The Klingons

[John Mason]

easy on dude... Love the culture, loath the arrogance .... nevermind...

[Dukhat]

T'Girl wrote:

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(sigh) If only this had been true.

It is true.

[CoveTom]

Dukhat wrote:

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It is true.

No, it's really not.

The honorable TNG Klingons were developed before Ron Moore ever walked through the door. He didn't submit his first script to TNG until the third season and didn't become a staff writer until close to the end of that season. The honor- and warrior-oriented Klingon culture had been well established by episodes like "A Matter of Honor," "The Emissary," and "Heart of Glory" long before anyone on the TNG staff even knew Moore's name.

Sure, Moore became known as "the Klingon guy" during his tenure, and he may have taken inspiration from The Final Reflection, but he is hardly responsible for the basic Klingon culture that TNG established.

[TREK_GOD_1]

My Son the Vampire wrote:

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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.

I'm not sure that's the same kind of reaction; in the case of Bewitched, some were fond of York, so the casting change was shocking or upsetting to some, but its still a comedic actor playing a "type." Nothing too drastic. It's not like York was replaced by Lucille Ball dressed as a man.

In ST's case, a major genetic change was made to an entire species with no explanation, so i'm guessing someone in the audience would say something about it, hence any attempts to explain it in Berman period of series.

[CorporalCaptain]

Why do the Andorian antennae move in ENT but not in TOS? Is that a genetic change, too?

[Peacemaker]

My Son the Vampire wrote:

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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.

Okay, yeah, I agree in principle, but looking it back it would have been really cool to address the change as a spell that Endora cast hoping to give Sam a better looking husband. "Durwood seems to like it, and I changed everybody's memory, Dear, so what's the problem?"

[jayrath]

I'm far less concerned about the Klingon change in foreheads, than in tossing into the garbage the concept of Romulans as ancient Rome in the future. It was far more compelling.

Romulans were originally the noble villains. The Klingons in TNG became some bizarre notion of Samurai, with more than a little fascism thrown in. I'm not a great fan (to say the least) of Trek novelist Diane Carey -- she grafted a lot of proto-Tea Party politics onto TOS -- but she at least had the good sense to note of a miltary that advances through assassination to write, "And we made peace with that?"

[T'Girl]

jayrath wrote:

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Romulans were originally the noble villains

Never completely agreed with that. The Commander and "the old guy" in Balance seemed noble enough. But the Commander from Incident wasn't particularly noble, and none of the Romulan crews from either of those two episodes stood out as noble.

So how were TOS Romulans (as a group) noble?

[BillJ]

Conscious Circuits wrote:

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Why do the Andorian antennae move in ENT but not in TOS? Is that a genetic change, too?

Damnit, I want an in-universe explanation! I also want to know why some have the antenna on the front of the head while some have them on the back of the head!

Maybe a big-screen trilogy!

[Mr_Homn]

BillJ wrote:

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Damnit, I want an in-universe explanation! I also wasn't to know why some have the antenna on the front of the head while some have them on the back of the head!

Maybe a big-screen trilogy!

That would be a great trilogy, but first there needs to be a trilogy about why Nausicaans in enterprise look different from nausicaans in TNG. That is some important stuff right there. The story needs to be told.

[T'Girl]

BillJ wrote:

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Damnit, I want an in-universe explanation!

Both the Andorians and the Nausicaans were exposed to the augment virus, it was all going to be covered in season five.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

Conscious Circuits wrote:

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Why do the Andorian antennae move in ENT but not in TOS? Is that a genetic change, too?

There's a huge difference between upgrading makeup and what happened with the Klingons, which were essentially replaced with a totally different race called Klingons. They looked different, they sounded different, they dressed differently and they acted differently.

The sneaky villainous way the Klingons acted in TOS is another thing "Affliction"/"Divergence" dealt with (albeit breifly). One of the infected said she felt real fear for the first time in her life, that she felt she'd become something other than a Klingon. That human DNA is what made the TOS-era Klingons act so differently to the honour-obsessed bumpyheads of ENT/TNG/DS9/VOY.

[newtontomato539]

I've always liked how how FASA did it.

Side Note:

My continuity is by TOS movies/TNG/Ds9/SCE, I make the Klingons into the Romulans, The Cardassians into the Klingons and the Romulans into Tholians.

I wish this was the way it had been handled. It would have been better.

However, The TNG Klingons and Cardassians were two of the few things that TNG excelled at.

Of course, Bad Robot wise, I've given the Klingons helmets, cloaking devices and heck, I've even given them back their batleths.

In the end, it's makeup.

What about some photoshop to help in this discussion?

[CorporalCaptain]

KingDaniel wrote:

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There's a huge difference between upgrading makeup and what happened with the Klingons, which were essentially replaced with a totally different race called Klingons. They looked different, they sounded different, they dressed differently and they acted differently.

The sneaky villainous way the Klingons acted in TOS is another thing "Affliction"/"Divergence" dealt with (albeit breifly). One of the infected said she felt real fear for the first time in her life, that she felt she'd become something other than a Klingon. That human DNA is what made the TOS-era Klingons act so differently to the honour-obsessed bumpyheads of ENT/TNG/DS9/VOY.

The look and dress can be dismissed as entirely cosmetic.

As for the sound and behavior, when people try to explain human cultural differences in terms of genetics, we regard them as racist, because only practitioners of pseudoscience do that. Humanity has a variety of cultures with conflicting governing philosophies and moral codes. Why should extraterrestrial species have uniform cultures?

[AggieJohn]

You know I just had a thought. Why did the Klingons become the Federations best friends? I don't get that at all. If Gene, god rest his soul, wanted a TOS enemy to turn into a good guy one would think that the Romulans would have been that faction since there did appear to be a noble element to them. Clearly there was a mutual respect and the war between them centuries old. All the concepts that are placed on the TNG Klingons could just as easy been placed on the Romulans, who are no allies to the Federation and the evil manipulative empire would remain Klingon?