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Klingons Cut From Final Star Trek XI Movie
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Apr 30, 2009 03:32 PM
from the gravest-importance dept.
from the gravest-importance dept.
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 ..."
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What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Insightful)
tlhap yIn!
(per http://www.mrklingon.org/ [mrklingon.org] ; java applet warning!)
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Funny)
"Get a life" in Klingon. Brilliant.
Hello, T-shirt!
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the level of irony created in anyone wearing it would destroy time.
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Funny)
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. [web.cern.ch]
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Funny)
And so, in winning, you've lost.
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Funny)
Of course wouldn't the Klingon reply be "It is a good day to take yours."
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:What's the Klingon phrase for... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Travesty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, most of the aliens got "facelifts" in the animated series, as I recall.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:4, Informative)
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).
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!"
Parent
Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Funny)
You should just repeat to yourself "It's just a show. I should probably just relax".
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Funny)
"...I should really just relax"
I miss that show.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org].
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Travesty? (Score:4, Informative)
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:
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Travesty? (Score:5, Interesting)
All we've seen is a few trailers. What do you expect them to show?
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Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Funny)
This is tribbling (Score:4, Funny)
And..... why should we care? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.)
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Time goes on (Score:5, Funny)
Argh - can't believe I just wrote that.
Re:Time goes on (Score:4, Funny)
Heh, and here I was reading the headline and thinking "Shouldn't that say 'Klingons Wiped From Final Star Trek movie'?"
Parent
Bah... (Score:5, Funny)
It keeps getting worse! (Score:5, Funny)
I heard Tom Bombadil isn't even in this one!
Re:It keeps getting worse! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but Nimoy will have a cameo to sing about Bilbo Baggins.
Parent
Spider-Man 3 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
For the NEXT Star Trek Movie (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Why do the characters even get to hear Klingon? (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be all or nothing. Romulans should speak Romulan, Vulcans speak Vulcan (unless speaking Starfleet English) due to the technomagical universal translator.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
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
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Re:who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Armageddon (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Re:They have done far worse (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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