Display MoreOh, you're a fan of giant rubber cat monsters? Name four of them! The final cut of the Wing Commander movie famously sliced its intended Kilrathi appearances to the bone, removing everything before the climactic final chase and surprising viewers when it finally cuts to a series of brief conversations on their distinctive green-atmosphere'd flagship. So: who are these kils, anyway?
The film's credits identify two of the characters as KILRATH CAPTAIN and KILRATHI ADMIRAL and the shooting script identifies a third speaking character as KILRATHI TECH. The Admiral is the kil who stands to the right and is (technically) the only one whose lips we see move. The Captain is the one who is usually speaking to him but his dialogue occurs when he's seen from behind or when we are looking at their viewscreen. The tech is at the port aft bridge station where he is intended to be the Snakeir's equivalent of the Radar Man position seen aboard the Tiger Claw and the Concordia and at Pegasus. His line is "the Rapier is homing in on a Confederation signal" but as previously suggested the closeup shown in the final is actually the Admiral. Here are the subtitled lines we see in the final cut:
Scene 281 (2 shots)
Scene 308 (2 shots)
Scene 313 (2 shots)
Scene 316 (1 shot)
Unnumbered Scene (2 shots)
From there there's the greater lore: Peter Telep's adaptations include backstories for these characters and one of the extras. The Snakeir's name is the KIS Grist'Ar'roc and the captain is Kal Shintahr Thiraka nar Kiranka. The admiral, who is in command of the battlegroup, is Kalralahr Bokoth nar Kiranka. The Kilrathi Tech line is assigned to the superdreadnaught's tactical officer, Second Fang Norsh'kal. The unspeaking character seen at helm behind the captain and admiral is the carrier's executive officer, Shintahr Ke'Soick. We learn that Bokoth is the most respected admiral in the fleet and in the grand tradition of stock-thickening novelizations, Telep adds an additional arc for the Kilrathi with a jealous Thiraka plotting to betray Bokoth with Ke'Soick's help. Ke'Soick ultimately double-crosses Thiraka; Norsh'kal is blameless. So with the information from the novelization you can now amaze your friends by effortlessly identifying Bokoth, Thiraka, Ke'Soick and Norsh'kal!
X Toys produced an action figure of Bokoth which is confusingly named KILRATHI GENERAL instead of Kilrathi Admiral. Adding to the confusion, the trading card included shows a Kilrathi warrior (seen in the earlier battle scenes) and the action figure of the KILRATHI PILOT (cut from the final movie) has a mislabeled card showing the admiral! Still pretty neat that it exists, though.
While working up this update we took a look at some cut footage to determine how the bridge is actually laid out and how many Kilrathi crewmen there are. The answer is that there are seven bridge stations with Kilrathi and at least two others who enter and exit the bridge in the background. But only four Kilrathi (or arguably three) appear on the Snakeir's bridge in the final movie. AD has created a high quality blueprint detailing the bridge layout:
Bokoth and Thiraka stand in front of a viewscreen. To either side there are Kilrathi crewmen stationed in front of banks of bright lights. Towards the center of the room there is a helm station and a Sivar idol. At the rear of the bridge is an exit door flanked by two more crew positions (including the tactical officer/radar kil). Here are some shots from rough cuts of the film:
Looking from the rear towards the front, view screen in the center:
Looking from the front towards the rear, door in the center with bridge stations to either side:
Front looking rear, full crew:
Starboard fore "light screen" station:
Radar Kil/Tactical Station:
Kilrathi Admiral:
Helm Station & Sivar Idol:
Bridge Entrance:
Where did these come from? The original cut of the movie had four additional scenes set aboard the Snakeir which were intended to appear earlier in the movie to update you on the Kilrathi plan. They were cut because they significantly involve the dropped Pilgrim traitor, Admiral Wilson, and because there was a concentrated effort to reduce the screen time of the Kilrathi creatures (and to generally obscure them with more gas effects, CG-edited mouths and shots that don't show the aliens' faces). These scenes were:
Scene 11 & 12 - A conversation between Bokoth and Admiral Wilson (his identity obscured in a space suit). We learn that this traitor has given the Kilrathi the NAVCOM AI and that they are going to use it to destroy Earth.
Scene 110B - Thiraka reports to Bokoth and a still unidentified Wilson that the Tiger Claw has been located. We learn that there is a Pilgrim traitor aboard the carrier reporting to them. Wilson demands the Admiral launch an attack.
Scene 298B - Wilson castigates Bokoth for failing to destroy the Tiger Claw. Bokoth orders him to the ConCom to prepare the jump coordinates for Earth (setting up Wilson's further cut face off with Blair and Gerald).
Are you interested in learning more about the Kilrathi scenes in the movie? We've created a Google Sheet that compares the shooting script, the final transcript, the novelization and the junior novelization! You can access it here. Since the novel adapted the script rather than the final cut, all three of the earlier Kilrathi sequences are included (and expanded!). To close, here's a final recut of the final Kilrathi scenes with all of the dialogue from the shooting script:
