Klingons appearance - history repeats itself

[Greg Cox]

The general impression I've been taking from this discussion is that the redesign is unnecessary and should not have been done at all.

I don't know. The impression I'm getting is that there is no consensus on this issue at all. It bothers some of us, who insist on an in-universe explanation, but not those of us whose reaction is basically:

"They changed the Klingons' makeup again? Been there, done that. When are the new episodes airing again?"

I'm also thinking that this ship has sailed, so there's not much point in worrying about how to "fix" it.

 

[Lord Garth]

They'll eventually change the make-up again. Someone will say, "We want to go in a different direction." So, they'll either try yet another design or someone who grew up with TNG will be in charge and they'll want to go back to the "regular" 1979-2005 look.

Changing and tweaking the Klingon make-up is like eating Pringles. "Once you start, you can't stop."

 

[Nerys Myk]

They'll eventually change the make-up again. Someone will say, "We want to go in a different direction." So, they'll either try yet another design or someone who grew up with TNG will be in charge and they'll want to go back to the "regular" 1979-2005 look.

Changing and tweaking the Klingon make-up is like eating Pringles. Once you start, you can't stop.

And someone will be moaning for the good old days of the DISCO Klingons (aka the real Klingons)

 

[Philip Guyott]

I am not a big fan of the redesign, yet it could have been a lot worst.
Take St. Nicholas for example.

First, he was a TOS era Klingon:

Then he was changed to a TNG era Klingon:

Then he was redesigned into, well whatever the hell this is!

 

[Terok Nor]

I doubt this version of the Klingons will last beyond Discovery. The TMP/TNG variations are widely recognised as the "real" Klingons and will more than likely be back once Discovery ends. You can't just erase the fandom and culture that's built up around them since 1979. Klingons are as much a part of Star Trek as Vulcans, Starfleet, and all the other iconic parts of the franchise. It was pointless and idiotic to change their look so drastically at this point in time. A handful of TOS episodes can't possibly compare to the exposure the TMP/TNG Klingons have had so I don't consider it comparable in the slightest.

Aside all that, the makeup is just bad. The actors can barely move their mouths and are incapable of showing expression. It's not pleasing visually or performance wise. The crap and boring writing for them didn't help either. I hope to see less of them in future seasons due to this.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The TMP/TNG variations are widely recognised as the "real" Klingons and will more than likely be back once Discovery ends.

What ever form the Klingons take after DISCO, they will be their own variation. They'll take ideas from what came before and do their own spin, just as every Klingon design has since TMP, just as DISCO did.

 

[Greg Cox]

I A handful of TOS episodes can't possibly compare to the exposure the TMP/TNG Klingons have had so I don't consider it comparable in the slightest.

Again, those "handful" of episodes aired continuously in reruns for over a decade, burning themselves into the brains of an entire generation of Trekkies for whom those were the only and only Klingons. So, if anything, the 1979 revamp was a bigger change for us than the DISCO Klingons, who are only the latest in a string of Klingon revamps, counting the modern stuff, the reboot movies, etc.

There's no such thing as a "real" Klingon. Just depends on what you grew up on.

 

[Terok Nor]

Again, those "handful" of episodes aired continuously in reruns for over a decade, burning themselves into the brains of an entire generation of Trekkies for whom those were the only and only Klingons. So, if anything, the 1979 revamp was a bigger change for us than the DISCO Klingons, who are only the latest in a sting of Klingon revamps, counting the modern stuff, the reboot movies, etc.

There's no such thing as a "real" Klingon. Just depends on what you grew up on.

I grew up on both. 700 episodes in the can and the handful featuring TOS Klingons simply can't compare to the hundreds featuring Worf and company. I love both but the TMP/TNG version is the iconic version. It superseded the TOS version in all regards. It's hard to believe there are many people who don't picture the TMP/TNG version when the word "Klingon" is mentioned.

Another aside, it would be impossible to feature a fully fleshed out and developed Klingon character under all that rubber. It's just not practical or beneficial and that's why it won't last. J.G. Hertzler, Robert O'Reilly, Michael Dorn, Christopher Plummer and so many more actors would have been crippled wearing the Mutant Klingon make-up. I'm certain it won't last because actors require their faces and mouths to act. I'm sure this variation will be short lived and the familiar iteration of Klingons (or one close to it) will return.

 

[Greg Cox]

I grew up on both. 700 episodes in the can and the handful featuring TOS Klingons simply can't compare to the hundreds featuring Worf and company. I love both but the TMP/TNG version is the iconic version. It superseded the TOS version in all regards. It's hard to believe there are many people who don't picture the TMP/TNG version when the word "Klingon" is mentioned.
.

Perhaps but you're looking back from the perspective of 2018, where, yes, a whole generation grew up on the TNG Klingons. But I'm talking about our perspective back in 1979, when the STAR TREK (not "TOS") Klingons were the only Klingons any of us had ever known for our entire lives. So, yes, when we heard the word "Klingon" mentioned, we thought of Kang and Kor and Koloth and that crowd. That's what a Klingon was as far as any of us were concerned. So it was just as a big a change back then.

By contrast, the DISCO revamp seems like a no big deal because now we're used to the Klingons getting revamped every generation or so. It's just standard operating procedure.

