This is an interesting video I made, let me know what you think.
Why Can't Uhura Speak Klingon in Star Trek VI; Is She a Diffrent Person After Nomad
- Thread starter Star Trek Apolgist
- Start date
It's nowhere to be found, but it should have. She didn't have enough chances to show her skills and even if the job requirements didn't demand it, she should have picked it up anyway. She should have been the one to figure out how to communicate with both V'Ger and the Whale Probe, let alone the scene in question. I mean, if Sulu can know Botany than Uhura can know a bit more about her actual job besides pushing buttons.
What he said. Unhura was the ships communications officer. I meant she was the specialist at using the ships long and short range communications equipment, understood policies, procedures and protocols that kept massive spaceships from driving through one another, getting to where they need to be, etc, and had sufficient diplomatic people skills and common sense to avoid bruising feelings while seeing the ships did not smack into each other. Unhurt in classic Trek was likely an Engineer by education and specialization. (Note she selected Running a transporter station as a late career option in STIII further implying that she was from the technical and engineering side of things. There was probably a high degree of technical crossover between communications and transporters.
The nuTrek interpretation of Uhura as a linguist always struck me as over the top and wrong. They played with that concept on Enterprise with Hoshi Sato. It made sense there. In nuTrek? Wow she's a super linguist on a Starship. After the invention of the iTranslate app. Which makes her about as useful as the ships cheese maker. "Captain I am fluent in 97 languages" "sounds great, can you fix the radio?" "..."
The nuTrek interpretation of Uhura as a linguist always struck me as over the top and wrong. They played with that concept on Enterprise with Hoshi Sato. It made sense there. In nuTrek? Wow she's a super linguist on a Starship. After the invention of the iTranslate app. Which makes her about as useful as the ships cheese maker. "Captain I am fluent in 97 languages" "sounds great, can you fix the radio?" "..."
Usually when you get into a field, you have a genuine interest in it. You study it because you are into it. You often go beyond being able to just operate over to knowing how it works, the underlying principles and theory. Or you can think of fandom. Start out passively watching Trek and graduate to being an uber-fan who can tell you minute details about the backstage squabbles on TOS in 1967.
So the whole excuse that computers make this knowledge unnecessary doesn't fly. By the time of the TOS movies you'd think Uhura would have learned some languages, because, well, she chose this field and she should generally be intellectually curious about language!
It's the same way Kirk knows the quote "All I need is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."
Trek tried to present a utopia in which people don't just sit bored at their consoles and do the bare minimum their jobs required, but that they were life-long learners, often picking up unusual side hobbies (like Riker playing the horn).
By the time Uhura is the age she is in Trek VI I would think she'd be competent enough in Klingon to handle that exchange. Sure, it would have made a comedic scene impossible there, but then maybe the writing should have gone a different direction entirely to avoid it.
So the whole excuse that computers make this knowledge unnecessary doesn't fly. By the time of the TOS movies you'd think Uhura would have learned some languages, because, well, she chose this field and she should generally be intellectually curious about language!
It's the same way Kirk knows the quote "All I need is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."
Trek tried to present a utopia in which people don't just sit bored at their consoles and do the bare minimum their jobs required, but that they were life-long learners, often picking up unusual side hobbies (like Riker playing the horn).
By the time Uhura is the age she is in Trek VI I would think she'd be competent enough in Klingon to handle that exchange. Sure, it would have made a comedic scene impossible there, but then maybe the writing should have gone a different direction entirely to avoid it.
The scene in TUC is intentionally silly. Or, perhaps Because of Nero(TM) Uhura had some reason to become fluent in Klingon that doesn't exist in the Prime Universe.
How is botany related to Sulu's job? By your argument, Uhura should be allowed to be a skilled, or at least enthusiastic, musician and dancer instead. Which incidentally is what we get.
We have no idea whether she chose her field. Sulu was a helmsman, Chekov was a navigator, but nothing about that appeared chosen, and it didn't seem to affect their career paths much.
Apart from this, Uhura might learn some languages. Or she might learn subspace theory, which might be much more useful in her line of work. Or she might concentrate on learning a skill that would get her out of her current tedious line of work.
Why would she learn Klingon? That'd be more difficult than most languages to learn, probably, as the Klingons wouldn't be volunteering to help foreigners on the issue - unlike any culture in Earth history, really. Opportunities to hear Klingonaase spoken or see it written would be rare. Ssee how in ST3, it appears Kruge and his XO can keep secrets from their own crew by switching to English - suggesting they switch to English to converse with humans, too. (Or did they switch to a different Klingon language? Perhaps even a dedicated secret House language, Dune style?)
Did we see any of this life-long learning in TOS? Or in TNG for that matter? Picard chose to know a little bit about everything. Janeway chose to know a little bit about everything related to physical sciences and engineering. Kirk chose to know a bit about 19th century United States, and that was pretty much it. Sisko chose not to reveal knowledge of anything at all... And that's the commanding officers: the record is grimmer for the lower ranks.
