StarTrek: "Undiscovered Country" - best Trek movie of all time?
 

Is it possible that "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country" is the best Star Trek Original Series movie, and not "Star Trek: Wrath of Khan," as most people have always thought?

Seriously important stuff we're thinking about over here . . .

Directed by the same guy, Nick Meyer.

He knows his shit. And Shakespeare.

And he wrote the screenplay for Star Trek IV.

Basically, Nick is a genius.

I like both Star Trek II and Star Trek VI, but I would have to give the edge to Wrath of Khan...too many classic moments.

Star Trek II. VI is really good, as is First Contact, but II is pretty much untouchable. Best villain, great special effects that still hold up today, and it also saved the franchise; another outing like the first movie would pretty much been the end of it, at least for a long time. Imagine a world where there was no Next Generation or Deep Space Nine, and instead we went straight into the Jar Jar Abrams reboot. *shudder*

Khan beats it, but Undiscovered Country is still very, very good.

Christopher Plummer created a pretty good villain too.

What would have been the best part of Undiscovered County sadly never happened. Meyer wanted the Valeris character to be Saavik, but Roddenberry shot it down. That would have made her betrayal of Kirk and Spock far more poignant.

Interesting......never heard that before. II is my favorite but VI is definitely my #2. I loved the space battle at the end of VI and always preferred the Klingons as bad guys!

1. II - The Wrath of Khan
2. VI - The Undiscovered Country
3. IV - The Voyage Home
4. Beyond
5. First Contact
6. Star Trek (2009)
7. III - The Search for Spock
8. I - TMP
----shit line----
9. Insurrection
10. Generations
11. Nemesis
12. Into Darkness
13. V - The Final Frontier

I have to admit i haven't even seen all of those, but the whale one was definitely the worst one i have seen.

That being said, i haven't seen one better than II.

I'm not a big fan of IV either. I mean, it's a fun, well-made movie, but to me it's not really Star Trek; it's more like Star Trek vacations in San Francisco.

Star Trek needs a good villain. A mindless alien probe trying to talk to whales just doesn't cut it.

Well double dumbass on you!

The Wrath of Khan was an amazing film and what was even more amazing was doing a Q&A with Nicholas Meyer after the first screening of the film back in 1982. The VFX weren't finished and there were a few scenes that needed to be re-shot but it was a really incredible experience.

My second favorite is First Contact. That movie took Trek lore to 11 and was a super fun movie to boot. Great casting all around, especially Zefram Cochrane.

I probably enjoyed IV and VI about the same although they're completely different in terms of tone.

The rest are "okay" although Generations is completely unwatchable for me, as are the other two TNG movies. The way they killed off Kirk was ridiculous and in no way, shape or form, honored the character, IMO.

I like Generations more than most, I guess. While I also didn't care for the way Kirk went out, and there were some ridiculous plot holes, it had a strong villain in Malcolm McDowall, and the Enterprise getting blasted to shit and then crashing was well done. I rank it above I and V. It's about on the same level with Nemesis, which is also overall kind of lame but has some good parts.

The one I hate the most is Insurrection. It was like a bad NG episode made into a movie. I remember being very unhappy as I left the theater.

McDowall is always great in everything but man, the way they treated Kirk was unconscionable to me.

As much as I hated the way Disney treated Luke Skywalker, I think the treatment of James T. Kirk was far worse.

My adrenaline is pumping right now, just thinking about it! :D

You won't like First Contact nearly as much as you once did if you watch this:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hUwHyoKGZKs" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Plinkett makes some excellent points, too.

Watch at your risk. :)

No way am I watching that! :D

I did not know that. That would've been really good. Wonder why GRod shot the idea down?

It seems like towards the end of his life, Roddenberry was far more of a hindrance than a help; a sick, cranky old man trying to hold onto all the creative power of his baby even as his ability do to continued to slip away.

From Wikipedia:

From the IMDb trivia page:

Thanks. Great stuff. Gfy.

I agree with this post 100%.

Hey, by chance, were you there at the Metcalf theater in 1982 when Nicholas Meyer screened the nearly completed Wrath of Khan?

I remember that it was in the larger of the two theaters there.

Of the Kirk era, Undiscovered Country is my least favorite. Generations is not included in the survey.

Seriously? You're gonna have to explain that at some point. It's obviously better than "Voyage Home," and "Final Frontier."

