VGER 23 asked me to expound on my dislike for Star Trek VI because he also expressed a dislike for it. I thought it best to spin this into its own thread because it seemed off-topic to the thread where the discussion began.
First, these opinions are of course my own. Your mileage may vary.
ST:TUC bothers me on any number of levels. I'm all for the idea that we need to get past our prejudices in order to make progress but I dislike the way the point was made. Roddenberry was idealistic enough that he gave our heroes the ability to see past their personal prejudices and keep our eyes on a brighter future. By ST VI, our idealistic crew have become a bunch of grumpy old geezers who seem reluctant at best to be assigned this mission to escort the Klingons to a place that is willing to provide them assistance.
I can understand Kirk's reluctance to be given this mission given what happened to his son. I truly admire Kirk and McCoy's willingness to assist the Klingons after an unprovoked attack seemingly from the Enterprise. I'm more upset that the secondary characters all seem incredibly irritable rather than eager help the Klingons and build a brighter future.
Some things I dislike are dictated by the story. Why does the Bridge suddenly have large digital clocks everywhere? Obviously the story requires it but its too on the nose in my opinion.
I kind of lost some respect for Spock because of some of his actions in this film. Spock's forcibly extracting information from Valeris' mind is as much a violation of Spock's principles as anything I've seen and cheapens the character. Perhaps the reborn Spock doesn't have the same disdain for cruelty that the old Spock seemed to have (remember Nimoy invented the nerve pinch because he thought that Spock hitting someone was out of character). In my opinion, it's the single most vile scene in all of Star Trek.
Continuing on the Spock vibe, he seems like a very different character in this film. He and Valeris seem to have a "relationship" of sorts. It might not be intimate but it smacks of a sort of mid-life crisis. Valeris hangs out out in Spock's room, admiring his art collection while Spock is mixing drinks and serving them to her in a silver chalice. When did Spock acquire a taste for the finer things in life like silverware? I know this scene is intended to make Valeris' turn as the villain all the more powerful. Sadly all I see is an old guy hitting on the new girl in the office.
Then there are the little things that irk me. Spock stating that "only Nixon could go to China" is an old Vulcan-proverb. Or General Chang quoting Shakespeare which is of course better when you have read it in the original Klingon. Huh?!
The Director's Cut adds scenes that remarkably cheapen the story and should have been left out. We got an Oliver North-type character named "Colonel West" (that's not too on the nose, is it?) who's all military and eager to risk lives to save Kirk and McCoy (and he's got the paper maps and pointer to prove his plan will work). Perhaps worse of all, we've got the Scooby-Doo moment when the mask is pulled off the Klingon assassin's face to reveal it was Colonel West all along. The original cut of the film is better without these silly scenes.
Please don't get me wrong...the basic idea of the film is fantastic but it is delivered with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer. As I've mentioned in the previous thread I happen to like a lot of the films that rank very low on others lists such as Star Trek V and Nemesis (though both have lots of faults as well) so it's probably natural that I dislike Star Trek VI as much as I do. I rewatched it recently and found much to admire about it that I missed 20+ years ago but the facts remain that it's my least favorite Trek film of them all.
