Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. To boldly go where no Shakespeare has gone before: many of General Chang's lines come from the plays of William Shakespeare, including Hamlet, Henry V and The Tempest.
2. In fact, "The Undiscovered Country" itself is a Shakespearean reference - it comes from Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy. Sadly, the film makes no mention of either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.
3. If you're having unpleasant flashbacks to 11^th grade English, not to worry - there are plenty of modern references too. The prison planet Rura Penthe is named after the slave labor camp in the Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
4. One more: the welcome speech on Rura Penthe is an homage to Colonel Saito's speech in The Bridge on the River Kwai.
5. How to be your own grandfather: actor Michael Dorn portrays Colonel Worf in The Undiscovered Country, and Lieutenant Worf in the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" - the colonel's grandson.
6. Salary bonus: William Shatner picked up an extra $340 bucks on set, when director Nicholas Meyer promised the cast $20 for every bite of blue squid they ate during the dinner scene (need help with the math? That's 17 bites).
7. Fewer ridges, please: Christopher Plummer requested less "severe" makeup for his transformation into the Klingon General Chang.
8. Déjà vu: the Klingon bird of prey explosion may look extremely familiar to serious Star Trek fans. That's because an identical, frame-for-frame explosion occurs in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations.
9. Trick or treat: Garry Marshall was directing the movie Frankie and Johnny in the same studio as The Undiscovered Country. While filming a scene in which Al Pacino needed to be surprised after opening a door, Marshall arranged for William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy to stand on the other side of the door for a true "surprise."
10. Final farewell: the film is dedicated to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who passed away less than 48 hours after viewing the movie.

Cast

Crew