Was that the old Glenwood theater? That screen was great.

No, the Glenwood was off of 91st and Metcalf while Metcalf Theater was on the backside of Metcalf Mall, where The Jones Store was the anchor tenant.

Ok, ST II is the ultimate hands down. #2 is Undiscovered Country and #3 is The Search for Spock. My .02

You are of high quality to have posted a Mr. Plinkett review.
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No I was still in KC then but would get to see early screenings of The Karate Kid, Gremlins, and Ghostbusters at local KC theaters. Coincidentally, I watched a series of interviews and Q&As with Meyer on YouTube last weekend and learned that the original title for TWoK was The Undiscovered Country.

Edit: I see you are referencing KC theater. I didn’t see this but it was great loving movies in KC in the 80s. All the major film companies screened movies months in advance in KC back then.

my favorite part of IV... as soon as Sulu gets some cash, he decides to split off from his team and go to the docks to talk to sailors.

That's cool! I'll have to check that out.

I was fortunate in that my Dad LOVED taking us to movies all the time, from the Glenwood to Metcalf Theaters to Ranch Mart and Oak Park. The Trailridge Theater on 75th and Nieman in Shawnee became a $1 dollar theater in my early teens so we'd often go there during the school week to catch a movie.

I realize that movie theaters are far nicer, have much better sound systems, larger screens, reclining chairs and so on but there was just something special about seeing movies in the 70's and 80's - probably because there was more anticipation and 90% less content available than today.

I 100% agree with this.

There was an atmosphere about going to the movies when I was a kid. I remember begging my parents to take me and my brother to the movie theater to see Star Wars, for example. When we got there, the line was out the door and all the way around the building. It was an event.

I loved going to the movies when I was a kid, especially high school in the early '80s. So many of what would become my all time favorites came out back then (Star Trek II, Excalibur, Conan, Blade Runner, Raiders, American Werewolf in London). I was the movie critic for my high school newspaper, so I saw a bunch of them.

The main movie theater in my home town was an old vaudevillian theater built in the 20s, which sadly was torn down many years ago. Had a nice, dark balcony that was great for dates. They also showed midnight movies; often double features. We'd sneak booze in and get roaring drunk. It was great.

Those were the days.

We had a similar style theater at school in college. Loved that place. The upper balcony was a great place to watch a movie. And bring a date.

When Star Wars came out I lived in Jefferson City - the main theater there was the Ramada 4. It played there for a year and a half. They put "Star Wars" up over the door in big, blue wooden letters. They stayed there so long that when it finally stopped showing and they took the letters down, the paint had faded around them so you could still make out the words for another couple of years until they repainted.

Yep. The anticipation was high for most stuff. And a lot of us went in blind. Behind the scenes access wasn’t as available as today. About the only thing I remember reading was ‘Starlog’ magazine back in the 80s.

My dad took us to see the original Alien movie in 1979 at the Ranch Mart theater in Overland Park. The movie theater was nearly empty, as it was just me, my younger brother and Dad, along with another young couple, probably late teens or early 20's.

For those who weren't around back then, we pretty much knew nothing about movies beforehand. Critics were seen as assholes so no one paid attention to their ramblings. Obviously, the internet didn't exist, nor did endless trailers for films. For the most part, you pretty much went in blind because even the marketing was lacking back in the day.

So anyway, we're sitting there in a fairly large theater with only five people when the infamous stomach scene happened. The girl in the theater screamed so loudly that it was absolutely terrifying! She began screaming and crying during that scene and even 40+ years later, I remember that like it was yesterday. It was just sheer terror on her part.

There was something about the naivete of audiences in those days that just doesn't exist today. Everyone has seen just about everything the imagination can think of in film and TV - and with way better visual effects - which kind of takes the horror out of horror.

I doubt I'll ever have an experience like that again.

Sadly, I was just a bit too young to see Alien in the theater (neither mom or dad would take me to see a sci-fi movie), so I missed out on that one.

Jaws, OTOH - the person screaming was the 10-year-old me. Well, me and everybody else. That ****ing movie traumatized me for life. During the scene when Hooper was in the cage, I actually crawled under my seat.

I was like 13 and my brother was 11. My Dad didn't worry much about the ratings.

