Did the alien design on Voyager just get lazy?

[Misco]

Saito S wrote:

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I think TNG handles alien cultures better than VOY on the whole, as well. Plus, DS9 relied on this FAR less than either of them, so to go from TNG, to DS9, to VOY, kinda makes it seem that much worse for the latter. Come to think of it, I wonder which show simply has a higher number of humanoid species encountered, bumpy forehead or no, between TNG and VOY...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving Voyager a pass for the crappiness of its aliens, but I'm certainly not convinced that TNG did it any better. I know VOY was a newer show and perhaps it's budget was bigger (relatively?) but by the time it premiered I guess it made sense for the makeup artists/creature designers to keep continuity (lol!) with what TNG had done.

Guy Gardener wrote:

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The Preservers, and that seeding thing fromt he Chase explains a bit.

But once I heard about the Voth...

Sooooo what you're saying is... the Voth weren't just some fevered daydream of Chakotay's?

[Saito S]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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The Kazon.

We had all of those. Even Naomi had horns.

Maybe I should have been more precise, but I meant repeatedly, specifically. Maybe we saw crazy hair once with the Kazon, and horns once with Naomi, and... actually I don't really recall fins... it's been a while though. Point is, maybe we do see each of those things once (or maybe a couple of times; I don't necessarily LITERALLY mean exactly once, before anyone jumps on that ). But we had a BUNCH of "bumpy forehead variant" aliens. So, instead of tons of bumpy foreheads and only one or two each of horns, crazy hair, etc., why not some bumpy foreheads, some horns, some gills, some crazy hairs, etc. Mix it up more. Assuming the budget allows for it of course. Which brings me to:

What helped Westmore achieve so many aliens on the budget he had was being able to pre-paint many of the foam latex appliances. Older technologies did not permit this.

If you've read interviews with ST actors who had their skin coloration changed, the clean-up afterwards is worse than the application process. Leonard John Crofoot (Robotic gold Lal) and Yvonne Craig (Marta in TOS) spent hours in the shower being scrubbed by stage hands, then had to turn up for it to happen all over again the next day.

Skin patterns are time-consuming and very hard to match day-by-day. Dax in DS9 was a nightmare; Westmore said her spots never matched under scrutiny. That's why they tend to be for one-off cameos, such as the waterproof stripes applied to the triple-breasted cat dancer played by Linda Fetters in ST V:

All fair enough. I either hadn't considered or didn't know much of that in regards to why some of those things would, in fact, be considerably harder and/or more expensive to use, especially repeatedly, than bumpy foreheads. So it's more excusable than I gave credit for initially. Still think the show could have done with less alien-of-the-week shows anyway - not just in terms of the make-up, but in general. But that's sort of a different topic.

[Sandoval]

Misco wrote:

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Sooooo what you're saying is... the Voth weren't just some fevered daydream of Chakotay's?

Not so much of a dream as a very bad acid trip.

Chakotay was mad for the acid.

[Therin of Andor]

Saito S wrote:

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Maybe we saw crazy hair once with the Kazon

But the Kazon were semi-regulars for the first few years.

and horns once with Naomi

Who was also a semi-regular. Horns were appearing almost every week in the Dominion War over on DS9.

The same reason we saw few spotted races in DS9, really. Because Dax already had spots.

actually I don't really recall fins... instead of tons of bumpy foreheads and only one or two each of horns, crazy hair, etc., why not some bumpy foreheads, some horns, some gills, some crazy hairs, etc. Mix it up more.

Not as many pics here as I'd have liked, but VOY did just as many weird noses and chins as foreheads...
http://www.bigmeathammer.com/Delta%2...20Database.htm

[Saito S]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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But the Kazon were semi-regulars for the first few years.

Who was also a semi-regular. Horns were appearing almost every week in the Dominion War over on DS9.

The same reason we saw few spotted races in DS9, really. Because Dax already had spots.

Seriously?

I know you're intelligent enough to understand that I meant "why didn't we see more species with these traits", not "why weren't there more episodes involving an alien with these traits."

Why would you feel the need to point out to someone who clearly watched the show that the Kazon and Naomi were semi-regulars?

[exodus]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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But the Kazon were semi-regulars for the first few years.

Who was also a semi-regular. Horns were appearing almost every week in the Dominion War over on DS9.

The same reason we saw few spotted races in DS9, really. Because Dax already had spots.

Not as many pics here as I'd have liked, but VOY did just as many weird noses and chins as foreheads...
http://www.bigmeathammer.com/Delta%2...20Database.htm

I understood your points and I agree.

[JB2005]

About the chins...did anyone else watch...it was either the TakTak or the Sleep Aliens, who has a length of skin covering their mouths...

How do they eat?

[Therin of Andor]

Saito S wrote:

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I know you're intelligent enough to understand that I meant "why didn't we see more species with these traits", not "why weren't there more episodes involving an alien with these traits."

Bringing my intelligence into the equation is not the way we are meant to post here. Post, not poster.

And I don't understand what distinction you're making; it has nothing to do with posters' intelligence. The makeup guys assigned big hair to the Kazon, horns to Naomi Wildman, pixie ears to Kes and Tuvok, and spots to Neelix, so they chose different conceptual directions for guest aliens. Foreheads, noses, chins, necks, fingers.

Why would you feel the need to point out to someone who clearly watched the show that the Kazon and Naomi were semi-regulars?

Because you seemed to be claiming that each alien makeup could only be counted once, in order to prove your point? And it was my attempt to clarify, because you didn't seem to understand my points.

[Saito S]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Because you seemed to be claiming that each alien makeup could only be counted once, in order to prove your point? And it was my attempt to clarify, because you didn't seem to understand my points.

Ok. I thought it was really obvious from my previous post, but maybe not. To clarify:

We saw a large number of alien species with bumpy foreheads (or some variant thereof). We saw only one, or perhaps a couple, alien species with horns, or crazy hair, or what have you (still don't remember anything resembling fins or gills at all, but I may just be forgetting someone). And I was questioning why that is; why were there so many bumpy foreheads and so few of each other thing, rather than some of each?

Each individual species CAN only be counted once. My point was not about how many times an alien character that had a distinguishing feature other than a bumpy forehead walked onto the screen. My point WAS about how many different species there were that all had some kind of lumps on their face as their distinguishing feature. So no matter how many times the Kazon appear, they - collectively - count as only one entry for "crazy hair." Naomi only counts as one entry for "horns". So I'm asking, instead of TONS of face and forehead lumps, and only one or two of each of these other things, why not a moderate amount of each?

[MacLeod]

Sandoval wrote:

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I don't think some storylines require or are worth the time and effort of creating radically different and unique aliens.

A lot of the time a generic 'forehead of the week' design will suffice.

Inevitably when faced with seven years' worth of creating new designs for alien races some will be more radical than others - for every Species 8472, Hirogen or Vidiian you'll get half a dozen Taresians or Krenim-type aliens.

I wouldn't call it laziness as much as the reality of weekly television production.

It was more than 7 years by the time the later season of VOY

7 years of TNG
Almost 7 Years of DSN
Plus several years of VOY

[Therin of Andor]

Saito S wrote:

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Each individual species CAN only be counted once.

Saito S's rules?

[Saito S]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Saito S's rules?

Of course not.

My premise was to ask a question about why we didn't see a larger number of species with different kinds of visually distinguishing features.

The question, by its very nature, precludes a single species from being counted more than once, for any reason.

I don't know how much more clear I can be about it. But I think this conversation has run its course anyway, for me at least.