Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Writers: Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner
Director: Nicholas Meyer
Release: December 3, 1991
Tagline(s): The battle for peace has begun.
On the verge of peace. On the brink of war.
An epic journey is about to begin to an undiscovered country.
Between war and peace, there exists the undiscovered country, the final mission.
The crew of the starship Enterprise fights not to win battles, but to end them forever.
Producer(s): Steven-Charles Jaffe, Ralph Winter
Associate Producer: Brooke Breton
Executive Producer: Leonard Nimoy
Stars/Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Kim Cattrell, Mark Lenard, Michael Dorn, Christopher Plummer
Music by: Cliff Eidelman
Production Company: Paramount Pictures
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure, Thriller
ID: tt0102975
Rating: PG
Runtime: 110 minutes
Based On: Based Star Trek: The Original Series.
Synopsis: On the eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned. The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging the last best hope for peace.
Declassified by Agent Palmer: Palmer’s Trek: Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
Quotes and Lines
SPOCK: Good morning. Two months ago a Federation starship monitored an explosion on the Klingon moon Praxis. We believe it was caused by over-mining and insufficient safety precautions. The moon’s decimation means a deadly pollution of their ozone. They will have depleted their supply of oxygen in approximately fifty Earth years.
SPOCK: Due to their enormous military budget, the Klingon economy does not have the resources with which to combat this catastrophe. Last month, at the behest of the Vulcan Ambassador I opened a dialogue with Gorkon, Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. He proposes to commence negotiations at once.
CARTWRIGHT: Negotiations for what?
SPOCK: The dismantling of our space stations and starbases along the Neutral Zone, an end to almost seventy years of unremitting hostility, which the Klingons can no longer afford.
CARTWRIGHT: I must protest. To offer the Klingons safe haven within Federation space is suicide. Klingons would become the alien trash of the galaxy. And if we dismantle the fleet, we’d be defenceless before an aggressive species with a foothold on our territory. The opportunity here is to bring them to their knees. Then we’ll be in a far better position to dictate terms.
C-IN-C: You, Captain Kirk, are to be our first olive branch.
SPOCK: There’s an old Vulcan proverb. ‘Only Nixon could go to China.’
Captain’s log, stardate 9522.6. I’ve never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy. To me our mission to escort the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council to a peace summit …is problematic, at best. Spock says this could be an historic occasion, and I’d like to believe him. But how on earth can history get past people like me?
SPOCK: It’s a depiction from ancient Earth mythology. ‘The Expulsion from Paradise.’
VALERIS: Why keep it in your quarters?
SPOCK: To be a reminder to me that all things end.
VALERIS: It is of endings that I wish to speak. Sir, I address you as a kindred intellect. Do you not recognise …that a turning point has been reached in the affairs of the Federation?
SPOCK: History is replete with turning points, Lieutenant. You must have faith.
VALERIS: Faith?
SPOCK: That the universe will unfold as it should.
VALERIS: But is this logical? Surely we must…
SPOCK: Logic? …Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end. …This will be my final voyage on board this vessel as a member of her crew. Nature abhors a vacuum. I intend you to replace me.
VALERIS: I could only succeed you, sir.
GORKON: I offer a toast. …The undiscovered country, …the future.
ALL: The undiscovered country.
SPOCK: Hamlet, act three, scene one.
GORKON: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
CHEKOV: We do believe all planets have a sovereign claim to inalienable human rights.
AZETBUR: If only you could hear yourselves? ‘Human rights.’ Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a ‘homo sapiens’ only club.
CHANG: Present company excepted, of course.
KERLA: In any case, we know where this is leading. The annihilation of our culture.
McCOY: That’s not true!
KERLA: No!
McCOY: No!
CHANG: ‘To be, or not to be!’, that is the question which preoccupies our people, Captain Kirk. …We need breathing room.
KIRK: Earth, Hitler, nineteen thirty-eight.
CHANG: I beg your pardon?
GORKON: Well, …I see we have a long way to go.
KIRK: We must do this again, sometime.
GORKON: You don’t trust me, do you? …I don’t blame you. …If there is to be a Brave New World, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it.
SPOCK: I doubt that our own behaviour will distinguish us in the annals of diplomacy.
