Kirk that Valeris was the first Vulcan to graduate top of the class from the Academy, which seems... late? Vulcans are fucking smart. Why'd it take so long?

Did you forget that Kim Cattrall was in this movie? Lots of people do. Just so you know, I fucking hate her hair-do. The bob, bangs, and headband are fine, but she shaved the side of her head to "accentuate the ears," which is just... you know having black hair and a severe haircut already do that, right? I never knew how much I liked that little hair triangle in front of the ears until I encountered a situation where it was gone. (Oddly, there's no name for that little bit of hair that grows down in front of your ear. It isn't "sideburns" because that refers exclusively to facial hair, and it isn't "vellus," which is the peach fuzz that grows directly on the side of your face, also in front of your ears, but not the same.)

Anyway, here's WonderVulcan.

They get ready to leave, and Kirk tells Valeris to do one-quarter Impulse power. She turns to tell him that thrusters only are recommended while in space dock, and everyone's like, "ooh no, she kind of sassed him? She questioned the captain." Now, I don't like either of these characters, so when he gives her a gentle smile and says, "yep, I gave the order I gave," and she's forced to do it because he's the captain, and because he's an old-timer with experience, and WHO WOULD DARE TO QUESTION JAMES T. KIRK, I'm just like "who gives a shit, let's get on with this frickin' movie already."

Kirk gives Spock this smug smile that says "kids these days," and Spock shrugs at him. That moment was two minutes of my life that could have ended up on the cutting room floor, and this film would not have suffered.

Loveletter shot.

Kirk's Log 9522.6: "I don't trust Klingons, and I never will. They killed my boy, a grown adult I knew as a person for half a second. Spock thinks this will be historic, and maybe he's right, if I can only get out of my own way."

Kirk is wandering around his quarters, putting things away, looking forlornly at a pic of David on a shelf, basically talking to himself, and then VALERIS IS THERE.

She just appears in the open doorway without ringing the bell, which is rude af. Learn some damn manners, Valeris.

He even gets on her for it: "you could have knocked."

She has a Vulcan fangirl moment, and he tells her that she piloted well out of dock, and she cheerfully tells him that she's "always wanted to try that."

Ah, I see. Speeding out of space dock was a test: will you eschew Starfleet for captain's orders? Y'all, don't do that. Don't make an employee you just met prove their loyalty to you.

Hey, you want more Valeris in this next scene, even though we just saw her two seconds ago with Kirk? Well, now she's in Spock's personal quarters, too! Very cozy with the senior officers, will she have a girls' day with Uhura later? Build a hot rod with Scotty? Have a dinner-date with Chekov?

We get some exposition here: Spock was her sponsor to the Academy, and he's impressed by her career thus far. He has a painting of the expulsion from Eden hanging in his quarters that he says reminds him that all things end, then she asks him if he's recognized that the Federation has reached a turning point.  He tells her to have faith that the universe will right itself, then admits that this is his final voyage with the Enterprise, and he wants her to replace him. They briefly share a drink before all officers are called to the bridge.

The E rolls up on an Klingon cruiser, and for a moment, they don't know what to do. Raise shields? Kirk remarks that he's never been this close to a cruiser, and after a moment, decides that opening hailing frequencies is a better idea. Because, you know, he's escorting this ship to a diplomatic function, and not blowing it out of the sky in some kind of space skirmish. He introduces himself to the Klingon that appears onscreen, Chancellor Gorkon. Kirk is not warm, but he is courteous, and to the surprise of Spock and Uhura, invites Gorkon and his entourage to dine with them at dinnertime. Gorkon accepts, and Kirk says he'll arrange to have them beamed over.

They sign off, and on his way off the bridge, Kirk mutters to Spock, "I hope you're happy."

Not exactly an olive branch.

Valeris calls out to Kirk that they have some Romulan ale onboard, which might make the evening go more smoothly, and he commends her for "officer thinking."

Is getting wasted with an enemy a good idea, or a bad one? Guess we'll see.

Chekov spicy moment: "Guess who's coming to dinner."

Every time I watch this, my brain asks "Alan Rickman?"
No, brain. That is David Warner.

We go down to the transporter room when it's time, and I never noticed that the transporter crew is behind a screen, like when x-ray techs cover you in lead aprons, and run behind a shield. Is there fear of radiation with early transporters? It isn't really explained, and I don't recall transporter shields in the original E. They definitely aren't in TNG.

