Yeah...I'll buy that explanation! It certainly makes sense with regards to the story.
Some points about Star Trek VI:The Undiscovered Country
- Thread starter pfontaine2
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And yes...I'm not certain why I kept referring to it as a silver chalice. My bad. I just checked online and it certainly is blue, not silver. However he does seem to have a lot of silver in his room. The candle sticks and the pitcher he uses is silver but the chalice is not. Strange how my memory can play tricks like that...
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
I basically agree on the point that it is out of character for Spock. It's like watching a hero resort to pulling someone's finger nails out to get critical information. But, I think all people (Vulcan's included) have a breaking point where they will put their concern for others (or greater issues) over their own code of ethics.
I don't lose respect for Spock from this incident however. It just shows that his human side is quite alive and well. Shouldn't we lose more respect for him if he gives up and does nothing?
Yes, I agree with your comment to a degree. It's just that this feels like waterboarding, or as you mentioned pulling out fingernails in order to extract information that is crucially needed to save lives. Many people don't agree with that tactic, no matter how vital the information is and it's surprising to me to see Spock resort to this extreme measure.
I'm thinking that the scene might have worked better if someone on the bridge recoiled when they saw that Valeris was in distress and say, "Mr. Spock, isn't there some other way?". Spock would step back for a moment and give Valeris another chance to voluntarily give up the information now that she understands how difficult the process will be for the both of them. When she refuses, Spock would state that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" and proceed to extract the information from Valeris.
I like the digital clocks. It's a logical idea for a starship, but I'm sure it was a nightmare for the editors and continuity people to keep the readouts correct for each scene.
I disagree. I like the scene precisely because it's morally ambiguous. Meyer really liked giving the Enterprise crew definite flaws to overcome. It makes them more interesting characters, IMO.
I don't really read it that way. I think any romantic vibes you're picking up were probably intentional misdirection so we didn't immediately suspect the new character.
The technical term for those is "jokes."
Yeah, I can't disagree with you there. Starfleet suddenly having Colonels was also weird. I know they're a combined service, but the rank structure was pure Navy up until this. Mixing in ranks from other services is just odd, especially when you're just doing it for an in-joke.
I'm of two minds about it. I kind of liked the idea of a Klingon being the actual shooter ("They conspired with us to assassinate their own Chancellor. How trustworthy can they be?"), but the Col. West reveal does give a payoff to the pink blood thing. (Which I really wish other Trek productions had continued with, personally.)
I totally missed Spock palming it on to Kirk's shoulder on my first viewing. I might've noticed it during the Klingon trial scene, but I probably just thought it was a costume error like Valeris' mismatching uniform (Now THAT really bugs me). I appreciate that Meyer was playing fair with his audience and showing the patch before its purpose was revealed. Mysteries are more fun if the audience has a genuine chance to solve them.
I really disagree with this. Yes, the film has plot holes that reveal the haste with which it was written, but visually, I think it's one of the best Trek films. I think all the alien extras at Rura Penthe and the Khitomer Conference, as well as the second unit footage from Alaska all give the film a lot of scope. It's one of the more expansive Trek films out there, and I think it's too bad they didn't have a little more money to give it even more spectacle.
Yeah, some of those they could've redressed a little more aggressively. It's horribly obvious that the banquet hall is just Picard's conference room. That shape was too distinctive to disguise.
I took me a while to pick up that the President's office was a redressed Ten-Forward, so that one I think they disguised better. And on the Paris backdrop... c'mon. Paris probably isn't going to change all that much, and the painting was partially obscured by curtains. All they needed for that scene was something that established "futuristic Paris" and they already had a matte painting that did that. It would've been stupid to do an entirely new one.
Hell, TWOK used a painted backdrop of San Francisco from The Towering Inferno with a couple of model buildings added for the view outside Kirk's apartment, but I never hear complaints about that the way I do about them reusing something that was actually created for a Star Trek production.
Spending money designing & installing an entirely new lighting scheme for something that would be seen onscreen for literally seconds would've been a stupid waste of budget. As dumb as building an entire three-story Stellar Cartography set in Generations for a simple exposition scene.
100% agreed. The first requires him to put on his party manners for a few hours (which he also tried to do in TUC, btw). A bit unpleasant, but not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Permanent peace with the Klingons means an entire change of life for Kirk, and possibly even Klingons becoming Federation citizens. That was scary to Kirk. The older you get, the more conservative and set in your ways you tend to become. It happens.
And it's a much more dramatic arc if Kirk learns to overcome his prejudice over the course of the story, which he did.
Agreed! Look at how guilty Valeris looks in her final scene on Khitomer. She's pretty shattered.
There's no silver chalice. The goddamned thing is blue.
