Garm Bel Iblis
Commodore
Since Avatar came out months before the Andorian incident, were the names a conicidence or did the tv writers take note of Shar and make Shran?
Shar-Shran Coincidence
- Thread starter Garm Bel Iblis
- Start date
One of the first Andorian characters to be named -- technically the only Andorian character in TOS with a name, since Thelev was a fake -- was Ambassador Shras in "Journey to Babel." Naturally, when Trek writers are trying to come up with alien names, they tend to follow the precedent of existing names from that species. So lots of Andorian characters over the years have had names derived from "Thelev" and "Shras" (for instance, Thelin in "Yesteryear"). So it's not surprising that different people would independently come up with names that sounded similar to "Shras" for their Andorian characters.
Garm Bel Iblis
Commodore
Ah, I forgot Shras that makes sense now!
^ Don't forget, "Shar" is actually a shortening of the character's full name, Thirishar ch'Thane.
Wonder what ever happened to that dude.....
Wonder what ever happened to that dude.....
Garm Bel Iblis
Commodore
^ Don't forget, "Shar" is actually a shortening of the character's full name, Thirishar ch'Thane.
Wonder what ever happened to that dude.....
Maybe he settled down, met a nice blind Aenar opened a diner and tells his children of his THREE MONTH Gamma quadrant adventure. Hell, Giligan lasted longer in the wild.
In the Japanese doujinshi (fan comic) that was published in English in 1991 as "Star Trekker", one of the main supporting characters was the ship's engineer, an Andorian named Shran.
I doubt this was any factor in naming Jeffrey Combs' character in ENT, but it goes to show that even that far back it fit peoples' notion of what an Andorian name would be.
Drat. Beat me to it.
Starfleet engineer Shran, of the USS Constellation II, in the comic book parody collection, Star Trekker by Atelier Lana (Antarctic Press, 1991).
http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/mov-rogues-gallery.html
^ I think I might still have the trade paperback collection of those stories somewhere.
Starfleet engineer Shran, of the USS Constellation II, in the comic book parody collection, Star Trekker by Atelier Lana (Antarctic Press, 1991).
http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/mov-rogues-gallery.html
Awwwww, he (she? whatever?) is really cute!
Well, I have my own ideas, but I'm sure you'll ruin them entirely.Wonder what ever happened to that dude.....
Come to think of it, this practice is as silly as the practice of having an entire alien race wear the same haircut. Imagine if an alien met, say, Jonathan Archer and Malcolm Reed, and concluded that every human must have a name that begins in "J" or "M"... no matter if they're Dutch, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Nigerian, Iranian, Brazilian, Indonesian...
Well, I have my own ideas, but I'm sure you'll ruin them entirely.Wonder what ever happened to that dude.....
That's the spirit!
I can sorta live with the idea that other species are more monocultural than we, especially with the Andorians apparently having a much smaller population that is much more geographically concentrated--icebreakers notwithstanding, I would strongly expect there are few navigable oceans on Andor what with orbiting a gas giant, and even if bad seas could be overcome, they would still have few serviceable beaches and ports. Not that Heather Jarman knew that Andor was a moon.
Now, if the Aenar, who are clearly very far removed from the main Andorian line to be born blind, even speak the same language, that's some BS.
And something I've got to add because this just makes me livid... I checked MA to confirm the born blind thing, and they have some photos of the two Aenar characters... the lack of pigment is fine, but through the skin you can see that they specifically added... pink. Because that's what human albinos sort of look like.
In the same arc, in the same episode Shran was bleeding blue. Did the people who made Enterprise even watch their own God damned show? Gah!!!
Universal translator?
No. Even Shran's makeup has a dappled orange basecoat, surprisingly enough, then covered over with a translucent blue. For the Aenar the makeup guys used a very pale blue topcoat, which photographed stark white. I have a set of Aenar antennae right here. The Aenar antennae are a creamy white with medium blue shadowing. It's an eerie colour and looks like blue blood is not far below the surface. The inner lining of their antennae is a pinker pale fleshy colour, but so are Shran's.