You'll get my vote. And my babies if that gets through in the next round of remasterings.
Timo Saloniemi
Sulu had various hobbies. We saw botany, fencing, and collecting antique guns, and there could have been more.
What are nuSulu's hobbies? I don't know and I don't care.
Does nuUhura have any hobbies besides whining about boyfriend troubles? Again, I'm not convinced that there's any reason to care.
Why wouldn't they choose their fields? Chekov wasn't always a navigator; at some point between the end of TOS and the beginning of TMP, he became the head of security. At the beginning of Wrath of Khan, he'd moved up into administration/command as Terrell's First Officer, and if he had another specialty, it could have been navigation, security, or even science (a speculation based on the fact that he took over Spock's duties when Spock wasn't available).
Well, obviously the English was primarily for the benefit of the viewers!
But it's an interesting idea that some Klingon houses could have a special private language. Please note, however, that in Dune it was never stated that any other House besides the Atreides had a special language (it was referred to as "Atreides battle-language" - presumably only used by Leto, Jessica, Paul, Hawat, Gurney, Duncan Idaho, and the soldiers they commanded.
Sisko was into baseball.
Actually, most of the main characters on Voyager had at least one hobby (I'm blanking on anything for Kes and B'Elanna).
Yeah, the books were ridiculous. It's like this scene was a holdover from Star Trek V: The Movie That Did Its Best To Ridicule The Second-Tier Characters.
And? We have only seen two compact movies with these new characters. TOS had almost eighty hours to show us Sulu's three hobbies, and Uhura's one. No difference can be observed there yet in that respect. All we can tell is that the new Uhura has a different set of professional skills.
Exactly. And Sulu wasn't always a helmsman. If these people were at liberty to make choices, why would they have to choose twice or thrice? It looks more like they were assigned to a number of tasks as needed.
Quite so - so it can be taken two ways, one being that every House has an <insert house name> battle-language, requiring the specific formulation exactly because every House does have one.
But no proficiency at a second job that we'd know of. (In contrast, background extras were seen in a number of different tasks, perhaps suggesting that they were smarter than the main characters, perhaps suggesting that most Starfleet jobs are no-brainers.)
Timo Saloniemi
The original Uhura was just a button pusher. There was nothing remarkable about her, just like the vast majority of the rest of the crew. Heck, really only Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty were ever truly shown to (regularly) be top notch at their jobs throughout the series, and even then the other three relied heavily on Spock's genius.
So her portrayal in the movie was spot on for the series.
Like others have essentially said, It's the "reimagining" that screws up the character's core concept, not the other way around.
So her portrayal in the movie was spot on for the series.
Like others have essentially said, It's the "reimagining" that screws up the character's core concept, not the other way around.
Singing and dancing and playing the Vulcan lyre. That's three, not one. Don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone who sings also dances (or vice versa). I used to work in musical theatre, and noticed that while there are people who can sing, dance, and play a musical instrument, there are also people may be extremely proficient at one or two, but not in the third.
People get promoted, and they get opportunities to cross-train. We saw that both Uhura and Janice could operate the helm or navigation if necessary, but neither would have been an expert.
I don't remember reading in any of the Frank Herbert books that any House other than the Atreides had a special battle language. The Bene Gesserit had a secret way of communicating (the sign language used by Irulan and Mohiam in Dune Messiah) and I have some recollection that the Tleilaxu and Guild also had specialized ways of communicating. But none of those were Houses of the Landsraad.
Remember that the Emperor was worried about the Atreides' rising popularity and unusual competency in combat, which suggests that their battle-language was a part of that. Please understand that I'm going strictly by the Frank Herbert novels, and not the movies, miniseries, computer games, or KJA/BH drivel.
Well, it's obvious that Chakotay had no piloting ability! (based on how many episodes involved him crashing the shuttle)
But Tom Paris was not only the pilot; he was also a medic and was able to assist the Doctor and even act in his stead in some cases. The Doctor was able to function as an ECH when necessary. Seven had the necessary skills to have functioned as Chief Engineer, if required. Neelix asked for, and received, opportunities for training. So did Kes.
The question of whether Uhura should have known Klingon is mildly interesting. However, the video is trying to prove something that doesn't need to be proven. TUC Uhura looks like someone whose language skills have been neglected. Having a dictionary doesn't make someone able to speak a language, and even someone who is rusty will make plenty of mistakes, but they could not even be remotely intelligible had they known learned something of the language at some time.
Pretty sure the linguistic stuff was added for the unmade Phase II TV series, go give Uhura more to do. It made it's way into many of the 80's Trek novels.
