Mark Okrand on Vulcan in the movies
Steven Boozer 
Sun, 15 Feb 1998 13:21:19 -0600 (CST)

Here's a note Mark Okrand posted on Star Trek: Continuum's newsgroup
"Expert Forum" at
    news://news,startrek,com/startrek,expertforum 
which I thought would be of interest to the collective: 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marc Okrand <mokrand*erols,com>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 01:17:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Klingon - to be or not to be?

>Marc Okrand wrote...
>>My name is in the credits for "Star Trek II" because I
>>devised the Vulcan dialogue there.  As was the case for
>>Klingon, however, I was not the first to make up Vulcan
>>words or phrases.  In addition to the dozen or so Vulcan
>>words in various episodes of the original series, there is
>>(relatively speaking) quite a bit of Vulcan in "The Motion
>>Picture" in the scene where Spock is undergoing the
>>Kolinahr ritual.  I don't know who made up that
>>dialogue; the people I met while I was working on the later
>>films only referred to the person as "a professor from
>>UCLA."  I'd love to know who it was.  Does anybody know?

David Trimboli wrote ...
>Those Vulcan lines in The Motion Picture give me the willies.  Not only do
>they follow the syllables of the English subtitles almost exactly, but much
>of it *sounds* too much like English.  "This symbol of total logic" sounds
>like "vis civic o toto ogjica" or something like it. "Live long and prosper
>Spock" needs no subtitle.

Actually, the scene was filmed with the actress playing the Vulcan Master
speaking English.  They later dubbed in Vulcan dialogue and had to match
the lip movements already on film (when we see her -- when she's not on
camera, of course, this was not a consideration). 

>It seems that this Vulcan (T'Lar) learned Federation Standard well by the
>time The Search for Spock rolled around.  (It is the same actress, isn't
>it?)

No, it's not the same actress (nor is it, as far as I know, supposed to be
the same character).  The Vulcan Master in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
was played by Edna Glover.  T'Lar, the Vulcan high priestess in "Star Trek
III: The Search for Spock," was played by Dame Judith Anderson. 

I came up with the Vulcan dialogue in "Star Trek III" which was spoken by
Saavik.  I didn't create the Vulcan words spoken by T'Lar, however.  I
believe these were devised by Leonard Nimoy. 

I'm still curious about who wrote the Vulcan lines for "The Motion
Picture." 

___________________________________________________________________________
  Steven Boozer    University of Chicago Library    s-boozer*uchicago,edu