Shatner had directed some TV, but he had no experience in terms of controlling expenditure. It is the job of the producers to direct the budget appropriately.
William Shatner Apologizes For Star Trek V
- Thread starter Philip Guyott
- Start date
"Bill's Turn" is what the producers called STAR TREK V: The Final Frontier. They knew what they were in for ... that they were going to have to cover The Shat's ass and pick up his slack. All Shatner really cared about was shouting "Action!" and "Cut!" at his peers and seeing a movie-director credit by his name. The movie studio knew what they were in for, but after the horrible VOYAGE HOME threatened to become a breakout movie, they figured that leaving STAR TREK in the hands of the show's leads made the Trekkies happy. That no matter how atrocious the film was, they'd walk right back into the theatre again, after watching it, no matter what. Not even SHATNER couldn't screw this up!
Two problems with your scenario. One: Voyage Home was hardly terrible. Two: Shatner was a much more aesthetically sophisticated director than Nimoy (not calling him an outstanding director in absolute terms but compared to Nimoy, his technique was far better). Otherwise, the rest of it is fine (or is it?).
Schumacher actually didn't really apologize to the viewers, just to the subset of viewers who loved Batman Forever but were disappointed with B&R, a coy way of suggesting he didn't regret his overall style.
The one thing Schumacher did do was acknowledge where he should've asserted more control over the movie. For example, he speaks ruefully on the commentary about how annoyed he was that his movie was becoming a 'toy commercial' (in particular he highlights the scene near the end where despite having time pressures to stop Freeze, our three heroes still find the time to go back to the Batcave, change into new costumes, and get vehicles that haven't been seen for the rest of the movie, something that Schumacher says was blatantly added to the story to sell toys.) He's not under any illusions that the movie was a "product" and that merchandising was part of the deal, but he does 'fess up that deep down he wishes he should've maybe insisted on an explanation being added, like they needed the new costumes and vehicles to withstand Freeze's winter or something, rather than just literally jump-cutting to the next scene with them wearing new outfits with absolutely no explanation at all. In things like this he really does pick it apart and apologise, all in all its quite an informative and honest commentary, for such a disliked movie.
Shatner had a lot of leeway to do the movie as he wanted, he wrote it, directed it. He had a contractually stipulated equal right do whatever Nimoy did. If they couldn't do the "big" ending they should have known at Shatner's writing stage.
There are interviews with Winter and Bennet saying they had to control Shatner's "appetites". They did this by telling him he didn't have the budget for his ending, and Shatner has whined about it ever since.
RAMA
Shatner was well-past the half-century mark, by the time STAR TREK V came around, so it would be kind of surprising for him not to have picked up a few tricks, with all of his many, many decades in Hollywood, even then. So, here ... there ... you'll find something half decent in this ... this "film."
For me, it's basically the opening credits, where El Capitan's natural beauty is featured. It's some very nice footage, I must say. Shatner's stand-in for these shots is about 45 lbs, or so lighter than he ... but, we'll forget about that.
Outside of that, I hate Klingonese with a passion, but the way it's used in this movie is the closest that it's ever seemed like a "real" language. The actors mouth this garbage in a very practiced way that, I must say, makes it go down much easier. Wow ... I'm finding it hard to find something else I really liked. The casting! Shatner can cast my movies, any day - he was very good with casting TFF - excellent job! So, never let it be said that I don't give credit where it's due.
For me, it's basically the opening credits, where El Capitan's natural beauty is featured. It's some very nice footage, I must say. Shatner's stand-in for these shots is about 45 lbs, or so lighter than he ... but, we'll forget about that.
Outside of that, I hate Klingonese with a passion, but the way it's used in this movie is the closest that it's ever seemed like a "real" language. The actors mouth this garbage in a very practiced way that, I must say, makes it go down much easier. Wow ... I'm finding it hard to find something else I really liked. The casting! Shatner can cast my movies, any day - he was very good with casting TFF - excellent job! So, never let it be said that I don't give credit where it's due.
You hate Klingonese. But among all the Star Trek alien languages, it's the one that is, hands down, the closest to being a real language.
Right, well ... thanks to Mark Okran, or whatever his name is, there certainly is a lot of it. I know he wrote that book, the dictionary, because I found out that TNG did try to use it. But, uh ... it was found to be too cumbersome, so I BELIEVE 'they' actually just did a phonetic thing, where they made up sounds, as gibberish and never really referenced the book, again.
How would that have worked, exactly? Shatner makes the movie up the the climax and is then told there's no more money? The whole movie would have been (should have been) budgeted before shooting started, with provision for contingencies, and insurance backing if worst came to worst. Getting to the climax and then being told there's not enough money is the producers' fault, as they should have been on top of expenditure throughout the shoot.
