Klingons Cut From Final Star Trek XI Movie

darthcamaro writes "Classic era trek was all about Kirk kicking the Klingons' tails. But the new Star Trek XI movie, the reboot, will not have any spoken Klingon in it — a travesty that has some fan sites up in arms already. 'We actually had a sequence that ended up getting cut from the movie that took place on Rura Penthe, in a Klingon prison,' Star Trek co-writer Alex Kurtzman said, explaining the deletion. 'And there was definitely Klingon spoken in the movie, and it ended up getting cut.' Frakkin' Federation ..."

Comments

What's the Klingon phrase for...

[elrous0]

"Get a life"?

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[idontgno]

tlhap yIn!

(per http://www.mrklingon.org/ ; java applet warning!)

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[Lemmy Caution]

"Get a life" in Klingon. Brilliant.

Hello, T-shirt!

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[timeOday]

Especially since the deleted scene will probably appear in the "deluxe director's cut" DVD anyways.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[Criliric]

why hasn't anyone thought of this?

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[cptnapalm]

What is most awesome about this post is that it only took TWO minutes between someone asking for a Klingon translation and one being provided.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[Kjella]

why hasn't anyone thought of this?

Because 0.01% would get it, 99.99% would not and ask you wtf is that, but all they'd catch is "He's got a t-shirt in KLINGON. Run."

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[uberjack]

I would cut off your head, dwarf, if you stood but a bit higher from the ground.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[thefringthing]

That's totally ungrammatical. It is "yIn tItlhap". Leave the Klingon to people who know what they're talking about.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[palindrome]

Because the level of irony created in anyone wearing it would destroy time.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[guyminuslife]

So it must have already happened, and it undid itself by resolving the paradox in four dimensions.

Fortunately, my username perfectly qualifies me to wear the shirt.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[halivar]

And so, in winning, you've lost.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[pentalive]

Of course wouldn't the Klingon reply be "It is a good day to take yours."

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[gadget junkie]

Because the level of irony created in anyone wearing it would destroy time.

I heard the rumor that wearing it is forbidden within three miles of the Large Hadron Collider.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[SpeedBump0619]

Of course wouldn't the Klingon reply be "It is a good day to take yours."

That's kind of wordy for your average Klingon I prefer:

chugh SoH neH ("As you wish."). *squick*

Short sweet and too the point, with bonus points for cross genre snark.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[Tubal-Cain]

you've lost...

The Game

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[badboy_tw2002]

They were already preparing to run because of the odor. Asking you about you t-shirt was just a way to pass time (and not pass out) before the elevator opened.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[guyminuslife]

Oddly enough, in a month or so I am, in fact, moving into a basement.

Life imitates art.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[Tarlus]

Because 0.01% would get it, 99.99% would not and ask you wtf is that, but all they'd catch is "He's got a t-shirt in KLINGON. Run."

...and without knowing what it means, they'd think, "wow, he needs to get a life."

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[Saint Gerbil]

and middle america would think that you are a terrorist.

Re:What's the Klingon phrase for...

[jez9999]

I always loved that the Universal Translator could happily instantly translate even brand new alien languages into perfect English, but the Klingons had a way of talking that made it stop working.

Travesty?

[cheebie]

Oh dear God.

The original Trek only rarely dealt with the Klingons. It was more about the crew exploring the unknown.

This is just a fanboi snit.

Re:Travesty?

[MBGMorden]

I gotta agree. While the MOVIES generated from the original series dealt pretty heavily with Klingons, the actual TV series didn't go much into it. And TBH, the Klingons of the original TV series were pretty uninteresting IMHO. The change that they started going into the movies and more or less finalized moving into TNG made them far more interesting. Also, to a whole ton of fans from the TNG-onward days kinda view the Klingons as buddies of the Federation. Seeing them put back into a negative light just wouldn't be interesting to me.

Re:Travesty?

[eln]

Weren't the Klingons in TOS basically just bad-tempered humans? They didn't develop the weird growths on their foreheads until much later. They were basically just a poorly fleshed out analogue for the Soviet Union.

