After months of secrecy, speculation, and confusion, the lid has finally been blown off the bad guys in JJ Abrams’ new Star Trek movie. Eonline caught up with Clifton Collins Jr., who plays one of the Romulans in the movie, and he spilled the beans not only on not only what he’s doing in the film, but what Eric Bana is doing as well.
First, for everyone who thought maybe Bana wasn’t playing a Romulan, after that poster where he had no pointed ears, Collins offers this assurance, “Me and Eric are the new Romulans.” Well that settles that. What kind of Romulans? Common soldiers? Royalty? Is Bana playing the Romulon Praetor? Not quite. Collins reveals, “We’re space pirates, think of Johnny Depp as a Romulan.” Suddenly everything fits together.
If you look closely at the poster image to your right, you’ll notice that Bana’s ear is rather chewed up, explaining the missing point. He’s not just a Romulan, he’s a chewed up, scarred up, Romulan pirate. I like it. Pirates are referenced from time to time in the Star Trek universe, but rarely, especially in the movies, have we seen much of them. Usually when they’re talked about, they’re of the Orion variety, but with those ears Romulans would indeed make dashing privateers… as long as they don’t go in for the hat. With the huge black market in Romulan ale in the Federation, someone has to be running the stuff across the border. Makes sense.
Collins also hints at big, star cameos in the movie, but doesn’t get specific. All he offers is, “There are certain things that as kids growing up, whether it's Star Trek or other shows at the time, all you got to do is really just hear their voice and your heart warms.” I hope that doesn’t mean Adam West. He also talks about inventing the Romulan language from scrap for the movie. You might think that’s already been done, since Romulans have been a part of Star Trek almost since inception. But there’s rarely been a need, no more than a couple of scraps have actually been spoken in any of Trek’s incarnation. So they’ve brought in linguists to really come up with a complete language. That Romulan Dictionary should look good on a shelf next to your Klingon translation of “Macbeth”.
