Federation Commander

Scoutdad wrote:The story I keep hearing is that the original plan for III was to use Romulans as the villians (hence the BoP and cloaking device), but someone leakedthat info to the public early.
This caused the producers to quickly change everything to Klingons, but the minis had already been constructed and several effects shots completed. so rather than redo everything, they just put the Klingons in a bird of prey.

I wasn't there and do not know how much of this is truth and how much is speculation, but it sounds like something that those guys would do.
Continuity be d*mned!

The story about having the Romulans as villians is in print in several reference books. Nimoy apparently suggested that the Klingons be used instead -- more fearsome (I thought TOS Romulans were great!)

I recall from the ST:III DVD commentary (I think) that after the Klingons were selected as the villians, there was supposed to be a scene early in the movie with a bunch of D7s and Klingon captains meeting about what happened to Christo...em sorry, Kruge. And then the BoP was supposed to decloak right in front of all of them, and he would explain that he stole it from the Romulans (making him even cooler) to go and take the secrets of Genesis. But, with that scene cut, it became a Klingon ship with a cloaking device. Wish they kept that scene...

Same here as the BOP is a very Romulan looking ship.

Somehow I don't think Kirk kicking the antagonist in the face several times would have had the same emotional impact had the antagonist been a female.

That was the first time I'd heard that variation of the tale. It just doesn't seem right.

Wasn't she in command of a Romulan squadron in TOS? Why would she be commanding a little junky BoP 20+ years later?

Probably for the same reason the Klingon Kruge was, in ST:III.

His back-story has variously been explained as being an elite Captain on an espionage mission for the Klingons, or, as a renegade who stole the Bird of Prey and was seeking the rumored "Federation Doomsday Weapon" for himself.

Either of those could have happened to the Romulan Captain from TOS. If she was drummed-out for her failure, the renegade option certainly makes more sense though.

The BoP was far from "junky" during the timeframe of the classic movies; it was a brand new, state of the art scoutship at that time and also the Klingon's first class with a cloaking device (this was later "retconned" somewhat in the Enterprise tv series). Given it's newness, it would like be a prime posting for a small-ship Captain.

100 years later, in the TNG timeframe, yes, it was old and busted. I really wish the DS9 FX folks had not used it so much (or the K'tinga).

djdood wrote:100 years later, in the TNG timeframe, yes, it was old and busted. I really wish the DS9 FX folks had not used it so much (or the K'tinga).

Yeah, while it was nice to see the old D7s again, there were a TON of them. And phasers from the sensor dish/torpedo tube??? Come on...

It was tough since TNG never had a new Klingon ship before the Vor-cha, and then never introduced another class, so DS9 would have been hard pressed to come up with something smaller than that (you know, always has to be bigger and better than the last one).