Anyway, Kirk goes down to meet the party with some of his senior staff, and the Klingons get beamed aboard. The camera does this thing where it starts at the bottom with those horned Klingon boots that I think are kind of stupid-looking, then it pans upward. Gorkon appears to be kind of intimidating, and he's using a cane that was absolutely the fang of some gigantic animal. But when they're all there, and he introduces himself to Kirk, he's genuinely nice. He's seen the writing on the wall. To survive, he has to make friends. And he's gonna go for it. He even thanks Spock for setting up the peace conference.

Gorkon introduces his daughter Azetbur, and much like Valkris in movie 3, I hate her hair. So far, we've seen three kinds of Klingon styling: TOS, TOS film, and TNG. In TOS, you mostly just had to wear the plain-ish clothes, have a Fu Man Chu mustache and be slathered in a lot of fake brown bottled tanning oil. In the TOS films, there's enough budget to give them forehead ridges and shiny clothes with pops of red, but they do weird shit with their hair. In TNG, they get to have actual hair that can just be hair, and the clothes have mostly been toned down to neutral leather-type "casual armor," which seems to be a combination of the TOS and TOS film styles of clothing. It's like, in the intervening years between TOS and TNG, the Klingon Empire shrugged and asked "who wants to go Panem Capitol style?"

Anyway, Azetbur is wearing the front half of a chainmail coif on her forehead, and I have to wonder if she walks two steps behind her father, clapping coconut shells together.

Next we get to see Brigadier Kerla, Gorkon's military advisor. He made that "everything is fine" Chernobyl video. He's just real tall, and he gets to have regular hair. Behind him is General Chang, Gorkon's chief of staff. We're supposed to be wary of Chang, because he has an eyepatch that appears to be bolted to his face. Like, I'm not afraid of this guy because he's handicapped.

"I've so wanted to meet you, Captain," he tells Kirk.

Kirk is taken aback. "I'm not sure how to take that."

"Sincere admiration, Kirk," butts in Kerla.

"From one warrior to another," Chang finishes.

Kirk is nonplussed. He considers himself to be better than the Klingons, but it's possible that they genuinely feel a kinship with him via their own values.

Kirk offers them a tour. There are two other Klingons on the pad that don't get names or lines, and they all just follow out. Two transporter workers wait for the doors to close before hauling out some shitty racist comments about how Klingons all look alike and smell, and only the upper management is allowed to talk, and SURPRISE IT'S VALERIS AGAIN.

She's very 

She stares the two racist guys down, then tells them to get back to work.

Let's all go to dinner, shall we?

The camera pans along the table, and we see the Klingons carefully watching and copying their Federation counterparts, as the dinner is set by human standards, and the Klingons are unaware of napkin rings. I kind of like that. Strangers in a new country being offered hospitality need to look to their hosts for clues as to how to proceed, and this isn't any different. Everyone gets some Romulan ale, and Gorkon proposes a toast to "the undiscovered country." When the entire table looks confused, he clarifies, "the future."

Spock recognizes the reference as Hamlet, and Gorkon says there's nothing quite like experiencing it in the original Klingon. Chang then quotes more Shakespeare in Klingon, the Klingons laugh, the Federation members try to, but they have no idea what he said. Kerla asks Kirk how they're drinking Romulan ale if it's illegal. Kirk replies that it's a benefit of being 1000 lightyears from Starfleet Headquarters. McCoy toasts Gorkon as an architect of the future, to which everyone raises a glass.

So far, so good.

But things start to unravel. Chekov says that the Federation believes that every sovereign planet has "inalienable human rights."

Azetbur makes a point I've been trying to make for years: "Human rights. The very name is racist. The Federation is a homo sapiens-only club."

And she's right. Has the human race come so far only to continue using exclusive terms like that?

Kerla voices concern that his people's culture will be destroyed with this possible nice-making. McCoy states flatly that it won't be, but doesn't offer evidence.

Chang pulls out the old "to be or not to be," and says that his people are asking themselves that question. "We need breathing room." His tone is light.

"Hitler, 1938," says Kirk.

Spock looks sharply at him.

Yeah, Hitler said a lot of shit, Kirk. Maybe don't draw parallels between him and diplomatic dinner guests.

Gorkon, who understands what Kirk said, replies evenly that it appears that they have a long way to go.

They take the Klingons back to the transporter room, and there are some weak, "we should do this again sometime" sentiments. They're all lined up opposite one another, as though they're about to play dodgeball. (Not gonna lie, I think the Klingons would enjoy the hell out of dodgeball.)

Gorkon steps forward and says quietly, "You don't trust me, do you?"

Kirk is silent.

"I don't blame you. If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it."

