Rura Penthe was a penal colony asteroid utilized by the Klingon Empire. Located in the Beta Penthe system, it was widely known as "the alien's graveyard," due to the fact that the life expectancy for a prisoner there was, at most, one year. (ENT: "Judgment"; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
Overview
Prisoners at Rura Penthe were forced to conduct mining operations for the purpose of retrieving the vast deposits of dilithium which existed beneath the surface. The surface temperature of Rura Penthe was extremely low, the landscape dominated by glaciers and gusting snow. Without proper clothing, no humanoid lifeform was able to survive for an extended period on the surface, so most of the mining and prison facility was located underground. A magnetic shield encased the mining facility and a vast area surrounding it in order to prevent prisoners from being beamed away. The facility was routinely patrolled by armed guards, but further security measures were deemed unnecessary due to the harsh surface climate. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
History
22nd century
The surface of Rura Penthe in 2152
In 2153, Starfleet captain Jonathan Archer was condemned to a life-sentence on Rura Penthe, for his role in assisting a group of refugees which had fled the Klingon protectorate of Raatooras. In addition, Archer's advocate, Kolos, was sentenced to a period of one year in the mines, for his accusation of dishonorable conduct on the part of the magistrate. Although Archer was eventually rescued by his crew, Kolos elected to stay, feeling that he could not restore honor to the Klingon justice system living as a fugitive. (ENT: "Judgment")
23rd century
The dilithium mines of Rura Penthe
In 2293, Starfleet officers James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy were sentenced to life on Rura Penthe, after being found guilty of the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon. In an effort to ensure the deaths of the two officers, it was arranged for Martia, a Chameloid prisoner, to help them escape, providing motive for the Klingon forces on the surface to kill the two of them. Martia's plot was eventually uncovered, however, and Kirk and McCoy were rescued by Captain Spock and the crew of the USS Enterprise. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
Appendices
Related topics
Background
Concept
Although early consideration was given to depicting a prison on the Klingon homeworld in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, this concept became a separate Klingon prison planet. "What happened was that they felt in terms of budget, recreating the entire [home] planet would be impossible, so it became this prison concept," explained screenwriter Mark Rosenthal, who co-wrote the film's story. "The original idea was to go to the actual capital city." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 137)
Originally, it was thought that the prison planet would have a blisteringly hot environment. Star Trek VI screenplay co-writer Denny Martin Flinn commented, "In my mind, it was sort of a third world country and it was going to be a thousand degrees and difficult to move around in the heat, and all this stuff, but we simply wrote [most of] the scenes as they were. And then at some point after that, Nick [Meyer] conceived the idea that it would be an ice planet." Meyer, the other co-writer of the screenplay for Star Trek VI, added, "This was actually the result of a Paramount executive, David Kirkpatrick. It was a sand planet and he said, 'I'm tired of hot, desert planets. Can't it be something else?' And the only thing else I could think of was an ice planet." (audio commentary, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD)
The name Rura Penthe was a reference to the book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and the 1954 movie adaption of the book, in both of which Rura Penthe was a slave labor camp that inspired Captain Nemo's rage against society.
In the script for Star Trek VI, the surface of Rura Penthe is notably referred to as "the coldest habitable place in the solar system." The script also specifies that three cold suns were to be shown in close proximity to Rura Penthe, though only two appear in the film's final version. The underground prison area is described in the script as "a huge underground labyrinth with an enormous courtyard surrounded by prisoner huts open to the center." The screenplay also mentions the scaffolding above the courtyard, describing it as "endless". One of the elevators that descend into the mine is referred to as being "like the old Welsh mine caged elevators." The script locates two scenes whose surroundings are not entirely evident from the film alone; these are a nighttime scene involving Captain James T. Kirk, Doctor Leonard McCoy and Martia in a room filled with bunks, which the script details as being in one of the aforementioned prisoner huts, and a campsite scene which, according to the script, is atop an "ice desert ridge". A frozen river is featured in a scene that was scripted but not included in the actual film. In dialogue that similarly can be found in the script but not in the film itself, Martia claims that all prisoners detained in Rura Penthe serve life sentences.
In 2293, when Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy were imprisoned in Rura Penthe, it was stated by Martia that no one had ever escaped. Obviously, this was not true, as Captain Jonathan Archer escaped in 2152. This may be because, as is shown in Star Trek VI, Martia was not an entirely reliable source.
