Early Saru Design

[Rahul]

I prefer what we got over this

http://trekcore.com/blog/2018/05/star-trek-discovery-makeup-team-reveals-early-saru-alien-look/

IMO the multi-eyed Saru-concept art looks like it was clearly inspired by eldritch abominations, again showing Bryan Fuller's fable for that stuff (Discovery's registry being inspired by Halloween just being one more example).

Now there is precedent for that on Star Trek: Spock himself(!) was originally designed to look like the devil incarnated.

That being said: I CLEARLY prefer the finished version.
Now here is the thing about final on-screen Saru: I think his alien design looks very generic Star Trek. Like, he could have been a regular one-off Voyager alien, or on Enterprise where they usually had slightly more complicated make-up if they had a singular alien guest appereance.

But it works. Great. Because it allows Doug Jones to act. And his performance is magnificent. Every move of his body, but also, his face. That makes Saru not a great alien design. But a great character. Saru on a still doesn't look too impressive. Seeing Saru in action, he's magnificent!

Easily one of my favourite addition to Trek aliens. More than, say, Denobulans or Talaxians or Bajorans. Just his fear boner...erm threat ganglia is something I wish they would have left out. Maybe they can add more CGI-enhancements in the future. Inflatable blowfish-like gills maybe? Gimme' more Saru anyday!

There is an io9-article with a bit more infos
https://io9.gizmodo.com/feast-your-eyes-on-star-trek-discoverys-saru-original-1826484979

Interesting tidbits:

• They scratched Sarus original design a mere two(!) weeks before filming, and started completely from scratch on him! Well one, good job. But by god must that have been a shitshow behind the scenes!
• That also means, Bryan Fuller had absolutely no input for the final version of Saru, but is fully responsible for the mullrat klingon design, and wanted Saru to have this weird Lovecraftian design. Considering Saru is so far DIS' only addition to the Trek lore I REALLY love, maybe Fuller's original version for the show seems more and more plagued as well - not just from executive meddling, but him seriously being in over his head

 

[XCV330]

http://makemegoogly.com/CP547

 

[BillJ]

They were definitely wise to ditch that early makeup. Too bad they didn't ditch the new Klingon look as well.

 

[Spider]

Saru's makeup went from laughably horrid to just horrid.

 

[Tuskin38]

Why isn't there a disagree button.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

... But by god must that have been a shitshow behind the scenes!

As opposed to the utter shitshow we got on-screen. I think filming the Saru redesign would have been more entertaining. It certainly would have made more sense.

 

[ALF]

Christ, all those eyes are nightmare fuel.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I prefer what we got over this

http://trekcore.com/blog/2018/05/star-trek-discovery-makeup-team-reveals-early-saru-alien-look/

Holy crap that's creepy AF.

 

[Tuskin38]

As opposed to the utter shitshow we got on-screen. I think filming the Saru redesign would have been more entertaining. It certainly would have made more sense.

You sound fun

 

[Arpy]

I don't mind the many eyes if they could animate them sufficiently ($$$), but I don't like 1) how plasticky the concept looked (still a problem in the final version), and 2) how normally humanoid the rest of him looks. The second one, especially, strains my suspension-of-disbelief, and the two together shatter it.

 

[CorporalClegg]

TNG/VOY covered them well enough.

No. They took Pillar's original idea and completely shat on it.

The Borg are easily the single biggest nugget of wasted potential in the entire franchise.

 

[Lord Garth]

No. They took Pillar's original idea and completely shat on it.

The Borg are easily the single biggest nugget of wasted potential in the entire franchise.

If we're really going to go there, then the Borg should've just sent more Cubes after "The Best of Both Worlds". The reality where Riker had the crazy beard in "Parallels" should've been what happened.

Or the Borg Collective decides the United Federation of Planets is unworthy of assimilation. The End.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

You sound fun

Yep, a barrel of laughs. At least we've got you to pedantically defend every misstep this iteration of the franchise makes. So kudos there.

And the Borg were such a wasted opportunity to give the Federation a believable existential threat.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Looks like something I saw in a Vertigo title, maybe Hellblazer.

 

[lawman]

Thank goodness someone thought better about the Saru design. Multiple eyes like that almost unavoidably invoke spiders, and that's just too damn creepy for any character that's supposed to be at all sympathetic.

Moving on, I definitely don't want to see the Borg in DSC. Especially if the thinking involved is like this...

"Go to [H.R.] Geiger and steampunk and find a way to combine it..."​

Oh, gods no. That is not the kind of look the Trek universe needs, not by a long shot.

And then there's this...

"...definitely – as many times as I can put it forth – I want to get one of those refrigeration suits off and see what the Breen look like."​

So obviously someone is completely unfamiliar with what Treklit has done with the Breen (i.e., they don't have any single look under those suits, because Breen society is a multi-species construct).

 

[Succubint]

Whoa. So glad they scrapped that design. Much prefer what we did get. I can't even fathom how Doug was supposed to see well enough to act decently in action scenes. That multiple bug-eye concept would have made it hard to relate to the character, in my opinion. And when actors have to wear full face alien prosthetics, the eyes are so important in terms of conveying emotion or nuance.

 

[Arpy]

Thank goodness someone thought better about the Saru design. Multiple eyes like that almost unavoidably invoke spiders, and that's just too damn creepy for any character that's supposed to be at all sympathetic.

Moving on, I definitely don't want to see the Borg in DSC. Especially if the thinking involved is like this...

"Go to [H.R.] Geiger and steampunk and find a way to combine it..."​

Oh, gods no. That is not the kind of look the Trek universe needs, not by a long shot.

And then there's this...

"...definitely – as many times as I can put it forth – I want to get one of those refrigeration suits off and see what the Breen look like."​

So obviously someone is completely unfamiliar with what Treklit has done with the Breen (i.e., they don't have any single look under those suits, because Breen society is a multi-species construct).

The Geiger influence sounds good to me, for the nightmarish Borg, but why in God's name they choose to do a prequel, then skip to the future to further dilute a once-great enemy, I just don't get.

I like the idea of the Breen remaining a mystery in canon and would hope they make them even more WTF(!) mysterious instead of less. That said, I'd be happy if they went another route with the Breen, if they did something as interesting as the books. Just making a random alien to stick under the mask would be underwhelming.

 

[seigezunt]

I wonder if concerns about viewers with Trypophobia helped nix that early design.

 

[Tuskin38]

So obviously someone is completely unfamiliar with what Treklit has done with the Breen

Well this is the TV universe, I doubt they care much what the novels did.

 

[lawman]

They're not bound by the licensed material, no. But as @Arpy commented, what the books have done with the Breen is interesting; just sticking some arbitrary alien design under the masks wouldn't be.