We Hate Movies - S16: The Nexus #111 "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" [EXTENDED PREVIEW]

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

This is an extended preview of our Nexus episode covering Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. To access the full show, click through here and sign up for our Patreon today! Instantly unlock over ...100 other episodes of our Star Trek recap show! We're getting into We ❤️ Movies Month here on The Nexus as well, that's right, it's time for us to (finally) take a look at the masterful Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country! When you really get down to it, putting the legendary villain of Khan aside, there's a real argument to be made that THISis the best of all Star Trek films. How incredible is this cold open with Captain Sulu? Did they drop the storyline of Scotty and Uhura sleeping together from the last movie? How great is it seeing Shatner fight himself in the prison break scene? Did Christopher Plummer's character ever read anyone other than Shakespeare? And we can all agree that the signatures at the end are great? PLUS: A history of the importance of various Dee Vee Dee extras!  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Kim Cattrall, Mark Lenard, Grace Lee Whitney, Bock Peters, Kurtwood Smith, David Warner, Christopher Plummer, and Michael Dorn as Colonel Worf; directed by Nicholas Meyer. The Nexus is a WHM podcast where the guys futilely go through two Star Trek series at the same time. Thank you so much for continuing to support our family of shows—we couldn't do it without you! We know you have lots of options for pods and we're super-stoked you chose to spend some time with us—thanks again! Cover art by Felipe Sobreiro.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 This is maybe my second or third time through. I really love it. I think I'm still a 216 guy. Oh, yeah. Also, in the in the convo as well. Also, my area code is all 216. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 00:00:21 So guess what, folks, start dialing numbers. You might get him. You can figure it out if you get lucky. I should say I did check out the director's cut of this. It's four minutes longer and does, I forgot, contain a subplot which changes
Starting point is 00:00:35 some of the ending of the movie, but nothing too crazy, so I will bring it out when we get to it. I had a question for you about this director's cut because I was looking at the IMDB and several scenes which are present in the VHS release, which are as well as the television
Starting point is 00:00:52 broadcast cuts are notably absent for the DVD and Blu-ray releases and not included in the deleted scenes. So this might be totally fake. These scenes include the visual and inspection of the torpedoes by Scotty and Spock which contains Scotty's line, that Klingon bitch, as well
Starting point is 00:01:08 as Colonel West's seeds blah, blah, blah. So he does say that cling on bitch. So we'll I'll just do them right here. So yeah, there is a part. So yeah, they're trying to figure out later in the film what the torpedo compliment is and Spock's like the only way we can tell if this is a computer error
Starting point is 00:01:24 or not as we go down and we literally count all of them. Scottie gets pissed off about it. They go down to count these things and there's a scene. I think it's Kim Cottrell comes in and she's like oh, it's something about the ambassador's daughter, like something. Oh, yeah. She's become appointed head of the Klingon
Starting point is 00:01:42 High Command, whatever it is. That's what Kim Katrall's line. As it bore her whatever it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. To which Scotty goes, that clingon bitch had her father kill. Oh, fuck yeah. Which is fucking hilarious. And then the other thing, Colonel, what was it? West, I think. So Colonel West, there's a scene where Colonel West played by
Starting point is 00:02:00 not credited anywhere on IMDB not even in the like credited under deleted scenes. Renee Obergenoy, whatever. Odo. I picture that name all the time yes, the deceased Odo. He is playing this Colonel West, a Starfleet officer. He's dead or is the character dead? The man died.