Re:Travesty?

[bigstrat2003]

Yeah, I'm surprised that TFA is all worked up about the loss of Klingons (which is kind of a shame), but seems to be OK with the fact that the new movie, from all they've shown us so far, is a mindless sex and violence movie. That's the real travesty: turning Trek into that. Those are entertaining movies, but that's not what Trek has ever been about.

Re:Travesty?

[Kelson]

The original Trek only rarely dealt with the Klingons. It was more about the crew exploring the unknown.

That was my first thought as well. Klingons were in, what, 7 or 8 episodes? Out of around 70 episodes total? And the spoken Klingon language wasn't introduced until the movies.

So there's no Klingons -- or at least no spoken Klingon -- in the story. Big deal.

And I say that as someone who's in the middle of rewatching TOS.

Re:Travesty?

[timepilot]

There was a decent amount of sex and violence in the original trek. It just wasn't explicit.

Re:Travesty?

[Dolohov]

Yeah, most of the aliens got "facelifts" in the animated series, as I recall.

Re:Travesty?

[bigstrat2003]

It was there, but it wasn't the centerpiece. The sex and violence is all we've seen of the new movie, however... which is a worrisome indication that maybe that's all there is to this movie.

Re:Travesty?

[pallmall1]

They didn't develop the weird growths on their foreheads until much later.

Those growths are why the Klingons are called clit-heads, or vulva-faces. Without those features, the Klingons wouldn't have any personality or geek popularity at all.

Re:Travesty?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Actually, closer to the Mongols than the Soviets. One of the ideas floating around in sci-fi of the time was the "space barbarian" or "space mongol", an archetype who could operate space ships, but couldn't build new ones, had to rely on captured peoples, etc. The Klingons definitely look like a stereotype of Mongols, including the warrior culture.

Re:Travesty?

[afabbro]

I gotta agree. While the MOVIES generated from the original series dealt pretty heavily with Klingons, the actual TV series didn't go much into it.

If memory serves, the Klingons were featured in these episodes:

• Errand of Mercy - John Colicos, baby!
• Friday's Child
• The Trouble With Tribbles
• A Private Little War
• Day of the Dove

In addition, the appeared periphrially in "Elaan of Troyius" and "The Savage Curtain" (I don't think the Kahless in that episode even spoke).

So, 5 major appearances in 79 eps, plus a couple small mentions.

And TBH, the Klingons of the original TV series were pretty uninteresting IMHO.

They were certainly one-note, though some of the episodes listed above used them to good effect. There certainly was not the kind of cultural exploration we saw in later series, that's for sure.

Re:Travesty?

[Nyckname]

At a con back in the day, someone asked James Doohan about the ridges. His reply, in his best Scottish accent, was "Remember those tribbles we beamed over? Allergies."

Re:Travesty?

[MightyMartian]

I agree. This is, after all, a REBOOT. That means a lot of the cruft from about thirty years of post-ToS development is being dispensed with, and that's fine by me. This is meant to rejuvenate a series that had pretty much become one monstrous cliche of itself. If there's one thing ToS had that, over time, the later series lacked, it was solid, straightforward storytelling. Everything was burdened down by the vast edifice of Everything-That-Had-Come-Before. The last two attempts, the dull Voyager and the increasingly-pathetic Enterprise, showed just how uninteresting it had all become.

The Trouble With Tribbles was just fine with Klingons speaking English, thank you very much. In fact, and so will this.

Re:Travesty?

[catmistake]

The actual cannon is, I believe, that the growths were always there on the Klingon's foreheads, but during the short time period of TOS (?4 years), there was a fashion trend that was popular among Klingons to flatten their foreheads. Worf says at some point in DS9 (the other tribbles episode) that "we do not speak of it," so it was apparently an embarassing trend that they try to forget (think about all the straight-laced former hippies burning pics of themselves out of embarrassment).

Re:Travesty?