Filming the surface for Star Trek VI
Some of the surface scenes of Rura Penthe in Star Trek VI were filmed on location, on the Colony Glacier in Alaska. ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features) These shots included some footage of the body that, in the film, is left to freeze to death on the surface. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 38) All the shots were captured by the movie's second-unit film crew and were supervised by co-producer Steven-Charles Jaffe. Nick Meyer related, "I would have liked to have gone to Alaska, but there wasn't the money." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 43) The location, which was only reachable via helicopter, was scouted by the second-unit team two months before the filming. Merely as a precaution, Jaffe took some fake snow with him, as the weather was highly unpredictable. "Sure enough, the snow wasn't there," remembered co-producer Ralph Winter, "so we used the helicopter and we took fake snow to Alaska, so we'd actually have something to see [....] We had to take our own, and it actually worked out." ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features)
The location shoot was extremely challenging for those involved – not only the second-unit crew but also stand-ins for the performers who appear in the relevant scenes. Jaffe commented, "It was two and a half days of very intense second unit work on a glacier, which normally would have taken a week and a half to two weeks to shoot. We were getting up at four in the morning, driving an hour, and flying an hour in a helicopter [....] We had a crew of 30 people and four helicopters. It was a real challenge." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 43) Despite the initial absence of snow, the weather provided another difficulty. "It was 22 degrees below zero when we got there in the morning," Jaffe reflected. "By two o'clock in the afternoon, it was fifty." For the stand-ins who were in alien makeup and costumes, the experience was a particularly hard time. ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features) Noted Jaffe, "It was ten degrees and we had one stunt man in about three and a half hours of very heavy makeup." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 43) He also observed, "If you were one of the stuntmen wearing those wool costumes, it was horrendous. I mean, perfect situation for getting pneumonia." ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features)
Ralph Winter felt that the rarity of the shots justified the lengths gone to, to capture the footage. He said about the participants of the location shoot, "They flew up to the middle of nowhere [....] The shots we photographed humans don't get to see very often. The only way to get that is to be there in these harsh, extreme environments with aliens in makeup and stunt doubles [....] Applying makeup in sub-zero temperature had the normal people who live in Alaska saying, 'You are nuts. Why are you doing this?' You do it for the camera so it looks like you're really there. It adds to the scope and size and reality of the picture. The audience wants to escape; they want to feel that they're on this harsh and unreal ice planet." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 38) Winter additionally remarked, "I think that was some spectacular photography, as they're escaping from Rura Penthe and coming out." ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features)
Star Trek VI's surface scenes of Rura Penthe that involved the cast were shot on a Paramount soundstage, which included the set for the campsite. ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features) The use of this interior, Paramount's largest soundstage, meant that the film's Klingon courtroom scenes – which had originally been scheduled to film there – were instead relegated to a smaller stage. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 55) Cinematographer Hiro Narita offered, "Since we had to use a large fan to create the blizzard effect, we were quite concerned about fake snow getting into the camera." Indeed, the plastic snow was profuse on the set. William Shatner was one person who consequently found the experience of filming there a difficult one. He recalled, "[It] permeated every orifice [....] The wind machines drove it with full force into every crevasse, so that you never knew where that white stuff was gonna come out of, and generally it came out of your nose and your mouth, but there were all kinds of effects [....] You didn't want to go home at night 'cause you frightened your family." ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features)
The snowfield was constructed from styrofoam that produced a "clunking" sound, any time the actors walked across it. Commented Hiro Narita, "I think the special effects people used two kinds of snow, soap flakes and potato flakes." ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features)
Underground filming for Star Trek VI
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The exterior set for Rura Penthe's underground
The actual underground prison of Rura Penthe, as depicted in Star Trek VI, was filmed at Bronson Canyon caves in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California. "We decided that that was the best place to build Rura Penthe, the exterior," reflected David Trotti, a Directors' Guild trainee on Star Trek VI. ("Enterprise Secrets", ENT Season 2 DVD special features) The set for the prison was built as an open-air construct, in an area that was just outside the cave and was bounded by fairly steep flint rocks. ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features) "Prior to getting up there," continued Trotti, "our art department went up and they spray-painted the walls of the canyon white to look like ice. They built huge bridges. We had the Klingons out there and we went out and shot for about four or five nights and then we came back down." The filming resumed with some more of the exterior scenes for Star Trek VI being shot on Paramount Stage 15, one of Paramount's largest soundstages. ("Enterprise Secrets", ENT Season 2 DVD special features) Another soundstage that was also used for the exterior Rura Penthe scenes was Paramount Stage 14. (text commentary, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD)
The elevator was designed simply. Explained Herman Zimmerman, "Indeed, we used something that they'd been using since the silent film days, fiberglass rocks glued on a piece of canvas that's being cranked around, so it looks like they're ascending or descending into the mine." ("Bringing It to Life", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Blu-ray) special features)
Filming for Enterprise
The task of recreating Rura Penthe for Enterprise was made easier by the fact that David Trotti was one of the assistant directors on "Judgment", allowing him to draw from his experience of Rura Penthe while assigned to that episode. (text commentary, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD)
For Rura Penthe's appearance in Enterprise, the interior shots were filmed at Paramount Stage 9 on a set that was built by a construction crew headed by Tom Purser and Thomas J. Arp. ("Enterprise Secrets", ENT Season 2 DVD special features)
In all, there were fifty alien workers and fifteen to twenty Klingon guards used in the scene featured in Enterprise. Several of the actors were the same ones who appeared in Star Trek VI. The recreated Rura Penthe also incorporated some of the same dilithium crystal rocks, many examples of wardrobe and lots of Klingon weapons that were included in the film version of Rura Penthe. ("Enterprise Secrets", ENT Season 2 DVD special features)
David Trotti was highly impressed with the recreation of Rura Penthe. "It's amazing how similar the sets looked," he enthused. "Granted, we didn't have the sheer scope and grandeur of Bronson Canyon to work with but Herman Zimmerman and his art department, and our construction crew, [....] did an amazing job recreating it in an incredible scale and on a budget that's, for a television show, just amazing what they can get done." ("Enterprise Secrets", ENT Season 2 DVD special features)
Appearance in deleted scene
Rura Penthe in a deleted scene from Star Trek
Although not stated on-screen, Rura Penthe was the "Klingon prison planet" referenced in 2009's Star Trek. A deleted scene from the film shows that Nero and his crew from the Narada were captured by the Klingons and imprisoned on Rura Penthe for twenty-five years, after their ship was crippled by the USS Kelvin in 2233. The attack on the prison planet referenced in the film was Nero and his crew escaping from Rura Penthe and reclaiming their vessel.[1][2]
Apocrypha
The Star Trek: Nero comic series, telling the story of Nero's imprisonment and escape, places Rura Penthe in the Laurentian system – the primary fleet "engagement" Admiral Barnett mentioned was in response to a distress signal from the Klingon fleet annihilated by the Narada.
External links
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