New EW article: Producers explain why the klingons changed http://bit.ly/2uvOovt Better photo than the other day
“We will introduce several different houses with different styles. Hopefully, fans will become more invested in the characters than worried about the redesign.” Interesting. Well, not really surprising, Klingons from different houses/families have always had different ridges.
Even more so in the full picture: https://ewedit.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/000259170hr.jpg?w=2000 Of course. There's House Lannister, House Stark, House Targaryen...
I'm very disappointed with this explanation given all the BS we've had about it all fitting in to canon. All it would've taken was a few lines explaining the change to fit them into canon alongside the previous Klingons. But this just feels flat out messing with the fans and history if it's change for the sake of it. Promising and fan Prime universe and canon consistency up until just a few days ago and then basically confirming they're taking elements and rebooting them at will seems rather silly. They should just shut up about canon and the timeline if they're rebooting elements and then just let the quality of their stories do the talking. I'm still hoping we get those few lines at some point and maybe even a more traditional Klingon from another house puts in an appearance at some point.
Nothing in the EW piece actually explains why they changed the Klingons. Nothing in it is close to that, unless the "why" is "because we felt like it."
"We felt like it" is actually a completely valid reason for creative people to change designs. Problem is: Through years and years of different iterations, trials and errors, make-up designers came up with a pretty good, universal look what klingons "should" look like, including many variations. The "new" design is not just different.That would be okay. It's notably worse than the last few incarnations - Worfs' early TNG days and Into Darkness klingons included.
If we see one, just ONE regular Klingon OR an augment-Klingon (and I'll accept them with updated designs, as long as they actually look like 'updates' and not 'completely different but kinda the same', I'll be satisfied with the different house design non-answer. Maybe in canon this house line is killed off and that's why we've never seen the Klingon Reptilians later on.
Yeah, that's not an explanation- that's an excuse. I agree that showing just one "regular" looking Klingon alongside these, then it will be easier to accept. But otherwise this is just the showrunners making changes because they felt like it. Not to mention they look like Krall from Beyond (who wasn't a Klingon, if you'll recall). There is a rich history to Trek, so many wonderful designs and ideas to be inspired by and the only good thing I've seen is the Discovery itself being based on the old McQuarrie design.
"I wanted to" is a reason, a declaration of motivation; it is not an "explanation." (Hurry, someone, run to an online dictionary for a citation to "prove" that it's an explanation. )
He explained that they 'wanted to'. Ahem, "because it is there" is not sufficient reason for climbing a mountain.
Since we have no context for the change, nor have we seen every Klingon, I have a very difficult time to objecting to some stills of a production. It's like rejecting the Phantom Menace based upon the action figures.
It is possible, though, that Krall had fed on a Klingon or two over the years...the version of him that we initially see is derived from all the aliens he's fed on. So if there's a bit of Klingon in the mix, then there's your answer.
Fuller stated last year that they would be reimagining the look of some of the aliens so they didn't make any promises about everything looking the same. They actually stated the opposite.
I've been trying to remain positive and not judge the show until we see it in action, but every new view of the Klingons looks worse than the last, as others have said. I don't like the cranium - and "houses = species" isn't the explanation I was hoping for. Sure, I guess it could be like some combination of Dune and houses having bred with specific subject species, but there was never any evidence for this house's extreme appearance in about 40 episodes of previous appearances, including about 5 full starship crews, and appearances by the High Council, Gorkon's retinue, etc. They do actually look worse than older designs. I thought the Into Darkness Klingons looked pretty cool. Like people say, maybe the show should shut up about canon, rather than leading people on. It smacks of the "this isn't Khan" controversy - if you are going to effectively reboot a species, maybe stop with the misleading signals.