What sets TUC apart from all the others...

[alpha_leonis]

I've been on a Movie Marathon for the last week or so, rewatching all six of the Classic Cast movies (that's the explanation for my series of posts recently.)

Something I just realized about TUC (which I rewatched just yesterday): it's the only one of the six classic movies that does *not* feature, as its central plot point, the results or implications of using advanced (either cutting-edge or beyond its own time) technology for its own sake.

Two of the movies (TMP and TVH) feature alien technology, beyond the power of Starfleet to understand or cope with, being sent to disrupt life on Earth for different motivations. (One probe was returning a primitive piece of our own technology; the other was in search of one of our previous planet-mate species that had disappeared.)

I'd place TFF in the "super-advanced alien technology" category as well, at least according to Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The God creature at the center of the galaxy certainly seemed magically powerful, but the point of the movie is that he wasn't "really" God. (This is also the context of TNG, which had by then established that humanity could eventually evolve to share qualities with the super-advanced Q.)

The other two movies featured our own human technology that got out of control and turned around to bite us in the rear. Specifically Khan's advanced genetics from TWOK (superior ability breeds superior ambition), or the Genesis planet (especially in TSFS) which was created through technological shortcuts that destroyed its potential before it ever really got going -- and almost took Our Heroes along with it when it destroyed itself.

So the theme of the first five movies seem to be related to the consequences of either encountering or developing advanced technology, and either responding to or abusing the power that comes with it.

TUC is the odd one out in this theme. The only "new technology" in this movie was the Klingon ship that could fire when cloaked, but that technology wasn't "backfiring" in the way of Khan or Genesis -- and it wasn't "incomprehensible" in the way of V'Ger, the Whale Probe, or the God Creature. It was only there to move the real plot along. And the real plot was related to the heroes themselves, overcoming their own prejudices to save the day again.

I'd say that makes TUC especially a fitting tribute to the characters we loved and were saying goodbye to.

 

[gottacook]

<snark>TUC is also the only one of the six with a big honkin' digital clock on top of the main bridge viewscreen.</snark>

(Really, I enjoyed it - saw it twice during its theatrical run, and it was the first of the six that I owned on VHS.)

 

[Hypaspist]

I think the plot has a few problems but being overly complicated is not one of them. The movie is a good sendoff indeed, and it makes sense that they should end the era with the end of a war.
My biggest gripe in the movie isn't the plot or dialogue or any of that - it's the extras. The aliens in crowds are really fidgety and the crewmen have to have the most effete and nerdy mannerisms I've ever seen. It's so distracting and pointless. The only people I want to punch in the face more are the overacting journalists at the beginning of Generations.

 

[2takesfrakes]

The Undiscovered Country is a novelty for several reasons - not the least of which is the fact that Leonard Nimoy took over for Harve Bennett - once again - and contributed greatly to another (successful) STAR TREK movie. TUC also acts as a bookend, with TMP as a "stand-alone."

TMP ushered in a new STAR TREK era and TUC brought it to a close. Both compliment eachother in other ways: TMP had the budget to show off the best FX of the time, whilst TUC tried to pack its movie with as much story as possible with a severely reduced budget. TMP tried to hide how old the crew had gotten and TUC does everything it can to draw attention to it, up to and including Shatner's Touch of Grey™ toupée.

There are many other comparissons to be drawn, but for as different as they are from eachother, I find that TMP and TUC do a nice job of bracketting The Classic STAR TREK movies. I truly wish that the bigotry shown by the crew in TUC had been, uhm ... well expressed differently, shall we say. As in, more along the lines of the actual characters. Kirk did have reason to hate the Klingons and was the only TOS character who could've been excused for it.

The rest of them just sort of got this tacked on, so that they could all learn a valuable lesson that STAR TREK had always been obviously about! And had Nick Meyer acquainted himself more with TOS, and cared about that, then this aspect would've been much better handled, if it did have to stay in.

The overuse of Shakespeare almost makes me want to hate this movie and I love Shakespeare. It's just not cleverly employed, here and it's grating. I wish there had been a Larger Than Life technology involved in this movie, the way GENESIS, V'Ger & the Whale Probe were, but seeing Klingons hovering in mid-air like skeeters was an experience all its own ...