[MPolo]

I think "Enterprise" expanded on this, and had the smooth-headed Klingons resulting from a genetic disease, caused by trying to implement human Eugenics techniques. The disease was cured, but the physical results remained, and took many generations for the Klingons to get rid of them.

Re:Travesty?

[hardburn]

It was explained away in the last season of Enterprise. A rouge human researcher in genetic engineering had made some superhumans, and Klingons wanted the tech, too. So they copied/stole the research and ended up implanting themselves with human DNA. The changes went viral, and soon affected the entire Klingon race. They presumably found a fix some time in between TOS and the first movie.

Re:Travesty?

[Thuktun]

The original Trek only rarely dealt with the Klingons. It was more about the crew exploring the unknown.

It's funny how often the unknown looked like the hills of southern California.

Re:Travesty?

[Kamokazi]

There was also an episode of DS9 where they go back in time to the 'Tribble' episode and run into Kirk, etc., and either O'Brien or Sisko asks Wharf about why the Klingons look different, and he says something like, "We do not discuss it with outsiders."

Re:Travesty?

[hardburn]

All we've seen is a few trailers. What do you expect them to show?

Re:Travesty?

[FauxPasIII]

You should just repeat to yourself "It's just a show. I should probably just relax".

Re:Travesty?

[Fieryphoenix]

A far earlier explanation appears in Star Trek roleplaying games from the 1980s. According to them, Klingons genetically modified the crews of starships operating on the frontiers. So crews operating near the Federation looked humanized, near the Romulan Empire romulanized, and the ones patrolling the Mickey D's were supersized. Well, I made that last one up. But anyway.

Re:Travesty?

[guyminuslife]

That's a very plausible, reasonable-sounding explanation. Not nearly as plausible and reasonable-sounding as, "Jesus H. Christ! It's not even important! We changed the way they're supposed to look, we didn't even have the make-up budget to do that shit at the time, deal with it, use your imagination, stop worrying about canon and watch the goddamn show!"

Re:Travesty?

[LionMage]

First off, it's rogue. Rouge is makeup you apply to your cheeks (or anywhere else you want a "healthy blush").

Secondly, if you actually paid attention to the episodes in question (a story arc that lasted 2 or 3 episodes), you would know that the Klingons were going to destroy the research facility to stop the spread of this viral trait. A cure was discovered, and the Klingon powers that be relented. Klingons on a single colony were affected by this trait, and it was implied that the Klingon scientists were going to have their hands full reversing this genetic mangling. It did not spread to the entire Klingon empire.

Yeah, I know, way too much nit picking about a damn TV show. But I thought the story arc was cool, especially the idea that Noonian Soong's ancestor was actually originally interested in genetic engineering to enhance humans, not robotics or cybernetics.

Re:Travesty?

[Dogtanian]

What is clear is that later on Klingons played a much larger roll. ST:TNG was very Klingon, with Spock being replaced by Worf as the alien. I would argue that the social aspects of the Kligons were explored much more in TNG than vulcan in TOS.

Was I the only person who didn't find the obsession with the Klingons' background in TNG particularly interesting? I liked Worf enough as a character, and I didn't mind the Klingons as characters with a hint of background.

But I found all that stuff about Klingon society and the stories based around Worf's background quite boring. It just seemed like like a pointless and synthetic metaphor for various non-Western (primarily Middle Eastern and Central Asian) cultures seen through a left-leaning Hollywood script writer's eyes.

And while it was probably well-intentioned in a socially-aware 80s sort of way, it seemed to take itself a bit too seriously considering it was dealing with a totally a made-up, nonexistent culture with cod-Eastern guttural language and contrived religious ceremonies (with guttural names, etc.) that attempted to mimic the seriousness with which "real" non-Western people take such aspects of their culture.

But the problem was that the stories about the Klingon culture only worked if you took it Seriously. However, they *weren't* real enough to take seriously without feeling a bit silly; yet they weren't far enough from actual humans to work as abstract metaphors either.