Man, I like Gorkon. I like Gorkon A LOT. Here's a guy who recognizes that his old thinking patterns are going to need to radically change, that he needs to be able to embrace an enemy like a friend if his people are to survive, and he admits that he might not be up for the job. I also like that Kirk admitted to this as well, in his earlier log, where he tells himself or whoever is listening, that he needs to get out of the way of history. Change is difficult. Gorkon is up for the challenge, but is Kirk?

They exchange their goodbyes, and Chang jokingly quotes more Shakespeare at Kirk before they get on the pad and transfer back.

There's a huge sigh of relief from the E senior crew as soon as the Klingons are gone, and Uhura and Chekov sit on the pad and complain about the Klingons' table manners, which... just reminds me that they're comparing what they think of as good table manners to people who have completely different ways of doing things. Like, how burping at a meal is considered both good and bad manners, depending on where one is from.

Spock remarks that diplomatically-speaking, they had not done that well.

"Yeah, I'm gonna go sleep this shit off," mutters Kirk. "Let me know if there are more ways we can screw this up."

And McCoy, ever the drinker, wanders off in search of black coffee.

We briefly join Kirk in his quarters where he looks longingly at David's picture again and records in a captain's log that they screwed the pooch as far as diplomatic dinners go, and their manners kind of sucked, and he makes a note to the galley that they should never serve Romulan ale at diplomatic functions ever again. So much for Valeris' "officer thinking." He lies down on his bunk in his full dress uniform, presumably with the intention of never waking up again, but then Spock pages him to the bridge.

When he arrives, Spock tells him that there's a huge amount of radiation coming from the E.

"Why?"

Nobody knows.

"Valeris?" he asks. "Radiation surge?"

"No."

"Chekov?"

"Only the size of my head," bemoans Chekov.

And then, just like Valeris, a SURPRISE TORPEDO.

The E has fired on the Klingon cruiser. Pandemonium erupts on the bridge as they try to figure out if it really was the Enterprise who fired on the cruiser (it was) and why (dunno).

There's a brief scene of Gorkon and two others at a conference table on the cruiser, confused as their ship rocks.

A SECOND TORPEDO, and now there are Klingons running through corridors away from fireballs. The cruiser loses gravity controls.

"WTF?" Kirk yells over the comm system. "Scotty, did we just fire torpedoes at the cruiser?"

"NO!" yells Scotty. "I'm looking at our inventory, and we still have all of our shit!"

Kirk yells at Uhura to call the Klingons, and we see Klingons floating in the corridors and rooms of the cruiser, trying to get a handle on what is happening, while Uhura's voice echoes throughout the ship.

A pair of fully-suited figures in gravity boots transport to the cruiser. They make their way through the corridors, and shoot everyone they encounter. In the zero-gravity environment, everyone is thrown back while globules of magenta blood gush forward. 

Kinda sus sticker

"I can hear shooting and yelling," Uhura reports back.

The two figures finally find Gorkon, and shoot him as well. Then they wordlessly return to where they beamed on, and disappear.

The Klingons manage to get the aux gravity running again, and the bodies hit the floor. Blood splatters everything.

Kirk manages to get Chang onscreen, and Chang growls that he's coming after Kirk for betraying them.

"We didn't fire, though!" says Kirk frantically.

"Data banks say we did," Spock replies soberly.

The Klingon cruiser, weak and limping in space, comes about and powers weapons.

"Shields?" asks Valeris.

"Shields!" yells Chekov.

Quick-thinking, Kirk responds, "Surrender, surrender!"

The others are baffled, but Uhura frantically tells the cruiser that they're surrendering in an attempt to get the cruiser to not fire on them.

McCoy appears, because he's needed in this scene, and Kirk declares that he's going over to the cruiser. 

"Me too," says McCoy. "They might need a doctor."

Spock tries to go, because he dragged the E and her crew into this, but Kirk tells him to take the con instead, because he needs Spock to get them back out of this mess.

Uhura tells the cruiser that two are coming over unarmed, and Kirk and McCoy are forced to repeat that they are unarmed when they beam over and find themselves staring down the barrel of Kerla's blaster.

"We don't know what happened!" Kirk protests. "Help us help you."

Kerla hauls Kirk and McCoy through the ship while other crew members carry away dead bodies. They end up in the room where Gorkon was shot.

"WTF happened?" asks Kirk.

"You fired on us!" yells Chang. "You aimed for the gravity, and then two of your people beamed aboard in gravity boots and shot the place up!"

"Do you have a doctor?" asks McCoy.

"Not anymore," snarls Chang.

