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First look at Klingons in 'Star Trek: Discovery'?

I assumed nothing. People here have been outright saying that they don't think that picture shows Klingons when the guy who took the photo clearly says so.

The guy who took the photo is just an extra (that has been fired) and has since denied that they're Klingons, just that they looked like Klingons at the time to him.

EDIT: See above.

Not that I would trust him one way or another.
 
Which is non-sense. They shouldn't hire good actors because the story calls for a character to use makeup?

I remember people complaining about Nemesis wasting Ron Perlman's talents as the Viceroy because of all the makeup. Except it wasn't the makeup that was the problem. It was the script.

I dearly love TOS. But just from a straight make-up and design perspective, the original Klingons are the worst. I'd still love to see them again, but I'd just be lying to myself about them being anything but the bottom of the pile.

Heck, even Gene Roddenberry hated the TOS Klingons and thought they were just cardboard villains (which they were.)
 
Heck, even Gene Roddenberry hated the TOS Klingons and thought they were just cardboard villains (which they were.)

I like the way they were portrayed in TOS over later incarnations. But the makeup was very limited because of time and budget.
 
I dearly love TOS. But just from a straight make-up and design perspective, the original Klingons are the worst. I'd still love to see them again, but I'd just be lying to myself about them being anything but the bottom of the pile.

Maybe that's DSC's ultimate goal? To replace the blackface Mongols as the worst of the worst?

Heck, even Gene Roddenberry hated the TOS Klingons and thought they were just cardboard villains (which they were.)

And that's why, when given the chance, GR improved them in TNG. Oh, wait…
 
I dunno why people are getting so emotive over this - like I'm yet to see this horrible backlash from rabid traditionalists that people are predicting. Actually the thread has been civil - the expressed opinions have been mild - and people are entitled to be pro or against something, according to their personal tastes. The preference toward a more subtle evolution compared to a drastic change is hardly a sign of excessive closed mindedness or conservativism; actually thats a legitimate facet of graphical design - producers increasingly attempt to incorporate the art history of a design into film, games and TV these days, as Hollywood has matured from it's long lack of respect for settings, into an industry that realizes the value of the depth and history of it's properties. Sometimes you might want to ignore prior history anyway (to plot a new direction), but to suggest that any traditionalism is a sign of dogma is a pretty extreme interpretation. Let's just wait and see how the show is anyway.
 
All the discussion about the look of the Klingons changing, and no discussion of the fact that they had a complete culture transplant in TNG. How anyone can be okay with every change from TOS through the movies, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise, and suddenly proclaim "The line must be drawn HERE!" Get real.

The artistic legacy the new Star Wars movies have to live up to is six movies. Star Trek's artistic legacy is something like 750 TV episodes and thirteen movies. There's a significant difference there.

You mean, other than that they always do? They changed during TOS, for crying out loud. The amount of makeup painted on, the eyebrows. The Klingons in ST V didn't look much like the Klingons in ST III, who didn't look much like the Klingons in ST TMP. Like the saying goes, change is the only constant.

If I never again have to see another hearty longhaired, leather-armoured guy laugh boisterously over his bloodwine and rokeg blood pie while loudly relating tales of great battles and the importance of honour, you know what? I'll be fine. Honestly.

In defense of those who have been arguing that, of which I am not one by the way, let me point out that Klingon design has been unaltered for something like 85% of those 900 hours of material - across the entirety of 9 feature films, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT - so you can represent this any way you want by being selective.

And by the way, that cultural transplant you mentioned has been discussed extensively in other threads, and I agree completely - I don't want to see a return of biker gang viking Klingons.
 
I remember people complaining about Nemesis wasting Ron Perlman's talents as the Viceroy because of all the makeup. Except it wasn't the makeup that was the problem. It was the script.
An actor known for wearing prosthetics, not unlike Doug Jones, which brings me to…

Seriously, who else would they be? We already know the show revolves around the Klingons.
…Saru's people. They could be Saru's people. We don't know what he looks like.
 
All the discussion about the look of the Klingons changing, and no discussion of the fact that they had a complete culture transplant in TNG.

...

If I never again have to see another hearty longhaired, leather-armoured guy laugh boisterously over his bloodwine and rokeg blood pie while loudly relating tales of great battles and the importance of honour, you know what? I'll be fine. Honestly.

