Do you like the Discovery Klingon look?

[Nerys Myk]

The look doesn't particularly bother me, although some aspects of it wouldn't be my first choice. The biggest failing was seemingly robbing the performers of the ability to act relatively unimpeded. Whether that's from the large prosthetics, the teeth, the voice modulation, a deliberate "Klingon performance style" or all of the above, I don't know. But something went wrong.

They also multiplied the nostrils, changed the ears, extended and pointed the skull, and corrugated the neck and throat. Not saying they shouldn't have, just that it was a bit more involved than just alopecia and forehead ridges.

That's what I meant by reinforced. Boney ridges are a defining characteristic. They applied that to other parts of the body.
Klingon ears were just the actors ears, when they could be seen. Often they were obscured by hair.
The nostrils seem to be an extrapolation the seam between the nose appliance and the actor's nose as seen in the TNG make up.
The DISCO redesign is more inline with TMP, than what came later.

 

[Jadeb]

Well, it can't be all for all. The MU should have been saved for Season 2. But, that's a story choice not a design choice. The Klingons demonstrated that a familiar alien race could be expanded upon and made to feel more diverse.

I like the idea of “expanded” and “diverse,” but that implies that the new co-exists with the old, which season one doesn’t really suggest. I suspect they would have had an easier time getting fan buy-in if it had.

 

[Dukhat]

It's not that radical. It's just building on the bumpy head look that's been with us since TMP. A look that's always evolving. And sometimes devolving. The post TMP TOS movies seemed to pull back a bit on things like crazy bumps and teeth, while on TV they leaned into it.

A FIELD GUIDE TO KLINGONS​

I’m only seeing three distinct Klingon types here (and taking into account more than just faces): the TOS Klingons, the TMP-and-after Klingons, and the DSC Klingons. The 12 examples shown here minus T’Kuvma are just nitpicking minimal differences between the two former types.

 

[fireproof78]

I like the idea of “expanded” and “diverse,” but that implies that the new co-exists with the old, which season one doesn’t really suggest. I suspect they would have had an easier time getting fan buy-in if it had.

I don't see any reason to assume the old can't exist beside the new. To me they exist all together in broader strokes, even if the visuals don't hang together personally. The Klingons are more interesting because of Discovery and less interesting without it.

Mileage will vary.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I’m only seeing three distinct Klingon types here (and taking into account more than just faces): the TOS Klingons, the TMP-and-after Klingons, and the DSC Klingons. The 12 examples shown here are just nitpicking minimal differences between the two former types.

It was an example of the different approaches to the make up
In TOS you have Kor and Kang with the heavy eyebrows and greasepaint. Kras who's just a human with weird facial hair and a combover. Koloth who's a human with a goatee. In the latter two they didn't even bother with the eyebrows. The rest of Koloth's crew had the same look. They didn't bother with the greasepaint either. With Kang I think they double downed on the greasepaint and eyebrows to make up for it.
TMP had the single vertebra type ridge that runs front to back and includes the nose. The hair seems to be only on the sides. And they have teeth appliances.
In the later movies they alter the ridges to be less like vertebrae and spread out across the forehead but have a elegance to them. They also ditch the nosepiece and teeth. By the time we get to TUC, we have Klingons like Chang and Azetbur with less prominent ridges. They're also quite well coiffed .
On TV, they bring back the nose piece and teeth and the ridges become more elaborate. Winding up with K'Pec who looks like he has a relief map of the Rocky Mountains glued to his forehead or Gowron who forehead looks like, well I'm not allowed to say in polite company. The hair also gets crazy. Hair metal crazy.
I covered DISCO in my response to Tosk.
Or at least that's my take.

 

[Sci]

I didn't like the DIS Klingons at first but I've grown to like them. I do agree with Bryan Fuller that TNG-style Klingons had become too familiar; they needed to be scarier for DIS's story of war to work. Even when I didn't like the new design, I appreciated seeing DIS being willing to experiment and take creative risks.

I have no problem with the use of Klingon dialogue and wish we saw that more often. These guys are aliens, and also we the audience are more than capable of reading subtitles.

And all it would have taken was a few lines of dialogue to elaborate on it. It could have been said in an exchange between L’Rell & Burnham. Here’s an example.

L’Rell:“Klingons on a whole don’t like Archer and everything he stands for, but its thanks to him and that Denobulan doctor of his that the Klingon Empire ended its centuries long stagnation and unleashed creativity and a cultural renaissance not seen since the days of Kahless.”

Burnham: “How?”

L’Rell: “By treating the worst bout of Levodian flu the Empire had ever seen on Qu’Vat colony. Human blood being added to the Klingon gene pool to create this treatment caused the Klingon Empire to withdraw into our borders, and forced us to re-evaluate our priorities beyond cranial reconstruction.”

Burnham: “So that’s why the Federation from its inception did not hear from the Klingons for 60 years.”

L’Rell: “Consequently for the Federation, we were culturally awakened to such an extent that when you sent vessels to re-establish contact in one of your expansionist efforts and we opened fire on them, you interpreted our response as being quite hostile and that we were in a state of war. Even though, in our very first meeting with Archer, opening fire on him and his crew would have been the appropriate Klingon response to a first contact, as a symbol of strength. But the Emperor at the time was a dotard and his behaviour was unKlingon. The Levodian flu and Archer changed the Empire for the better.”

I'm sorry, but no. Just no. Paragraphs and paragraphs of pointless exposition. This just kills any sense of dramatic tension.

