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TREKCORE >
VOY >
KILLING GAME PART
II
> Behind the Scenes
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This episode was affected by the
evolution of the previous installment, "The Killing Game". For
instance, it was not decided how writing staffers Joe Menosky
and Brannon Braga would fill up this second part, until one
point late in the writing of that first half. Citing the two-parter
"Year of Hell" and "Year of Hell, Part II", Menosky remembered,
"This felt very much in its dynamic as 'Year of Hell' did, where
Brannon and I, as we were writing this, felt like we had about
an episode and a quarter. We did not have the full two parts. We
were just struggling. What is the image that we need?"
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It was while considering how to come
up with enough material for this episode that the writers hit
upon the idea of making a societal commentary, by having a
certain ideology be central to the leader of the Hirogen
invading Voyager. "At some point we came up with this idea that
this wasn't just playtime on the holodeck. This wasn't just bad
guys mucking around," Menosky related.
"It was [about] a guy who
[...] as leader of this small group of Hirogen, actually has
some Trekkian notions, things that finally would weave into more
of a humanistic message about change. How cultures who may be
doing certain things in a destructive fashion have to learn to
change and to somehow use elements in their culture like
hunting, for example, and turn [them] to a more positive
direction that isn't going to destroy the culture [....] That
character thread [...] gave us more story for the second part." Menosky also
commented of this development, "It especially helped part two,
because at some point, it's a kind of Star Trek message [....]
So what started out as 'Let's watch some shit blow up and see
World War II material,' and had an action-oriented or more
visual inception, turned into a story with a thematic Star Trek
basis." |
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Although Neelix actor Ethan Phillips
found discomfort with wearing both Talaxian and Klingon makeup
simultaneously, he nevertheless enjoyed performing the scenes in
which his character of Neelix looks like one of the Klingons.
"Klingons
are outrageous to play, especially those guys we played,"
Phillips recalled. "They were just nasty people. And they had
these big bones, lamb shanks, that we were all [adopts a gruff
voice] sitting around the campfire eating, [reverts to his usual
voice] and I love lamb, so that was an added perk to that show.
But it was all shot in the caves, you know. It gets pretty smoky
in there. We [sang] some drunken songs and stuff like that. You
know, it was fun." |
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Despite trying to find a moral root
in his role of an unnamed Nazi Kapitän, actor J. Paul Boehmer
believed the character had a rotten core that became exposed
once the Kapitän, in this episode, discovered that the mother of
his unborn child was a member of the French resistance. "Once I
find out that she's cheated on me, it's a total scorned lover
routine," Boehmer observed. "At that point, you get the real
heavy Nazi stuff, because for him it has then turned into a
'let's get her' routine." |
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Following his appearances in this
episode's two-parter, J. Paul Boehmer went on to portray another
unnamed Nazi officer in ENT: "Zero Hour" and "Storm Front".