Azetbur gives her permission for McCoy to look at Gorkon, then they haul him up onto the table for better lighting.

But it's no good. Gorkon is barely alive, losing blood, and McCoy realizes with horror that virtually none of his equipment works because Klingon anatomy is completely different. His suturing device is not closing the wounds. Frustrated and running out of options, he sees that Gorkon has gone into arrest and climbs onto the table to do CPR. It works for about 30 seconds, wherein Gorkon has just enough time to whisper "don't let it end this way," to Kirk, before dying.

Chang arrests Kirk and McCoy for assassinating Gorkon.

"He tried to save him," says Kirk weakly, as they're hauled out in handcuffs.

Back on the E, Uhura looks up from her earpiece. "They've been arrested."

Spock springs into action. "Okay, I'm captain of this ship now, Uhura call headquarters and update them, ask for further instructions. We have to figure out what the hell happened here tonight. We fired on the cruiser."

"There's no way," objects Scotty.

"Well, we did," says Spock.

"But we need to get the Captain and Dr McCoy back," says Valeris. "We can't let them be taken prisoner back to Qo'nos."

"We can't fire on them, armed conflict was what we were looking to avoid here," Spock points out.

"What if we can't figure it out?" asks Chekov.

"Then we have to leave it up to the diplomats," says Spock, disappearing into the lift with Valeris and Scotty.

No dramatic music! But end of Act 1!

Meanwhile, back at Federation Headquarters, the president of the whole kit and kaboodle is arguing with a Klingon ambassador, Kamarag. The ambassador feels that his people are owed the right to arrest Kirk and McCoy, and have them stand trial for the murder of Gorkon. The president disagrees, and instead, asks Sarek for his opinion.

"Not gonna lie," says Sarek. "I think the Klingons have that right, under the interstellar law they quoted."

The president looks at Nanclus, a Romulan ambassador. "I agree with them. The law is pretty clear here," Nanclus replies.

Gotta say, I do too. From the POV of the Klingons, Kirk and McCoy are guilty. Do we know that Kirk didn't fire those torpedoes, and McCoy tried to save Gorkon? Of course. But interstellar law says that the Klingons have the right to charge them. So they do.

It's three against one, and the Federation president begrudgingly admits that he is not above the law. He won't extradite Kirk and McCoy back to the Federation.

Back on the E, the ship has been ordered back to headquarters on the double, and Uhura flings her communicator away from her in frustration, reporting to Chekov the news.

"We can't leave them," Chekov objects.

"*cough cough* sabotage *cough cough*," suggests Valeris.

Uhura pauses. "Oh man, Chekov. Our shit's broken."

"Oh nooooes," he replies.

I mean, you could maybe check with Spock first. He'd probably get on board.

The president's office is now full as he speaks with Azetbur via screens. He starts to offer her condolences on her loss, but she cuts him off.

"I've been named chancellor in my father's place."

I don't recall it working that way, but maybe the High Council made an emergency decision to pass it down the line. Go on.

"The long and short of it is, that you want this peace conference to continue, but if it's going to happen, we won't be extraditing the prisoners. And you won't attempt to rescue them. Or we'll call that shit off and declare war."

Sarek is sitting in front, and he lets a small, inaudible reaction slip. He was involved with this thing with the Klingons as well, and feels responsible, because he pulled Kirk and the E into it along with Spock.

"We're... gonna let you do the thing," says the president hesitantly. "We hope you'll be able to join us in a week here for the conference."

"Yeah, the conference now needs to be on neutral ground, and the location be kept a secret," Azetbur insists.

Ugh, that's going to suck for whoever is doing the catering at the new location.

Everyone signs off, and we switch over to Azetbur's ship. Her advisors are telling her (in Klingon) to go to war with the Federation, or they'll become slaves. She replies that war is "obsolete, just as we are in danger of becoming," and that they need to go forward with peace, as her father wanted.

"Your father was killed for what he wanted," Chang tells her in Standard.

She speaks to the others in Standard as well. "We're going with peace here. But Kirk will pay for my father's death."

(Big ups to Memory Alpha here. The site I am using to pirate this film is spotty with subtitles, and doesn't always translate Klingon, which makes it harder to watch.)

I have to say, she's being smart about this. I don't like Azetbur, she rubs me the wrong way. In a film where you should be rooting for Kirk, she should be the villain, right? But I don't like Kirk. And even if I did, girlfriend has a legal right to charge him in her father's death. It's really smart of her to blame Kirk and McCoy only for this murder, and not the entire Federation. The Klingons still need peace, or they'll "become obsolete." Declaring war on the Federation will all but make them extinct, and won't solve their problem of having a dying homeworld to fix. Her advisors may want war, but she recognizes that peace is the correct course of action to save her people.