Starting point is 00:02:16 Is the character dead? Odo? Yeah. I don't think Odo dies at the end of the S-9. Yeah. He turned into a puddle of goo and fucking... There's probably a book that we'll tell you all about it. He turned into a pack of cigarettes and was never seen again. Yeah, the fate of Odo. Okay, sorry, go ahead. Oh, no. So he's playing Colonel
Starting point is 00:02:31 West. So he comes in as Colonel West and they're trying to convince Kurtwin Smith as the president of the Federation. They're like, look, the time to strike these Klingons is now we can fucking wipe them off the map, take Kirk and McCoy, we can free them, and destroy the Klingons once and for all. Like, let's fucking do it. It's like a MacArthur type of thing. And then right after that, you can get, you can headline at the power metal festival
Starting point is 00:02:55 that you clearly are headlining in your band with his glasses poor sex or whatever the fuck so Kurtwood Smith is basically like no that would be genocide we're working towards peace that's not gonna fucking happen so that's the scene so the endings I'll just get to it right now
Starting point is 00:03:12 so the ending Scotty shoots the assassin out of the window he falls down dead they all like go around him and it's like this cling on dude or whatever in this director's cut they Scooby-Doo rip off this clingon's face and it's the fucking colonel. Oh my God, I think I saw this deleted scene at some point
Starting point is 00:03:30 because I had these on DVD back of the day and I think I devoured those special features. Oh, dude, yeah, I was a fiend for features back in the way. Now I don't give a fun. No, not really. Unless it's a commentary we recorded. No, that's true, which would be great. I spent the money on it.
Starting point is 00:03:44 I should be watching these special features. Waste of my money, but a lot from a stone with these DVDs. Last weekend, me and the wife took in Donnie Darko end to end. I mean, we did it all. Theatrical trailers. We did... Main menu. Interactive menu, 16 by 9.
Starting point is 00:04:04 Character bios. Oh, we were going end to end. You're not going to believe me, but stills. Yes, sir, steals. Went through all the stills. That's a good one. Martha, change it. That's another good one.
Starting point is 00:04:17 Oh, Fight Club. There might be some hidden ones on this DVD. Mash the keys, Martha. Uh-oh, we got our Not Man, Elm Street box, setting it's going to take 56 button moves before I can play part four. There's, oh my God, there's advertisement for Mountain Dew.
Starting point is 00:04:34 Can you believe it in the back of this? There's an advertisement for Mountain Dew. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3. Oh, we're going through a graveyard every time you've got a fucking selected episode. This is a delight. This is an absolute delight. Oh, that's right. Here we go. Simpson's Season 9 on DVD.
Starting point is 00:04:49 It takes 48 minutes after you hit play for the episode to actually start because there's a bunch of animated fucker roundery you got to watch. Put the kettle on, Michael. End to and DVD. Oh, dude, we just get up to DVDs in this
Starting point is 00:05:05 house. You know, her brother. He watches his DVD. He just watches the movie. Watches the movie. That's it. Don't look at anything. What a fill-in-style. A narrow way of seeing the world. What an idiot. My God, they ain't just making the special features for fun, boy.
Starting point is 00:05:21 Might as well go driving on the highway through your headlights off. My Idiot brother-in-law didn't even watch the producers' commentary. What it, what an idiot that guy is. There's so much knowledge from those producers. They graduated that boy from college. He's sitting there watching a movie. He doesn't watch a fucking trailer.
Starting point is 00:05:39 I asked my numb-nuts brother-in-law right to his face why he didn't check out the director's cut of alien, and he said, theatrical cuts are the only things that should be legal. I mean, how are you going to know what a movie is if you haven't watched both TV spots? I mean, honestly, both of the TV spots. And I tell him, I say, Simon, have you ever felt the satisfaction of hitting all the way to the summit of Mount Everest to the Fight Club original DVD? That is, there is so much bullshit in that thing to watch.
Starting point is 00:06:13 And you have watched none of it. Can I say, I think I did go fucking tits to tail with that Fight Club DVD. If you were, if you were our age and you got that thing, you watched all of it. It was like four different commentaries, you got it. Remember the Memento one? Oh, yeah. You had to do a fucking, you know, IQ test and I kept failing it or whatever the fuck it was. You're too dumb to watch this movie.
