It’s strange. I remember watching ‘Star Trek III: The Search for Spock’ a month or so ago on Netflix, and remembering that I didn’t understand the Klingon. I remember idly wondering if my DVD had subtitles for all the Klingon, and then not checking in a fit of laziness.
Well, it turns out I was right, and Netflix is going to fix it.
Netflix has decided that incorrect Vulcan and Klingon subtitles are not acceptable and has taken the movie off of streaming in order to update it and make it more comprehensible.
For those of you who don’t know your ‘Star Trek trivia’ backwards and forwards, it’s interesting to note that what we know as Klingon was fully developed for the purpose of the movie ‘Search for Spock’ by Mike Okrund (based off of Jimmy Doohan’s made up phrases in the ‘Motion Picture’, of course). Ironic, then, that the translations would be wrong, eh?
Why not use the old subtitles from other releases? I’m afraid I can’t answer that, but Netflix has decided to translate the subtitles themselves, and as such, I can predict a future article about how accurate their translations are in comparison to past ones.
The question of why take the movie off of streaming while they translate, thus depriving fans of this fine cinema gem, also is a bit of a mystery. Rest assured, though, the movie will be returned to us, just with better translations.
Source: Hollywood Reporter