Yes, TNG ruined the Klingons completely. They were fine in TOS. The old movies portrayed them a bit worse, but still okayish. But since TNG they were a caricature in every way. Not just their looks, but also their behaviour was ridiculous. A total joke. DIS can really only improve with their Klingons in comparison.
 
Let's use an example to illustrate why I'm bothered by this.

Assume, for a moment, that it's announced tomorrow that Firefly is being resurrected with a sequel series set between the events of Objects in Space and the events of Serenity run by Ben Edlund and Jose Molina, with Tim Minear and Joss Whedon EPing the project but otherwise not involved.

Flash forward 7 or 8 months, and assume that designs have started leaking showing a Serenity that looks nothing whatsoever like the ship we saw in the series or the movie.

Do people really not see where the problem would lie?
 
I don't know that TNG destroyed them, exactly -- at the time, I found the earlier Klingon episodes fascinating. We were finally getting some proper worldbuilding for them. But it didn't take long before the writers stopped developing them and just fixated on a few of the simpler things about them, and ran them into the ground.

Let's use an example to illustrate why I'm bothered by this.

Assume, for a moment, that it's announced tomorrow that Firefly is being resurrected with a sequel series set between the events of Objects in Space and the events of Serenity run by Ben Edlund and Jose Molina, with Tim Minear and Joss Whedon EPing the project but otherwise not involved.

Flash forward 7 or 8 months, and assume that designs have started leaking showing a Serenity that looks nothing whatsoever like the ship we saw in the series or the movie.

Do people really not see where the problem would lie?

Yes, the problem is with your example. Discovery is not the return of a very specific TV series about a very specific ship and very specific characters at a very specifc time. We know what Firefly should be like. We don't know what Discovery should be like.
 
I don't know that TNG destroyed them, exactly -- at the time, I found the earlier Klingon episodes fascinating. We were finally getting some proper worldbuilding for them. But it didn't take long before the writers stopped developing them and just fixated on a few of the simpler things about them, and ran them into the ground.

The TOS Klingons were just one-dimensional cardboard Snively Whiplash villains with no development whatsoever. They certainly weren't honorable or portrayed as some venerable warrior culture. Their next major appearance, in STIII, treated them little better. Kruge and his crew were portrayed as space thugs and cold-blooded murderers. It wasn't until TNG that they began to develop their culture better, thanks to Worf being part of the crew. But then they began to be overused through DS9, VOY, and ENT to the point where they devolved back into an intergalactic biker gang. I liked their portrayal in STID and hope that they do something even better in DSC.
 
Do people really not see where the problem would lie?

The question becomes what exactly do you like about Firefly: the characters and story, or the "look"? The actors are all going to be playing much younger than the actors who have aged fifteen years.

Time moves forward, tastes, social values and technology all move forward.
 
All the discussion about the look of the Klingons changing, and no discussion of the fact that they had a complete culture transplant in TNG. How anyone can be okay with every change from TOS through the movies, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise, and suddenly proclaim "The line must be drawn HERE!" Get real.
Culture can usually not be seen in leaked photos and concept art.

The artistic legacy the new Star Wars movies have to live up to is six movies. Star Trek's artistic legacy is something like 750 TV episodes and thirteen movies. There's a significant difference there.
About two weeks of watching a screen.
 
I liked their portrayal in STID and hope that they do something even better in DSC.

But in Into Darkness, they play as little more than thugs. The look is awesome, but there simply isn't enough there to evaluate them as characters.
 
It's amazing that some people actually claim the TOS Klingons were not a horrible caricature already. Of Soviet Russia.

No, TOS Klingons really were a fully fleshed out culture, with a language, and a social system, and fleshed-out customs, and.... Oh, wait.....
 
No, TOS Klingons really were a fully fleshed out culture, with a language, and a social system, and fleshed-out customs, and.... Oh, wait.....

But is it fair to try and compare them to what came later? Klingons were featured in roughly 450 of 600+ hours of the spinoffs, while they were in seven of seventy nine episodes of TOS and never were the main characters.
 
But in Into Darkness, they play as little more than thugs. The look is awesome, but there simply isn't enough there to evaluate them as characters.

I was basing that on the cut scenes on Qo'nos with Nero in ST'09. But I suppose deleted scenes don't count.
 
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