We go straight to the trial, which is a big ole MOOD. The space it's taking place in is some kind of windowless underground chamber, with a hole that lets in moonlight. The moonlight forms a spotlight on Kirk and McCoy, who are standing on a short platform in the middle of the floor, holding translation machines to their ears, as the trial is being conducted in Klingon. There are steep viewing boxes going all the way up and around, filled to the brim with Klingons, and a small box where the translators sit. The whole thing is being broadcast back to the Federation president's office, where several people are watching, including Admiral Cartwright, the guy who wanted to declare war on the Klingons and just wipe them out.

Chang is running the show, but is not the judge. He's the prosecution. Fortunately for me and these iffy subtitles, Chang begins in Klingon, we go to the translation box to hear what they're translating to Kirk and McCoy, then the film switches over to English so I won't have to scan back through Memory Alpha, giving the impression that they're still speaking Klingon.

Then we see that this trial is also being broadcast like television - I guess anyone can tune in? The Enterprise bridge crew is watching.

Because it isn't completely explained, and is kind of confusing, let me clarify one thing: Michael Dorn, who plays Worf on TNG, is playing Colonel Worf here, an ancestor of TNG Worf (Rozhenko), and the guy for whom TNG Worf was named after. Colonel Worf appears to be the public defender for Kirk and McCoy. And he's doing a pretty good job, so you know this isn't some kind of drumhead bullshit.

The first witness gets up and says that he and the others were working when the gravity shut off, and two people in Starfleet uniforms walked onto their ship and started killing Klingons.

"How did you know they were actually Starfleet members, and not others in the Starfleet uniforms?" asks Col. Worf.

The judge shoots this down, telling Worf that they're dealing in facts, not theories.

Can I object? Because that was a good question. Literally no one but the peeps in those suits knew who the peeps in the suits were. Without anyone to charge directly, they're charging Kirk, the captain of the ship, insinuating that he either planned the assassination, or should at least take responsibility, as he was in charge of the ship. (They think McCoy had a direct effect on Gorkin's death, so he should technically be tried separately, but I digress.)

Then Worf asks the witness how the suspects were walking through the ship with no gravity. Magnetic boots, the witness replies.

Spock takes notice. This is the first he's hearing of gravity boots.

Chang specifically asks McCoy about his medical status.

McCoy joke: "Aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good."

He gets a laugh out of one random Klingon in the audience. Tough crowd, but at least one guy appreciated it. McCoy then tells Chang that's he's been a ship's doctor for 27 years, and that he gets to retire in three months.

"Yeah, you drank a lot of Romulan ale at dinner that night," says Chang.

"Um, we all did?" replies McCoy in a duh voice.

Chang takes a different tack: "Was the Chancellor alive when you started working on him?"

McCoy admits that the Gorkon was barely alive, but that the damage was too much, and that he and his equipment were not familiar with Klingon anatomy. Chang suggests that McCoy is old and incompetent as a doctor.

McCoy pleads with him: he tried to save Gorkon, the "last, best" hope for peace between their peoples.

They let the witness go, and Chang turns to Kirk: did he not plan to take revenge for the death of his son at the hands of the Klingons?

Kirk is appalled at this suggestion, and Chang plays the captain's log for the court, the one where Kirk says that Klingons are untrustworthy, and that he blames them for David's death. It's pretty damning. The audience is pissed.

"Hey," interrupts Worf, "Kirk's political views don't come into play here."

"They do, though," says Chang. He launches into a recitation of Kirk's spotty service record; of his going above or around superiors or ignoring orders; the fact that he was demoted from admiral.

"Those things are true," Kirk admits.

"And were you obeying or disobeying orders when you assassinated the chancellor?" demands Chang.

Worf objects all through here, but the judge is A) biased; and B) trying to keep the peace in his courtroom.

"I didn't see what happened," Kirk points out. "I didn't know he had been assassinated until we boarded your ship."

"You're in charge of the ship," says Chang silkily. "Do you take responsibility for your people? Even if they carried out an assassination?"

"That's a set-up!" yells McCoy.

"Don't answer!" adds Worf.

But the judge tells Kirk to answer.

He pauses, then states that, as captain, he takes responsibility for the actions of the people on his ship.

Spock is surprised.

On the Excelsior, Sulu's bridge crew watches the trial, and he tells Rand to message the Enterprise and offer their help.