What we are probably seeing is that the Klingons have been overexposed, and fully explored, so there is little interesting for a new writer to deal with, at least not without getting into trouble with the the Star Trek purists.

Yes, I hear that the writers of the rebooted Star Trek intend expanding the social background and politics of a different alien race- the tribbles.

Re:Travesty?

[hardburn]

The genetic alterations in question happened to adult Klingons, not newborns. Presumably, the cure later did the same.

Incidentally, viral vectors can be used in real genetic engineering.

I would have been satisfied leaving the whole thing as a retcon and pretending flat-foreheaded Klingons never existed, but the DS9 Tribbles episode was begging for it all to be answered. Tieing it into Kahn-like superhuman research and Data's family history was a surprisingly good idea for a frachise that didn't have Ron Moore to lean on anymore.

Re:Travesty?

[Knara]

"...I should really just relax"

I miss that show.

Re:Travesty?

[pluther]

Even earlier than that, a story in the fanzine Trek posited that the ridges on their foreheads were the top of their spine, having moved up due to having their backsides kicked by the federation so often.

Re:Travesty?

[Patch86]

"Sir, we've detected a pre-warp civilization on the planet's surface!"

"Nazi or cowboy?"

Re:Travesty?

[idontgno]

There's a mild irony here. The one profession great concern for canon misspelled it (unless he meant to speak of large-bore projectile weapons), and the one professing unconcern for canon spelled, and used, it perfectly.

My inner pedant is smiling a smug satisfied smile.

Re:Travesty?

[MightyMartian]

Many things are a matter of taste, I suppose. I'm just saying that you can sometimes, at least, reboot things. I suspect Batman Begins is probably the inspiration for recent series reboots, and the general strategy seems to be to scrape off all the cliches and pointlessly repetitious drivel that occupies so much of so many movie series.

Maybe it won't work, I dunno, but I've heard some folks who have seen it say the new Trek is very good, certainly a lot better than the last two TNG outings, and I think bringing in an outsider, someone who didn't feel any necessity or burden to layer things back up, was as good a chance to rejuvenate Trek as we're going to get. If this doesn't work, then I think that will be it. The franchise has been abominably abused, particularly after DS9 went off the air.

All I can say at the end of the day is that if there's a reference to the Borg, I'm walking out of the theater. Having them show up in Enterprise was what finally did it for me. I just couldn't stand yet another story arc of "we're-so-invincible-but-not-really-except-we-are-but-no-we're-not-and-yet-here-we-are..."

Re:Travesty?

[hey!]

I dunno. I remember the sixties, man. A lot of it was about letting "it" all hang out.

You thought "Austin Powers" was farcical exaggeration, well, maybe not so exaggerated. Imagine you were born in, let's say 1949. It is now 1967, and you're in San Francisco. You are eighteen years old, it's the "Summer of Love". This is an era where contraception was available, practically all known STDs were curable with penicillin, and free love was royal road to higher spiritual existence.

I think Roddenberry approved of "sexual liberation"; I think it part of his concept of a future Man (yes "Man") freed from superstitious and archaic limitations on his freedom. The only reason you didn't see more was because this was network television with sensors and sponsors who didn't want controversy. If cable networks existed back then (the way they do now), I'd bet you'd have seen a lot more than babes in sprayed on catsuits.

I don't know if he was on board with the whole drug aspect of the counter-culture. In any case it would be superfluous in TOS. You see, it's exploration that's the drug that takes you to new experienced you could never have imagined. That's just another facet of liberation: to boldly go where no man has gone before on one hand, on the other do the same where probably quite a few men have gone before.

Re:Travesty?

[hofmny]

Since I just got done watching all 5 seasons of Enterprise (hey, I slept with a real girl two weeks ago.. really.. OK!), I think I can clarify this the best.
Dr. Soong, the one we know from TNG who created Data has great grandfather, also named Dr. Soong (and played by Brent Spiner). During the time of Enterprise he was a criminal for conducting genetic engineering experiments after they were outlawed following Earth's 3rd World War. He continued the work of creating genetic super humans, raising them on a far planet until he was finally captured and imprisoned back on earth.

