...but the Klingons in the new movie don't resemble Klingons at all, from any movie or TV series. If it wasn't said that they were Klingons, I wouldn't have known that they were. Was there a period in Klingon history where a Volcano erupted on Qo'nos and the population was severely burned? Their heads have a cube-like shape and no ridges in this movie. What's up with that?
Obviously they have ridges.
The Klingon look was never standardized in the TOS movies and were continually updated. In TMP, they all had the same sort of standardized ridge, a sort of spine extention, coming over the forehead and ending with (if I'm remembering right) a hooked nose.
In STIII, the look was altered. The ridges were made less severe, with designs unique to each character. The hooked nose was done away with. Female Klingons had very smooth almost human heads.
It changed again for Star Trek IV and V. The foreheads were once again made standardized with all the Klingons having the same basic forehead, similar to TMP but with much smaller ridges. Actually they weren't ridges so much as dimples or indentations of each side of the forehead "spine." If you look at the Klingon ambassador, Captain Klaa, and the fat Klingon from Nimbus III, they all have the same forehead designs. The hooked nose was still gone.
STVI made bigger changes. The Klingon ambassador kept his look, but all the other Klingons sported wide variations in forehead designs. Some ridges were severe, others very smooth. Still no hooked nose.
TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT: TNG brought back the hooked nose with Worf and all subsequent Klingons on all the spinoffs. Although, as pointed out, Worf's own looks changed many times over the years. Female Klingons got a massive makeover to more closely resemble the males than they did in the TOS films.
JJ Trek: New Klingon look. Bald, ridged, and with kooky contacts.
And that doesn't even take into account the original Klingon look of TOS.
The point is, the Klingon look has always been evolving.