 

[Hypaspist]

There are many other comparissons to be drawn, but for as different as they are from eachother, I find that TMP and TUC do a nice job of bracketting The Classic STAR TREK movies. I truly wish that the bigotry shown by the crew in TUC had been, uhm ... well expressed differently, shall we say. As in, more along the lines of the actual characters. Kirk did have reason to hate the Klingons and was the only TOS character who could've been excused for it.

I can agree with that. I think the Klingons' brutality and belligerence would have been a better reason for distrust, not just their table manners and the way they smelled. It's pretty third-grade lecture in the way it handles racism, nothing at all like believable Cold War tension.

I think this is one of the problems I have with evil admiral plots. The Federation and all of its high ideals is completely subverted in a cartoonish way. It's even more jarring because the Klingons themselves are done so well in the movie. They aren't simple-minded brutes with a death wish but they still look like they can handle anyone in a fight.

 

[dub]

I enjoyed TUC, but I think it would have been more impactful if the Klingon/Federation tension built up from TSFS onward. There were issues with Klingons in TVH and TFF, but both were resolved by the end of each movie. It would have been neat to have a running thread of unresolved tension between the Federation and the Klingons seen in the previous films leading up to TUC. Then it truly would have worked well as a send off.

 

[Hypaspist]

I enjoyed TUC, but I think it would have been more impactful if the Klingon/Federation tension built up from TSFS onward. There were issues with Klingons in TVH and TFF, but both were resolved by the end of each movie. It would have been neat to have a running thread of unresolved tension between the Federation and the Klingons seen in the previous films leading up to TUC. Then it truly would have worked well as a send off.

totally agree. I never liked 'the one with the whales' and part 5 is part 5. They had already established the Klingons as an enemy in the first three movies, even if you had never heard of the show. A conflict of some sort (big or small) instead of a comedy movie and a failure movie would have tied the entire movie series together...and yes I'm including TMP. See it's not like they have to focus an entire movie around them to get the point across.

I actually think that emphasizing the Klingons as the enemy would have a lot of advantages. Before anyone starts saying that I just want another DS9, hear me out.
- They make a clear contrast to the Federation and help to explain why the peaceful and scientific Federation is a good thing. In other words, we are supposed to look at the future as a more evolved time in human history. It's part of the whole ideal.
- It establishes, for casual fans, that there are two major powers of any significance to the story. One is aggressive and malevolent, the other is good.
- It would leave out references to other foes, except maybe occasional references to the Romulans. This would keep the space politics from being cluttered and turning off regular moviegoers. To be honest, it should be a turnoff to Trek fans as well. A DS9 level of detail simply would not work in a movie. It would basically turn into a reference-fest that nobody wants to see.
- Instead of blaming the whole conflict on human ignorance - which is out of step with what Star Trek is about - they tie it up in 6 with the threat being over because "they are dying" and have no more capacity to make war. It's then that the diehards, like Kirk, have to reconcile with an old enemy.
- Most importantly, it adds a more serious tone and a lot of strength to 6 instead of making it look like an obvious allegory to contemporary events.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

Something I just realized about TUC (which I rewatched just yesterday): it's the only one of the six classic movies that does *not* feature, as its central plot point, the results or implications of using advanced (either cutting-edge or beyond its own time) technology for its own sake.

You're forgetting what set the whole plot in motion. Sure, Praxis was mainly backstory, but it did more to drive the plot than the Genesis Device in TWOK, which was little more than a MacGuffin.

 

[starburst]

<snark>TUC is also the only one of the six with a big honkin' digital clock on top of the main bridge viewscreen.</snark>

I used to like the idea of those clocks when I was a youngster, but now its a very dated addition which would be much more user friendly if incorporated into the display (although this was long before the concept of HUDs)

They aren't simple-minded brutes with a death wish but they still look like they can handle anyone in a fight.

That is something most of the 24th century Klingons missed for the most part, even Worf who seemed very eager to get himself killed especially early on!

I enjoyed TUC, but I think it would have been more impactful if the Klingon/Federation tension built up from TSFS onward. There were issues with Klingons in TVH and TFF, but both were resolved by the end of each movie. It would have been neat to have a running thread of unresolved tension between the Federation and the Klingons seen in the previous films leading up to TUC. Then it truly would have worked well as a send off.

[/QUOTE]

If you ignore TFF there is tension at the start of TVH, during TSFS a few times it is said the Federation are negotiating peace with the Klingon Empire and the opening scenes of the direct sequel make it clear the Empire will not talk peace until Kirk is dead.

