Star Trek 6. The Undiscovered Country

Star Trek 6 begins like many of the previous Star Trek movies with titling against a starry sky. But the accompanying music score is uncharacteristically ominous. This creates certain expectations and the movie doesn’t disappoint. This is the last Star Trek movie with the TOS crew and it ends with a thriller in whodunnit in Agatha Christie style with Spock taking the role of Hercule Poirot. A few months before retirement Kirk and his crew have to go on a diplomatic mission to escort the Klingon high chancellor to a meeting with the federation to discuss a peace treaty. The crew of the Enterprise isn’t exactly thrilled with this one last mission too many being asked to extend diplomatic curtesy to their career long enemies. Especially Kirk, whose son was murdered by the Klingons has trouble with accepting this mission. Things go wrong and Kirk and Dr McCoy are accused and tried for murdering the chancellor. While Kirk and McCoy are sent for life to a Klingon Gulag Spock and the crew on the enterprise have to find the true assassins and uncover the plot behind the murder to save their friends. From the 6 movies featuring the crew of the original series I found this one the best by a fair margin. It has suspense, space battles with the Klingons including tactics and a mission to save civilisation. The detective story element works well with Spock putting his intellect to work to identify the true killers, helped in the quest by another Vulcan on board the Enterprise, his protegé and new helmsman Valeris, played by Kim Cattrall. There is the drama surrounding the unjustly sentenced Kirk and McCoy and the ambiguous emotions of the Enterprise crew towards the Klingons who they don’t trust. A nicely done movie, to be enjoyed also by non Star Trek fans if they can look beyond the series and the SciFi setting in general. And the typical corny ending can also be skipped as far as I am concerned, especially during a second viewing. But in that respect it is very like the other Star Trek movies that came before it.