Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) (Uncut) [LV 32301-WS]

This is my first review so bear with me...

I'm currently sitting watching this on my Pioneer CLD-2850 upscaled to 1080p by my Sony AV amp through to my Panasonic 50" plasma.

Well what can I say. The picture is one of the better LDs I've watch in the past 2 months (only got into this LD thing start of July). There is a slight grain to the picture but I've come to accept this as a standard thing with LD. I suppose its the analogue video format. Give this the image is still on par with the DVD release but obviously falls short of an HD copy. Personally I prefer to watch these films on LD as I like the grainy picture over the DVD copy and I'm not a fan of 20 year old films being sharpened to HD, for me it doesn't work.

Back to the disc. The film is presented in widescreen letterbox (I'm not good with aspect ratios if someone wants to correct me here). The disc features stereo audio only, no AC-3 with this one but don't fret the stereo track mixed to pro logic is incredible. The clarity of sfx and dialogue puts some bluray audio mixes to shame. One thing I found strange was no chapters. I have all 6 of the original star trek films and none of them have chapters. This doesn't really bother me as I generally just watch a film start to finish, don't need and don't use chapters. Just thought it was odd they don't have them.

The film itself has to be the 2nd best star trek film after wrath of khan. A perfect mix of Star Trek drama and action. One thing that annoys me as a trek fan is the use of next generation sets throughout this film. Gives the impression of a film on a budget. Examples are the engine room, transporter room, dining room and I'm fairly sure the corridors are the same etc. All that being said its a good all round trekky flick that's a fitting send off for the original crew. Best scene for me is the space battle at end, worst scene is lt. uhura struggling to speak Klingon. I'm sorry but the communications officer of the enterprise can't speak Klingon??? and the entire crew of the Klingon ship can speak perfect English, no sale, not buying it.

On a side note it also gave birth to the visual effect know as the praxis effect. Named for the SFX sequence were the Klingon moon praxis explodes at the beginning giving off a large flat shockwave. The effect has since been used in multiple films including independence day and the so call remastered star wars death star explosions.

I've been watching Star Trek: The Movie Voyages [LV 34527], which includes this release, and all the other movies through "Generations."

I'm watching them in order, and just finished "The Search for Spock." The first three have looked great so far. And this is me viewing them from the blu-ray era I'm now in.

"The Undiscovered Country" has always been one of my favorites - I may even prefer it to Kahn. Great beginning, with Sulu as Captain and the distress call from the Klingons, followed by the explosion. I look forward to watching in in a couple of days.

I actually bought this set new way back when, probably for not that much less than MSRP. I've never regretted it. I watch all of them every couple of years, and have never felt the need to "upgrade" to a newer format, given the excellent picture.

this film and ST III; total Fanservice;












- ZOMG that's beautiful. my favorite starship of my childhood. even better, the model-like toy replica of the NX-2000 version
i've wanted since childhood will finally be realized this fall;





- and there's also the NCC-2000 version that has been out for a few months now. i should also be getting that as well.
-hell, i don't know why i haven't bought one already. -oh, i remember now-
waiting for the NX version, since that was the one i fell in love with first as a child. still that's really no excuse; why not own both?!? -

But does your model have trans-warp drive?

(... the real question is if it has the computer chips)

They were on a budget - one of the execs, IIRC, said that if they knew 6 was actually going to be good, they would've coughed up more money. The money they did have was pretty well spent IMO.

As for Uhura, they pointed out that the universal translator would be detected, and she probably didn't have Hoshi's language skills. And it's a classic movie tradition to show English even if they characters aren't speaking it, ref The Hunt for Red October after the intro.

Also, "Did ILM do the effects?" is the best quality indicator when considering TOS and TNG films - but for the classic cast "Was Nicholas Meyer involved?" is a perfect correlation with odd/even

It took me several viewings to understand this film. It's the only TOS movie I have seen in its entirety. I don't have much time for Khan, whales, rowing boats gently, or Patrick Stewart on the verge of crying. I hardly have time for lens flares, so don't jump to conclusions and call me an Abrams Trek fan. In fact, I am not a Star Trek fan at all. When there's no action, there's cheesy heavy-handed dialogue. When there's no dialogue, there is some lame, cheap, and unintentionally hilarious action. I do applaud the effort of Roddenberry and Desilu accomplishing a science fiction for television given the budget constraints in the 1960's, so I'm not a 14-year-old jerk with no respect to the origins. Star Trek was never my thing. Star Wars was never my thing.

I can accept Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country for what it is. One last ride with the TOS crew giving fan service to the devotees without alienating those not keen on Trek. The theme deals with race relations and the pursuit of peace, although I think the social commentary is hamfisted. Kirk's own son got killed by Klingons, therefore he detests them. Chang saw Gorkon killed by Federation crew members, therefore he hates Kirk. These motivations are fine, but they are almost the exact same.

The first half plays like a political drama with some mediocre to bad dialogue. The second half becomes a prison escape film that ends too quick, and the casual fanservice action. Sulu being God, Chang quoting Shakespeare, and a Scooby-Doo-esque reveal.

It's not my cup of tea but I enjoyed the ride.

7/10

Video Quality:

Said to be the first test THX Laserdisc, there is no THX logo anywhere on the sleeve artwork, disc label, or any THX logo before, during, or after the movie. The movie is presented in 2.00:1 as opposed to the theatrical ratio of 2.35:1. Some of the sides appear to be cropped, but there seems to be more room in the top and bottom. English subtitles for some Klingon dialogue are placed below the frame, making it a bit hard to read with the picture zoomed in on 16:9 televisions. I only saw clips of the movie in 2.35:1, but I like the 2.00:1 framing so I am a bit at war with myself deciding which framing is better. Image is soft but not overwhelmingly so. I was actually pleased with the 1080p upconversion on my DLP. I found it stable with nice purples, blues and reds.

My copy has some skin on the disc surface, making a glitchy bar scroll up several times in the movie. It looks like laser rot. I don't know how to properly clean the disc, or it just might be a defect. So much for being a test disc for THX.

8/10

Audio Quality:

The sole reason I keep coming back to this disc is possibly the sound. Without the added value of discrete 5.1, this 2.0 mix boasts dynamics and impressive low-end. Listening to it decoded with DTS Neo:6 Cinema Mode, there are some moments where the Enterprise flashes from the front left to the rear right. Gravity boots make a hydraulic compressing-like sound for every step on the Klingon ship. The scope of the Enterprise inside whenever it gets hit is explosive making every rattle and fall clear as day. The score is replicated fine. The chanting Klingons give an impact to the sound field. Very, very, awesome pre-Jurassic Park mix. Now if only I can hear the 70mm 6-track.

10/10

Watched the Lazydisc* DVD version of this with my housemate. Annoyingly the widescreen bit was off-center because of the Klingon subtitles - is that true of the LD as well?

Held up alright, but housemate didn't care for linking Klingons with Shakesphere too much. (she was amused that someone made a Klingon Hamlet book though) As an aside we've been watching a lot of DS9 lately.

(* - Lazydisc (n): A (usually early) DVD made straight off a LaserDisc master - non-anamorphic widescreen, closed captions but no proper subtitles.)