One day the super humans, fatherless, decided to leave their planet and hijacked a Klingon Warship, beating the Klingon's in hand to hand combat and sending them out the airlocks. This infuriated the Klingon Empire and almost cost war between them and Earth (no Federation yet) but was defused by Captain Archer of the current Enterprise. However, the Klingon's were extremely dishonored to have human's beat them -- and feared the federation would have Super Humans on all Star Ships, which would spell the end of the Klingon Empire.

The Klingon's stole some of the genetic material from the original hijacked ship (after it was destroyed by Enterprise some containers escaped unscathed that had embryo's the Super Human's were carrying) and started to create Super Klingon's. However, they couldn't separate the Human DNA. Any Klingon made "Super" lost their ridges and other distinctive "Klingon Features".

To make matters worse, a virus infected the Supers and spread to normal Klingon's infecting a good amount of the empire. The virus carried genetic material, which supplanted this human DNA into regular Klingon's. The Klingon's were going to destroy every planet with the disease until the captured Enterprise Doctor, Flox, came up with a cure to the virus -- at gunpoint of one of the factions of Klingons.
In the end, the Klingon's stopped destroying infected worlds because the infection had been neutralized, but a large number of Klingon's were now Human/Klingon hybrids.

That was done in Enterprise to explain the Human looking Klingons in the TOS.

..really, I am not a geek. I prefer "nerd"

Re:Travesty?

[idontgno]

Now my inner pedant is scowling bitterly at my epic fail at word usage: s/profession/professing/

Damn. Now I have to find a way to make my inner pedant smile again.

Re:Travesty?

[PacoCheezdom]

"Neither, sir. 1920s gangsters."

Re:Travesty?

[fm6]

Besides which, the whole Klingon language thing has gotten too ridiculous. The linguist they hired to invent the language actually tried to make the psychology behind the language truly alien. So he did things like not have words for "hello" or "goodbye". I actually heard an interview with him where he explained that Klingons don't believe in courtesy, and just start and end interactions without ceremony.

This was completely forgotten by the time TNG came out. I guess they decided that aliens acting alien was too subtle for a TV audience. So they decided that Klingons greet each other with "Qapla'!" Officially, that means "Success!" but I suspect it really means "Fuck off, patronizing bald guy!"

But what's really lame is the project to translate Shakespeare into Klingon, based solely on a stupid Cold War reference (one of many) in that Kirk-is-Nixon movie.

tlhap yIn!

Re:Travesty?

[rts008]

I think both of you are 'right', but limited. We would have to ask Gene Roddenberry to be sure, though.

At the time(1966) of ST: TOS, tensions in world politics were high.(saying that looking at today sounds silly, but...)
The Cold War was simmering nicely with the USSR, while China was isolationist, but probing Western markets, we(USA) were looking at Vietnam(with both Soviet and Chinese support), etc...

The 'Space Mongol' scenario just played on this to avoid political/diplomatic finger-pointing. (Buck Rogers vs. Ming the Merciless, etc.)
We indemnify that we don't understand or accept(usually related), so we 'needed' a common cause to rally around for the 'betterment' of mankind.(read: become more like US[A] to be non-threatening)
Something else we are neglecting in this specific discussion are the Romulans. Who did they represent? And their 'cousins', the Vulcans?
For this discussion we should bring them both into the picture, IMHO.

I think that was Gene's intention. In hi own way, he was trying to get us used to the idea that 'National Borders/Politics' were less important than mankind as a whole. It may have been naive, but at least understandable by reasonable people that were fed up with the whole 'Cold War' thing impinging on space exploration.

Take all of that with a grain of salt, but having seen/read interviews featuring G.R., I will stand by my speculations.
I have mentioned this years ago(and thus cannot track down the post), but the 'launching' of Star Trek was treated as a big deal in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center community.
The Premier was greeted with dinner parties galore. My family attended one of these hosted by a senior director of NTTF**/Goddard at his home. It was treated as a 'Big Deal' in the Goddard community...a way to tie-in what NASA was doing for us as a species...helping the ST:TOS world become a reality.