:D

I didn't see Jaws in the theater, thank God! I saw it years later on HBO and it scared the shit out of me to this day, although it's still one of my all-time favorite movies.

We did see The Deep in June of 1977 at the Independence Center theaters about a month before we moved back to Kansas. While it wasn't as scary as Jaws, the shark scene and especially the eel was scary enough. Plus, that film was so claustrophobic when they were exploring the sunken ship, which made me a bit uncomfortable.

While my Dad has dived on many a sunken ships across the world, I don't think I could do it.

Two weeks after seeing Jaws my mom took me to Florida for the first time. I wouldn't go out in the water past my knees. I had nightmares about it for months afterward, and to this day I don't like swimming in water, any water, where I don't know what else is in the water with me. Even though I was in the Navy, and have been to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, I can count on one hand the number of times I swam in the ocean. I could just never get that Jaws shit out of my head.

Occasionally on Sundays when we were out to sea, the weather was nice, and our schedule permitted, they'd stop the ship and announce swim call - put nets over the side and people could swim. In the middle of the ocean. At that point, it wasn't the image of Hooper in the cage that got me; it was Quint's story about the USS Indianapolis.

Yeah, **** that. :D

LMAO

I'm with you, 100%. Jaws so terrified me that I won't go much past ankle deep on our beaches in SoCal.

I did some snorkeling in Bora Bora, which was amazing. But on a jet ski trip around the island, I ran into a Tiger shark in a lagoon.

Suffice to say, I couldn't get out of there quickly enough.

I was on a supply ship. We'd run lines to other ships running alongside us and send stuff over. The area between ships was calmer than the surrounding sea, and the sea critters enjoyed it. We'd almost always have dolphins traveling alongside in that area, and sometimes flying fish.

But one day there was a big shark in that area. Huge. Looked to be well over ten feet long. I can't say for sure what type it was; by the size, I can only assume it was a great white. I was not inclined to paddle out for a closer view.

Needless to say, there were no dolphins or flying fish around that day. :eek:

Wish you had taken a pic of the shark; i might've been able to figure out what species based on head shape and fin shapes.

Out of curiosity were you in tropical or temperate waters?

We were in the Med; IIRC it was summer.

Great whites are pretty rare in the Med, but they have been seen there. They don't usually track ships though.

Shortfin Makos are definitely in the Med and look like a smaller version of the GW; they can reach sizes of 12-15 feet long. Makos will trail ships looking for straggling fish or even porpoises that have schooled up behind a boat.

Blue sharks and oceanic whitetips are the usual ship trackers in the Med. But blue sharks are pretty easy to spot because of their extra-long fins, and white tips don't usually get big enough to be mistaken for a GW.

The rest of the 'dangerous' sharks in the Med that could be mistaken for a GW aren't really pelagic, IIRC.

I'd guess you saw a big Mako.

I'll take your word for it. FWIW, I did two seven month deployments in the Med and that was the only time I ever saw a shark or heard about anybody else seeing one, so I guess it's safe to call it a rare occurrence. It was a big deal among the crew; the only reason I saw it at all is because other people were talking about it. Most of the crew would have been in the right age group to have seen Jaws when they were kids.

All I know is I'd have opened up on the ****er with a .50 if they'd have let me. :bang:

It's just a SWAG. Could've been a GW, but the odds are pretty dang small. And a Mako looks pretty much exactly like a GW, just doesn't get as big. Mako will still try to eat you though, given the right circumstances. It'll just do it at about 35 mph. Things can outrun a tuna.

Great White:
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/wp-co...hite-shark.jpg

Shortfin Mako:
https://fishingbooker.com/blog/media...1178076619.jpg

The Mako is 'leaner' and its teeth are shaped a little different, but from a distance above the water, they'd look a lot alike, as long as the mako was at least 10 feet long or so.

Was the shark fat? Like thicker than what would probably be proportional? If it was, then it was probably a GW, not a mako.

I'll give it another go but I just didn't care for it for some reason. And I love the whale one quite a bit. 1 is the best, for me. V-ger was the best antagonist. Just a cool concept.

Haha, you're weird, Dave.

Though I did like the V-ger idea, but the movie was too slow, and everyone in it was kind of stilted.

The whale one wasn't good. It was fun for about 20 minutes then it just got kind of silly.