Sure, but Shran's tongue, eye rims, the inner lining of his mouth and the inner cups of his antennae are pinkish, hence the orange basecoat to tie everything together.In the same arc, in the same episode Shran was bleeding blue. Did the people who made Enterprise even watch their own God damned show? Gah!!!
As for hair, the male Andorians we saw were usually always military men, hence the hairstyles being short military haircuts. The males in "Babel One" did show some individual differences (one resembled Thelev's style from TOS) and females Tarah, Talas and Talla all had different hairstyles.
Re-Aenar language: I dunno if they speak it or not, I wasn't trying to point out a flaw there, just saying that it shouldn't be the same language, given the amount of time that seems to have passed since the two populations were breeding. Their names actually deviate from the Sh-Th conventions, though ("Lissan," "Gareb").
Re-Andorian makeup: well, I didn't know a lot of that. I've noticed that there were pink bits (tongue, etc) but that's explicable as being very hard to change. I mean, I know it's just Jeff Combs in a mask. Failure to match blood color with the translucent pieces of an actor's body is a persistent but understandable VFX error, going back to the time of The Cage and perpetuated as recently as Star Trek 11 (sometimes hilariously, as when kid Spock is bleeding green from a wound on his pink lower lip).
But my impression from the photo I'm looking at of that Gareb fellow is that the pink to the hollows of the eyes was specifically added to the makeup. What bugs me, if it's the case, is that someone went out of their way to add a pink coloration to something that, rightfully, should be blue.
Still, I will possibly accept that they were trying harder than I think; it's also eminently possible I care far too much about the issue.
Re-Andorian makeup: well, I didn't know a lot of that. I've noticed that there were pink bits (tongue, etc) but that's explicable as being very hard to change. I mean, I know it's just Jeff Combs in a mask. Failure to match blood color with the translucent pieces of an actor's body is a persistent but understandable VFX error, going back to the time of The Cage and perpetuated as recently as Star Trek 11 (sometimes hilariously, as when kid Spock is bleeding green from a wound on his pink lower lip).
But my impression from the photo I'm looking at of that Gareb fellow is that the pink to the hollows of the eyes was specifically added to the makeup. What bugs me, if it's the case, is that someone went out of their way to add a pink coloration to something that, rightfully, should be blue.
Still, I will possibly accept that they were trying harder than I think; it's also eminently possible I care far too much about the issue.
Well, I've read articles on the making of the episode. You may well be looking at a photo where the lighting is giving a false reading, or where the colour they want for the episode is not actually the colour of the physical makeup. It's an orange base coat, with a very pale blue/white overcoat and blue shadows.
I can deal with other races seeming more monocultural than we are, as long as there's room for this to mainly be a matter of perception. Part of it might be we only see individuals from a relatively narrrow segment of their society. Another is that even within their own society, cetain cultural groups have a more dominant position, and are mistakenly taken to represent the whole rather than just a major faction.I can sorta live with the idea that other species are more monocultural than we, especially with the Andorians apparently having a much smaller population that is much more geographically concentrated--icebreakers notwithstanding, I would strongly expect there are few navigable oceans on Andor what with orbiting a gas giant, and even if bad seas could be overcome, they would still have few serviceable beaches and ports. Not that Heather Jarman knew that Andor was a moon.
For instance, even within relatively recent Treklit, Shran has been given two different "full" names. There are more Andorian characters in past books, comic, games, etc. who were given names that don't fit the style that was introduced in the DS9 relaunch books and has become somewhat standardized. You could claim that those other names are just wrong... or you could take it to mean the Andorians have more than one naming convention, just as humans do. The "standard" might be culturally predominant, but it's not everybody.
Yeah... I never liked the tendency in recent years to retcon every onscreen Andorian name (or names from comics or older books) to fit the pattern established in the DS9 books. I would've rather had the different naming patterns acknowledged as coming from different languages and heritages.
Yeah, poor Phelana Yudrin and Vanda M'Giia. Don't their names count? 
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