Klingons in STID--why do they look like [SPOILERS]?

[Squiggy]

I find it's a lot less complicated to accept that the "Uhura don't know Klingon" gag was one of the dumber things ever concocted in the history of Trek and simply forget it ever happened. Actually, that works nicely for most of TUC.

It's like McCoy not knowing Klingon anatomy when he tries to save Gorkon's life, when we now know that Starfleet had at least somewhat detailed scans and information about Klingon physiology as far back as the crash landing of Klaang in Oklahoma in 2151 and it's possible that the Vulcans provided additional knowledge about the Empire as they saw fit. McCoy and the 1701 and 1701-A crews had frequent run-ins with Klingons over the course of the decades and were often within tricorder scanning range of them.

McCoy not knowing how to save Gorkon in TUC is along the lines of Uhura not knowing how to speak any Klingon - it works in the context of that one film and its assassination and prison break storyline, but beyond that it falls into pretty silly territory and would be dismissed otherwise.

That's a perfect reason why JJ blew out all canon. It didn't make any damned sense.

I can't believe that the command staff of the flagship of the Federation (the ship tasked with highly delicate job of Klingon diplomacy) didn't know a damned thing about the Klingons.

It would be like the chief of protocol at the State Department in the 1980s not know anything about the Soviet Union.

As far as not knowing anything about Klingon anatomy? Even ignoring the retconning job Enterprise did...there wasn't ever one Klingon corpse found by Starfleet in the past 100 years? Even if McCoy didn't personally dissect the body, his professional curiosity should have forced him to read a damned book on the matter.

 

[137th Gebirg]

He did seem to know enough about Klingon anatomy when he outed Arne Darvin in "Trouble With Tribbles" with his tricorder 25 years earlier.

 

[cooleddie74]

McCoy stood less than a foot away from Arne Darvin and took a tricorder scan of the guy. That's how he knew that Darvin was a Klingon. His heartbeat and body temperature among other things didn't add up and look human. Darvin had been surgically altered to look human but internally he was still a run of the mill Klingon, and those scans were recorded on McCoy's tricorder and those scans were entered into Kirk's logs concerning the Sherman's Planet sabotage incident. Somebody somewhere knew about Klingon anatomy, and that was decades before Enterprise finally told the backstory of Klingon first contact.

I love Trek and for a franchise that's almost half a century old and has about 800 television episodes and big-budget theatrical films penned by a horde of different writers it's remarkably consistent, but there are times it makes as much sense as a screen door on a submarine.

 

[BillJ]

McCoy stood less than a foot away from Arne Darvin and took a tricorder scan of the guy. That's how he knew that Darvin was a Klingon. His heartbeat and body temperature among other things didn't add up and look human. Darvin had been surgically altered to look human but internally he was still a run of the mill Klingon, and those scans were recorded on McCoy's tricorder and those scans were entered into Kirk's logs concerning the Sherman's Planet sabotage incident. Somebody somewhere knew about Klingon anatomy, and that was decades before Enterprise finally told the backstory of Klingon first contact.

I love Trek and for a franchise that's almost half a century old and has about 800 television episodes and big-budget theatrical films penned by a horde of different writers it's remarkably consistent, but there are times it makes as much sense as a screen door on a submarine.

How do we know the tricorder didn't flash the word "Klingon" in bright red letters on its screen.

 

[cooleddie74]

Tricorders for Dummies™ ?

Wait, the Pakleds were members of the Federation all this time and we never knew it?

 

[137th Gebirg]

McCoy stood less than a foot away from Arne Darvin and took a tricorder scan of the guy. That's how he knew that Darvin was a Klingon. His heartbeat and body temperature among other things didn't add up and look human. Darvin had been surgically altered to look human but internally he was still a run of the mill Klingon, and those scans were recorded on McCoy's tricorder and those scans were entered into Kirk's logs concerning the Sherman's Planet sabotage incident. Somebody somewhere knew about Klingon anatomy, and that was decades before Enterprise finally told the backstory of Klingon first contact.

I love Trek and for a franchise that's almost half a century old and has about 800 television episodes and big-budget theatrical films penned by a horde of different writers it's remarkably consistent, but there are times it makes as much sense as a screen door on a submarine.

How do we know the tricorder didn't flash the word "Klingon" in bright red letters on its screen.

True, but then someone would have to have had a knowledge of Klingon anatomy to program it to say that. Either way, it should have been common knowledge, especially for a surgeon of McCoy's caliber.

 

[marksound]

McCoy only had seconds to try to save Gorkon. Having human anatomy committed to memory is different than having done/seen a couple of scans on a couple of random Klingons over the years.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Also true, but I think the point being made was McCoy's rather blanket statement in TUC that he didn't know Klingon anatomy at all, which was canonically untrue.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Well, his knowledge of Vulcan anatomy was always a bit spotty.

