Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Director's Cut (4K Ultra HD)

Real world article
(written from a Production point of view)

Cover
4K Ultra HD release
Series:	Star Trek films
No. of discs:	1 (4K UHD) 1 (Blu-ray, not in Australasian releases)
Run time:	113 minutes
Director:	Nicholas Meyer
Release date:	5 September 2022 (UK)
Other release date(s):	6 September 2022 (North America) 8 September 2022 (Germany) 12 September 2022 (Scandinavia) 14 September 2022 (Australasia) 7 October 2022 (Japan)
Rating(s):
Language:	English (Dolby 7.1 TrueHD)
Subtitles:	Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Croatian, English, French, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Dubbed:	French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish (DD 5.1 Surround)
Reference:	ASIN B0B781NPF7 (UK) ASIN B0B4G37JKH (North America) ASIN B0B5KK2W98 (Germany) EAN-13 7333018023758 (Scandinavia) ASIN B0B57TM8XM (Australia) ASIN B0B6FCCQYH (Japan)
Year:	2022
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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Director's Cut is a two-disc 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray Disc/Digital set, first released on 5 September 2022, featuring the 4K UHD release of two Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country versions, the "Theatrical Cut" and the extended "Director's Cut" (formerly the "Special Edition"). As is currently usual with UHD/Blu-ray double releases of older productions, all special features (excepting the audio commentaries and isolated music score tracks, which are present on the 4K UHD disc as well) are only included on the Blu-ray disc of the release. The two discs are mounted in a standard plastic snapcase, which itself was for the North American release issued within a matching softboard slipover sleeve. The other releases came without the sleeve.

The 4K UHD standalone version of the film was released on the occasion of the completion of the long awaited^[1] in 4K HD 2160p resolution remastered version of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) in 2022, and was simultaneously released as part of the Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection 4K UHD set. The remastering of both The Final Frontier and its The Undiscovered Country - Director's Cut followup was only completed in 2022, and it was only then that an individual downscaled standalone Blu-ray version could be released, whereupon it was decided that that was the opportune moment to concurrently release all original crew films in individual standalone 4K UHD versions as well. In this case there was a twist however; only the Theatrical Cut was released in the upgraded Blu-ray standalone version and not the Director's Cut, which therefore remained an exclusive to the 6-Movie Collection and this 4K UHD standalone releases only, conceivably as a by the Star Trek franchise intended instance of "market discrimination".

As usual with these releases (geo-restricted to North America only, as the – former Blu-ray Region B^[2] – European/Australasian releases do not have these) a redeemable code is included to download the film in 4K resolution digitally.

As is increasingly becoming commonplace, no DVD counterpart was issued for this particular release. Those dwindling number of DVD customers still wanting one, had to make do with the original The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD release from 2004.

Special features[]

As well as the extras originally featured on the prior Special Edition DVD, excepting the text commentary by Mike and Denise Okuda, the release also included the special features in high definition, as originally done for the 2009 Blu-ray release. The total runtime of the release therefore amounted to 333 minutes.

Commentary by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn
Commentary by Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr
Tom Morga: Alien Stuntman †
To Be Or Not To Be: Klingons and Shakespeare †
Starfleet Academy: Praxis †
Library Computer
BD Live: Star Trek I.Q.
The Perils of Peacemaking
Stories from Star Trek VI:
- It Started with a Story
- Prejudice
- Director Nicholas Meyer
- Shakespeare & General Chang
- Bring it to Life
- Farewell & Goodbye
Conversations with Nicholas Meyer (this is actually an error as it concerns "It Started With a Story", the first segment of "Stories from Star Trek VI", and not the original source feature as intended)
Klingons: Conjuring the Legend
Federation Operatives
Penny's Toy Box
Together Again
DeForest Kelley: A Tribute
Original cast interviews
Production gallery
Storyboards
1991 Convention Presentation by Nicholas Meyer
Trailers †

† - in HD (others in standard definition)

Background information[]

While the "Director's Cut" can be considered the first-time HD release of the 2004 "Special Edition" DVD, there is one small, but significant difference; not included is the "Colonel West disguised as Klingon assassin reveal" scene at the end of the film. [2]
In contrast to films II, III and IV, an individual standalone version did get released this time around in Scandinavia, as that territory had not seen their own separate The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection set release, contrary to the former three films which had been included in that territory's preceding Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection release.
The two Australasian (Australia and New Zealand) releases had dispensed with a separate Blu-ray disc in the set, despite the fact that the The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection had not seen a separate release in that territory either. Still, as Blu-ray versions had all become region-free as well by this time, any import would do in the territory.

Footnotes[]

↑ Talks of a High Definition release of the Director's Edition had been floating around since April 2013, but various reasons conspired against such a release for nearly a decade. For further background information on this subject matter, see main article.
↑ The Region geo-restricting encoding had, for all intent and purposes, been dispensed with all together by the industry upon the advent of the UHD format, even though that policy change has never been made public officially. This incidentally, has also applied for the Blu-ray disc format, whose region encoding was since late 2009 silently, but gradually, abandoned as well – which in Star Trek's case started with the Blu-ray releases of TOS Season 2 and Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection [1]^(X) – only to pick up speed from the mid-2010s onward.