Captain Klaa - translator

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Does anyone else find it really neat to learn that the Klingon who is in the booth running the Klingon Translation program (you can hear him say "...that Enterprise fired on Kronos One") is actually Klaa from the previous film?

Pretty awesome

 

[trevanian]

Does anyone else find it really neat to learn that the Klingon who is in the booth running the Klingon Translation program (you can hear him say "...that Enterprise fired on Kronos One") is actually Klaa from the previous film?

Pretty awesome

Thought it was cooler to realize he was the same actor playing the guy next to Peter Preston in the engine room in TWOK.

 

[sbk1234]

I feel bad for Capt. Klaa. He went from commanding his own ship to being a translator? That can't be a promotion in the Klingon Empire.

 

[Kronos]

Does anyone else find it really neat to learn that the Klingon who is in the booth running the Klingon Translation program (you can hear him say "...that Enterprise fired on Kronos One") is actually Klaa from the previous film?

Pretty awesome

Thought it was cooler to realize he was the same actor playing the guy next to Peter Preston in the engine room in TWOK.

What a career path, spy on a federation ship to being a captain of a bucket of bolts and finally ending up as a translator.

 

[Metryq]

Why is this 23rd century "UN" using live translators when Kirk used a hacked "universal" translator to talk to a creature they had never encountered before in "Metamorphosis"? Heck, even today's smartphones are getting into the act.

Yes, Klaa was demoted to furniture.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why is this 23rd century "UN" using live translators when Kirk used a hacked "universal" translator to talk to a creature they had never encountered before in "Metamorphosis"? Heck, even today's smartphones are getting into the act.

Yes, Klaa was demoted to furniture.

Because Nicholas Meyer gave Trek a huge technological downgrade in STII and the movies carried on from there.

 

[Tosk]

And because Meyer wanted to emulate Adlai Stevenson questioning Zorin about the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Don't wait for the translation..."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I feel bad for Capt. Klaa. He went from commanding his own ship to being a translator? That can't be a promotion in the Klingon Empire.

It was probably part of Klaa's punishment for screwing up in ST V.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

Not to get too nerdy (says a Trek fan), but didn't the translator have different forehead bumps to Klaa. Same actor, different bumps (said the nerdy...).

Sir Rhosis

 

[FormerLurker]

In a state show-trial*, why would the Klingons be using a universal translator anyway? Live translators are much more show-offy and "special".



*Kirk and McCoy are accused of murdering Gorkon, remember.

 

[Metryq]

Because Nicholas Meyer gave Trek a huge technological downgrade in STII and the movies carried on from there.

Umm...what? Let me think: warp drive, phasers, communicators, transporters and some new tech like the Genesis device. Were there some faxes or chemical powered rockets I'm not remembering? Really, I'm drawing a blank here—what "huge technological downgrade" are you talking about? Kirk's print book and spectacles? (The glasses were explained due to Kirk's allergy to retinox.) Was there the squeal of a 1400 baud modem from Uhura's comm station? Wooden wagon wheels on the Enterprise? Solutrean spear points on the photon torpedoes?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm drawing a blank here—what "huge technological downgrade" are you talking about?

Lots of little things:

Spray-n-wear clothing in TMP vs Jackets on clotheshangers (ST III)

Perscan belt buckles in TMP, gone by ST II

Wrist communicators in TMP vs return to TOS handheld in ST II

ST II's photon torpedo track grates...

 

[Timo]

If anything, TMP was the movie to dumb down treknology big time. Suddenly, robust small spacecraft that had looked like something Flash Gordon or Dan Dare would be comfortable with (the TOS shuttle) were back to looking like fragile NASA hardware (the workbees and their container trains). Docking maneuvers took aeons, compared with the swift shuttle launch and recovery procedures of TOS. Sturdy space stations like K-7 were "succeeded" by 20th-century-realistic scaffolding. Getting out of the ship suddenly required docking ports and airlocks, with dedicated operating crew operating dedicated control consoles for said. And transporter rooms went from utilitarian staging areas with lots of vanity covering to techno-temples with exposed machinery and a glass booth to protect the operator.

I'm surprised the movie didn't insist on having the phasers spit out spent cartridges...

As for Klaa in STVI, a quick comparison:

ST V forehead here

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tffhd/ch14/tffhd1946.jpg

ST VI forehead here only...

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tuchd/tuchd1100.jpg

Any ideas on backstage pictures where the latter could actually be seen?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

I'm drawing a blank here—what "huge technological downgrade" are you talking about?

Lots of little things:

Spray-n-wear clothing in TMP vs Jackets on clotheshangers (ST III)

Perscan belt buckles in TMP, gone by ST II

Wrist communicators in TMP vs return to TOS handheld in ST II

ST II's photon torpedo track grates...

