Star Trek VI Is A Perfect Tale Of How Idealists Grow Conservative
There's something about science fiction from the 1990s that just hits different — even if it's part of a classic franchise. While films like "Tank Girl" and "Judge Dredd" were trying to predict the near-ish future, "Star Trek" always had much more expansive ideas in mind. The 1991 film "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" was the final "Star Trek" film featuring the entire original series cast, and it was a timely allegory about the end of the Cold War, trading Russians for Klingons. The version of the future we see in "Star Trek" is so far in our future that it's hard to guess as to how accurate it will be, but there's something both timeless and timely in "The Undiscovered Country," as Captain Kirk (William Shatner) learns to reconcile his aging body, growing irrelevance, and personal prejudices.
Gene Roddenberry created "Star Trek" to show us a utopian future, with Starfleet as a representation of all the best that people have to offer the universe. His hopeful idealism is ever-necessary when faced with our own grim reality, but "The Undiscovered Country" actually reckons with what happens to those whose idealism eventually runs out. The late, great George Carlin once said, "If you'll scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist," and "Star Trek VI" explores what it means when that cynic was once a hero. Decades before "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" would force fans to contend with the idea of their hero falling victim to self-pity and well before the 24-hour news cycle would make Thanksgiving into a living nightmare, "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" showed us that it's never too late to try be a better person.
Even a Starfleet captain can have some bigoted ideas
It's never easy seeing our progressive heroes go against the very things they should be fighting for, but "The Undiscovered Country" wisely never makes Kirk into a cartoonish villain. He's still James Tiberius Kirk, the only man who ever outsmarted the Kobayashi Maru, who can seduce beautiful women even in the mines of Rura Penthe, the coolest Captain to ever command a starship ... but he's also older, grumpier, and a little less open-minded than when he was a bright-eyed young cadet. When he is tasked with meeting with Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) after the Klingon moon Praxis explodes in a mining accident in order to escort the Chancellor to Earth for peace talks, the captain bristles at being forced to play nice with Klingons. After all, Klingons were responsible for the death of his son, David, and he finds himself unable to forgive them. Spock tries to reassure him by joking about the "old Vulcan proverb" that "only Nixon could go to China," referring to the fact that the former president was a staunch anti-Communist, much like Kirk was staunchly anti-Klingon, but he managed to open communications between the two nations.
Kirk tries to be a proper Starfleet officer and hosts the Klingon emissaries for dinner aboard the Enterprise, though it doesn't go very well due to cultural differences and some serious snarkiness on Kirk's part. (The free-flowing Romulan ale probably didn't help.) When the Chancellor ends up assassinated shortly thereafter, it's not much of a stretch for the Klingons to blame Kirk, who was outwardly hostile towards the Klingons right before being framed for attacking them.
Prejudices on trial
When Kirk is first told that he's going to be helping the Klingons, and that Spock (Leonard Nimoy) volunteered him for it, he's furious. When Spock tries to beg for decency, explaining that the Klingons will all die without help, Kirk hisses: "Let them die." He calls them animals, sees them as subhuman, despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things, Klingons and humans are very much the same. There is a moment when Kirk seems like he's starting to see the error of his ways, when dining with Gorkon early in the film. The Chancellor comments on Kirk's distaste for Klingons and how some Klingons hate the Federation simply as a matter of course, then wisely says, "If there really is to be a brave new world, our generation will have the hardest time living in it."
Kirk had always been the kind of captain fighting for a brave new world, pushing for equality and peace among the stars, but he's nearing retirement and his bitterness has gotten the best of him. When Gorkon dies in his arms just a short time later, he's truly shaken, having recognized the "humanity" in his foe in his dying moments. Gorkon's death and Kirk's willingness to "let them die" sends him to the prison planet of Rura Penthe, even in spite of Bones' impassioned plea that he was desperate to save Gorkon's life because he was "the best hope ... for peace." It forces Kirk to completely reconcile with his feelings and his past actions, framing much of his heroism in a new perspective. By the time he ends up on Rura Penthe, he's not a broken man, but he is a much wiser one.
A changed man
It turns out that Kirk isn't the only one who doesn't want the Klingons to join the Federation. A contingent of Klingons, renegade Starfleet officers, and Romulans teamed up to frame Kirk for the assassination of Gorkon, and they set out to assassinate the President of the Federation (Kurtwood Smith) at the Khitomer Peace Accords where the final peace talks will take place. Kirk ends up risking his own life to save the president, and then he explains the whole situation to the Chancellor's daughter, who has taken his place in the wake of his death:
"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 quoted 'Hamlet': he called the future — 'the undiscovered country.' Gorkon thought the undiscovered country might mean something else — another kind of life. People can be very frightened of change. I know I was."
Kirk stares in the eyes of the Romulan Ambassador who helped arrange the attacks and says that he understands why he did what he did, because "it takes one to know one." The captain found himself at the end of his career and going out with a sad whimper, feeling like a relic, and that furthered his personal prejudices. It's a fascinating character study of one of science fiction's greatest heroes, because it allows him to be flawed and then actually reckon with those failings.
'Where no one has gone before'
"The Undiscovered Country" is brilliant on many levels, but the way it examines how an aging hero can grow more conservative with age feels especially relevant in 2023. The events of the past decade have radicalized many and pushed older generations to embrace more extreme conservative ideology, in large part because their prejudices were being catered to. People have a wide variety of reasons for bigoted beliefs, but bitterness and fears of being excluded or pushed out are pretty high among them. It's no excuse, but it helps us understand so we can hopefully pull wayward but decent people back from the brink. In the end, Kirk overcomes his own fears — of growing older, of change, and especially of the unknown — because he recognizes that he's regressed and his fearful beliefs could all too easily become hatred.
When Kirk gives his final Captain's log at the end of the film, he explains that a new crew and a new ship will be taking over, but that the mission is unchanged. Instead of only saying "where no man has gone before" as his sign-off, however, he corrects himself and says "no one." It's a great moment that show's the series' determination to always grow and be better, learning to carry Roddenberry's idealistic legacy into the future by being willing to self-reflect and change.
There will always be forces trying to make us turn on one another and insulate ourselves, but "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" reminds us that even our greatest heroes can slide into bigoted ideology under the right circumstances, and it's of dire importance that we don't follow in their footsteps.