I would have left him normal, but had him wear a Klingon uniform and pose as a member of the Gr'oth's crew with no mention of the fact that he looks very different from the others.
Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter NewHeavensNewEarth
- Start date
Turning Worf into a TOS Klingon would've broken the fourth wall and ruined any sense of immersion.
Nah, just go with the way they actually did it. ENT's explanation might be dumb to some but Trek is full of things that either go unexplained or don't make sense until future writers or the fans solve the mysteries. The fact that the Klingon head ridge explanation is still so controversial nearly 18 years later tells me that the producers made a good and a fun decision and I still like the explanation. 
It's Trek. It doesn't have to make sense to everyone in order for it to work. And the best thing is it doesn't violate in-universe continuity in either direction.
It's Trek. It doesn't have to make sense to everyone in order for it to work. And the best thing is it doesn't violate in-universe continuity in either direction.
That would have been my preference. I know many fans feel like it was a needed explanation. I personally am not one of them. Treating the Klingons as "they always looked that way" from TMP forward, and having Worf look like a TOS Klingon would have been just as fun.
Star Trek is rife with small little incongruities. The difference now is that fans demand explanations from the show rather than engaging with the material to create their own. Unpopular opinion: I think fans are less creative now than ever before.
Thankfully the creators solved the Klingon mystery themselves.
That has not stopped the complaining.
Let them. If I have to live with a DSC and SNW Enterprise I'm not entirely comfortable with they can live with the Klingon head ridges being explained.
I have no problem with Riker looking like a cartoon when he shows up on Lower Decks, but if the DS9 crew had travelled into the events of More Troubles, More Tribbles instead of The Trouble with Tribbles, I would've wanted it to look it to look like the live action Enterprise. They're not disappearing into someone else's show, they're going back in time.
Of course they can live.
It would just be nice if there was a measure of radical acceptance rather than bitching.
That won't happen.
Oh please - ALL Star Trek from TOS to TNG had ships CONSTANTLY moving at the "speed of plot". Hell, in the final episode f TNG - we have the 1701-D travelling from Earth to the Romulan Neutral zone in a matter of HOURS - when previously (in both TOS and TNG) - even subspace messages were said to take 3 hours to reach Starfleet Command.
TNG was no more consistent with Warp Speeds than TOS was 19 years earlier. As always, EVERYTHING was done in service to whatever story they were telling at the time.
It could've been a different part of a very large neutral zone!
This is silly, because there's always been aspects of dramatic presentation within Trek that didn't happen within universe. This includes:
- Mood lighting which wouldn't be functional on a starship
- Music scoring in general (clearly not happening in the Trekverse)
- Recasting of key characters (are we supposed to believe someone got plastic surgery between seasons)
- The universal translator also causing lips to match up with translated dialogue (and not translating random words when required (see Klingons in TNG/DS9).
Hell, they couldn't even keep straight which time period the show was supposed to take place in, with various episodes placing things as early as 22nd century or as late as the 28th.
But when the DS9 crew go back in time to TOS they still have moody lighting, non-diegetic music, translator lipsync and no one's been recast. We're still in DS9's world, with the established rules.
Hell, the only time Star Trek was actually consistent with warp speed "rules" was in that terrible, awful, no-good not-real-Trek Discovery.
In Vaulting Ambition, Burnham took a shuttle at Warp 1 to the Emperors's ship that was about 27 million kilometers away. The shuttle spent about 90 seconds at warp in the scene, which is incidentally approximately the time needed to travel 27 million kilometers at light speed.
Huh? TOS was the only Star Trek series that started not knowing when it actually took place?
From the TNG pilot episode - "Encounter At Farpoint":
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/101.htm
And remember in TNG S1 - "Datalore":
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/114.htm
So, assuming Data went right into the Academy at that time, and took 4 years to graduate, and graduated in 2378; adding 22 years to that would place the first episode of TNG in the year 2400 - aka the 25th century.
And I hear you say: "But in all the lead up material and promos - they always said: 'In the 24th century..."
Well, IF we instead say Data graduated in 2278, ; adding 22 years to that would place the first episode of TNG in the year 2300 - aka the exact start of 24th century.
Of course - they finally figured it out by episode 26 - TNG S1 - "The Neutral Zone:"
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/126.htm
Yep - want to talk about the bulletproof 'consistency' of TNG some more?
Yeah, the "Class of '78" line would only work if Season 1 of TNG were set between 2379 and 2399 or Data was well over a hundred years old and graduated from Starfleet Academy during the TOS Era or the movies. And by the time of "Datalore" it was clearly established that Data wasn't even discovered and reactivated until 26 years prior to that episode.
They did go out of their way to film it as much like a TOS episode as possible, and specifically hired a director who could film it as if it was 1967. They would've included a retro soundtrack if Rick Berman hadn't vetoed it. Ronald D. Moore even wanted to redo both the opening and end credits in TOS style, complete with still frames and the TOS end credits theme in the latter one, until cooler heads prevailed. The sets were purposefully built to blend into the TOS episode down to the lighting scheme, the additions to the bar brawl used a retro '60s fight choreography instead of a Hong Kong-influenced modern one, and they even went as far as to film the whole thing on a different than usual, '60s style, slower speed film stock with finer grain and different color saturation properties and retro lenses on the cameras because the new inserts would've visibly contrasted with the original TOS scenes otherwise.
