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Star Trek VI: Made on the Cheap, and it hurts the film

I think TUC is one of THE best Trek movies made IMO. The special effects are very good as well, in particular the look of the starship Enterprise and the shot of the Excelsior in the ion storm towards the begining is simply stunning too!! of course, some effects have'nt dated too well, the double of kirk stands to mind. But that could do with a revamp methinks a la The Star Wars original trilogy!!! lol!!! Nowadays everything is CGI, i am a big fan of the older 'model' works as they look more believable IMO, and some CGI today is simply dire!!! (read, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, but especially Attack of the Clones; GL goes WAY over the top!!!).

so i dont concur with the threader; i think TUC is one of the best Trek films out there!!!! ;)
 
I think TUC holds up just fine.


(read, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, but especially Attack of the Clones; GL goes WAY over the top!!!).

TPM uses mainly miniatures for the space ships and alien locations, many of the creatures and the federation droids (I think) are CG.
 
Wasn't TUC nominated for the SFX Oscar that year (losing to T2)?

I wouldn't consider that bad.
 
I have absolutely no problem with TUC. The visual f/x were on-par with most of the other Trek films. The sets, while many were recycled and re-dressed from TNG, were mostly adequate. Some were done better than others. I have to say that, overall, the re-dressing was more extensive and looked better than what was done for TFF.

If there's anything to complain about, it's the cheap visual f/x work and overall budgetary issues that plagued TFF, not TUC.

This, pretty much. I thought TUC was just fine as it is and was a certainly a step up from the far-worse-in-every-way TFF.
 
Love TUC. It's one of my favorite movies. I love the whole tone of it, the way the story played out, loved the Rura Penthe set, the music was fantastic, and I think it all worked out very well. Yeah, you could pick out the TNG sets, but they didn't bother me. I liked the overall look and feel of the interiors. Aside from TFF, the TUC Enterprise bridge is my favorite.
 
Love TUC. It's one of my favorite movies. I love the whole tone of it, the way the story played out, loved the Rura Penthe set, the music was fantastic, and I think it all worked out very well. Yeah, you could pick out the TNG sets, but they didn't bother me. I liked the overall look and feel of the interiors. Aside from TFF, the TUC Enterprise bridge is my favorite.

Eidelman's music for TUC is among my three favourites from the TOS-films.
If they hadn't used the observation lounge as the dining room and had dressed up the warp-core to look a bit more different, then the re-use of TNG's re-use of TMP's sets would have worked a little better.
But I too like the look of the film.
 
Love TUC. It's one of my favorite movies. I love the whole tone of it, the way the story played out, loved the Rura Penthe set, the music was fantastic, and I think it all worked out very well. Yeah, you could pick out the TNG sets, but they didn't bother me. I liked the overall look and feel of the interiors. Aside from TFF, the TUC Enterprise bridge is my favorite.

I agree. The political intrigue of the story was very engaging, and Meyer pulled it off in a very suspenseful way.

Considering the tight budget, it was an epic film. We had: tight character moments, thrilling action, space battles, humor, and multiple new settings (interior of a Klingon cruiser, interior of a Starfleet briefing room, Rura Penthe interiors and exteriors, Klingon courtroom, conference planet interiors and exteriors, and some new Enterprise rooms). I'm not surprised that they repurposed TNG sets. I noticed them immediately, but it didn't bother me.

Doug
 
I disagree. There was too much use of TNG sets and TOS deserved better in that respect. Overall design was poor and in my opinion too much like Star Wars.

As for the SPFX, they were good, but some of that money could've been spent on better interiors and definately better writing.
 
The sets and sfx are the least of Trek VI's problems. I used to love this movie, but it has aged horribly. The story is very dated, the editing is horrible and the film does have a low budget cheap feel to it. The "cute" little jokes like Vulcan proverbs, and Klingons quoting Shakespeare are just dumb. If I can actually make it to the end, I need a barf bag when the cast mugs for the camera after saving the day at Khitomer. This used to be my second favorite original series movie after WoK. Now, it's the only original series movie that I skip.
 