I didn't know that. I thought they really tried to form sentences in the "real" klingon language.
This is true, unfortunately. Ron Moore said it was up to the individual writer how they used the language, and personally he preferred to "make it up phonetically".
Sometimes they just made up gibberish, like the war song in Birthright ("Ya zhah, k'oh! Ya zhah,k'oh!"), or the dialogue in the opera that Worf and Jadzia teach Quark ("Mova ah-kee rustak!"), or the song on the way to Kal'hyah ("Ka vek ko le ko, eh to che ma lo!").
I personally don't mind this, because gibberish is easy to retcon. The Klingon Empire is large and ancient, meaning that there must be tens of thousands they could be using.
It's not hard to imagine somebody singing or listening to opera in a language they don't speak; a friend of my family is an opera singer, and often has to memorize lyrics in foreign languages. In the (non-canonical) book Klingon for the Galactic Traveler, Marc Okrand says that the words to Kahless and Lukara are in an ancestral form of Klingon (no' Hol), but the words are so iconic that any learned Klingon should know them, kind of like "Et tu, Brute?" or "Veni, vidi, vici."
And who knows what region or era those two songs are from? They could be 8th century Kethanese for all we know!
It's worse, in my opinion, when the scriptwriters use established words but without regard for the grammar. An example is when Worf is performing the R'uustai (ruStay) with Jeremy Aster, and he says SoS jIH batlh SoH., which is supposed to mean "Mother, I honor you." Word-by-word it (kind of) means that, but when you take Klingon grammar and proper definitions into account, it means something like "I'm a mother, you are honor."
These things could also be retconned into the language, but doing so would inevitably cheapen it, in my opinion.
It's understandable that the language isn't made a priority, given budgets and deadlines, but it still saddens me. I can't help but to think how developed and culturally enriched the language would be if it had been developed and used throughout TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT. However, CBS Consumer Products has started taking the language quite seriously over the past few years, as has JJ Abrams, and several Trek authors, so I'm hopeful that maybe this trend will continue throughout Star Trek: Discovery, whether it's tlhIngan Hol or Klingonaase or some other language(s). Bryan Fuller has said that they have somebody working on fleshing out one of the Vulcan languages, which has me really excited!
Anyhow, back to Star Trek V: The Klingon dialogue in this movie is probably the best in Trek history. Spice Williams and Todd Bryant really give it their all as Klaa and Vixis, both in terms of language and performance, so it's really a shame that their plotline is so pointless. I think that they must have had a decent understanding of what the different components of their Klingon lines mean, because they deliver them in a very natural and convincing way.
Most Star Trek V DVDs/Blu-Rays should have a short documentary on them called "That Klingon Couple", where they talk about their preparation for their roles, and you can tell that they (Williams in particular) were really excited about it.
One amusing detail about the Klingon dialogue in this film:
In the first scene with Klaa and Vixis, Klaa says the same line twice: vaj toDDujDaj ngeHbej DIvI'.
First, he says it when he's shot down the Pioneer 10 probe, when the subtitle reads "Shooting space garbage is no test of a warrior's mettle."
Then again, when Vixis has told him that one of the hostages on Nimbus Three is a Terran, and the subtitle reads "That means the Federation will be sending a rescue ship of its own."
The second line was when he was supposed to say it: vaj toDDujDaj ngeHbej DIvI'. can be broken down as "Thus rescue-ship-their send-certainly Federation."
I'm guessing they didn't want to reshoot the scene, so Marc Okrand had to retcon the first utterance to make it correct.
To do so, he declared that vaj was also a noun referring to the concept of being a warrior, and toDuj meant courage. Daj was a new verb which meant "test something inconclusively". ngeHbej was a new noun meaning "cosmos", DI was a new noun meaning "debris", and vI' was a new word meaning "marksmanship". So it becomes "Cosmos debris marksmanship inconclusively tests warrior courage.", matching the line.
Unfortunately, the lines are nevertheless spoken so close together that I suspect a lot of people - even those normally apathetic to klinguistics - picked up on it.
Sorry for the rant, but y'all were talking about the Klingon language and that's kind of the one SIrgh one my Supghew :P
That's much to absorb, loghaD. Much to digest. I will have to read it all in a piece-meal fashion and am attempting to do so, now. I do agree with your statement that, "It's worse, in my opinion, when the scriptwriters use established words but without regard for the grammar." By STAR TREK V, Klingonese had all it needed to - at least - sound plausible, if used in the format its author intended.
Arbitrary sounds just thrown together to make up sentences sounds like what it is, because these actors don't have a clue. Even if they were made to use 'official' Klingonese, they're not going to study it, as a language. In fact, if they blow the line, but it still sounds in line with the rest of what they've been spouting, then it's a keeper. So why take it seriously? It becomes a sort of a joke and even having it in the scene takes from some of the believability. I mean, it's bad enough to be looking at a guy with a rubber head, to listen to him shouting, "Hog-Toof! Toof-Hog!" is a bit much ...
