tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 20 19:39:10 1997

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Phone Cards & other lost Klingon



On Fri, 17 Jan 1997, Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen wrote:

|Some of you who were at the qep'a' cha'DIch may remember a presentation 
|from a company named Future Call.  They held (and may still hold) a 
|license from Paramount for doing Star Trek phone cards in the USA.  
|The company received some major publicity a few years back for 
|hosting a telephone conversation between Shatner and Stewart, in 
|which thousands of people paid to listen in. They were also maintaining 
|several telephone entertainment platforms -- the kind where you call in, 
|and for a dollar/minute you can select from a menu which of several 
|prerecorded messages you want to listen to.  Marc Okrand had done some 
|branchs of one of the platforms as I recall.  In addition to the material 
|he provided about Klingon, he also gave a quick lesson or two on some 
|aspects of Vulcan.
|
|I don't know if Marc is still doing this for Future Call (my impression 
|is "no"), nor have I been able to lay my hands on transcripts of those 
|recordings.

This rings a very old bell. I remember reading some time ago that
Okrand was working on these messages, but then I heard nothing else. I
assumed the project was dropped. 

So, did anyone manage to listen to these Klingon phone card messages? What
did he say? Anybody record it or write it down?

It seems there is quite a bit of material that Okrand has translated into
Klingon but, for one reason or another, was never released and is therefore
unavailable for study.

For example, there are at least two scenes of Spice Williams (Vixis) 
thwarting a attempted mutiny in Star Trek V that were *filmed* in Klingon,
but were completely excised by director Shatner from the final cut. See the
authorised novelization, based on the original version of the script, for
the unseen mutiny subplot. Stunt-woman-turned-actress Williams complained
about losing her first big dramatic movie scenes in an issue of _Starlog_. 

And I just learned that Okrand had written and taped a "perfect, dramatic
speech" for Uhura (who was supposed to be an accomplished linguist) to say
in Klingon when the Enterprise-A crossed into Klingon space in Star Trek VI
that was never filmed. Instead Paramount chose to go for cheap laughs with
that silly scene of her paging through *paper* dictionaries and struggling
with pidgin Klingon. Nichelle Nichols mentions it in her autobiography.


Voragh



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