Starting point is 00:06:35 No, I want to watch all the special features. No, I'm not going to church, ma'am. I got this memento to do with it. It won't even let me watch the movie until I solve the puzzle. Oh, my God. So anyway, those are the two make differences in the dressers cut. One of the great things about this movie specifically is that it is like just completely mirroring what is happening in the world with the, the with the Soviet Union
Starting point is 00:06:55 desolution of smog. Yeah. Desolation of smog, socialist republics. Smogian of smogs socialist revolution. It dissolved. Yes, yes, it dissolved.
Starting point is 00:07:09 And I feel like nowadays, we should in the next Star Trek movie, maybe in the new Calvin one, kind of mirror what's happening now of the reconstitution. Yeah. Maybe the Romulins in that Calvin are coming back or something. Absolutely. What is a once thought weakened stronghold that is like coming back
Starting point is 00:07:25 to take over a force in the galaxy. I think the big difference is if the moon were to explode from energy, I think we would all start blaming other countries. China had the moon. We all know China had the moon. So they are responsible for this. It's whoever has the power plants
Starting point is 00:07:45 on them. What do you do with the power plants on the moon? There's good shit on there. Why is it even why are their power plants on Earth is another question. But we'll get there one day. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's also another interesting you cannot escape environmental messaging in Star Trek. This is also part of it, right? That Klingon moon
Starting point is 00:08:01 praxis, it collapses because of overmining. And we're told unsafe work conditions where I was like, well, of course Klingons don't have like an OSHA organization of workplace safety. You think they got kids in there? Oh, definitely, dude. Little Klingons with their gross teeth get their little hands in there.
Starting point is 00:08:17 Work a double shifter, you don't have honor. That's the thing. You rethink it's bad here. Unions and over there, you just die immediately. Oh, you say the word you're decapit. You're gone. Yeah, absolutely. I will say that this was a problem.
Starting point is 00:08:31 Rodbury had, apparently, I don't know if you read the story that he watched the work cut of this, got really mad about it, and then died two days later. Good. I'm glad this movie killed him. Wow, that's awesome.
Starting point is 00:08:41 But one of his complaints that I do agree with is the, the Klingons don't, I mean, I just don't know the timeline of it. The Klingons don't have all that honor shit. You know what I mean? the culture of the Klingons is very sparse. They're just sort of villains or ex
Starting point is 00:08:58 villains here. Yeah, I mean, a decent amount of that, but yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is because they're crooked. You specifically dealing with crooked Klingons. That's true. And they're not like representative of the entire like Klingon Empire. I know that sounds like a one bad apple excuse, but like, no, totally. That is, it is
Starting point is 00:09:14 that weird thing. And I think also just because like, don't throw out that bushel. There's some good Klingons in there. TNG, I mean, they invented a lot of it. years after that and that whole like honor thing and that's like you're more used to see in clingons at that point like there's still kind of a mystery yes a little bit i mean they're they are interacting with them over these movies and whatever but it's still like oh cling on we're still figuring out the head ridges in this movie for sure definitely i thought kurt word smith was a cling on for a
Starting point is 00:09:42 minute he looks too much like a clay on dude wait a minute yeah no his mother hooked up with the earth sailor well yeah his mother was a cling on uh you see and the father was raiding the god of like, yes, that would make sense. Again, and also that would be the... I'll bring in the rubber tomorrow. Perfect name for his metal band. Radin. Oh, absolutely. It should be called Raiden.
Starting point is 00:10:04 Prophalectic. I for Klinga. But I think this is the... Before this, you know, before TNG really got their hands on it, we didn't, we didn't, what do you call it there, really formalized the rocky head. You know what I mean? I mean, Star Trek 3 sort of did. Yes. Yeah, that's what...
Starting point is 00:10:21 Christopher Lloyd. He's got the big old. rocky head. Yeah, you could great cheese on that thing. I think even in their appearance in, aren't they in the first, aren't they a motion picture for like two seconds? Possibly. Yes, yeah. I think that's where that comes from.
