Lost in Translation — There Be Whales Here
While Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country wove issues of translation and communication into the story, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home issues of translation and communication are the story. More than any of the other movies, and more than all but maybe a handful of episodes, the drama of this story grows directly out of the complexities of communicating with alien life-forms. In his book I Am Spock , Leonard Nimoy provides some insight into the creative process behind this movie. Early on he consulted with three scientists involved in the SETI program, including Philip Morrison. Morrison argued strongly that communication with an alien life form would be virtually impossible: In addition to the mechanical problems of having radically different speech organs, the thought process and shared experience from a totally alien environment and path of evolution would leave even a translated sentence incomprehensible. Of course, in the Star Trek universe we are dealing with a lot of hum...