I feel like I need to stick up for Nemesis somewhat here, if only for the climax battle between the Enterprise, the Scimitar, and two next gen Romulan battleships. Yes, the dune buggy scene was cringe, yes the psi-rape was disturbing, but that final battle was worth it. And I thought young Tom Hardy did great as the villain.

Dude, this happened back in 1986. I just remember seeing a big ass shark. It was closer to the carrier we were unrepping than us, too, so I didn't have a great vantage point. I just remember big, gray, fins. That's pretty much it. :D

Agreed.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/9a...78c4cb12a0.jpg

I guess I'm one of the few that really liked Star Trek: The Motion Picture, especially the 40th Anniversary Edition, which featured some new scenes.

I liked it even better decades later after realizing that the world in which Voyager became V'ger was the homeworld of the Borg, obviously before they assimilated V'ger but the Borg nonetheless.

I actually watched it again recently. While I still appreciate the special effects, which were fantastic for the late 70s, it still fails for boredom, bad acting, and the complete lack of a compelling villain. Vast stretches of the movie remind me of the interminable scene from 2001 where Bowman was in the pod. Hey look, long helicopter shots of barren landscapes with the colors skewed! Isn't that cool? Woohoo.

It's better than V and Insurrection. The scene where Scotty gives Kirk the tour of the ship is great. That's about all I can say about it.

Yeah, for years on end, I felt the same exact way.

I watched the Special Edition on one of the streaming channels in the past few years and came to appreciate the movie for what it was for the time. But with the inclusion of what would become the Borg made the movie much better overall for me. Plus, there's that "Nostalgia Factor" at play because I really liked the movie from the first time I saw it in 1979 at the Glenwood.

I only soured on it later, especially after The Wrath of Khan.

I saw V on opening night at the Glenwood Theater. I had a hard time figuring out where the story was headed and once we got to the 3rd act, I was just bored out of my mind. My girlfriend at the time, who also loved Trek, fell asleep in the theater. I've heard Shatner say that budget cuts during filming really affected the story and story arc overall, so I don't think we're in the minority.

What's funny is that I used to chat with Shatner in the early 90's because he frequented a bar that was called Residuals, which was less than a 1 minute walk from my apartment at the time and I never once thought to chat about Trek with him. They had Karaoke Sundays and Shatner was a blast because he'd get up and do is "Beatnik" thing, which was hilariously entertaining.

I know he's gotten a bad rap over the years from his other Star Trek actors but I've run into him too many times to count and he was always kind, witty, humorous and generous with his time. I sat next to him and his family at Jerry's Famous Deli on Ventura one Sunday morning and he treated everyone with great respect. He's certainly not one of that pampered divas that treats people like garbage.

Insurrection was just unwatchable. I've tried to watch it over the years but I just find F. Murray Abraham's performance to be almost comical in its presentation.

Great story about Shatner. I've really gotten sick of all the other actors bagging on him for shit that he did decades ago, especially Takei. Is there anything that guy isn't butthurt about? The way he whines about everything reminds me of what you once said about Henley; how nobody who has enjoyed so much success has any right to be so miserable.

Wait, what?!?!?!
Apparently I need to surrender my Star Trek card.

Makes sense now.

Yea I missed the V-ger Borg connection. That's tits.

It makes Star Trek: The Motion Picture so much better, right?

Makes me wonder what REALLY happened to Decker

Yea. I never knew that either?

I do remember the Decker character being the son of Commodore Decker from the ‘Doomsday Machine’ episode of the original series.

Well damn, I had not heard of the V-Ger/Borg connection either.

Now I am gonna have to get out my ST:TMP Blu-ray and give it a spin this week.

Yeah, they never mentioned that in the movie, but it was in the novelization. One of the many potentially cool items they could have done so much with.

Another interesting bit: Saavik was half Vulcan, half Romulan. Kirstie Alley played the part with more emotion that a normal Vulcan. Unfortunately when Robin Curtis took over for her in III and IV she basically played Saavik like a pure Vulcan. Of course it should be noted that Nimoy directed both of those.

As I mentioned earlier, this had the potential to be a great story arc but was sadly completely dropped. Saavik is truly emotional, falls in love with Kirk's son David, and after he is killed is completely consumed by a desire for vengeance that causes her to support the Federation/Klingon war conspirators. Instead we got Robin the Robot in III and IV and Valeris in VI. But imagine how powerful the sick bay scene in VI could have been had it been Kirstie Alley's Saavik losing her shit, screaming at Kirk about how she loved David and watched him die at the hands of Klingons and that's why she turned on them. Goddamn that would have been fantastic.