TFF ruins this with its closing 'friendly' atmosphere between the Enterprise and BoP crews... We the viewer however have no idea what skirmishes have happened in the years running up to TUC.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Something I just realized about TUC (which I rewatched just yesterday): it's the only one of the six classic movies that does *not* feature, as its central plot point, the results or implications of using advanced (either cutting-edge or beyond its own time) technology for its own sake.

[...]

The other two movies featured our own human technology that got out of control and turned around to bite us in the rear. Specifically Khan's advanced genetics from TWOK (superior ability breeds superior ambition), or the Genesis planet (especially in TSFS) which was created through technological shortcuts that destroyed its potential before it ever really got going -- and almost took Our Heroes along with it when it destroyed itself.

The central plot point of The Search for Spock is not the meltdown of the Genesis Planet. It is, rather, that Spock can be saved, but he is still in jeopardy.

 

[Hypaspist]

I used to like the idea of those clocks when I was a youngster, but now its a very dated addition which would be much more user friendly if incorporated into the display (although this was long before the concept of HUDs)

There are a lot of things they do in Trek that just don't make a lot of sense. Sort of like how the Engineering department always wear radiation suits with helmets close by. In TNG, they're back to just doing things more hazardously. It's one of the things you can overlook because you understand that the television budget doesn't allow for it.

That is something most of the 24th century Klingons missed for the most part, even Worf who seemed very eager to get himself killed especially early on!

That's one of the problems with TNG Klingons. They are just a little too mystical and we don't see a lot besides their very formal warrior culture. It has its place, to be sure, but it's a little too one dimensional. I think the reason I like Worf so much is that he develops a lot over the series.
Movie Klingons are pretty consistent with TOS Klingons, I think. I don't get the impression that they would be quite so willing to make needless sacrifices. The balance had been pretty well reset by the time of DS9 though. They're still all mystical and stuff, but not completely heedless of the loss of ships and trained crews.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

TUC was all about nostalgia. The film gave us:

1. Enterprise vs. Klingons
2. A TOS-style Klingon, complete with fu manchu moustache. Yes, Chang had ridges, but the homage was pretty obvious.
3. Kirk battling his evil twin.
4. McCoy operating on an alien
5. Scotty freaking out in Engineering
6. Kirk saving the world

etc...

 

[Legends]

Hello everybody, first post here, and loving this thread. I've also wondered about the sudden extreme anti-Klingon sentiment that appeared somewhere between ST5 and ST6 that provided the basis for ST6's conspiracy, etc. As Dub said, a rising tension between the Federation and the Empire would have helped. That being the case, I'm hoping to address some of that with my web-comic series "Star Trek Legends" that is set between ST5 and ST6. Also, as Starburst said, Klingons from TNG on seemed eager to get themselves killed, and I'm hoping in the Legends series to also take a deep look at the Klingon race from a sociological, biological, and even geological view.

(Sorry for the promo of the web-comic here; I can't figure out if I should post about the series in Fan-Fiction or Fan Art sections.)

LL&P.

 

[alpha_leonis]

The central plot point of The Search for Spock is not the meltdown of the Genesis Planet. It is, rather, that Spock can be saved, but he is still in jeopardy.

Okay, granted that the Genesis planet's self-destruction *in itself* is not the main point of the movie. But it was the Genesis Effect that regenerated Spock's body, unexpectedly: Kirk expected to go pick up a corpse, but he got a living person instead (empty-headed though he may have been.)

The Genesis self-destruction also provided their main motivation to get past the Klingon threat, and finally get Spock off the planet so that he didn't die again.

Without Genesis, Spock would not have survived, but then his life also would not have been threatened a second time. Therefore in a sense, I see the Genesis planet as a coequal "antagonist" in this movie, along with the Klingons. There was still a legitimate threat from the planet to Kirk and Spock's lives, even after Kruge was killed.

 

[Lance]

One other way in which TUC is set apart from all the others, is in the way it relates to TNG.

When The Final Frontier came out, TNG was a youngling. It was only just going into production of it's second season, the first had been largely considered 'variable' at best, and generally the jury was still out on this new version of the Star Trek franchise being able to match up to the original.

This mentality kind of "informs" on TFF: there's a general feeling, maybe leaking in from behind the camera, that the people making the fifth movie still kind of see themselves as 'Star Trek'. As in, singular. The primary source. It doesn't exactly ignore TNG, but neither is it falling over itself to acknowledge directly its offspring show.

