Release Year: 1991

Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Writer: Nicholas Meyer, Denny Martin Flinn, Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal

Stars: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

It's hard to say goodbye.

After one short-lived television series and five motion pictures, the original cast of Star Trek will be leaving Enterprise—and our screens—for the last time. (We're conveniently forgetting about Spock and Kirk's later returns via time travel in Star Trek: Generations and the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Time travel hijinks rarely age well in the Star Trek franchise.)

Fortunately, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of the better entries in the series. That's crucial, because the previous film, the Shatner-directed Final Frontier, was a critical and box office bomb of interstellar proportions. To right the ship, producers hired long-time collaborator Nicholas Meyer to direct and co-write this latest film in the franchise.

Meyer, of course, directed and wrote The Wrath of Khan and co-wrote The Voyage Home, two of the most highly regarded films in the series. Trekkies everywhere rejoiced to find that The Undiscovered Country was a welcome return to form. In fact, the film scored the highest opening weekend of the series at the time, and it earned two Academy Award nominations.

The film upends one of the central themes of the Star Trek series: the conflict between the Klingon Empire and United Federation of Planets. With the Klingon Empire on the verge of collapse, Spock begins secret negotiations with their High Council to reach a peaceful resolution. To that end, he charges Captain Kirk to be the Federation's lead envoy.

That would be a great plan, except for one thing—Kirk hates Klingons. Hates them. On top of that, a shadowy conspiracy emerges that threatens to derail the peace process entirely, forcing Kirk to choose his side once and for all.

Top that off with some cool metaphors that relate this interstellar conflict to the Cold War and with one creepy, Shakespeare-quoting villain, and you have a recipe for a top-notch Star Trek movie.

We promise that it goes down a whole lot better than a cask of Romulan ale.

The Undiscovered Country makes this one easy for us. Thanks, Kirk.

The film is a big, elaborate metaphor for the Cold War, with the Federation representing the U.S. and the Klingon Empire representing the Soviet Union.

Like the Klingon Empire, the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse due to internal issues when it finally approached the U.S. for peace talks. And, like the Federation, the U.S. was torn between advocates for peace and those who wanted war.

The movie's insight in this regard can be applied to a range of historical events. We see how internal politics prevents beneficial solutions from being reached. We see how paranoia fuels decision-making. We see how those who profit from war fight to perpetuate it.

Yeah, it's quite a bit of insight for a silly sci-fi movie, but that's just how Star Trek rolls. When's the last time Luke Skywalker taught you something about political science?