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

The script for The Undiscovered Country was written by Nicholas Meyer, longstanding jack-of-all-trades for the Star Trek film series, and Denny Martin Flinn, a writer and director who primarily works in theater.

Although the story also features contributions from Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, the real cred belongs to Leonard Nimoy, who also plays Spock. It was Nimoy who came up with the idea of mirroring the fall of the Soviet Union in the Star Trek universe. He even hired Meyer for the job.

Six films in, the writing process was more complicated than ever. Meyer and Flinn wanted to focus on how the crew of Enterprise has adapted to retirement in a long, elaborate opening sequence. This was shot down by the production studio, who were looking for any excuse to cut costs.

And that's not all. Several story ideas were shot down by the actors. Similarly, the character of Valeris was originally meant to be Saavik, a Vulcan Starfleet officer we met in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This idea was shot down by series creator Gene Roddenberry, however, who didn't want to see a fan favorite turn bad.

You might say that the writing process of The Undiscovered Country featured as much weird tension and intrigue as the movie itself.