The makeup for Original Series Klingons

[Warped9]

I've always liked the simple explanation offered up early on (probably by fandom, but after all these years I'm not sure) that there were simply different races of Klingons just as there are different races of humans. And if TNG had gone forward with that idea and simply shown a variety of Klingon types it would have worked just fine (as they seemed to try doing with Chang in TUC). Instead they chose the long practiced simple and cheap route of depicting every representative f an alien race as all exactly the same. That can work if we're seeing only one representative seen perhaps once (as happened with many Trek aliens), but it becomes a shtick wwhen we see more than one represtative and we see them often as was the case in TNG and DS9 and later ENT.

 

[BillJ]

Continuity was a flexible thing then...

I miss those days.

 

[trynda1701]

Does anyone know whether the mutated humans known as Kreeg in the "Planet Earth" pilot that Roddenberry didn't sell in the 70's were what he originally may have wanted for Klingons in TOS?

They seem to be a prototype for the movie Klingons, and the main bad guy in that pilot looks like a prototype for the look Chang eventually sported in The Undiscovered Country?

 

[PCz911]

Does anyone know whether the mutated humans known as Kreeg in the "Planet Earth" pilot that Roddenberry didn't sell in the 70's were what he originally may have wanted for Klingons in TOS?

They seem to be a prototype for the movie Klingons, and the main bad guy in that pilot looks like a prototype for the look Chang eventually sported in The Undiscovered Country?

Wow, this is a really good question. The image really is intriguing.

 

[Kor]

Does anyone know whether the mutated humans known as Kreeg in the "Planet Earth" pilot that Roddenberry didn't sell in the 70's were what he originally may have wanted for Klingons in TOS?

They seem to be a prototype for the movie Klingons, and the main bad guy in that pilot looks like a prototype for the look Chang eventually sported in The Undiscovered Country?

Before TMP, there was no indication that Klingons were ever supposed to have been ridgy. The Klingons were conceived by Gene Coon, not Roddenberry. And Fred Philips didn't receive any instruction on what they were supposed to look like other than the script's vague description of them as "oriental, hard-faced."

Kor

 

[Christopher]

Does anyone know whether the mutated humans known as Kreeg in the "Planet Earth" pilot that Roddenberry didn't sell in the 70's were what he originally may have wanted for Klingons in TOS?

I doubt he or Gene Coon had anything that specific in mind. After all, they just wrote the scripts. Fred Phillips was the makeup artist on TOS and TMP, and though there's no makeup credit listed for Planet Earth, it's quite possible that Phillips did that movie as well.

It's more likely that the Kreeg design was invented for Planet Earth, and that when TMP came along and Roddenberry decided the Klingons should be redesigned, he wanted to use something similar to the Kreeg design because he felt it had worked.

They seem to be a prototype for the movie Klingons, and the main bad guy in that pilot looks like a prototype for the look Chang eventually sported in The Undiscovered Country?

Roddenberry had no involvement in the production of The Undiscovered Country. After the problems with TMP, he was reduced to only an "executive consultant" role on the movies, which means he was sent the scripts and entitled to make suggestions but had no actual authority. And by the time TUC came along, he was in very poor health anyway. He died just weeks before TUC's theatrical release, although he was given an advance screening of the movie just two days before his death.

 

[Warped9]

Considering that it was Fred Phillips and John Colicos who largely determined the Klingon look for the series rather than Roddenberry I'd say GR had little to no real idea as to what the Klingons should look like. He looks to have simply gone with what Philips and Colicos came up with. For GR to say otherwise years later when TMP was in production is misrepresentation of what actually happened back in the day.

Yes, they probably could have done something more elaborate...if they had had greater time and resources than that afforded on a television budget. I've always thought the TOS Andorians--best exampled by Ambassafor Shras ("Journey To Babel")--were a great alien design even by today's standards. So maybe something a bit more elaborate for the Klingons could have been, but thats not how it played out.

Also when "Errand Of Mercy" was produced it was likely considered a one-off appearance by the Klingons with no real thought given that they might be used again sometime down the road. Colico's performance probably had a lot to do with them using the Klingons again later. Indeed later when they decided to use Klingons again they kept trying to bring Colicos back but his schedule was in conflict. Hence we got the bargain basement Klingons of Season 2. Hmm...imagine Colicos instead of William Campbell in "The Trouble With Tribbles."

Klingons weren't really respectable again until Kang's appearance in third season's "Day Of The Dove."

 

[trynda1701]

Thanks for all those replies, folks. I knew that Roddenberry wouldn't have been able to influence anything much in the movies after TMP. However, the Kreeg design I only first saw about two years ago, in stills (still haven't seen either Genesis II or Planet Earth). So I now see Chang in a slightly different light! Didn't I read somewhere that Christopher Plummer had a say in his makeup for that look?

@Warped9
I agree with you, until the Andorians became major players in Enterprise, the TOS look was the best. The brief looks at Andorians in TMP and TNG didn't work for me. I was really glad that Starship Exeter went with that look for Liuetenant B'fuselek!

 

[Christopher]

Considering that it was Fred Phillips and John Colicos who largely determined the Klingon look for the series rather than Roddenberry I'd say GR had little to no real idea as to what the Klingons should look like. He looks to have simply gone with what Philips and Colicos came up with. For GR to say otherwise years later when TMP was in production is misrepresentation of what actually happened back in the day.