 

[cooleddie74]

Little details from that scene on Gorkon's cruiser escape me, but didn't McCoy have a medical tricorder with him when he beamed over and didn't he wave one of his handheld scanners over Gorkon's wounds? A Starfleet medical tricorder circa 2293 should have had at least some Klingon anatomical data in its memory database given all the times that tricorders were shown to be able to access a ton of handy information even if they weren't interfaced with a ship's computer.

I dunno, it just looked and sounded weird and silly given that McCoy had 27 years of experience running into Klingons and that was just aboard the two Enterprises. He might have run into some of them even before he first joined the 1701 crew in TOS seeing as the Enterprise wasn't his first deep space assignment after medical school.

The movie's plot and pacing didn't require any of that, though, so it is what it is.

 

[Squiggy]

Clearly, these errors in STVI mean the franchise has failed and Star Trek is ruined.

 

[cooleddie74]

I blame Laurence Luckinbill and his laugh.

 

[Tribble puncher]

I liked this movie so much I really don't care whether they're consistent with much of the previous timeline or visual continuity at all. Let these guys do what they want as long as they stay entertaining.

After reading that I imagined that scene in First Contact where Captain Picard screams: NO! NOOOOOO! and smashes the model ships in the conference room....

 

[cooleddie74]

[Trek super nerd] Archer's Enterprise from the prequel show has never been in the model displays on Picard's ships! Canon Violation! [/super nerd]

 

[RoJoHen]

Ugh.

I love that I'm a nerd, but I hate that there are nerds.

 

[Set Harth]

The actor playing him was European. So he must be European.

No. Or is this one of those outdated practices from the 1960s that we like, as opposed to the ones we don't like?

Using "classical" racial classifications

And why exactly would we be using discredited classifications?

That's why nuKhan is European, right?

Actually, he only looks European because Section 31 made him look that way for some inscrutable purpose.

One of these things is not like the others.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I find it's a lot less complicated to accept that the "Uhura don't know Klingon" gag was one of the dumber things ever concocted in the history of Trek and simply forget it ever happened. Actually, that works nicely for most of TUC.

Damn straight.

Nice to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't put TUC on a pedestal.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The actor playing him was European. So he must be European.

No. Or is this one of those outdated practices from the 1960s that we like, as opposed to the ones we don't like?

Using "classical" racial classifications

And why exactly would we be using discredited classifications?

That's why nuKhan is European, right?

Actually, he only looks European because Section 31 made him look that way for some inscrutable purpose.

One of these things is not like the others.

Truth be told, I would have preferred that an Indian actor played Khan, if that character was going to be used. My main objection to your original comment was the use of the term "Caucasian" to describe Khan's race ( and term race in general), when it applies equally to Montalban, Cumberbatch and any hypothetical Indian actor. Then I watched as goalposts were moved and words were defined. The point that Cumberbatch isn't an Indian could have been stated without using either term, as I just did.

Yes, the writers used a dose of Handwavium to make Khan look like Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch is a great actor, so it might be a good trade off.


Though I do find the nebulous standards of "spot on casting" to be curious. "Europeans" and "Africans" tend to be one size fits all, but others require an exact match.

 

[Set Harth]

My main objection to your original comment was the use of the term "Caucasian" to describe Khan's race

But I didn't use any such term in my original comment. You objected to the mere suggestion that Khan's race was changed, pressing for the relevance of an "outdated" ( and discredited ) classification.

The point that Cumberbatch isn't an Indian could have been stated

I did. I just didn't know that using the word "race" somehow negated that point. And how could you possibly know just by looking at him that Cumberbatch isn't an Indian, if the term Indian connotes nothing more than a nationality?

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Firstly, as Khan is a product of genetic engineering, he needn't belong to any one particular naturally-occurring race (or even combination thereof) at all. McGivers was only "guessing" (her own words in the episode) at his origins in "Space Seed." And moreover, Montalban was neither Indian nor Sikh, illustrating readily that the race of the actor playing a role needn't be taken as a direct indication of the race of the character himself. (John Cho and Linda Park aren't Japanese, either.)

Secondly, we could easily regard any discrepancy among Khan's appearances in TOS, TWOK, and the new film as being no more significant than that of any other character who's been played by more than one actor, including Saavik, T'Pau, Braxton, Pike, and many others. In other words, not significant at all, because it's not an "in-universe" difference, merely an effect of recasting the role, an aesthetic choice on the part of the people behind the camera, which we of course notice on our end, but which will not be acknowledged by the characters and which we are intended to look past.