Original Star Trek movie question - were there no subtitles for alien lang?

[yoda313]

Ok I have the 6 original cast Star Trek movies on Bluray. I bought them the other week. The presentation is phenomenal.

My question is concerning the theatrical releases of these original movies. These don't have any subtitles for the alien languages on them. In the first Star Trek movie there aren't any english subtitles when Spock is on Vulcan rejecting Kolinar. In Star Trek 6 there aren't any subtitles for the Klingons.

So my question is to those that remember - were there subtitles in the original theatrical run of these original cast member movies?

I saw Star Trek 3 and 4 in the theaters but I was pretty young at the time and wouldn't have paid attention to such nuances - nor can I recall if they were or weren't in the theater presentation.

So does anyone know for a fact if there were english subtitles in the original 6 Star Trek movies in the theaters?

Because the DVD releases all have them......

[gadgetguy]

I vaguely remember there being subtitles when Spock was on Vulcan. But I could be mistaken since I've watched it so many times since then on VHS and DVD. I clearly remember I watched the first movie at the drive-in though. IIRC the story is that the footage on Vulcan was originally shot in English and then somebody said "Why would Vulcans be speaking English on Vulcan. So they created the language to sound different, while still matching the mouth movements. And then the subtitles were reworded so that you wouldn't realize that it was originally shot in English.

[yoda313]

IIRC the story is that the footage on Vulcan was originally shot in English and then somebody said "Why would Vulcans be speaking English on Vulcan. So they created the language to sound different, while still matching the mouth movements. And then the subtitles were reworded so that you wouldn't realize that it was originally shot in English.

Actually thats really what happened. I just watched that part on bluray the other day. Michael Okuda (tech guy on TNG) described exactly what you just said in his commentary track.

[gadgetguy]

Maybe my memory's not as bad as I thought it was.

[yoda313]

Maybe my memory's not as bad as I thought it was.

Well at least in this case

[vhelp]

I saw all the movies Star Trek movies in the theaters, kirk's era. I think that the first one, (which had the actual original cast members) had sort of a test run or beta for the other movies to follow. It was boring (too suspensful) and interesting at the same time. And to think that people actually tried to tie the BORG origins to this, I don't know. I for one would sure like a true BORG origin as a separate movie. But I think they killed that idea when they made "first contact" and did a fair job of it. It was ok. I saw it too in the theaters, and still watch it today. I watch all of them.
But the original first star trek movie did make a presence in a way. It was suspensful and all, but got you motivated and intriged, etc. I have the special edition widescreen version on vhs--I didn't have it on dvd and it was on vhs, so I picked it up along with a bunch of other widescreen treks on vhs tapes a few years ago when vhs was vanishing back then.

The other week or so, I just saw Star Trek: TUC, "The Undiscovered Country" and it was phenominal..almost like going back to the movies -- I did see it in the theaters and it was awsome at the time, though I didn't appreciate it as much as I do today.

As far as TUC, it was a treat to see (in the ending credits) each actor hand-wrote their signature (they digitize each of the casts and put in the credits play somehow) it was worm and sad at the same time cause you knew it was their last, all together. So there was some reverence to it all. I stayed in the theaters till the last credit line was finished. I recall seeing most of the people already walking out as soon as the intro ending song was approaching. What a shame. What a shame. They missed out on something special and can never get back. Yeah, you can see it on dvd, but how many can actually say they saw it in the theaters. Anyway. I think they did one or two more movies before finally siging off, well Bones (lenard mckoy) past on first, so that's prob what stopped all the other trek movies to contine (kirk's era) then james duhan past on sometime after "Generations" which was not actually bad, and you did get to re-live kirk in a sort of korky kind of way I think. It was suppose to be his final salute or something, where they pass on the tourch, as they say..and so he passed it on to cap picard. oh well, he too did a phenominal job of treking the galixy much like kirk did.

-vhelp 5154