**NTTF==Network Test and Training Facility. I worked there as a High school senior, in the Logistics Dept. on the 'graveyard shift' in 1976-77, playing 'baseball'(text-based), and blackjack on NASA's mainframes! ten years after Star Trek was aired.

Looking at your /. UID, I'll resist the 'get off my lawn' speech here, and just get the fsck off of yours!...:-)

Re:Travesty?

[optimus2861]

All DS9 had to do, was make Worf look like a TOS-era Klingon, and have the other characters in the show not even notice the difference. Just exchange a couple of odd looks, perhaps coupled with a small joke along the lines of, "Did he cut his hair?" Then when they return to DS9's present, Worf is back to his fully-made-up self, and again, nobody sees the difference.

Much of the episode was played for humor in the first place, I don't know why they didn't go there for the Klingon make-up.

Let me be the first to say...

[Idiomatick]

qaStaH nuq jay!!!!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[FlyingBishop]

Sadly, Klingon is not an option on Google translate.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[hey!]

You guys have to stop posting over analog modems; either that or get better phone lines.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Phroggy]

No, but Klingon is an option for the Google web site itself.

Re:who cares?

[cashman73]

As long as they don't replace the Klingons Gungans with Jamaican accents, we're cool! ;-)

This is tribbling

[get quad]

Smooth heads or bumpy?

And..... why should we care?

[SDF-7]

Seems like a non-story to me. Wrath of Khan didn't have any spoken Klingon either (closest was Khan claiming the Klingon proverb: Revenge is a dish best served cold.... It is very cold, in spaaaaaaaaaaace.) I don't seriously think anyone missed it there, and while I know little of the plot of this film (intentionally, so no -- I don't want a summary) if the story doesn't really involve Klingons, no need to toss them in just to have them.

Re:And..... why should we care?

[Vollernurd]

Of course followed by...

"KHAAAAAAAAAAAAANN!"

Always gotta love that bit.

Re:And..... why should we care?

[DragonWriter]

Seems like a non-story to me. Wrath of Khan didn't have any spoken Klingon either (closest was Khan claiming the Klingon proverb: Revenge is a dish best served cold.... It is very cold, in spaaaaaaaaaaace.)

Since the Klingon language (tlhIngan Hol), as such (that is, having an actual grammar rather than just a handful of words) was created for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, this is not all that surprising. OTOH, its been used pretty heavily in the movies (and, to a lesser extent, series) since that, though I can't see why anyone would complain about it not being used in a new film (I can see, perhaps, complaining if Klingon's were talking in what was supposed to be "Klingon" but it wasn't tlhIngan Hol, particularly if there was no in-setting justification, but that's a different issue.)

Time goes on

[dk90406]

No need to kling on to old plot devices.

Argh - can't believe I just wrote that.

Re:Time goes on

[Chris Burke]

Heh, and here I was reading the headline and thinking "Shouldn't that say 'Klingons Wiped From Final Star Trek movie'?"

Re:Time goes on

[spuke4000]

Reminds me of a joke:

Q: Why is toilet paper like the Starship Enterprise?
A: They both circle around Uranus wiping out Klingons.

Bah...

[Etrias]

Funny how all of the swearing is following the BSG meme then. Frakking? Really? I would expect no less than a double dumbass on you!

No Klingon in the TOS Either...

[tjstork]

In fact, I do believe that one of the Klingons in the TOS was actually John Colicos. He spoke Melodrama, not Klingon.

It keeps getting worse!

[jollyreaper]

I heard Tom Bombadil isn't even in this one!

Re:It keeps getting worse!

[frank_adrian314159]

Yeah, but Nimoy will have a cameo to sing about Bilbo Baggins.

Re:It keeps getting worse!

[Enderandrew]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPh12Q7cpeE

That is a must-see clip.