Nimoy and Roddenberry really ****ed us on that one. :shake:

I'm a big fan of Nemesis myself.

Half Vulcan and Half Romulan wouldn't really be a meaningful thing in that sense, although I suppose that part of the mythos hadn't been developed yet when Wrath of Khan was written. Because as it turns out, Romulans are just Vulcans who left Vulcan. It's a philosophical or cultural difference, rather than a biological one.

That's oversimplifying it a bit, I think. Romulans are descended from Vulcans who left Vulcan centuries ago. There were subtle differences in appearance between the races. The main idea is that Saavik wouldn't be able to suppress her emotions as easily as a full-blooded Vulcan, and likely experienced the same types of prejudices that Spock endured as a child. There were several scenes in II where she looked like she wanted to slap Kirk upside the head.

But yeah, we're debating the finer points of the lineage of a movie character from 1982 based on years worth of additional information that came later. There's probably not a wrong viewpoint here. :D

Yeah, but what else are two old guys with too much accumulated useless knowledge going to argue about on the internet after they should both be asleep...

Exactly. LMAO

This is pretty much how this thread got started.:thumb:

"The Chase" from TNG was criminally underplayed.

Humans, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons find out they all came from the same DNA.

They could have took the concept and made it into an epic movie to end the TNG timeline. Instead it was wasted and forgotten.

It was a good episode, but my take on it was just them trying to explain how species from different planets all over the galaxy shared enough similar biologic traits to mate and product offspring.

I was never a Star Trek kid. (Always Star Wars!!!)

Until a few years ago... when I watched Star Trek The Original Motion Picture.
I absolutely loved it... and went through the entire movie series.

Then, I went back and watched the original Series just to get a respect for Shatner (What a badass he was back then).

I then got into (The Next Generation) because I remembered hating it as a kid... but this time around, damn good show!

Then I did Star Trek Discovery which was entertaining through Season 1 and got too stupid in season 2 so I quit.

I've yet to touch Deep Space Nine or Nemesis.

I just went back and re-watched Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness and loved them even the second time through. What a great casting they did on those films. Benedict as Kahn, Pine as Kirk, Bones, Sulu... Loved them all.

Wow. This must be the most assbackwards way of becoming a Star Trek fan I've ever heard. LMAO

DS9 is probably overall the best Star Trek series. The first three seasons are a bit mundane, but starting in Season 4 Worf joins the cast as a regular and after that it soars. It is far and away the darkest and most violent series, and despite Captain Kirk being my hero since childhood, I have to admit that Sisko is the best overall captain.

DS9 is the best overall series. Quark and Garrack are fantastic.

"In the Pale Moonlight" has the single best scene between two characters in the series.

Wow, no love for Voyager or Star Trek Enterprise?

I was always a fan of Odo. Great 'sherriff' character.

And Jadzia Dax. Mmmmm. Yummy.

Voyager had its moments, but was basically Do-Gooders Lost In Space.

As for Enterprise, it also had its moments, but mainly just wasted a lot of potential. I've also never been much of Scott Bakula fan. I never did think he was right for the part, and I don't think he's much of an actor.

I bailed on Voyager fairly early on. I've watched many of the episodes on Netflix, but not all of them. Same with Enterprise.

I just haven't made it to these yet. Someday though!

Haha, yeah possibly! It was quite random.

Pretty much agree with this. Bakula is pretty dry.

I did like Quantum Leap back in the day.

And same with me. I’ve kinda jumped around on Voyager and Enterprise. I’ve never seen every episode. I think the general consensus is that Enterprise got pretty good in its final couple of seasons, then they cancelled it.

Both shows got better toward the end because they increased the action and also sexed them up; Voyager with Jeri Ryan and Enterprise with Jolene Blalock getting naked all the time. That saved Voyager, but for Enterprise, it was too little too late.

Related personal story - one of my friends obtains and sells movie and TV memorabilia. He's had some really cool items over the years, including one of Blalock's orange uniforms from Enterprise. He had it on a mannequin. Yes, I did feel it up. :D