The judge pronounces Kirk and McCoy guilty of their charges.

Worf tells the court that he wants it on record that the charges are purely circumstantial. It's okay, Colonel Worf. You were a good lawyer. Shit was stacked against your clients.

The judge hands down a sentence: in an attempt to keep the peace, he will not sentence them to death. The audience is not pleased. Instead, he is sending them to the dilithium mines on the penal asteroid Rura Penthe. It is a life sentence.

The reaction on the E bridge is not good. Rura Penthe has a reputation, as evidenced when Scotty remarks that it would have been better had they been given death sentences.

Spock asks Valeris to play him the torpedo video again. It's pretty clear that it came from the Enterprise.

"No way!" Scotty objects again. "We have all of our torpedoes!"

Spock quotes Sherlock Holmes (but claims that it's an ancestor) that, when you've examined the probable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the answer. "If we didn't fire, and they didn't fire on themselves, then it must have come from someplace else."

"There were no other ships," Chekov points out.

Spock starts walking them to his theory. "There was a radiation burst."

"From the Klingons?" asks Uhura.

"Nope, too far away. Maybe it was a ship beneath us."

"The Klingons would have seen it," says Scotty.

"You sure?"

"Bird of Prey?" asks Valeris.

But how could that be, as Birds of Prey cannot fire when cloaked, and the ship would have to be cloaked to not be seen by the Klingons?

"This is nuts!" yells Scotty. "That can't be done! Are we going to go to Starfleet headquarters and tell them that there's some impossible, invisible new weapon out there, and that's why Kirk is innocent? They'll think we're trying anything to get them free!"

"Pretty much," says Spock. "We can't go to them with a theory."

"Why would the Klingons fire on their own guy?" asks Uhura.

"Good question," Spock acknowledges. "We need to find proof to take to Starfleet. Valeris, you're in charge of that investigation."

"Okay, wait," says Chekov. "If the killers were on this other, cloaked ship, then they beamed over from there, and not here."

"Records say they either beamed over from here," Spock says, "or they altered the records from here. Either way, we need to look here."

"For what?" asks Chekov.

Spock looks at Valeris.

"Two pairs of gravity boots," she says simply. 

Gonna pause here, at roughly the halfway point. We'll pick up again next time at Rura Penthe, and watch Kirk's wet dream, where he fights himself.

Fun Facts:

- This film came very close to not getting green-lighted. Movie 5 had gods-awful box office numbers (I wonder why!), and Paramount had had a series of films that were expensive flops. But they also didn't want the series to end with the crapfest of Final Frontier, so they made Star Trek a deal: the movie 6 budget was not to exceed the movie 5 budget, even by $1. Harve Bennett proposed a Starfleet Academy prequel, which would have been far cheaper to make, but was met with resistance from Gene Rod, the fanbase, and the original cast. By the time it was scrapped, Bennett had sunk 18 months of pre-production into the prequel film. In frustration, he left Star Trek after 10 years with the franchise.

- After Bennett left, Paramount president Frank Mancuso Jr turned to Leonard Nimoy. He wanted an original cast film. Nimoy suggested a parallel of the Gorbachev/Perestroika/Glasnost situation between the Federation and the Klingons. Mancuso liked this idea, and Nimoy requested that Nicholas Meyer (director of move 2 and writer of movie 4) be brought on as co-writer and director.

The cast with Nicholas Meyer

- When Nimoy contacted Meyer, Meyer was in the UK shooting another film, "Company Business," which had a similar Glasnost theme. Meyer felt like the studio butchered the story he wanted to tell with "Company Business," and decided that he could tell the story better with Star Trek. Interestingly, Kurtwood Smith (who played the Federation president) also appeared in "Company Business."

- Meyer had originally gotten along well with both Harve Bennett and Gene Roddenberry, but after Meyer largely re-wrote the limp movie 2 script and included more militaristic aspects of Starfleet, Gene got angry. It didn't gel with his vision for Starfleet. (Meyer declined to work on movie 3 as he hated the idea of Spock being brought back to life after the beautiful death scene in movie 2.) They also clashed over Saavik, a Meyer character. Meyer wanted to take her in a certain direction in this film, and Gene disagreed. Meyer was annoyed because he felt Saavik was his character to do with as his wished, and Gene was essentially without power when it came to the studio. Things were being shown to him as a courtesy at this point. In the end, Saavik as a character fell through for unrelated reasons, and it became moot.

