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Note to the Galley: Romulan Ale no longer to be served at diplomatic functions!
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00:00Here's a disclaimer right up front and centre before we go into this film.
00:04This is my favourite Star Trek film.
00:07That in mind, I'm Sean Ferrick for TrekCulture and here are 20 Things You Never Knew About
00:12Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country Part 1.
00:17Number 20.
00:18The youngest composer makes one of the best received soundtracks.
00:22At the tender age of 26 Cliff Eidelman was hired to score Star Trek 6.
00:25Tonally, the music is completely different from what had come before in the previous
00:29five films.
00:30This was at the urging of Nick Meyer, who gave Eidelman his blessing to really get into the
00:34darkness of the film.
00:35He had also had choice words about both Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner.
00:39There was no way Eidelman was going to replicate their style, so there was simply no point
00:43in trying.
00:44Eidelman secured the gig by after one conversation with Meyer, going home and writing the main
00:49title overture that appears in the final film.
00:51There were still some hurdles to jump through, including convincing Ron Roos, the editor,
00:55that he was right for the role.
00:56In an unusual move at the time, Eidelman was able to score the film's trailer.
01:00That music appears in the overture and the battle for peace.
01:02His own personal favourite cues include these pieces, along with Rorapente and Escape from
01:07Rorapente, the latter of which allowed a full flourish from the orchestra.
01:11Number 19.
01:12Kronos One.
01:14Chancellor Gorkhan, General Chang and the rest of the Klingon delegation travelled to Earth
01:17aboard the flagship of the Klingon Empire, namely Kronos One.
01:20The ship was the same filmy model that had been used in Star Trek The Motion Picture with
01:24several modifications for the latest film.
01:26Visual effects supervisor Bill George was pleased that they were able to update the ship.
01:30He also said that it was one of the few models that they were allowed to make any significant
01:33changes to, owing in part to the fact that it badly needed touching up.
01:38The Enterprise, Excelsior and Bird of Prey filming models had all seen much more recent
01:42use.
01:43George took inspiration from the military costuming and adornments that could be added post-battle
01:47of contemporary soldiers.
01:49He painted the model brown and red with gold highlights, then added brass apollots to the
01:53wings, signifying victories in battles that the ship had secured.
01:56As both the shape of the ship and its colour were drastically different from Federation vessels,
02:00this contrasted nicely against the Enterprise A.
02:04Number 18.
02:04Read it in the original Klingon.
02:06In the film, Chancellor Gorkhan makes reference to Shakespeare being read in the original Klingon.
02:11On screen, that's assumed to be a joke, despite the number of times that General Chang proceeds
02:15to quote the Bard throughout the film. Members of the Klingon Language Institute took this
02:19line and ran with it, proceeding to translate Hamlet into Klingon.
02:22Mark Ockrand had devised a Klingon dictionary prior to the release of Star Trek VI, so the
02:26material was there to work with.
02:27Hamlet has since been performed for charity, as has another of Shakespeare's plays, Much
02:31Ado About Nothing. Exips from both were attended by George Takei, with the Klingon Hamlet
02:36being published by pocketbooks in novel form as well.
02:39Number 17.
02:40The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Space.
02:43The idea behind Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country is quite simple. As Leonard Nimoy
02:47postulated, what if the wall came down in space? The wall, rather than a concrete division
02:51splitting cities and families apart, is instead the Klingon neutral zone, along with a series
02:55of star bases and military installations. The fall of the USSR and the advent of the Kitamura
02:59Accords and the Federation Klingon peace talks are directly paralleled. The explosion of Praxis
03:04that opens Star Trek VI mirrors the explosion at Chernobyl, which was the beginning of the
03:08end for the USSR. In both the real world and in fantasy, it takes a calamity to allow the
03:13peace talks to gain momentum, tragedy inspiring true change.
03:17Much like the denial that took place in the wake of the Chernobyl incident, the Klingons
03:20too attempt to downplay the seriousness of the explosion. It is quite clear, though, that
03:25their militaristic approach to foreign relations has left them shortchanged when it comes to
03:28tackling the ecological crisis that follows. As always with Star Trek, much of the events
03:32of the film could simply have been a documentary about American-USSR relations, but with head
03:37ridges.
03:38Number 16. It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
03:42The assassination of Chancellor Gorkhan is followed by the ascension of Ozetbor, his daughter,
03:46to the Chancellorship. She pushes for peace talks to continue, though she receives opposition
03:51from those closest. While Chang is obviously a part of the conspiracy to disrupt the talks,
03:55not every person in the room is party to this. Three Klingons face Ozetbor. One is Kerala,
04:01who stands beside her, though he is not above suggesting armed retribution. Of the other
04:05two, one is seen sitting on the bird of prey with Chang over Kitomer, while the third,
04:10that same Klingon who so thoroughly disgusted Uhura over dinner, speaks the line, better
04:14to die on our feet than live on our knees. This quote is attributed to several historical
04:19figures, though most often to Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary who was assassinated
04:24by President Carranza in 1919. Zapata had started a revolution to push forward land reform
04:29in Mexico, though had been consistently let down by his would-be allies. His quote supported
04:35the idea of dying for one's beliefs rather than sacrificing them to live under the new
04:38rule. It is unclear how many Klingons were to express this ideal, though it adds a third
04:43element to the political parties in Star Trek VI.
04:46Number 15. Designing the Klingon High Chancellor.