Great point!Exactly. That line got a big laugh from anyone who remembered the 1970s. Star Trek isn't a documentary of life in the 23rd century, it's a drama/adventure series made for viewers of today. Too many fans forget that.
Sounds needlessly slow. It's much more dramatic to just have Spock abruptly pull Valeris to him and you don't know what he's going to do. Remember that he was angry enough in the previous scene to actually slap the phaser out of Valeris's hand. We've never seen Spock this angry and betrayed before. And this wasn't a dumb temper tantrum like the Zachary Quinto seems to have at least once per movie now. This is controlled fury. Like Meyer told Montalban when he was directing him in TWOK, you never show an audience your top, because then you have nowhere to go. The small things that Nimoy did as Spock had much more impact than Quinto's screaming did.
Sorry for going on a bit, but TUC is one of my favorite Trek films. (It's neck & neck with TWOK for me, actually.) I'm not unaware of its flaws, but it still works like gangbusters for me.
Thank you for a lot of very well thought out and salient points. The time and effort is certainly much appreciated!
When we like a film, it's easy to overlook the flaws. Sometimes when we go through a process of identifying flaws, it's because we don't like the film and we are searching for the reason why. But it may not be the flaws that make us not like the film. It may be that we just don't like the film.
The saying goes, "Truth is stranger than fiction.", and I would point out that if we were to analyze real life (people as characters, and events as scenes) we would find many many facts that seem like flaws. But real life facts can't be flaws. This means that if we like a film well enough, we can dismiss the flaws as just the idiosyncrasies that would exist if the story were real life.
I like the digital clocks. It's a logical idea for a starship, but I'm sure it was a nightmare for the editors and continuity people to keep the readouts correct for each scene.
I disagree. I like the scene precisely because it's morally ambiguous. Meyer really liked giving the Enterprise crew definite flaws to overcome. It makes them more interesting characters, IMO.
I don't really read it that way. I think any romantic vibes you're picking up were probably intentional misdirection so we didn't immediately suspect the new character.
The technical term for those is "jokes."
Yeah, I can't disagree with you there. Starfleet suddenly having Colonels was also weird. I know they're a combined service, but the rank structure was pure Navy up until this. Mixing in ranks from other services is just odd, especially when you're just doing it for an in-joke.
I'm of two minds about it. I kind of liked the idea of a Klingon being the actual shooter ("They conspired with us to assassinate their own Chancellor. How trustworthy can they be?"), but the Col. West reveal does give a payoff to the pink blood thing. (Which I really wish other Trek productions had continued with, personally.)
I totally missed Spock palming it on to Kirk's shoulder on my first viewing. I might've noticed it during the Klingon trial scene, but I probably just thought it was a costume error like Valeris' mismatching uniform (Now THAT really bugs me). I appreciate that Meyer was playing fair with his audience and showing the patch before its purpose was revealed. Mysteries are more fun if the audience has a genuine chance to solve them.
I really disagree with this. Yes, the film has plot holes that reveal the haste with which it was written, but visually, I think it's one of the best Trek films. I think all the alien extras at Rura Penthe and the Khitomer Conference, as well as the second unit footage from Alaska all give the film a lot of scope. It's one of the more expansive Trek films out there, and I think it's too bad they didn't have a little more money to give it even more spectacle.
Yeah, some of those they could've redressed a little more aggressively. It's horribly obvious that the banquet hall is just Picard's conference room. That shape was too distinctive to disguise.
I took me a while to pick up that the President's office was a redressed Ten-Forward, so that one I think they disguised better. And on the Paris backdrop... c'mon. Paris probably isn't going to change all that much, and the painting was partially obscured by curtains. All they needed for that scene was something that established "futuristic Paris" and they already had a matte painting that did that. It would've been stupid to do an entirely new one.
Hell, TWOK used a painted backdrop of San Francisco from The Towering Inferno with a couple of model buildings added for the view outside Kirk's apartment, but I never hear complaints about that the way I do about them reusing something that was actually created for a Star Trek production.
Spending money designing & installing an entirely new lighting scheme for something that would be seen onscreen for literally seconds would've been a stupid waste of budget. As dumb as building an entire three-story Stellar Cartography set in Generations for a simple exposition scene.
100% agreed. The first requires him to put on his party manners for a few hours (which he also tried to do in TUC, btw). A bit unpleasant, but not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Permanent peace with the Klingons means an entire change of life for Kirk, and possibly even Klingons becoming Federation citizens. That was scary to Kirk. The older you get, the more conservative and set in your ways you tend to become. It happens.
And it's a much more dramatic arc if Kirk learns to overcome his prejudice over the course of the story, which he did.
Agreed! Look at how guilty Valeris looks in her final scene on Khitomer. She's pretty shattered.
Exactly. That line got a big laugh from anyone who remembered the 1970s. Star Trek isn't a documentary of life in the 23rd century, it's a drama/adventure series made for viewers of today. Too many fans forget that.