- Viewing this film was one of the last things that Gene Roddenberry did before he died. The film was mostly finished, and he gave it a thumbs up initially, but decided later that he disliked the thread of racism toward the Klingons. He had his thoroughly-hated lawyer Leonard Maizlish start legal proceedings against Nimoy and Meyer to get 15 minutes of the more militaristic scenes cut from the film, but Roddenberry died two days later, and the proceedings were dropped.

 - Outside of the original cast, the only other actors to play in both this film and the first were Mark Lenard, (who played a Klingon captain in TMP, and Sarek here) and Grace Lee Whitney, who played Rand in both films.

- There seems to be some confusion here as to whether Rand is a Lieutenant commander here, or a Lieutenant junior grade.

- Grace Lee Whitney was brought back to the films after Gene Rod admitted that his firing her from the show was "a mistake." Her Star Trek credits ended up being 8 TOS episodes, four bit cameos in the films, and an episode of Voyager. She also participated in several fan films.

- Star Trek attempted to give Head Honcho Bill a last name at least twice:

    -In the novelization of this film, he is named Admiral William Smillie.

    - Bill is played by Leon Russom, who will later appear as a different character, Vice Admiral             Toddman, in DS9. Some Star Trek games have listed Bill as being Bill Toddman, to draw that             connection between the two characters.

- The little coffee table on the bridge of the Excelsior actually hid the apparatus that was used to shake the set when the ship went through the energy wave.

- When Sulu drinks his tea, the cup has a lovely inscription of USS Excelsior. When it falls off the table and shatters, there are no markings on the cup. The prop department loved this little cup so much that they didn't want it damaged, so they smashed another.

- Kim Cattrall initially turned down this movie because she had decided that Star Trek did not produce strong female roles, and was not interested in being another "pretty face." She accepted the role when she learned that producers wanted her to develop the character. Valeris' hairstyle was her idea, as well as several other key points in development.

- Kim Cattrall had initially auditioned to play Saavik, but was turned down for the role. When Nicholas Meyer wanted to bring Saavik back for this film, he only wanted Kirstie Alley. But Alley was very popular on Cheers, and her asking salary by then was too much. Meyer then decided that, if he could not have Alley, he would create a new character to take her place. Robin Curtis, who also played Saavik, was disappointed that she had not be considered when Alley was not available. Part of Cattrall turning down this film initially was because she thought she was being asked to play Saavik, whom she considered "just a girl."

- Lol, MASH Easter egg:

- Chancellor Gorkon was played by David Warner. If he looks familiar to you, you have a better eye than I do. He played Ambassador St John Talbot in movie 5. He'll also play a key Cardassian role, Gul Madred, in season 6 of Next Gen.

- The blue food at the dinner party scene was considered inedible by the cast, and Nicholas Meyer finally offered them $20 for each bite they took. William Shatner made $240 before he threw up. (The blue food was dyed squid.) No one else was able to swallow it.

- In the original script, the dinner party scene was supposed to wind up nearly ending in a fist fight. Cuts were made to the final film, and the dinner party ended up being just uncomfortable.

- Spock quotes Sherlock Holmes, and claims that it was said by an ancestor of his, leading some fans to wonder if Spock might be distantly related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle via Amanda Grayson. (Sherlock said the quote, but it was written by Doyle.) Honestly, I think the guy who claimed that "only Nixon could go to China" was an old Vulcan saying was just fucking with them, in a similar (but less goofy way) to Chekov continually claiming that certain non-Russian things are really Russian.

- Between all of the characters (but mostly Chang), Shakespeare quotes came from the following plays: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, King Henry V, and King Henry IV (Part II).

- This is the last production to feature the entire TOS crew, but the final screen-time for DeForest Kelley and Nichelle Nichols. The others will be featured in other shows and films.

- This is the first canon mention of Sulu's first name, Hikaru. It had previously been used in novels, and approved by both Roddenberry and Takei, but had not been used in the shows or films until this point.

-This film was nominated for two Academy awards, for make-up and sound effects. It was nominated for a Hugo award for best drama, and nominated for five Saturn awards. It won the Saturn award for Best Science Fiction Film.

- This is the first film to confirm that Kirk's middle name is Tiberius. It had been previously mentioned in the TAS episode "Bem." (Haters who claim that TAS is not canon can eat me. You can't claim it's not while simultaneously picking out from that series that things that you would like to be canon.)

- Rene Auberjonais (who plays Odo on DS9) was cast to play Colonel West. He filmed his scenes, but they were later cut, as Gene Rod did not like the ideas that the character was presenting. The scenes were later re-added to certain re-releases into new media formats, but were cut again when re-released on Blu-ray.

