tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 11 23:28:40 1997

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ST5 vaj toDuj (was RE: Buy me a drink)



SuStel wrote:

|Ah, yes, the Star Trek V backfit.  Surely, you remember it:
|
|vaj toDDujDaj ngeHbej DIvI'
|That means the Federation will send its own rescue ship.
|
|vaj toDuj Daj ngeHbej DI vI'
|Cosmos rubble marksmanship inconclusively tests a warrior's courage.
|Shooting space garbage is no test of a warrior's mettle.
|
|Subject: {ngeHbej DI vI'} "cosmos rubble marksmanship."  Ugh, but there it is.
|Object: {vaj toDuj} "warrior's courage."  Oh, is THAT where the word {vaj} = 
|"warrior" comes from?  :)  Verb: {Daj} "test inconclusively."

This is where ALL those strange words came from!

As I understand the story, ST5 was plagued by frequent script rewrites -
often lines were changed on the very day of shooting. Someone in the script
department accidentally copied the Klingon line twice into Todd Bryant's
(Klaa) final script. The young actor did what he was being paid to do and
dutifully read what was on the page he was given, not realizing that it
would be subtitled wrong in postproduction. He (and Okrand, who was on the
set during shooting) surely noticed he was repeating a line from earlier in
the same scene, but may have thought that his character was repeating it
for dramatic effect, or that director Shatner wanted a slightly different
take.  Okrand only realized Paramount's mistake after the movie had been
released and had to explain it in second edition of TKD. 

BTW, anyone know what Klaa's line was supposed to be?


-- Voragh



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