That's quite a drop-off in perception.

If there's a single movie in the series I'll watch before any other, it remains this one. Might have something to do with VI being drilled into my head as a four-year-old because my grandmother bought it on VHS and watched it all the time, but still.
 
Yeah I like TUC effects were good story was good as well in fairness there are things you pick up on from TNG but it's still a great film !!! A fitting tribute and closure to the TOS crew and u must remember it was the year of the 25th annervisary !!!
 
I loved this film and didn't mind the usage of the sets at all. In other words they didn't affect the overall enjoyment of the movie at all.
 
I never had a problem with the Star Trek VI production crew using the sets from TNG. If anything, I think those sets were put to better use in the film than they were in TNG.

All that aside, Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country is my favorite of the original series movies. It had an excellent storyline, one hell of an astounding guest cast(i.e. Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Rene Auberjonois, Kurtwood Smith, Christian Slater, John Schuck, Robert Easton, Morgan Sheppard, Brock Peters, Michael Dorn, and Kim Cattrall just to name a few), but more importantly, it also had an excellent director. Star Trek II's Nicholas Meyer.

Star Trek VI did what Star Trek did its best at. It addressed the issues of the times that we were living in(i.e. the gloomier '90's, the fall of Communism, the end of the Berlin Wall, and various other social, political, and religious issues).

It even left the door open for(what Paramount should have really done instead of DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise)a Star Trek series involving Captain Hikaru Sulu and the crew of the U.S.S. Excelsior.

Granted Spock should not have volunteered Kirk and crew, let alone personally vouched for them, concerning the Klingon crisis(it was arrogant presumption on his part and he had no right to do that). However, it was an excellent Star Trek film and an excellent way of ending the original series movies.

At least until the prequel/reboot of 2009, that is.
 
That's quite a drop-off in perception.

Yeah, and it's one that I wish didn't happen. I loved VI when it first came out. I was 15 when it came out in 1991. I saw it 11 times in the theater, watched the trailers almost every day and bought it on VHS day one. When I watch it now I don't see a movie any more. I see aging actors on a set reciting memorized lines. The magic is gone from this movie, and all I can see is the magician behind the curtains.
 
Actually I thought VI had some of my favorite Trek film aesthetics.

The blending of 23rd/24th century designs looked really good in my opinion, and the effects were great other than a couple weapons fire shots.
 
That's quite a drop-off in perception.

Yeah, and it's one that I wish didn't happen. I loved VI when it first came out. I was 15 when it came out in 1991. I saw it 11 times in the theater, watched the trailers almost every day and bought it on VHS day one. When I watch it now I don't see a movie any more. I see aging actors on a set reciting memorized lines. The magic is gone from this movie, and all I can see is the magician behind the curtains.

Brain doesn't like over saturation.
 
That's quite a drop-off in perception.

Yeah, and it's one that I wish didn't happen. I loved VI when it first came out. I was 15 when it came out in 1991. I saw it 11 times in the theater, watched the trailers almost every day and bought it on VHS day one. When I watch it now I don't see a movie any more. I see aging actors on a set reciting memorized lines. The magic is gone from this movie, and all I can see is the magician behind the curtains.

It sounds like you really burned yourself out on the movie. I'd imagine a similar thing could have happened to you with any of the others in the franchise, really, but I could be wrong. Maybe somewhere, deep down inside, you actually hated it all along. :lol:
 
Really, the only oldTrek movies that I'll watch all the way through now are TWOK...and I'll probably see ST:TMP once or twice more before I die. :lol:

The others are good movies and have their charms, but just aren't special enough to revisit. Hell, I've seen and enjoyed a lot of movies of all kinds over the years that I've not felt any strong urge to revisit.
 
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