Our revels now ended

General Chang has gone to Suto'vo'qor. Qapla!

I saw Star Trek VI in London with my dad when it came out. I got a yuuge series of VCR tapes soon after that of which I saw 2, 4, 5, and 6 multiple times. I just rewatched the 2009 DVD of ST6 tonight, which I hadn't watched in some time and... hey, different from as I remember. (It was also VCR-level grainy, not up to better DVD.)

I recall a scene with a bunch of Star Fleet warmongers presenting a scheme to rescue Kirk; not on this DVD. "She did not shed a bloody tear!" / "Klingons do not have tear ducts" - not here. Also recall a scene where the assassin's face is ripped off and - hey, human! Very scooby-doo. Also not on the DVD.

I looked it all up and it looks like this 2009 DVD was the theatrical release. I have to agree, the scooby-doo crap was superfluous. And I never liked the VCR's "canon" that Klingons don't shed tears especially given several such scenes in TNG and more so DS9. Klingons are not unemotional!

I did miss the scene with the rescue-plan though. It showcases the War Party in Starfleet, in such a way that the Enterprise crew is still the focus.

Overall the theatrical release was superior. Do keep the deleted scenes in the Special Features. The DVD fell down in not keeping those, there. I'd bought a used edition and, well... I got what I paid for. At least there were some extras on Tom Morga the stunt man. And some Maori(?) reciting the ST6 plot for Starfleet cadets, which, well, should have been left to Youtube.

I noticed that no Plummer scene was deleted from ST6. Nor were any such scenes replaced with Kevin Spacey.

As for the obituary: it fails to note ST6, criminally, since by all accounts he enjoyed that role more than his role in Sound of Music which I didn't watch. Knives Out is another one enjoyed by the generations after me. In the meantime we shall always have The Man Who Would Be King and Inside Man, and shall always wonder if he would have made for a better Gandalf. I think not, for that.

On topic of the DVD extras, we also got some Klingon Shakespeare in Minnesota. I hope Christopher Plummer is in Heaven to portray Richard III.