tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 01 22:15:26 1998
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Filming ST3 (was Re: pongmey)
|ghItlh Doneq:
|>Somehow I believe Okrand was ready to translate everything the
|>Klingons said in the film. I noticed that (almost) all the needed
|>vocabulary to translate what they said is available in TKD, though
|>not everything the Humanpu' said is there.
|
|bItu'chu'. MO prepared for ST3 by coming up with Klingon for every line
|intended to be spoken in Klingon as well as every line spoken by a Klingon,
|just in case they sprung it on him. He has said this at many public
|functions. But it definitely is lore which bears repeating!
|
|Qermaq
I've often wondered whether it went further than this with the director
actually filming the Klingon scene in two versions, Klingon and English.
Remember that the scenes on Kruge's ship alternated between both languages,
with the understanding that they were supposedly speaking in Klingon all of
the time.
In Hollywood directors routinely film each scene many times - often as many
as 20 or 30 times - for a variety of reasons: to vary the lights, the
position of the cameras, the grouping of the actors, the reading the
actors' give their lines, because of "bloopers" during the shooting (a
mis-spoken or forgotten line, a prop or sound effect not working properly),
etc. Directors like to do this not only to get a "backup" version on a
different reel of film in case something happens to the first first one
during processing, but also to give themselves enough film so they can pick
and choose just the right "take" later during the post-production editing.
This would include the option of putting together a final cut of the
all-Klingon scenes: 1) entirely in Klingon as in ST5), 2) entirely in
English with just a few Klingon words for atmosphere as they do on TV, or
3) in both languages as they also did in ST6.
Why do I suspect that Klingon versions of each scene were shot? Comic actor
John Larroquette ("Maltz") said in several interviews that he really got a
kick out of the fact that Paramount actually went so far as to have a
Klingon tutor (Okrand) on the set for a couple of months coaching the
actors to read their lines in Klingon. He was (don't laugh) impressed with
their attention to detail. And even though he routinely spent four hours in
the makeup chair, he seems to have had a good time making ST3. While there
he facetiously proposed a spin off for Maltz and even a "Free Maltz!"
campaign. In fact, it is Larroquette who was responsible for the puzzling
sentence {nuqDaq yuch Dapol?} in TKD. Larroquette -- who apparently
*always* had some chocolate on him since he was quitting smoking at the
time -- once suggested a line of dialog to TPTB that Okrand translated for
him as a joke during one of their Klingon language lessons. He wanted
Christopher Lloyd (Kruge) to turn to him and say, "Bring me some chocolate,
Maltz." Get it? "Chocolate malts"! Well... I guess you had to be there.
But, in spite of being extensively coached by Okrand, in the final cut
Larroquette has only TWO WORDS in Klingon: {vaghvatlh qelI'qam}, which
weren't even subtitled. All his other dialog was in English. What was all
of the coaching for if they didn't use it on camera? I wonder if the
director and producer chose to use the English versions of the scenes
because they didn't like the sound of the Klingon dialog, or perhaps they
thought that the actors were having too much trouble delivering some
Klingon lines believably, or they deleted it altogether (as they did with
the aborted hijacking scenes on Klaa's BoP in ST5). Who knows? I'm sure
that if there were scenes in Klingon on the cutting room floor, this
footage would have long since been discarded.
(See, inter alia, _Starlog Magazine_ #138 (Jan. 1989) for a full interview
with Larroquette about ST3. BTW, if someone has a copy of this issue I'd
appreciate getting a xerox of the article, since I've only seen an abstract
on the NEXIS service. Contact me off list, please.)
Of course, this is all complete conjecture on my part. Those of you who
have heard Okrand speak at conventions or have chatted with him in person
may have heard more details of his time on the ST3 set. How about sharing
them with us?
Hmmm, after all this, I think I'm going to watch ST3 again this weekend.
matlh yItlhabmoH!
Voragh