Similarly, Paul S. Eckstein appeared as an unnamed Hirogen in
not only this episode's two-parter but also in the
feature-length Season 7 Voyager outing "Flesh and Blood". |
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According to the unauthorized
reference book Delta Quadrant, so many Klingon uniforms
were needed for this episode that they were a combination of
commonly-utilized ones from Star Trek: The Next Generation as
well as numerous rarer ones from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country. |
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Filming of this episode's two-parter
covered late November-early December 1997. The Sainte Claire
exteriors were filmed over three days, the second of which was 5
December 1997, at Universal Studios' "European Street" backlot. |
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A map of Toulouse was used to
represent the map of Sainte Claire. |
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At one point on the Universal
Studios' backlot, Tuvok actor Tim Russ took a break from filming
(while Voyager's production crew scrambled, in the rain, to set
up the next shot of this episode), relaxed in his temporary
trailer (still wearing his makeup appliances for the role of
Tuvok but dressed in plaid slacks and a black sweater), and
spoke to interviewer Ian Spelling for The Official Star Trek:
Voyager Magazine. Russ had worked at Universal Studios on a
couple of previous occasions and had taken the tour of the
studios. "But to be on the actual outdoor lot," he said, "is
kind of neat [....] To be shooting on the backlot now makes me
appreciate how far I've come. The sets are great." Russ later reminisced,
"We were on location, playing and dressing differently, doing
different things. That was always welcome, it was always
appreciated. Any departure from the routine of saying the same
kinds of things all the time was fabulous. So, I really enjoyed
doing that." |
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One aspect that the cast did not enjoy was the
rain. Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan noted, "The weather was
horrible." Tim Russ thought
the miserable weather was unfortunately typical of working
conditions whenever the Voyager cast and crew got to work
outside the confines of the Paramount Pictures studio complex. Immediately after expressing appreciation at the fact that the
location shooting was permitted, Roxann Dawson remarked, "Of
course, I remember it was raining. We [would] rarely go out and,
of course, the weather chose to completely have a downpour that
day. And we would have umbrellas over us – until they called,
'Action' – and then people would run away with the umbrellas and
then we'd stand there, acting and getting soaked in the freezing
rain. That was tough." |
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Although it rained on the second day
of the location shoot, this was meager compared to a rainstorm
that arrived on the next night, during which the nighttime
battle sequence – at the conclusion of this installment – was
being filmed. Mitch Suskin, this episode's visual effects
supervisor, recalled, "The only unforeseen complication about
that whole sequence is that, when we were shooting on the
Universal back lot in the European village, we had one of those
terrible El Niño rainstorms on the last night of shooting [....]
It was all being shot in sequence [....] I remember as we stood
under our umbrellas that night thinking, 'How is this going to
work?'" |
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The rainstorm was so extreme that,
ultimately, it was included in the episode. Mitch Suskin
remarked, "It really wasn't part of the script, but it ended up
working out [....] It's a major part of the scene [....] It
played well in the end." Suskin also referred to the fact that
the location work was shot in sequence as "fortunate."
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In one shot from the night battle
sequence, The Doctor (as played by Robert Picardo) welcomes the
Klingons to the battle, stepping out from under an awning. He
then glances up at the rain while wiping the top of his head.
Mitch Suskin reckoned, "I think [Picardo] did that as a gag on
the set, not thinking that they'd use it. But they kept it in
because a few shots later, it was raining so hard you couldn't
mask the fact it was pouring." |
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CGI was used to show Teranj's view
over Sainte Claire, from the holographic devastation of Nazi
headquarters. Mitch Suskin explained, "We had one matte painting
looking out the window [....] That was all digital. That was all
matte painting, a 3-D miniature [...] done by Eric Chauvin." The
fact that it had been raining during the filming of the
nighttime footage influenced the creation of the matte painting.
"We put rain in the Eric Chauvin shot too," Suskin
noted.
The subsequent shot of Teranj falling from the devastated
building brought about some consternation, because – when
Digital Muse had created, for the previous installment, the
model of the breach between the holodeck and one of Voyager's
hallways – they had been unaware of the Hirogen's descent, not
having read the script of this second part. Mitch Suskin
reflected, "We were actually kind of worried about that shot. We
really weren't sure how well that was going to do [....]
[Digital Muse] did a few touchups on [the model], and I think
repainted some of the texture maps so we could get closer."
With the gap model readied, the shot of the tumble was
visualized digitally.
Teranj's plummet was considered to be highly effective. Mitch
Suskin remarked, "It worked really well." The shot was so
convincing, in fact, that it even fooled other production
staffers, who incorrectly suspected it was a stunt. Suskin
offered, "I remember there was somebody in the office, I think
it might have been one of our production assistants who was
saying, 'That's really cool. That must have been a difficult
stunt to do.' We said, 'No, it was really easy, because it's not
a stunt at all.' That was surprisingly successful."
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