If DIS had to explain it -- which it didn't; ST has completely changed the look of aliens without explanation multiple times -- then the explanation should have been this:

PERSON 1: "That's a Klingon?"

PERSON 2: "Certain Klingon Houses have been using genetic engineering for a hundred years now to breed better warriors, to compensate for the effects of the Augment virus."

That's it. If you have to explain it -- which you don't -- keep it short and snappy. The only reason exposition should be any longer than it absolutely has to be is if the exposition ties into characterization in some way.

Discovery’s reluctance to elaborate on the change of appearances was lazy.

Weird how no one ever says this about DS9 changing the look of the Trill with no explanation, or ENT changing the look of the Andorians and Tellarites (do they have cloven hands or not??) with no explanation, or TNG totally changing the look of the Romulans with no explanation, or....

 

[fireproof78]

Weird how no one ever says this about DS9 changing the look of the Trill with no explanation, or ENT changing the look of the Andorians and Tellarites (do they have cloven hands or not??) with no explanation, or TNG totally changing the look of the Romulans with no explanation, or....

I believe this illustrates my ongoing conclusion from repeated observation that modern Trek is expected to be expository rather than natural, and that character interaction should not feel like normal human interaction.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I really liked the Discovery version of the Klingons, looks-wise. My only gripe was when they spoke, they sounded like they had a mouth full of marbles.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I really liked the Discovery version of the Klingons, looks-wise. My only gripe was when they spoke, they sounded like they had a mouth full of marbles.

"Ash Tyler" sounded the same when he spoke Klingon, so I wonder if it was more than the appliance.

 

[Tosk]

Weird how no one ever says this about DS9 changing the look of the Trill with no explanation, or ENT changing the look of the Andorians and Tellarites (do they have cloven hands or not??) with no explanation, or TNG totally changing the look of the Romulans with no explanation, or....

I disagree that no one ever says any of those things.

 

[Jadeb]

High on the list of my hobbyhorses is how dumb it was to redesign the Romulans when the whole point of their first appearance was that they look like Vulcans. That’s also what makes them interesting.

I can moan about that more often, if you like.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I disagree that no one ever says any of those things.

True, Every new design has had detractors. There is a fan review of TMP where the author has some very familiar complaints about the Klingon revamp.

 

[NCC-73515]

Given the wide range of how individual humans look, it makes since that there would be a wide range of Klingons.

Sure, don't we all know these people who don't have earlobes, but webbed ears, and our friends with 4 nostrils, and our fellow co-workers with claws instead of fingers, and our celebrities with their banana xenomorph heads...

Hyperbole. All they did was lose the hair and reinforce the more alien aspects like the ridges.

see above

 

[jackoverfull]

Tie at 6-6-6 so far. Fascinating.

High on the list of my hobbyhorses is how dumb it was to redesign the Romulans when the whole point of their first appearance was that they look like Vulcans. That’s also what makes them interesting.

agreed, that was incredibly stupid. Especially as they only showed the bumpy ones but still had Spock roam around on Romulus. The Picard retcon was very welcome.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I prefer the Into Darkness Klingon costumes but like the Discovery look for the species better.

 

[Gov Kodos]

True, Every new design has had detractors. There is a fan review of TMP where the author has some very familiar complaints about the Klingon revamp.

The complaints were out and loud in the lobby after the movie when I went to see TMP on the first day. The Klingons didn't look right, the movie was rehashed episodes, the uniforms looked like pajamas...

Same complaints with each of the different productions.

This has all happened before.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Why bog down the show with unneeded explanations? Did TMP grind to a halt so Crewman Exposition could explain why Klingons looked different?

It was billed as a prequel to TOS. Prequels require an overarching structure more than sequels, or fandom will complain about canon.

I don’t claim that my idea is perfect. But when its been established by Spock that there has been 70 years of hostilities between the Federation and Klingons, and Picard states that first contact with Klingons led to decades of war and the catalyst of doing surveillance before first contact. And then we see Archer make first contact with the Klingons and no war breaks out (either Klingons/Starfleet or Klingon/Suliban), and then in DIS we see a radical redesign of the Klingons and their ships and Georgiou is says that no one has see Klingons in 100 years when they should had run ins for the past 30, why not try to address all of those loose threads?

And if DIS was willing to bring up Archer, it should have prepared a reasonable link between the two shows, like what @Tim Thomason suggested above. Instead of shallow ENT references.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Why bog down the show with unneeded explanations? Did TMP grind to a halt so Crewman Exposition could explain why Klingons looked different?

I never needed an explanation for what was obviously just upgraded budgets and SFX technology. Personally I wouldn't have went for purple or bald but it's not a big deal.
The one real problem that goes beyond personal design choices is the lack of movement it gave. T'rell in particular moved like she had a bad neck injury

 

[The Wormhole]

Prequels require an overarching structure more than sequels, or fandom will complain about canon.

This is Star Trek, Fandom will complain about canon regardless of what is or isn't done.

 

[fireproof78]

High on the list of my hobbyhorses is how dumb it was to redesign the Romulans when the whole point of their first appearance was that they look like Vulcans. That’s also what makes them interesting.

I can moan about that more often, if you like.

Please. Consistency is important.

The complaints were out and loud in the lobby after the movie when I went to see TMP on the first day. The Klingons didn't look right, the movie was rehashed episodes, the uniforms looked like pajamas...

Same complaints with each of the different productions.

This has all happened before.

Yup. Except, TMP is still true Trek, somehow.

why not try to address all of those loose threads?

That wasn't the point of the story told.