Arbitrary sounds just thrown together to make up sentences sounds like what it is, because these actors don't have a clue. Even if they were made to use 'official' Klingonese, they're not going to study it, as a language. In fact, if they blow the line, but it still sounds in line with the rest of what they've been spouting, then it's a keeper. So why take it seriously? It becomes a sort of a joke and even having it in the scene takes from some of the believability. I mean, it's bad enough to be looking at a guy with a rubber head, to listen to him shouting, "Hog-Toof! Toof-Hog!" is a bit much ...
The song worf and his family friend, sing in Way Of The Warrior before they headbutt must be in genuine Klingon because the Doctor sings it word for word in Barge Of The Dead.
It's weird tlhIngan Hol, but still recognizable as tlhIngan Hol. Which isn't really too surprising, as songs tend to play with the rules of language a bit.
There are a few constructions that I would deem ungrammatical, and some words that had never been used before or since, but that's well within the limits of artistic license (both for Klingons and for scriptwriters).
I don't think SFX was the problem with Star Trek V. I doubt fighting rock monsters would've improved things, either, it would have just looked lame, particularly since this was 1989 and the technology wasn't good enough anyway.
So you mean it's borderline then? Is there anything that's a hundred percent true Klingon in any of the episodes or the movies of the franchise (including the animated series)?
yes rockmen did seem abit strange/random. think the original intention (when it was the actual devil/hell, not alien pretending to be god) was demons/gargoyles - so maybe if itd been ILM they've have been able to realise The Shats original 'Hell' ending vision and delivered something truly visually exciting and Hell-ish for the revelation and done gargoyles (even though it wasnt the devil?) - something similar to the end of Raiders angels, The Golden Child demon, Twilight Zone Movie Nightmare 20,000s gremlin, and even Ghostbusters 1 and Aliens (wonder why the Ghostbusters or Aliens FX houses didnt get the Trek V gig instead of Ferren?) with the gargoyles a combination of animatronics/early CG/animation/man in suits. not sure if or how 'god' wouldve fit in with all the gargoyles? maybe would be directing them/guiding them toward the trio like a big Dr Manhattan..
(and of course had it been ILM the spaceship FX for ENT/BOP/shuttle wouldve been up to Trek III/IV standard plus wed have seen some new mushroom spacedock stuff like in VI instead of reusing the end of IV and maybe the El Capitan fall would've looked more convincing and the Great Barrier and God light show would've been more 'ILM looking' ,)
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I'd say it's better than borderline. It's clear that some effort went into it, and the grammatical oddities give it a certain poetic quality, whether or not that was an accident. It's quite appropriate for an old song.
The Klingon in Star Trek: The Motion Picture is perfectly correct by definition, since it is the source that the language was built on. Apart from that, Okrand wrote dialogue and sometimes coached actors for TSFS, TFF, TUC and STID and a few episodes of Enterprise (The Augments, Affliction and Divergence, I believe), so those are all excellent, even if some of it had to be retconned after the fact due to mistakes or editing. Apart from that, there are a handful of epiodes that only use a handful of phrases, which are often correct.
The deleted Klingon scenes in STXI are a bit of a mixed bag, likely due to editing which was never fixed since the scenes ended up being cut. The scene where the Klingons tell Nero and the crippled Narada to surrender is excellent, the prison scene is weird.
The Final Frontier is the gleaming example of well-written and excellently performed tlhIngan Hol dialogue, so it's a real shame it isn't a better movie.
Very true. The rock monster would have appeared near the end, maybe in the last 10-15 minutes. By then, I'm guessing TFF had already lost most of its viewers for multiple reasons:
- The goshdarn stupid decision to send the Enterprise on this mission, rather than any ship with a functioning transporter. I mean, even assuming you couldn't just beam the hostages out and resolve the movie in five minutes, wouldn't a functional transporter be quite useful for insertion and extraction? Heck, they even point that out in the movie!
Normally I don't get hung up over such details, but in this case, a feel like it's a pretty big miss which determines the plot of the whole movie.
- After The Voyage Home's success giving all of the crewmembers something important to do, TFF seems to have two purposes for the crew outside of the trinity: To betray Kirk (with surprisingly little prompting), or to hit their heads on bulkheads for comical effect.
- While as mentioned I love Spice Williams' and Todd Bryant's performances, the Klingon subplot felt kind of irrelevant. It was mostly used as a device to hurry things along every now and then. and to have a Bird-of-Prey handy at the end.
- "Guy who claims to be God but isn't" is not the most fascinating of character description.
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