...oh, this would have been great!...he would have had to curtail the use of "c*ck s*ck*r, however...
John Larroquette: ST III
- Thread starter Borjis
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...oh, this would have been great!...he would have had to curtail the use of "c*ck s*ck*r, however...
It's been awhile since I read it, but I clearly remember the scene after Kirk destroys the Enterprise where Kruge is utterly dejected because he thinks he pushed Kirk into destroying himself. I remember there being some more stuff with Saavik, David, and Esteban, but there was a lot of new Saavik/David material added by McIntyre anyway, so I'm not sure what came from where.
Really? I'm disappointed. I thought Kruge was smarter.
His landing party reported the ship being deserted, including the bridge. Kruge at first thought the crew was hiding, but at this point does he still think the crew was hiding while the ship counted down to self-destruct? He must realize after the ship explodes that it was empty other than his landing party. Whether that means they somehow snuck 400 people off the ship or it means the ship was manned by a small party that simply beamed off unnoticed while your landing party was beaming over, the ship has obviously been evacuated.
^ Edward James Olmos also auditioned to play Kruge.
IIRC, either Nimoy or Harve Bennett wanted EJO for the role.
IIRC, either Nimoy or Harve Bennett wanted EJO for the role.
It's a shame that most people associate Christopher Lloyd with comedy roles like "Doc" Brown from BTTF, because he really did play a good Klingon.
Although I can't help but wondering how EJO's version would have been.
Although I can't help but wondering how EJO's version would have been.
I thought Christopher Lloyd did a great job as a nuance Klingon.
Never knew about EJO...
So is THAT why he insisted on no aliens in nuBSG? Resentful of being turned down AS an in Trek???
One interesting tidbit is that Night Court debuted about six months before STIII was released. Larroquette won an Emmy the next year for his role as Dan Fielding, but when STIII came out I don't think the public was as keyed to recognize Larroquette under makeup as they were Lloyd, who had been successful on Taxi. However, even in retrospect, Maltz doesn't come off at all like Dan Fielding, at least to me, so I think that's a testament to Larroquette actually playing his part (not that Lloyd wasn't playing his, though).
I like Maltz, by the way. I like Kruge. My main problem with Kruge is that Lloyd was given some crummy lines to deliver. "You will tell me the secret of the Genesis torpedo." Ugh. Awful. Sounds like it's right out of a Flash Gordon knock-off.
The thing which strikes me the most on reflection about Kruge is how the script seems to write the character as being sort of righteous -- he goes around talking about Starfleet developing secret weapons, about how the Klingons are going to save galactic peace from this new Federation threat called Genesis, etc -- which seems to suggest that the intention was for there to be this kind of ambiguity, perhaps a suggestion that maybe he is actually right and that he's got the best intentions of the galaxy in mind (taking into account of course that he's making an assumption that the top secret Genesis Project is some kind of a weapon). Of course, then we get Lloyd's performance, dripping as it is with exaggerated menace, and scenes like the one where he orders for a hostage to be killed to show he means business. You never really forget that he's the villain of the piece, contrary it seems to some of his dialogue.
I think that was to emphasis Kruge's perception as this can destroy a whole planet, rather than make a living planet out of a non living one.
I think it goes to the attitude of the respective parties. We have reason to believe that the Federation didn't want a planet destroying weapon but a way to have more planets, but the creation can destroy as it's creating.
Also, like it has been stated many people, a good villian doesn't actually think of themselves as the villian. They think they are in the right. I could see Kruge really trying to protect the Empire. We know the (some) Klingons fear the Federation's power. I'm sure some of the Klingons could have come to the conclusion that the Federation was developing Genesis to torpedo Kronos and wipe them out. I still don't understand why he had to kill Valkris, but he really did seem to think it was necessary but not desirable. Also, he shot the gunner, which seem like an "ee-vil" movie villian thing, but this guy was grossly incompetent and that does seem the way even "good" Klingon captains handle things. Even killing David can be seen as not so much as compared to saving a planet full of Klingons.
I think he was well written and acted. My problem was I just couldn't get past recognizing his voice, every time he spoke I kept thinking it was Christopher Lloyd. I didn't even recognize John Laroquette's voice even after I knew which Klingon he was. It's strange, too, Christopher Lloyd is a good actor, but I think he should have tried to alter how he sounded a little, not ridiculously like Christian Bale's "Constipated Batman" voice, but just enough so he didn't sound just like Rev. Jim Ignatowski.
That was Xanadu.
The other thing is that Christopher Lloyd has a very distinct voice. Even under all that Klingon makeup, you can easily tell from the voice that it is Lloyd.
I personally don't think John Larroquette's voice is nearly as distinctive, and he used very different intonations as Dan Fielding than he did as Maltz. So I think that's one additional reason the general public may not have recognized him as easily as Lloyd.
It's too bad we didn't get to see Lloyd's clowning around between takes-- "Bring me some chocolate, Maltz!"
That is perhaps the worst impressionist I've ever seen.
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