Walter Koenig was bitterly disappointed about his role in Star Trek VI

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country isn't the best movie in the lineup of Star Trek: The Original Series movies, and Walter Koenig doesn't hesitate to share his reasons why he hated it.

Walter Koenig had some wonderful scenes and lines in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. We'll never forget the "nuclear wessels." The actor stood out in those movies and even had some memorable scenes in the others...with the exception of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The movie wasn't that well-liked and wasn't the perfect send-off for the original crew of Star Trek. And, as it turns out, the movie was disappointing to Koenig as well.

An actor wants to be more than just a side note or an afterthought, and in Star Trek VI, the main stars were William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley with special attention to Christopher Plummer who played the villain. The other original Star Trek cast members weren't given that much attention, and in The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years"by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Koenig shares just how miserable he was during the filming of the movie. [via Screenrant]

Walter Koenig was miserable from day one of the filming of Star Trek VI.

Koenig didn't feel that any of the supporting characters had any individuality and, for him, this wasn't a wrap-up movie at all. He thought those characters from Star Trek: The Original Series should have been given some recognition, and they should have been given their moment. Instead, they got lines that were bland and never about themselves.

"I was absolutely f*cking miserable from day one on Star Trek VI. It was so disappointing to me… and I didn’t even have Harve Bennett to blame anymore. Ralph Winter is a charming, delightful, and considerate man, and I had considered Nick a booster of mine because he had written the best stuff in Star Trek IV as well as directing Star Trek II, but I found this script to be so totally devoid of any individuality for the supporting characters. It was as if you could literally have taken one long speech and taken a scissor to it, cut it into pieces, and handed it to us. For me, it was not a wrap-up at all. I thought, at last some recognition, some attention had to be paid to the supporting characters, and given their moment. There were no first-person personal pronouns; none of us ever said “I.” It was always “Keptain, there is a ship out there,” not “Keptain, I see a ship out there and I’m worried about this.” We were there as expository vehicles, and that alone, and that was really painful. My sense of ego and identity just cried out for some opportunity to express character, and it was just not available."

- Walter Koenig

Koenig did return in Star Trek: Generations for a small part that essentially helped to hand the reins of Star Trek: The Original Series over to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But he didn't have that many lines there, either, even though his condition for joining that movie was a sense of identity for the character. Clearly, though, the producers and writers never thought the supporting characters were all that necessary to the plot, which is a shame.