Starting point is 00:10:34 And I, you know, you got, what do you call it? Chang with this basically like he's wearing a football, a leather football helmet on his head. It looks like Sagan from Street Fighter. Yes. Yeah, he, I would not be surprised to learn, like, had a grandmother who was a human or something. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:10:50 Because it is like, he's mostly just a bald guy with that fucking pony tail and then like little bit of ridges that's the thing he's the secret brother of Kirk right we do blowfeld bombs with this hell yeah dude but I mean Christopher Plummer is a real incredible if you show me one more
Starting point is 00:11:06 forehead ridge I walk and it's like all right well we did Shakespeare write that as if not then I don't think he said it not enough Chang small quibble not enough change I'll take more Chang too much Shakespeare quote you can't keep doing it you got you got to one thing or the other. You've got to stop letting him
Starting point is 00:11:24 just quote Shakespeare or you got or you can't have any more talk no more dialogue. I kind of wonder at some form was there a script thing at some point where he was part human because that's the only Klingon with a human name. Chang is a real earth name. Right. Yeah, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:11:40 I don't know if there's any supplemental books about Chang's early days. That was the way. Okay. That'd be awesome dude. There's a line. I'm having a summer in wine country. One of the early one of the early lines of I think that maybe the first Shakespeare line. There's a suggestion. They're like, in the
Starting point is 00:11:56 original Klingon. That's right. Yeah. It's a joke. Like, do they, well, that's, is it? It's a joke. I feel like it's a joke in the, in, it's a joke for the audience. Okay. But I don't know. Maybe, maybe Shakespeare was a Klingon. It opened up. And he came to Earth. It opened a fucking window of fucking possibilities. Is that what that movie's
Starting point is 00:12:14 about? The Hamnet? No, I don't believe. I don't know. It's not. Anonymous? Yeah. Is that what? What if Shakespeare was actually a Klingon? That would be great. He's got the classic Klingon haircut, right? It's the skullet with the bang. That's true. And then they droops and the goat and the Van Dyke.
Starting point is 00:12:30 And then he was missing, right? You know, one ever heard from him again. Everyone was like, who was this? William. William, why did you have your ridges straightened out? Why did you allow that? You should not be doing that. You should be proud.
Starting point is 00:12:41 William, why are you embarrassed of your Klingon heritage? I mean, it was way back in the day. Maybe like a horse kicked him in the head and shoved those back in. Oh, also I was going to say, what would the Shakespeare stuff and everything, and he's so eloquent about it. What if Chang, again, with that name, kind of an Earth name, right? I mean, it is an Earth name. You could substitute a space name, but definitely an Earth name.
Starting point is 00:13:02 What if he was like Saddam Hussein? I love it. He went to university in England. I see. Right. And then, like, came back. And while he was there, he was like a linguistic major. Studying drama.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Oh, yeah. I wanted to be an actor on Earth. And they denied me for my Klingon heritage. Yeah, theater major, minor in war Hey, speaking of this movie, hilariously killing Gene Roddenberry, it does open with four Gene Roddenberry. You got to at that point.
Starting point is 00:13:32 I want to highlight this font, though. I love this pink font. Dude, the pink and like the purple, it's fucking rocking. But the other one that thought the credits look a little cheap. It seems like cool, like vapor wave looking fun. You're attacking the credits. No, it's because the... Shields up credits.
Starting point is 00:13:47 Gold credits already have taken. I mean, the more expensive. The gold credit it's from the first one. I mean, how about the ending? How about the ending with the signatures?
Starting point is 00:13:56 I love that. No, for something about the overlay just feels a little TV movie-ish. It's a little simple, but I think like that color, it gives it like a weird 80s vibe in those movies,
Starting point is 00:14:06 1991. Like if you put like sort of like synth beats behind it, boom, boom, boom, boom, like you can, and you're watching the title, I can see it happen.
Starting point is 00:14:15 Tron Legacy fucking beats on there. Smoking a spliff with Chang. Oh, fuck it. If you like, just heard and want to listen to the full episode go to patreon.com slash we hate movies for all sorts of exclusive
Starting point is 00:14:28 Patreon content. You get in a unique RSS feed you could put it to any podcatcher or podcast app of your choice. Thank you.

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