None of those indicate a technological backstep, just a preference. Just because something is no longer used, doesn't mean it no longer exists. Especially the communicators...when's the last time you saw a calculator wristwatch?

 

[Timo]

...Of course, ST2 did have wristwatch communicators. But only on the Reliant crew.

And we never saw any spray-n-wear clothing or "perscan" buckles in TMP - merely a series of bad fashion choices. If there was any functionality to these items, it was off screen, off dialogue, like about 90% of the ideas regarding TMP.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

I have no idea what a perscan is, to be honest. I assume they be them fancy belt thingies due to obviousness, but I had no idea they had a name.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Umm...what? Let me think: warp drive, phasers, communicators, transporters and some new tech like the Genesis device. Were there some faxes or chemical powered rockets I'm not remembering? Really, I'm drawing a blank here—what "huge technological downgrade" are you talking about? Kirk's print book and spectacles? (The glasses were explained due to Kirk's allergy to retinox.) Was there the squeal of a 1400 baud modem from Uhura's comm station? Wooden wagon wheels on the Enterprise? Solutrean spear points on the photon torpedoes?

Meyer wanted Hornblower in space, not Rodenberry's world where the sonic showers materialize clothes onto you, where everything was automated. In STII they were almost manually loading photon torpedoes, picking up grates and preparing the launchers. Why? To evoke preparing cannons on a sail ship. In fact, the idea of photon torpedoes as physical missiles is a rewrite/downgrade - The Making of Star Trek describes them as:

Energy pods of matter and antimatter contained and temporarily separated in a magno-photon forcefield.

There are no missile storage areas in the original 1975 Enterprise blueprints, just photon torpedo generators. In STVI they were cooking food in a kitchen, a world away from the replicator-like food slots of the original and animated shows.
They wore heavy jackets on away missions - what about the temperature-changing smart uniforms of TOS? Buttons on the turbolift in place of voice commands? WoK's infamously bulky flip-lid communicator? The Enterprise interiors were more cramped, we never saw the wide open cargo deck or rec room again.

There's no doubt that Nicholas Meyer and co. reimagined the Trekverse. It was more militant, it was more relatable to the 80's, technology was less pervasive in everyday life.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Not to get too nerdy (says a Trek fan), but didn't the translator have different forehead bumps to Klaa.

You can't really see the forehead of the translator in ST VI, I don't think.

 

[Timo]

Meyer wanted Hornblower in space, not Rodenberry's world

...Which sort of ignores the fact that Roddenberry's world had indeed been Hornblower in space until he got involved in making ST:TMP.

The two early movies, Wise and Meyer's, both added never before seen technologies and stripped away some previously visited ones. This was hardly worth writing home about, as TOS episodes had regularly done similar nasty things to each other when mommy and daddy weren't watching. There was some incentive to make things "contemporary", but an even greater desire to distance the onscreen events from the daily news and rather liken them to bygone, fondly remembered things. Even Meyer didn't want "contemporary" with his fine-tuning, he wanted 1960s and sometimes 1940s, or their Hollywood equivalents...

You can't really see the forehead of the translator in ST VI, I don't think.

Definitely not in the movie (all you can tell there is that the mustache looks roughly similar). In some backstage pictures, perhaps?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RAMA]

If anything, TMP was the movie to dumb down treknology big time. Suddenly, robust small spacecraft that had looked like something Flash Gordon or Dan Dare would be comfortable with (the TOS shuttle) were back to looking like fragile NASA hardware (the workbees and their container trains). Docking maneuvers took aeons, compared with the swift shuttle launch and recovery procedures of TOS. Sturdy space stations like K-7 were "succeeded" by 20th-century-realistic scaffolding. Getting out of the ship suddenly required docking ports and airlocks, with dedicated operating crew operating dedicated control consoles for said. And transporter rooms went from utilitarian staging areas with lots of vanity covering to techno-temples with exposed machinery and a glass booth to protect the operator.

I'm surprised the movie didn't insist on having the phasers spit out spent cartridges...

As for Klaa in STVI, a quick comparison:

ST V forehead here

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tffhd/ch14/tffhd1946.jpg

ST VI forehead here only...

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tuchd/tuchd1100.jpg

Any ideas on backstage pictures where the latter could actually be seen?

Timo Saloniemi

Eh not so sure about this..the pods used for docking were meant to be used in situations where shuttles weren't needed, they still had shuttles and a huge hangar bay. Docking without opening the huge space doors seems practical in many cases, especially for one or two man parties.

The work bees seem like a perfectly logical use of modular technology, which was postulated for most of the STTMP equipment. All more easily interchangeable than modern space equipment would appear.

The fact that Epsilon 9 was so huge is impressive, it uses some simple technology to interlock it all. We saw nothing comparable to the orbiting space station or epsilon 9 as a deep space station in TOS.

RAMA