Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country super soundtrack suite - Cliff Eidelman 

I'm from Eastern Germany, former GDR. This movie was my first Star Trek movie at cinema. It's my favorite movie of all Star Trek movies (1-13). And since I saw it for the first time, the Klingons became my favorite Aliens. 🖖

I was 7 when I went to see this in the cinema. I remember the cinema speakers rattling as this time belted out. Then the Praxis explosion. What an entrance.

I just noticed that in Rura Penthe chorus is saying "To be or not to be" in Klingon

I didn't get to it till Long after it was released(2006, G4 played Trek 2.0) I had seen a few of the films, but I got them in order, and boy, the end farewell hit HARD😮😢❤. Pretty sure I gave a standing ovation in my living room..

Very classy film and epic music symphony one of the best in the series.

Should have included The Battle for Peace. One of trek's greatest musical themes.

One of the best of the original cast Star Trek film scores. Contains equal parts conspiracy, adventure, the wonder & mystery of space, as well friendship and the passing of one era into another. A great score that managed to be in the Star Trek universe while charting out it's own path and making clever references to classic works (at least to my ears, I hear some). If I had to say where this falls in the top scores of the film series I'd say: Goldsmith (ST 1 & even 5 to an extent), Horner (ST 2) , Eidelman (ST 6), Roseman (ST 4). I think this score should've at least been honored with an Oscar nom.

One of the greatest sci-fi soundtracks ever made.

A valiant soundtrack. Reflected the film well. But I would’ve loved Horner’s masterpiece to have made a final appearance

❤👏🏻

I have to agree with John Prudent's comment about references to classic works. Listen to the "Battle for Peace" in the soundtrack and then to the first movement of the Brahms 1st Symphony. Eidelman definitely had this work in his ear when composing the music for Star Trek.

Thanks for doing these suites. Could you do the same with the shows and their higlight themes?

Oddly, the opening title score sounds more appropriate for a Batman film but excellent nonetheless

While Trek has made regular references to Shakespeare, STVI was the most Shakespearean of all. It is an interesting pairing, given the vast level of spirituality present in both concepts. Somebody once said that ST was "operatic", but opera is more constrained, targeted, manipulative, tight-laced entertainment from the elite, while Shakespeare specifically targeted ordinary theatre-goers as well as the key leading figures of his time, and Shakespeare tempers its dignified side with real, raw emotion. That is made fairly clear in the full quote from a Hamlet considering suicide, who says: "To grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death - the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of?" Clearly material here for both ordinary people (who grunt and sweat most ofthe time) and intellectuals. Equally, it is a bit too blunt to say that the undiscovered country is death, since it is rather the aftermath of death ... i.e. the afterlife. Shakespeare's true Christianity even in what was theoretically a Godly age has always been moot, and clearly he (or at least his character Hamlet) did not have strong enough faith to be sure that things are better and more wondrous after we die... As ScreenRant's John Orquiola noted in 2020: "The unusual title Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is derived from William Shakespeare, but it takes on a different meaning in the movie's context from what the Bard intended in Hamlet". "In Star Trek VI, the Klingon Empire [i.e. Soviet Union - Sid notes] suffered a catastrophe when their moon Praxis [its Chernobyl - Sid notes] exploded, which crippled their economy. With less than 50 years of life left, the Klingons reached out to the United Federation of Planets [the West - Sid notes] and initiated peace talks; however, the potential end of decades of hostilities terrified factions within the Klingons, the Romulans, and Starfleet. Despite his own reservations, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise were appointed as the Federation ambassadors to meet with High Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) [obvious Gorbachev - Sid notes], but Gorkon was assassinated by conspirators led by General Chang and aided by Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) own protege, Valeris (Kim Cattrall). Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) were framed for Gorkon's murder, imprisoned, and nearly executed before Spock rescued his friends. Together, they uncovered the sinister conspiracy and saved Federation's new alliance with the Klingons". "However, before the Klingons killed their own Chancellor, they dined with Kirk and his senior staff aboard the Enterprise, where Gorkon led a toast over Romulan ale to "the undiscovered country - the future." Spock immediately identified Gorkon's reference to Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1, which was the title character's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy. Hamlet, contemplating suicide, called what's on the other side of death (the afterlife) "the undiscovered country." However, Gorkon, who is a fan of Shakespeare and encourages hearing the Bard's words spoken "in the original Klingon,"equated the undiscovered country to the future of his Empire and Starfleet as allies and friends - an idea that was previously inconceivable. Dr. McCoy then toasted Gorkon as "the architect of that future." Meanwhile, Chang directly quoted, "to be or not to be," voicing his own fears that friendship with humans would mean the end of the Klingon's civilization." The quote is apposite, because the Klingon Empire's rapprochement with the Federation was a future that was achieved (Worf was part of it) and was made MORE achievable because Gorkon's fate was indeed to DIE. While his afterlife we do NOT know, his legacy was the change of things we thought unchangeable - i.e. the Cold War and the idea we all had that the Soviet Bloc would never fall... The biggest tragedy here is that Gorbachev's overtures to the West resulted, not in the truest peace and acceptance and magnanimity, but in (some elements in) the West seeking to ruin by buyout and other means the Soviet economy (further - since it was bad to begin with). So Yeltsin gave way to Putin, and a more amenable early Putin gave way to the version we see today. If we believe the story, this was not the first time that cynicism was applied to the USSR, as it is suggested by some that the Bolshevik Revolution was supported by American business, since a wrecked Soviet economy was the best outcome for the Robber Barons of the day fearing competititon. Given the meanness and evil and hurt under Communism, that was indeed a cynical and self-centred and short-sighted (and hugely sinful) move. Kirk hated the Klingons, and had good reason to. So for him to forgive was a vast task almost beyond even his heroic efforts and possibilities. But the film is ROOTED in the possibility to show humility and mercy, to get over things and to see the greater good, and forgive so as to move forward and not backward. Like Gorbachev, Gorkon had pragmatism in their somewhere, but there WAS genuine vision too, and that was rooted and nurtured in his cultural interests. He was willing to see that an inspired genius born in 16th-century England might have something to say on a far-off planet in a far-off civilisation, even though publicly he had to push forward the belief that the original language of Shakespeare was Klingon, not English...!!!

This soundtrack seemed awfully shapeless compared to TWOK. It's brooding in dark circles as an accompaniment to one of the most optimistic of Franchises.

Wrong Enterprise on the still.

Guess who's coming to dinner?