 

[Nerys Myk]

By contrast, the DISCO revamp seems like a no big deal because now we're used to the Klingons getting revamped every generation or so. It's just standard operating procedure.

Or even movie to movie or character to character.

 

[Terok Nor]

Perhaps but you're looking back from the perspective of 2018, where, yes, a whole generation grew up on the TNG Klingons. But I'm talking about our perspective back in 1979, when the STAR TREK (not "TOS") Klingons were the only Klingons any of us had ever known for our entire lives. So, yes, when we heard the word "Klingon" mentioned, we thought of Kang and Kor and Koloth and that crowd. That's what a Klingon was as far as any of us were concerned. So it was just as a big a change back then.

By contrast, the DISCO revamp seems like a no big deal because now we're used to the Klingons getting revamped every generation or so. It's just standard operating procedure.

Not quite. There were 79 episodes of Star Trek when TMP came out. Star Trek itself had only been around for less than 15 years and the Klingons had minimal exposure. I don't think it compares at all to the TMP/TNG Klingons who stuck around and at the forefront of Trek for decades after their redesign. It's a bigger ask this time around because we know the Klingons inside out at this point. They were two dimensional bad guys in TOS apart from Kang and Kor who had some character development beyond being villain of the week.

My biggest issue actually is that the Disco design is impractical compared to the more well known TMP/TNG one. All I can think of is the bombastic Robert O'Reilly or Christopher Plummer being suffocated in Disco Klingon make-up and rendering their memorable performances obsolete. This redesign hasn't worked. I don't accept it and I'll be glad to see it forgotten when Discovery ends.

 

[Dukhat]

I grew up on both. 700 episodes in the can and the handful featuring TOS Klingons simply can't compare to the hundreds featuring Worf and company. I love both but the TMP/TNG version is the iconic version. It superseded the TOS version in all regards. It's hard to believe there are many people who don't picture the TMP/TNG version when the word "Klingon" is mentioned.

I think what Greg means is that it's not about how many episodes they were featured in. It has to do with twenty years of constant TOS reruns and having those oily mustachioed humans seared into our brains. Even TMP only showed the 'new' Klingons for only five minutes, and then we didn't see Klingons again until STIII. At that time, that was all we had as far as Klingons went. Yes, by the present day most people picture Klingons as the TNG type (branched off from TMP & STIII), but during the '70's and '80's it was TOS as far as the look went.

 

[Terok Nor]

Or even movie to movie or character to character.

They pretty much look the same from TMP to Nemesis. Everything that differed was a variation on the same theme. Not all humans look the same either but we don't have a sub species who look like Mutants living alongside us.

 

[Spot261]

The general impression I've been taking from this discussion is that the redesign is unnecessary and should not have been done at all.

Not completely, as has been mentioned upthread, some of us have pretty much just shrugged and not been that concerned either way. There's even the odd person who likes it.

 

[Greg Cox]

I think what Greg means is that it's not about how many episodes they were featured in. It has to do with twenty years of constant TOS reruns and having those oily mustachioed humans seared into our brains. Even TMP only showed the 'new' Klingons for only five minutes, and then we didn't see Klingons again until STIII. At that time, that was all we had as far as Klingons went. Yes, by the present day most people picture Klingons as the TNG type (branched off from TMP & STIII), but during the '70's and '80's it was TOS as far as the look went.

Exactly. Seventy-nine eps may seem like a drop in the bucket now, but that was the entire canon prior to TMP. So, yeah, those 79 eps were kind of a big deal when it came to shaping what we thought of as STAR TREK--and Klingons. TOS wasn't just one Trek show out of many, and those Klingons weren't just one design out of others . There had only been one STAR TREK for as long as any of us has been alive.

So when they changed the Klingons in TMP, they were contradicting every single Klingon episode that had ever aired.

Imagine the reaction to that nowadays.

To put it another way, because we're starting to repeat ourselves, the argument that "the TMP Klingons are the 'real' Klingons because they appeared in way more episodes and movies" did not apply in 1979.

So back then, it was just as big a deal as the latest revamp because we had nothing else to compare it to.

 

[Nerys Myk]

They pretty much look the same from TMP to Nemesis. Everything that differed was a variation on the same theme. Not all humans look the same either but we don't have a sub species who look like Mutants living alongside us.

DISCO is also a variation on that theme. The main "theme" being ridges.
TMP Klingons are pretty distinct with their large single ridge that seems continue down the back of the head and their "bobbed" hair. The Klingons we see in Heart of Glory look a lot like Kruge and his crew from TSFS ( and of course reused the costumes), but after that Westmore goes off on his own tangent with wilder and wilder hair and more complex ridge patterns. The movies on the other hand keep the ridges simple.
Koord (movies) and K'Mpec (TV) are play by the same actor but there is a different approach to the make up.

 

[Arpy]

I don't mind them tweaking make-up -- a hell, I expect them to, to showcase the latest makeup advances -- but when you glue basketballs around someone's head, it just doesn't allow for easy reality. The fact that they're static, vaguely racist, basketballs doesn't help either.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Racist????

 

[Nightowl1701]

*rolls eyes* These days, what isn't racist?

 

[Nerys Myk]

*rolls eyes* These days, what isn't racist?

Plenty of stuff.