Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was the final adventure for the original crew of USS Enterprise, and thus is often looked upon fondly by Trekkies across the globe. This month marks the 25th anniversary of its release. But rather than sitting back comfortably and positively reminiscing about his time working on the film, director Nicholas Meyer has admitted that, in hindsight, he actually has one big regret about it. That's because he believes it now seems overly naïve regarding the possibilities for the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nicholas Meyer made this admission to IGN, revealing that the film's depiction of the Cold War between the Federation and the Klingon Empire thawing, which was an obvious analogy to the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, just comes across as wide-eyed. Nicholas Meyer explains:
The naive thing, I suppose, is simply that we thought, in the words of Francis Fukuyama, that we had reached the end of history and we were entering a brave new world minus the Soviet Union, where everything was going to be peaches and cream. And, in fact, we've entered a world which is arguably much more dangerous than [being] eyeball to eyeball with the USSR. And in that sense, yes, we were naive. We were extremely prescient in that we predicted the Soviet coup before it happened. That was kind of amazing.
Nicholas Meyer has a few more regrets regarding Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, though. He also believes that one scene in the film actually comes across as an endorsement of torture, something that the director was quick to insist wasn't his intention. Meyer remarks:
I also think that the scene where Spock is doing the Vulcan mind meld on [Kim Cattrall's character] Valeris to get information sort of looks like waterboarding to me, and doesn't make me very happy to see it.
You can check out this scene in question, which clearly still rather bothers Nicholas Meyer, below. The highlight of which is some rather top notch acting from a dishevelled William Shatner that just makes you fall in love all over again with the thespian.
Despite Nicholas Meyer's concerns Star Trek fans still look back upon the sixth film from the franchise with positivity. Not only did it give them a chance to say farewell to Spock, Kirk et al, but it received kind reviews upon its release and also went on to gross over $96 million at the box office, too, which was a $20 million improvement upon its predecessor The Final Frontier. Plus, since Nicholas Meyer also oversaw Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, and wrote Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, his place amongst the pantheon of Trekkie legends was already firmly secure. Even if he did accidentally condone waterboarding.