Whoa, wait a minute, when did Roddenberry ever say that? As far as I know, he never claimed that the TMP redesign was specifically what he'd had in mind from the start -- just that giving them a more alien look was the general sort of thing he would've liked to do if he'd had more money and more sophisticated prosthetics technology at his disposal during TOS.

So I now see Chang in a slightly different light! Didn't I read somewhere that Christopher Plummer had a say in his makeup for that look?

Yeah -- IIRC, he was uneasy with the idea of wearing heavy prosthetics, so he talked them down to a more basic makeup.

 

[BillJ]

Whoa, wait a minute, when did Roddenberry ever say that? As far as I know, he never claimed that the TMP redesign was specifically what he'd had in mind from the start -- just that giving them a more alien look was the general sort of thing he would've liked to do if he'd had more money and more sophisticated prosthetics technology at his disposal during TOS.

I could have sworn that there was an interview somewhere where Roddenberry says that was exactly how he imagined them in TOS. But I could be misremembering.

 

[Warped9]

I could have sworn that there was an interview somewhere where Roddenberry says that was exactly how he imagined them in TOS. But I could be misremembering.

I, too, recall reading about Roddenberry commenting on the TMP Klingons looking more like they were always meant to look. That does seem to suggest that he had something more specific in mind during TOS.

 

[Christopher]

I, too, recall reading about Roddenberry commenting on the TMP Klingons looking more like they were always meant to look. That does seem to suggest that he had something more specific in mind during TOS.

I think he just meant looking more alien and less low-budget, not specifically having forehead ridges. I doubt there's a single SF television producer in history who didn't wish his or her aliens, spaceships, props, sets, etc. could look more elaborate and expensive than they end up being. What ends up onscreen is usually a compromise, a trimmed and simplified version that only hints at what the creators and designers imagined. So if the maker of an SFTV show then gets a tentpole-feature budget to play with, of course he's going to say that the results are more like how he always wanted the universe to look. It's not about the specific design details, it's about not having to settle for as many compromises and half-measures and rush jobs.

 

[trynda1701]

I remember years ago reading the short story "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited" where the three main cast of Trek swap with the 'real' Kirk and co, and the actors comment on a viewscreen shot on the Bridge of two different Klingons, showing the inconsistency of the makeup they know, which now shows two 'real' different types of Klingon!

 

[STEPhon IT]

But did it had to be? DS9 should never had made the Klingons, I love, have the modern look. Then continue to go down the bowels to mock it just to make their stuff look better. Then Enterprise goes to great lengths to rewrite the culture.

I was appalled by the buffoonish reaction from O'Brien when he saw a TOS Klingon.
Human beings have different features and skin colors, how funny would it be in Trials and Tribbulations; Worf confronts a Human who appears slightly different from his knowledge of what humans look like, and he turns to O'Brien and says, "That's a human???"

These guys are supposed to be from the future and are clueless to know Klingons look that way in the TOS era??? The DS9 crew are not smart? They never read a history book? How about the Defiant crew going onto a terminal and research the events before beaming onto the station?

Instead of all of those idiotic explanations from Enterprise, I'd rather there wasn't an explanation at all; just let it be. They're just Klingons.

 

[tim0122]

These guys are supposed to be from the future and are clueless to know Klingons look that way in the TOS era??? The DS9 crew are not smart? They never read a history book?

They're a space station crew. Not historians.

 

[johnnybear]

Anything to spare us from the ENT "solution."

To be honest as someone who wasn't happy with Enterprise, I did like their reasoning on The Klingon augment virus! I still find the original Klingon look to be more scary than the newer turtle head design!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

I also wonder if they didn't do anything with Tige Andrews because of his slightly darker complexion, but then really dropped the ball with William Campbell.

I also thought Tige Andrews was excellent as a Klingon. I'd rank him only behind John Calicos and Michael Ansara for Klingons.

Well he played the part as a bit of a coward rather than the blood thirsty warrior types like Kor and Kang! Showing us that not all Klingons had honour even then!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

But did it had to be? DS9 should never had made the Klingons, I love, have the modern look. Then continue to go down the bowels to mock it just to make their stuff look better. Then Enterprise goes to great lengths to rewrite the culture.

I was appalled by the buffoonish reaction from O'Brien when he saw a TOS Klingon.
Human beings have different features and skin colors, how funny would it be in Trials and Tribbulations; Worf confronts a Human who appears slightly different from his knowledge of what humans look like, and he turns to O'Brien and says, "That's a human???"

These guys are supposed to be from the future and are clueless to know Klingons look that way in the TOS era??? The DS9 crew are not smart? They never read a history book? How about the Defiant crew going onto a terminal and research the events before beaming onto the station?

Instead of all of those idiotic explanations from Enterprise, I'd rather there wasn't an explanation at all; just let it be. They're just Klingons.

And don't forget O'Brien's annoying comments about which one is Kirk too!
JB

 

[BillJ]

These guys are supposed to be from the future and are clueless to know Klingons look that way in the TOS era???

It is a 20th century show and the characters are our view into that universe. So there has to be something in them that we recognize, or else we simply won't care.

 

[Kor]

The "those are Klingons?!" stuff from Trials and Tribble-ations was a wink-wink to the audience for laughs, just like O'Brien thinking that Shatner's stunt double was Kirk. And it was funny. I prefer to just let it slide, rather than getting worked up over such minutiae.

Kor