Spider-Man 3

[XanC]

Everybody complained that Spider-Man 3 tried to cram too many different characters and plots together. Chill out! This is but the first in a new series of films. There will be plenty of time for Klingons.

Much fresher now...

[NecroPsyChroNauTron]

Apparently they had difficulty making the deletion at first, but were successful with a 2nd wipe.....

maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

that 13 year old boy they've got to play kirk got scared when they spoke klingon.

I'm sorry I'm not watching a bunch of pre-pubescent twerps run around a starship, its as ludicrous as putting the Olsen Twins in charge of the USS Nimitz.

whats with turning all these shows into showcases for poorly acting teenagers? whats next? x-men babies?

Re:maybe

[RobDude]

Maybe I'm missing something?

I thought Chris Pine was the actor playing James T. Kirk. He was born in 1980. That means he's pushing 30.

If he's still prepubescent he should probably see an endocrinologist.

For the NEXT Star Trek Movie

[tjstork]

If you really, really, wanted to piss somebody off, they should remake the Edith Keeler episode as a feature film, but change it in some way as to really just make Harlan Ellison flip out. Have his "great work" get butchered by TWO generations of film-makers, now that would be priceless.

Re:For the NEXT Star Trek Movie

[Bemopolis]

...remake the Edith Keeler episode as a feature film, but change it in some way as to really just make Harlan Ellison flip out.

That's easy — just leave his name off it. Double points for shooting the originally submitted script. Triple points for adding the dialogue "Hello, little fuck."

Non-issue

[rnelsonee]

(minor spoilers)

I'm not a super Trekkie or anything, but I did see the movie this week, and I'm glad there's no Klingon. Hell, not only is there no Klingon speech, I didn't see a single Klingon at all. Who cares? The humans are the good guys, and they need bad guys. Since this is a fresh start, why re-hash the exact same enemies they already had in, what, 6 previous movies (just a guess, again, not a Trekkie)? I always thought the Klingons were just grumpy humanoids anyway. And AFAIK, they're been friends for nearly every TV series, so I'm not exactly fearful of their characters. Eric Bana as a really pissed off Romulan? That worked.

Re:Non-issue

[Knara]

10 movies.

And we already did the pissed-off-Romulan thing the movie before this one.

Andreas Katsulas was the best Romulan, anyway.

Re:Armageddon

[spun]

And a kick in the nuts isn't brain cancer, either. Doesn't mean we need to be grateful for a kick in the nuts. Yes, I'm aware that I just compared Uwe Boll to brain cancer, but it's not like cancer can take offense.

Re:who cares?

[xerxesVII]

No kidding. Chewbacca always struck me as very dog-like with his speech. He was practically incapable of whispering, and it looked like it caused him great physical discomfort to hold his tongue. I'm sure he was a good friend to have in a pinch, but sometimes you don't need your friends gargling every half-formed thought that flashes through their brains.

Why do the characters even get to hear Klingon?

[Gauthic]

I know I'll be modded down for mentioning this: Why are the Klingons the only species in the whole movie series that the "Universal Translator" didn't automatically translate to both the audience and the characters while not in private conversation at home planet (i.e. TMP's Spock's failture scene)?

It should be all or nothing. Romulans should speak Romulan, Vulcans speak Vulcan (unless speaking Starfleet English) due to the technomagical universal translator.

Re:Why do the characters even get to hear Klingon?

[greyhueofdoubt]

The Klingon language caused the translator to just emit a stream of sobbing wails. Afterwards, the unit would refuse to work until it underwent extensive psychotherapy. "It's not even a real language!" it would cry out.

-b

They have done far worse

[frovingslosh]

J.J. Abrams was on TV just last night talking about he wasn't a real trekie, and that this movie was aimed at a broader audience (Hollywood talk for "everyone should buy a ticket for my movie and the trekies should buy several") . But from what little I've seen of the previews, this retelling isn't true to the Trek history.