It's my opinion that Star Trek VI treats the characters horribly - Uhura doesn't know Klingon, McCoy doesn't know Klingon anatomy and Kirk's suddenly racist against Klingons despite ending the previous film drinking with them.
Presumably the choosing begins in what they decide to study while at the academy, or do you think everyone's roles are equally interchangeable and none required any special training? Division colors are there for a reason, even though they were abused a lot (Uhura starting out in command, for instance).
For the same reason a diplomat might want to learn some of the language of a country they come into contact with on a regular basis. Shouldn't Trek stand for trying to understand "the other"? You don't do that by showing that the communication's officer has spent her career leaning on the universal translator and doesn't know a lick of the most commonly encountered species' language. Trek isn't supposed to reflect a future in which people are dependent on computers to do the thinking for them, even when they otherwise can.
I mean, I knew this thread would devolve into rationalizations but this scene in Trek VI would not keep cropping up again and again unless there was something bad about it. It really DOES look like a Trek V outtake. It was a lazy attempt to inject humor at the expense of character into an otherwise grim story.
The latter, apparently, or our sidekicks couldn't switch "career paths" as easily as demonstrated. Sulu is a department head in astro sciences initially, then a helm officer and a potential department head in the related department, whatever that may be. Are both "careers" no-brainers? Not necessarily. But at least one of them would have to be, in order for Sulu to be able to swap. And helm does sound like it could meet that criterion.
We never hear of SF Academy studies having an impact on the following career path. Kirk may have taken command studies (involving the no-win scenario test) as a cadet, and Saavik as a postgrad, but that apparently just means Saavik gets her starship command a tad later. Beyond that, there are no specific studies that would warrant a mention or make a difference.
Despite some ambiguity, it seems medical doctors get their medical training elsewhere, and for all we know, engineers learn their way around a warp core in a dedicated university as well (following today's model). But even if the studies are more integrated than that, we know for a fact that a helmsman can become a chief engineer, and that a dropout can have the required skill, too.
It sounds like a good idea to me to categorically deny the existence of division colors. The uniform colors have never made any difference as regards skill or clearance or indeed membership in a particular subset of the ship's organization. They have never been described as division colors in dialogue, either.
OTOH, Uhura did swap skant color. Virtually every sidekick and many main heroes did, at some point or another. It's not proof of them being experts in every field, although it's not a counterindication, either - it's simply irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Would Uhura come into regular contact with Klingons? Starfleet has a wide range of adversaries, quite possibly too wide to allow for optimizing one's skill sets. TOS showed surprise encounters with Klingons and Romulans (the latter probably being much more of a surprise), but none indicating close interaction where one side might learn solid facts about the other. ST2 sort of milks on this, even if unwittingly: Kirk jokes that Klingons don't take prisoners, after having been prisoner to Klingons at least twice himself...
OTOH, if Klingons are to be likened to a Cold War adversary (a major theme in this thread), it should be noted that very, very few in the US military knew any Russian during that conflict...
That the bad thing in it would be failure to portray Uhura as a Klingon speaker is a rather unlikely conclusion, though. She's not really a character the audience would care that much about, and the presence or absence of a skill is never foreshadowed in Trek anyway.
Timo Saloniemi
In nearly all of early Trek, the Klingons were a constant threat and it would be almost guranteed a front line vessels communications and xenolinguistics officer would be required to know it.
At least with the new universe, Uhura knows the main Klingon and Romulan dialects. Although that could be part of the same greater xenophobia/paranoid reaction that drives Starfleet after the Narada incident. But I doubt it's just that.
At least with the new universe, Uhura knows the main Klingon and Romulan dialects. Although that could be part of the same greater xenophobia/paranoid reaction that drives Starfleet after the Narada incident. But I doubt it's just that.
One major difference in the movies is that Starfleet has detailed knowledge of the Romulans: not just their language, but the fact that they are sundered Vulcans as well. Clearly something went differently in that version of Trek pseudohistory of the mid-23rd century.
Does this extend to relations with Klingons as well, perhaps? Our heroes now know of the Ketha Province and show no surprise at the sight of a disintegrated moon over Qo'noS, while they knew basically nothing about the Klingon way of life in the TOS/TOS movie timeline. Did TUC perhaps already happen in the new timeline, only in such a fashion as to make the Klingons angrier than ever?
Timo Saloniemi
Does this extend to relations with Klingons as well, perhaps? Our heroes now know of the Ketha Province and show no surprise at the sight of a disintegrated moon over Qo'noS, while they knew basically nothing about the Klingon way of life in the TOS/TOS movie timeline. Did TUC perhaps already happen in the new timeline, only in such a fashion as to make the Klingons angrier than ever?
Timo Saloniemi
I'm glad they didn't make Uhura the kind of character who could figure out a new language by hearing it spoken for a few minutes. Other than Scotty the human TOS characters were built on professional competence, heroic character and tactical wit, not magic superhuman skill sets.
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