- West wears an admiral's rank, but this is not correct. The Naval equivalent of a Colonel is a captain. The reason why there is one instance of a non-Naval rank in Starfleet is because Gene had toyed with the idea for years of the possibility of Starfleet also having an Army and/or Marines branch. Having a colonel was Star Trek's version of dipping their toes in the water, but the idea never appears to have gone anywhere.

- West was meant to be a caricature of Oliver North of the Iran-Contra Affair. Auberjonais was a friend of writer and director of Nicholas Meyer, who wrote the character to be a political jab at North.

- The scenes of West that were cut included him presenting a plan to the president to rescue Kirk and McCoy, and which was given the thoroughly unimaginative name "Operation Retrieve." West gives this presentation with Admiral Cartwright, Nanclus, and Sarek in the room. The president rejects this plan, as he feels it would have sparked a war with the Klingons. West, Nanclus, and Cartwright all make the case that the Klingons are in a weakened position, and a war would be an easy win. The C-in-C then enters and tells the president that Kirk has saved their planet previously, and the president replies that Kirk can save it again, by standing trial. 

- The President of the Federation in this film is an unnamed Efrosian.

- Michael Dorn found out that he got the part of Colonel Worf when Meyer and Herman Zimmerman happened to be walking by the TNG soundstage and told him.

- The original script featured a prologue, which would catch the audience up with the characters: Kirk was back together with Carol Marcus; McCoy was showing up drunk to medical celebrity events (as a form of protesting the hypocrisy of it all); Uhura was a radio show hostess; Scotty was an engineering professor; Chekov was competing and losing in grandmaster chess tournaments; and Sulu was working as a cab driver on some backwater alien planet. (Of those, I only like McCoy's prologue - because it seems in-character - and Scotty's, which has a bit of dignity. In the actual film, Uhura states that she should have been chairing a communications seminar at the Academy when they called her to that top-secret meeting. I like that better.) The prologue was scrapped altogether when they discovered that it would have been too costly to film.

A storyboard of Scotty's prologue "classroom"

- The line "Guess who's coming to dinner?" was originally an Uhura line, but Nichols refused to say it, as it referenced the Sidney Poitier film of the same name, and she felt the line was too racist. It was given to Chekov instead. Another Uhura line "Would you let your daughter marry one?" (in reference to the Klingons) went straight into the trash, as she also refused to say it.

- Brock Peters (Admiral Cartwright) also struggled with the racist overtones of this film, and the fact that he had to say the line "bring them to their knees," as this was a line that had been used in other films against Black people.

- Most Star Trek productions are met with budget crises, and movie 6 was no exception. When Meyer turned in his budget proposal, Paramount was under the guise of one guy in charge. By the time he got back from the UK, ready to start pre-production, it was under the eye of another, who turned his proposal down. The prologue got the axe, and on-location filming in Alaska (to simulate Rura Penthe) was off the table. Sets were recycled, TNG builds were redressed (as TNG was on summer hiatus), and models were built on the private dimes of crew. Some of the cast and crew even agreed to partial deferment of their wages.

- It was even suggested that cutting ILM for special effects might save them money, and selecting a cheaper company. But this is what had happened with movie 5, and the effects were abysmal. No one wanted that. In the end, the special effects were trimmed to 51 from 115. (Thirty of those originally cut effects would later be added back in, as the film made no sense without them.)

- Even with all of these trims, the Head Bitch in Charge of Paramount told Meyer that the cuts were not enough, and he needed to make movie 6 for the same budget as movie 5. It could not be done, and the Head gave movie 6 the axe. So what happened? Yet another new Head Bitch in Charge! In what the media was calling "The Studio Shuffle," Paramount had recycled through numerous Heads over a short period of time, essentially going through them like a tiny island nation goes through dictators. Stanley R. Jaffe, the Paramount interim president, told Meyer to make his movie. They would find him the money.

- The biggest set expense was the bridge. The studio had needed the room between films, so put the bridge set outside for storage. It had been completely destroyed in some freak weather, and only the turbolifts survived. In the end, they had to rebuild the entire thing, and use it for the bridges for both the Enterprise and the Excelsior.

- Shatner had wanted to direct this film. Remember that weird contract clause that Shatner and Nimoy had, that said that whatever one got, the other was entitled to as well? Nimoy had, at this point, directed two films to Shatner's one. And the one that Shatner had done was the bucket of elephant snot known as Final Frontier, and he wanted to "redeem" himself. Nimoy had originally been offered the director's chair for this film, but had given it instead to Meyer. 

Tummy rub, please