By the time The Undiscovered Country rolled around, TNG had well and truly established itself, it had found it's feet, and many people acknowledged that it had kind of supplanted the original as being at the forefront of the franchise by then. So, it isn't coincidental that TUC is the first movie in the series to hold out an olive branch to the spin-off. This comes through loud and clear, whether it's a big gensure like the use of Michael Dorn in a cameo, or little details like hearing the TOS crew using nonclemature that had in fact been established first by TNG (refering in dialogue to the Alpha and Beta quadrants, for example).

So whereas there had kind of been this polite distance between TOS and TNG up to that point, suddenly TNG just couldn't be ignored anymore.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

So, it isn't coincidental that TUC is the first movie in the series to hold out an olive branch to the spin-off. This comes through loud and clear, whether it's a big gensure like the use of Michael Dorn in a cameo, or little details like hearing the TOS crew using nonclemature that had in fact been established first by TNG ....

No, I don't think it's as "us versus them" as you make it out to be. Just plain and simply marketing: money in Paramount's pocket.

In fact, in terms of actual broadcast timeline, TNG is the first to "offer an olive branch" to TUC. Spock explicitly references movie events in 'Unification' as a teaser tie-in:

"It was I who committed Captain Kirk to that peace mission, and I who had to bear the responsibility for the consequences to him and to his crew."

(which, I might add, was incredibly exciting because at the time there were rumors floating around about Kirk's demise).

The inclusion of Grampy Worf and other TNG allusions were simply in the spirit of generating new interest in the television "enterprise..."

 

[RyanKCR]

TUC was all about nostalgia. The film gave us:

1. Enterprise vs. Klingons
2. A TOS-style Klingon, complete with fu manchu moustache. Yes, Chang had ridges, but the homage was pretty obvious.
3. Kirk battling his evil twin.
4. McCoy operating on an alien
5. Scotty freaking out in Engineering
6. Kirk saving the world

etc...

In regards to your second point, I've always heard that it was at the insistence of Plummer since he didn't want a bumpy forehead.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

TUC was all about nostalgia. The film gave us:

1. Enterprise vs. Klingons
2. A TOS-style Klingon, complete with fu manchu moustache. Yes, Chang had ridges, but the homage was pretty obvious.
3. Kirk battling his evil twin.
4. McCoy operating on an alien
5. Scotty freaking out in Engineering
6. Kirk saving the world

etc...

In regards to your second point, I've always heard that it was at the insistence of Plummer since he didn't want a bumpy forehead.

What about Gorkon's daughter, Azetbur? She was smooth-forehead, and had the over-the-top eyeshadow of the TOS female Klingons. Seemed to me also an homage.

 

[Lance]

So, it isn't coincidental that TUC is the first movie in the series to hold out an olive branch to the spin-off. This comes through loud and clear, whether it's a big gensure like the use of Michael Dorn in a cameo, or little details like hearing the TOS crew using nonclemature that had in fact been established first by TNG ....

No, I don't think it's as "us versus them" as you make it out to be. Just plain and simply marketing: money in Paramount's pocket.

In fact, in terms of actual broadcast timeline, TNG is the first to "offer an olive branch" to TUC. Spock explicitly references movie events in 'Unification' as a teaser tie-in:

"It was I who committed Captain Kirk to that peace mission, and I who had to bear the responsibility for the consequences to him and to his crew."

(which, I might add, was incredibly exciting because at the time there were rumors floating around about Kirk's demise).

The inclusion of Grampy Worf and other TNG allusions were simply in the spirit of generating new interest in the television "enterprise..."

Actually, the point I was trying to make is exactly the one you made, although perhaps I didn't express it very well.

What I was saying was that whereas The Final Frontier didn't go out of its way to do these kind of 'cross-pollonation' things, maybe because TNG wasn't really established enough in 1989, The Undiscovered Country did actually go out of its way to try and provide bridges between the two versions of the franchise. It was the first TOS movie to acknowledge the impact that TNG had undeniably made in the interim. The expansions to the 'verse established in the spin-off meant that the "us vs them" mentality no longer applied by the time TUC rolled around. I was saying that Star Trek was firmly under a single banner by then.

 

[Maurice]

In regards to your second point, I've always heard that it was at the insistence of Plummer since he didn't want a bumpy forehead.

No. He didn't want the wig.