Sounds needlessly slow. It's much more dramatic to just have Spock abruptly pull Valeris to him and you don't know what he's going to do. Remember that he was angry enough in the previous scene to actually slap the phaser out of Valeris's hand. We've never seen Spock this angry and betrayed before. And this wasn't a dumb temper tantrum like the Zachary Quinto seems to have at least once per movie now. This is controlled fury. Like Meyer told Montalban when he was directing him in TWOK, you never show an audience your top, because then you have nowhere to go. The small things that Nimoy did as Spock had much more impact than Quinto's screaming did.
Sorry for going on a bit, but TUC is one of my favorite Trek films. (It's neck & neck with TWOK for me, actually.) I'm not unaware of its flaws, but it still works like gangbusters for me.
You can find lots of flaws in any film if you nitpick them to death (as we do we are Star Trek fans after all).
There are a lot more flaws in the other Star Trek movies. For instance I find the racism after the dinner scene quite out of character in TUC but its one scene where I find Data to be annoying the entire movie in INS.
Well said. I remember a year or two ago getting into a debate with someone online about 1978's Superman The Movie (my all-time favorite film). The other person had all sorts of criticism that to them were valid and to me were rather nitpicky. Ultimately, I just said, "It's not perfect, it's just magic."
We can intellectualize this stuff all we want, but in the end, a film either works for you or it doesn't. Sometimes the magic captures you in its spell, sometimes it doesn't. And it's silly to expect it to work the same way for everyone.
I have a special place in my heart for TUC because it reminds me of a very specific time in my life. The theme of the movie -- familiar things end, with an unknown future ahead -- was sort of what was happening to me at the time. I'm also a big fan of the "reunion" motif, which felt stronger in this instalment than in previous ones (e.g. TWOK). The actors were all noticeably old, as were the characters, and you knew this was the curtain call for TOS.
Despite its many flaws, it is still one of my favoruite Trek movies (behind TSFS). And in fact, this is why I hate Generations so much, for undoing the perfect sign off TUC provided.
Despite its many flaws, it is still one of my favoruite Trek movies (behind TSFS). And in fact, this is why I hate Generations so much, for undoing the perfect sign off TUC provided.
OH yeah. Right there with ya on that one.
I see where you're going with that, and maybe it was like that at some point but someone said "too wordy, let's just trim that middle" and that's what was shown. And I do seem the others in the background with a serious concerned look on their faces, so it's not like anyone was cheering "give her another one Spock!" like I was. Did I mention I don't like Valeris?
Also, I want to add, I do love ST6, I just was pointing out it's flaws earlier. I think to be that picky of a movies flaws you must care about it, or be just a really pedantic ass that likes pointing out flaws.
I thought the idea of a sign off was a great idea but it should've been the names of characters not the cast.
I disagree. The closing credits are a time when you focus on the actors, not the characters. It's the cinematic equivalent of the actors coming out and taking a bow at the end of a play.
Yeah at the time remember reading a few places where people were saying it should've been the characters names on the sign off. Maybe in the letters pages of TOFC magazine or DC comics and think there was some discussion in The Making of Trek VI book and CFQ VI issue with quotes from the writer Denny Martin Flynn saying in his version it was the character names but it was later changed to be the cast
I disagree. The closing credits are a time when you focus on the actors, not the characters. It's the cinematic equivalent of the actors coming out and taking a bow at the end of a play.
Somewhere on the internet I found a message board thread where people were nitpicking real life as if it were fiction just to illustrate this point.
Their chosen target was World War Two, the sequel to the highly successful World War One.
Standouts in my memory were complaints that Churchill, a fairly minor character, was "suddenly some kind of great public speaker" and leader, and the lazy writing evidenced by the name of the leader of the French being French for "the French".
The quote they referenced was "Of course truth is stranger than fiction; fiction is supposed to make sense".
Very interesting. I'd like to emphasize that I don't want to discourage anyone from talking about flaws in fiction. It is certainly fun to do so. I just wanted to point out that the flaws may not always be so critical in liking or disliking a film or story. At least, I don't find their absence to be critical for me to like a story. I can ignore the flaws or even correct them in my own mind, or as I pointed out, consider them oddities that mimics reality's oddities.
So we get a film at the end where we see the credits of the actors twice??? It doesn't make any sense; if these characters, not actors, we loved and followed for some time, the sign off is appropriate for the film for the characters because it was they who were retiring from service. The sign off was not part of the closing credit, it was part of the film--before the closing credits, and I wish there was an alternate version where the cast signed it as the characters.
I agree.
The film is still better than TMP, TSFS, TFF, all of the TNG movies, and Beyond to me. It's not as good production wise from the other films, but the SFX were light years better than TFF.
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