The Klingons

[Warped9]

KingDaniel wrote:

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Definitive in terms of the greater Trek tapestry. It is the canon answer, the one future Treks tied into the same continuity will abide by. Sounds pretty definitive to me. (although I too prefer J. M. Ford's take on the Klingon Empire from The Final Reflection)

I've benn over this ground enough before. I know B.S. when I smell it and nothing has changed. ENT is its own thing and no one is beholden to it including its stupid contrivances.

Fits in perfectly well with ST09, though, and it's mindlessness.

And "future generations" can ignore this just as I do the way makers of a lot of current Trek ignored TOS.

[Revolution]

I prefer the TOS style ones personally, but both are effective. Think they went down a bit too 'dirty' route with them from TMP onwards. (Kruge with his steamy bridge and pet dog thing in TSFS)

[JoeZhang]

KingDaniel wrote:

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Definitive in terms of the greater Trek tapestry. It is the canon answer, the one future Treks tied into the same continuity will abide by. Sounds pretty definitive to me. (although I too prefer J. M. Ford's take on the Klingon Empire from The Final Reflection)

Ford's version of the Klingon empire is the only one I've ever given a damn about.

[Dukhat]

Warped9 wrote:

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I've been over this ground enough before. I know B.S. when I smell it and nothing has changed. ENT is its own thing and no one is beholden to it including its stupid contrivances.

Fits in perfectly well with ST09, though, and it's mindlessness.

And "future generations" can ignore this just as I do the way makers of a lot of current Trek ignored TOS.

While you're entitled to your own opinion about ENTERPRISE (an opinion which I happen to share, lest you think I'm ganging up on you or some such nonsense), no amount of bitching, complaining, and telling "future generations" that they need to follow your personal line of thinking will make the series non-canon. Paramount/CBS produced and sold the show, and many talented Trek production personnel worked on the show and cared about it regardless of what the idiot suits at UPN wanted, and worked very hard to provide a highly-budgeted, quality-produced show every week for free. While I have little love for it, it's not my place or yours to say it should be ignored as if that's some kind of fact that CBS has decreed. And anyway, this rant has nothing to do with the OP anyway.

So, as far as what the OP asked, I'm almost positive that the change from swarthy cardboard villain to honorable warrior came in TNG, not Star Trek III, where Ron Moore was asked to provide a better background for the Klingons, and read a copy of the aforementioned The Final Reflection, which is what he based the TNG Klingons. While STIII featured the prosthetic and leather-bound Klingons (not counting TMP, which had the new style but zero background), they still acted no different than your typical TOS Klingon in the honor department. In fact they were even more thuggish than TOS.

[King Daniel]

Warped9 wrote:

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I've benn over this ground enough before. I know B.S. when I smell it and nothing has changed. ENT is its own thing and no one is beholden to it including its stupid contrivances.

No one except the writers of the tie-in novels, comics, videogames and sequels set in that continuity.

And "future generations" can ignore this just as I do the way makers of a lot of current Trek ignored TOS.

Really, taking the entirety of Trek canon into account (as a prequel is obliged to do, although adittedly Enterprise didn't do it enough, this time they got it right), such a contrived solution was the only possible explanation. They couldn't say Klingons had an integrated multispecies empire when we'd never seen another Klingon race in 40 years of Klingon-centric episodes, or after Kor, Kang and Koloth appeared in Deep Space Nine sporting the TNG Klingon forehead and after "Trials and Tribble-ations" made the change into something more than a real-life makeup upgrade.

Was it a story that "had" to be told? Not really, but I thought it was fun.

[Nerys Myk]

The Enterprise solution to the "Klingon problem" was very Trekkish and built around canon and continuity.

[Warped9]

JoeZhang wrote:

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Ford's version of the Klingon empire is the only one I've ever given a damn about.

Ditto.

[Anwar]

Would you be saying that if TNG came up with them instead?

[Warped9]

Anwar wrote:

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Would you be saying that if TNG came up with them instead?

A dumb idea is a dumb idea. The whole stupidity that everything has to be tied to the humans. It would have been better to simply keep it as a Klingon issue having nothing o do with Earth, like, oh, there are different races of Klingons just as there are different races of humans. Far more interesting that way.

[Nerys Myk]

Warped9 wrote:

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A dumb idea is a dumb idea. The whole stupidity that everything has to be tied to the humans. It would have been better to simply keep it as a Klingon issue having nothing o do with Earth, like, oh, there are different races of Klingons just as there are different races of humans. Far more interesting that way.

I find that less interesting. Why should everything be a reflection of the human norm?

[T'Girl]

Zombie Cheerleader wrote:

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I find that less interesting. Why should everything be a reflection of the human norm?

I thnk that having the Kilingon empire composed of a wide multitude of species, some of whom consider themselves to be "Klingons" if not by species, then by way of political means, or as a cultural ethnicity.

it would be pretty easy to see the TOS Klingons, the TMP Klingons and the TNG Klingons as being three entirely separate species.

Multiple species could be something like second and third class citizens within the Empire, the Klingon "middle-class," and lower down the social ladder there would then be the servitor (slave) class.

[CorporalCaptain]

To me, the view that there was a compelling need to address TOS vs TMP Klingon foreheads comes from the same place that finding a problem with Chris Pine's eye color comes from.

[Mr_Homn]

Conscious Circuits wrote:

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To me, the view that there was a compelling need to address TOS vs TMP Klingon foreheads comes from the same place that finding a problem with Chris Pine's eye color comes from.

Me too. A makeup change. Nothing more. It's fiction, people. There IS no good in-universe explanation, because there was never meant to be, and it never bothered me.

[T'Girl]

Dukhat wrote:

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Ron Moore [snip] read a copy of the aforementioned The Final Reflection, which is what he based the TNG Klingons.

(sigh) If only this had been true.

[scotpens]

Conscious Circuits wrote:

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To me, the view that there was a compelling need to address TOS vs TMP Klingon foreheads comes from the same place that finding a problem with Chris Pine's eye color comes from.

Or the change of Bewitched's Darren from Dick York to Dick Sargent. I mean, for chrissakes, this was a sitcom about an advertising guy married to a WITCH.