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In 1979, the linguist, Marc Okrand, began to develop the Vulcan
language for the feature-length film Star Trek: The Wrath
of Kahn. And so, the first language ever to emerge from
outer space was born. For the next Trek movie, The Search
for Spock, Okrand was brought on board to develop the Klingon
language. Since then the Klingon language has become an obsession
for...
I
can't think of a more kiss of death concept than letting Star
Trek fans loose with a camera to detail the depths of
their devotion to this show, personally speaking; I thought
that the Trekkies (1994) documentary did little service
to fandom, portraying them as a bunch of overly obsessive
people, with poor social skills who were unlikely to have
a girlfriend. So, it was with some trepidation that I approached
Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water. I'll cut straight
to the chase and recommend this documentary as an interesting
and insightful example of what can be done within the confines
of the genre and subject matter. The title is a bit misleading
as the documentary examines a group's fascination with the
Klingon language and their desire to see it as dynamic and
evolving, the title itself, refers to the way that in the
fictional world of Star Trek Terrans are referred to
by the Klingons. Now, I agree that as a premise this sounds
terrible and in the wrong hands I'm sure it would have been,
however what you have here is a collection of intelligent
and erudite people who just happen to have a rather odd hobby.
The film, runs at a little over seventy minutes, is shot mostly
on a digital camera in black and white adding a level of gravitas
to the proceedings and more than ably directed by Alexandre
O. Philippe. There are interviews and snippets woven into
an overall tapestry of fun and joy which reflect these people's
fascination and enduring interest in the Klingon language.
Contributions come from a number of sources, including Marc
Okrand, who worked on the second
and third
Star Trek films as a linguist, and can rightly claim
to be the father of the language.
Dr
Lawrence Schoen - another real linguist - appears, as well
he may, as he is the founder of The Klingon Language Institute,
which runs language courses and set exams. If you think that
that's odd, I remember a few years back reading a story of
a student at either Southampton or Portsmouth University who
was able to complete their language course using Klingon as
it was accepted as complex enough to be considered a real
language.
There
is a good set of special features on the disc. As well as
the theatrical trailer, you get full length directors commentary
which gives some good insights into both the characters and
the abstract style of the film. There is an interview with
the director, which runs at a little over twelve minutes,
and the full extended interview with Michael Dorn, which runs
at a little over forty-one minutes. For an interview with
an actor this is a very generous slice of Dorn for your money.
The only problem with the extras is that there is no return
to main menu option, which is not the fault of the film makers
but is extremely annoying as you have to turn the whole thing
off or get involved in a lot of fiddling to get back to the
main menu. On the main menu is an option to view the menu
in Klingon, which turned out to be an oddity, initially I
though that the whole thing would have Klingon subtitles but
alas no, just the menu selection, shame really.
Given
how the film was shot, the picture is very clear and benefits
greatly from a great sense of style. Audio is stereo but as
the film contains mostly talking heads, this is not really
a problem.
From
the opening shot of one of the characters transforming himself
into a Klingon - believe me it's a lot more effective than
my description of it - you know you're looking at a quality
product. This sort of thing was unlikely to find a potentially
harsher critic as generally fans who are so obsessive tend
to give science fiction, in general, a bad name and I always
get the desire to smack them with a baseball bat. But if I
ever have to prove that real people like science fiction I'm
going to stick this on.
So
relax and spend a little time enjoying their obsession as
much as they obviously do.
Charles
Packer
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