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Speaking of Klingons

An alien expert reviews the new "Star Trek" collection.

THE PLOT: For a rude, blood-thirsty, warrior race, Klingons sure are popular. To pay tribute, Paramount asked fans of the "Star Trek" series to vote on their favorite episodes featuring the bumpy-headed aliens and assembled the top 10 into a four-disc DVD set. Included are episodes from every "Star Trek" incarnation, including the original, "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager."

Insider's credentials: Psychologist and science-fiction author Lawrence M. Schoen is one of the few people in this star system who speak fluent Klingon. In 1992, he founded the Klingon Language Institute, dedicated to studying the guttural language.

OVERVIEW: "You don't hear any Klingon language in the original series at all [because Klingons spoke English]. The first Klingon we hear is in the first film. James Doohan, the actor who portrayed Scotty, was a master of dialect. He wrote down a bunch of sounds and gave them to the actors portraying Klingons. For the third movie, the producers brought in [linguist] Marc Okrand [to create the entire language]."

Disc 1: "The Original Series" #27: "Errand of Mercy" -- Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Kirk (William Shatner) beam down to theplanet Organia and encounter the series'first Klingon, played by John Colicos.

"John used to tell the story that he was sitting in makeup and they said, 'What do you want to look like?' And he said, 'Well, I'm a Klingon -- I don't know what that is. It's a warrior.' He envisioned the Huns or the medieval Chinese racing across the Asian continent. And so you get that look of his."

* Disc 2: "The Next Generation" #134: "A Matter of Honor" -- As part of an exchange program, Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is transferred to a Klingon ship and observes the Klingons' eating and other habits.

"I think people are drawn to Klingons because they have license -- license to do whatever they want. This license carries through in the language. For instance, there's no way to say 'please' in Klingon. And you don't say 'goodbye' -- you just leave. There are no social niceties. It's a very in-your-face language, and that aligns with the way the characters have been portrayed."

* Disc 3: "Deep Space Nine" #718: "The Way of the Warrior" -- As the crewtries to thwart a Klingon attack on a planet, Worf (Michael Dorn) and another Klingon sing a song.

"For the films and for one or two episodes of "The Next Generation," they used Marc Okrand to get their Klingon language right. And for the other episodes, [it sounds like] they had someone with a copy of "The Klingon Dictionary," and they just pieced words together. We at the Klingon Language Institute have always been amused by this. They're trying, but they're just not succeeding. Every series, I've picked up the phone and called the Paramount lot and said, 'Here's who we are, and anything you need in Klingon, we can get back to you in 24 hours with a full translation.' They have [rarely] availed themselves."

-- Reed Tucker