04:50Gorkhan leads the peace movement in Star Trek VI. He is the first Chancellor, chronologically,
04:55met by the Federation until Chancellor Laurel would take that honour in Will You Take My
05:00Hand. Nicholas Meyer was the one who specifically wanted the man to resemble Abraham Lincoln.
05:05While the beard may have been clue enough, there was a tease in the name as well. Gorkhan,
05:10as a name, was chosen by writer Denny Martin Flynn. It was an amalgamation of the names Lincoln
05:15and Gorbachev. In fact, it was so close to the names that Meyer was worried it would be
05:19a little too on the nose. As the film was so heavily based on the events leading to the
05:23fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR, then Mikhail Gorbachev may already
05:28have been front and centre in the minds of the audience.
05:31The worries proved baseless, as test screenings didn't pick up on it originally. The outfit
05:36he wore, with vertical padding rather than the horizontal padding that Chang wore, signified
05:40his height in the political hierarchy. His staff was comprised of a tusk that was said
05:44to have been taken from an animal he had killed years previously. His height, girth and demeanour
05:49signified his stately presence, commanding the room on entry.
05:5314. Casting the leader of the Klingon Empire
05:56The original choice for Gorkhan was Jack Palance. He had most recently starred in Tim Burton's
06:01Batman, winding up on the wrong end of the Joker's revolver. His career began much earlier,
06:05with his stage debut taking place in 1947 and his screen debut in 1950. His long and successful
06:11career was both what made him desirable for the role and ultimately unsuitable. Though
06:15his physical stature wasn't in question, he was 6'4 and would go on at the age
06:19of 73 to perform one-armed push-ups on stage at the Academy Awards. He was simply too costly
06:24for the production to afford. He was also hesitant about appearing in a Star Trek film.
06:28Rather than open the casting sheet to other actors, Nicholas Meyer asked his friend David
06:32Warner if he would like to play the part. Warner had just appeared in Star Trek V as
06:36St. John Talbot, the Terran ambassador to Nimbus III. He would also appear as the iconic
06:41Gul Madred in the next generation two-parter Chain of Command, making him one of the few actors
06:46to face both Captains Kirk and Picard.
06:5013. I can see we have a long way to go
06:54The framing of the dinner scene is deliberate. On one side of the table, the Starfleet crew
06:59sits with relative ease around the clearly human place settings. On the other, the Klingons
07:03are out of place, including one tiny but brilliant movement by Christopher Plummer's Chang. This
07:08man who knows Shakespeare so well can't quite understand the function of a napkin. The food
07:13in front of the actors was dyed blue to give it a more alien look. Nicholas Meyer bet each
07:18of them that he would pay $20 for every bite the people took, as they clearly didn't want
07:22to touch any of it. William Shatner allegedly ate his fill, then tracked Meyer down to ensure
07:26the man came through on his promise. It is here in this scene that Gorkhan utters the toast
07:30to The Undiscovered Country, a line quickly identified by Spock as hailing from Shakespeare.
07:35It had been the original title of Star Trek II The Wrath of Cannes before that was changed,
07:39though short. This scene serves to highlight the oceans of space between both parties,
07:44culminating with Gorkhan's utterance of, if there is to be a brave new world, our generation
07:48is going to have the hardest time living in it.
07:50Number 12 Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
07:53In Star Trek VI, Walter Koenig's Chekhov utters the line, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner,
07:57in the run-up to the Klingons' arrival. The line was originally to be spoken by Uhura.
08:01Nichelle Nichols flat out refused to say it. It was a reference to the Spencer Tracy, Sydney
08:06Poitier, and Catherine Hepburn comedy of the same name, wherein a white woman brings
08:10an African-American fiancé home to meet her parents. While the film ends with the message
08:14that there was never any reason to oppose the relationship in any case, Nichols felt that
08:18having Uhura utter the line was distasteful, thus the change.
08:22Another line was due to be spoken. This line, Yes, but would you want your daughter to marry
08:26one, was subsequently omitted from the script altogether, as production could not find a satisfactory
08:31way to include it, nor a character to which it best belonged.
08:34Number 11 Is she a bird, or is she a cat?
08:37Iman plays Martia, the shape-shifting commaloid who seemingly helps Kirk and McCoy escape from
08:41Rorapenthe, only for her true intentions to be revealed while outside. The makeup process
08:45came in stages for the supermodel, who had a particular issue with the yellow eyes. Martia
08:50appears in several forms in the film, including a seven-foot-tall brute, in Iman's words, and
08:54a nine-year-old girl. The one common trait between them all is the yellow eyes, which incidentally
08:59differentiate her from the changelings that would follow in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. They were achieved
09:03by using soft lenses, and were very uncomfortable to wear. Iman stated that after every scene,
09:09the makeup team would have to touch her up again and again, as inserting the lenses would
09:14inevitably smudge her makeup. She did joke, however, that the cast and crew were so enamoured
09:18with her look, that it made it all worth it. When the costuming department took over, they
09:22seemed unable to decide what she should look like. She is adorned in furs like a cat to which
09:26the yellow eyes added. However, she is also topped with feathers, giving her a bird-like
09:30appearance. Iman joked that she was a hybrid of the two, which was just fine with her.
09:34That's everything for this part of our list. We will be back with parts 10 to 1 in the
09:39next video. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. In the meantime, you can catch us
09:43over on Twitter at TrekCulture. You can catch myself at Sean Ferrick on Twitter as well.
09:48You look after yourself and we really hope you enjoyed this video. Just give a girl a
09:51chance. It takes a lot of effort. Live long and prosper. Thanks.
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