KIRK: I’m going to sleep it off. Please let me know if there’s some other way we can screw up tonight.
McCOY: I’m going to find a pot of black coffee.
SPOCK: I am responsible for involving you in this. I will go.
KIRK: No, I’ll go. You’ll be responsible for getting me out of this. We’ll not be the instigators of a full-scale war on the eve of universal peace.
SPOCK: I sympathise, Mister Scott, but we need evidence. Please accompany me.
CHEKOV: And if we cannot piece together what happened? What then?
SPOCK: In that case, Mister Chekov, it resides in the purview of the diplomats.
CHANG: On the contrary, Captain Kirk’s views and motives are, indeed, at the very heart of the matter. This officer’s record shows him to be an insubordinate, unprincipled, career-minded opportunist with a history of violating the chain of command whenever it suited him. Indeed the record shows that Captain Kirk once held the rank of Admiral and that Admiral Kirk was broken for taking matters into his own hands in defiance of regulations and the law. Do you deny you were demoted for these charges, Captain? Don’t wait for the translation. Answer me now!
KIRK: I cannot deny it.
CHANG: You were demoted.
KIRK: Yes.
CHANG: For insubordination.
KIRK: On occasion, I have disobeyed orders.
VALERIS: A lie?
SPOCK: An error.
McCOY: Three months before retirement. What a way to finish.
KIRK: We’re not finished.
McCOY: Speak for yourself. One day, …one night, …Kobayashi Maru.
KIRK: Bones, are you afraid of the future?
McCOY: I believe that was the general idea that I was trying to convey.
KIRK: I don’t mean this future.
McCOY: What is this? Multiple choice?
KIRK: Some people are afraid …of what might happen. I was terrified.
McCOY: What terrified you, specifically?
KIRK: No more Neutral Zone. I was used to hating Klingons. …It never even occurred to me to take Gorkon at his word. …Spock was right.
McCOY: Try not to be too hard on yourself. We all felt exactly the same.
KIRK: No! Somebody felt a lot worse. …I’m beginning to understand why.
McCOY: Well, if you’ve got any bright ideas, now is the time.
KIRK: Time is the problem. You and I are nothing. You heard the judge. The peace conference is on again. Whoever killed Gorkon is bound to attempt another assassination. Unless we can get out of here…
SPOCK: That’s correct, Mister Chekov. What is now required is a feat of linguistic legerdemain, and a degree of intrepidity, before the Captain and Doctor McCoy freeze to death.
VALERIS: Everyone who stands to lose from peace.
KIRK: Spock?
SPOCK: I prefer it dark.
KIRK: Dining on ashes?
SPOCK: You were right. It was arrogant presumption on my part that got us into this situation. You and the Doctor might have been killed.
KIRK: The night is young. You said it yourself. It was logical. Peace is worth a few personal risks. …You’re a great one for logic. I’m a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread. We’re both extremists. Reality is probably somewhere in between us. …I couldn’t get past the death of my son.
SPOCK: I was prejudiced by her accomplishments as a Vulcan.
KIRK: Gorkon had to die before I understood how prejudiced I was.
SPOCK: Is it possible …that we two, you and I, have grown so old and so inflexible …that we have outlived our usefulness? …Would that constitute a joke?
KIRK: Don’t crucify yourself. It wasn’t your fault.
SPOCK: I was responsible.
KIRK: For no actions but your own
SPOCK: That is not what you said at your trial.
KIRK: That was as Captain of a ship. Human beings…
SPOCK: But Captain, we both know that I am not human.
KIRK: Do you want to know something? …Everybody’s human.
SPOCK: I find that remark …insulting.
KIRK: Come on, I need you.
CHANG: You do prefer it this way, don’t you? As it was meant to be. …No peace in our time. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends.’
CHANG: ‘Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?’
CHANG: Ah, the game’s afoot.
CHEKOV: Excelsior’s been hit!
CHANG: ‘Our revels now are ended’, Kirk!
CHANG: ‘Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.’
CHANG: ‘I am constant as the Northern Star.’
McCOY: I’d give real money if he’d shut up.
KIRK: It’s about the future, Madam Chancellor. Some people think the future means the end of history. …But we haven’t run out of history just yet. …Your father called the future …’the undiscovered country’. …People can be very frightened of change.