McCoy was a beloved character in the show and movies. But as anyone who watched the original shows in the 60's (even those of us who don't consider ourselves trekies, don't go to conventions, have never made a starfleet uniform or a tricorder, and who don't live in our parent's basements), he wasn't the original ship's doctor and didn't come on board when Kirk did. There were two other ship's doctors in "Where no man has gone before" (not to mention the earlier failed pilot that was later incorporated into the trek history as a back story). To retell things with McCoy joining with Kirk as he takes command of the ship is just pandering as far as I'm concerned, handy to let the film focus on a bunch of backstory for these characters, and lets just ignore established "facts". After all, it's just a movie. We'll play off the fan loyalty and immense popularity of the franchise where it suits us, but we can ignore it when it get in the way of the film we want to make.

Yes, I know the file will be a huge hit. That was a given before the first scene was ever filmed or the first characters were cast. But I think it's a shame that Abrams decided just to throw something together based on the Trek franchise, film it in a spectacular way and profit, ignoring the existing trek history when it got in his way.

And in some ways I think that imposing the Trek franchise on his film making may have been a major mistake. I really think he could have done better if he didn't go for the quick and big bucks that the Trek franchise promises but rather had made something original in the Science-fiction area. In truth he's quite a talented film-maker, and he could have made something truly unique rather than just number 11 in a series. The original Starwars (despite what it has become) was a great movie, and one of the main reasons for that is that Lucas was free to tell an original story (even with all of the cliche's). Imagine how much less of a movie it would have been in the 70's if George Lucas had decided, or been told, that in order to make a science fiction movie and get it onto the big screen he could do all of the great special effects he envisioned and he could pretty much do the same story, but the main character had to be either Flash Gordon or Buck Rodgers, because they were established and no one wanted to risk a big movie on a new story.

Re:They have done far worse

[MightyMartian]

There's nothing quite as amusing as a pedant trying to sound reasonable and non-pedantic, and yet being so incapable of looking from the narrow rut that they occupy on the subject, that it still oozes from every sentence.

Re:who cares?

[Mister Whirly]

Yeah, but Gungans don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that.

Re:who cares?

[Em Ellel]

No kidding. Chewbacca always struck me as very dog-like with his speech.

Gee, very strange for a being who's very name is a mixture of words for man (chelovek) and dog(sobaka). Its not a coincidence that in Spaceballs the character was "Mog". (half-man, half dog)

-Em

I've already seen it and it kicks ass

[gnarlin]

There was a pre-showing here in Iceland that I attended and I can attest that this movie is great. I was expecting it to suck or at least to be so-so. I especially liked the witty dialog :)

Re:No big loss

[mabhatter654]

of course it does have time travel... which should be shot dead and declared illegal by the sci-fi police.

Re:who cares?

[carlzum]

You think wookies are annoying? You must have loved the Star Wars Holiday Special

*spoilers*

[Aexia]

A Romulan from the TNG/DS9/VOY era goes back in time to kill Kirk and blows up the ship Kirk's father is on. His attack becomes the Federation's first encounter with the Romulans and radically changes history.

TNG Era Spock goes back in time and tries to set things back on course.

Re:who cares?

[Lord Dreamshaper]

seriously? man-dog? I always thought it was an oddly weak name that was a riff on "Chew" & "Tobacco" At least the original french translators thought so since his name is "Chictabac," literally "ChewTobacco"

He looks more like the missing link or Bigfoot than he does a dog...

Re:so tell a different story

[MightyMartian]

First of all, you're being a pathetic fanboish pedant about this. But, to soothe your precious little brain, the stardate system didn't exist outside of a cool thing for Kirk to say in log entries until well over a decade after ToS went off the air. The attempts later on to explain this were nothing more than kludges.

Huh?

[stoicio]

"Classic era trek was all about Kirk kicking the Klingons' tails."

Apparently you've never watched the original TV series. If you count
the episodes, the Klingons appear a minority of the time.

Re:can't wait for the sequel-

[kahless62003]

Tasha Yar?