Klingon forehead problem - Romulan forehead problem

[Shat Happens]

I just noticed in TOS the Klingons have regular foreheads, but from TMP onrward, they have cranial ridges.

Just kidding.

What I just noticed is 1) in TNG the Romulans have a distinct forehead makeup, that TOS Romulans don't. And 2) It's exactly the same case as it was with the Klingons.

So why the fandom and everyone else didn't pay so much attention to the Romulans as to the Klingons, (the producers found the need to include a scene in Trials and Tribblelations and make 3 entire episodes of ENT, and with the Romulans nobody gave a shit)?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IIRC, the Romulan foreheads are due to Reman influence.

 

[Melakon]

I don't know about fandom in general, but when I saw the New and Improved Romulans in TNG: The Neutral Zone, my reaction was "Why the hell did they do that?"

 

[The Wormhole]

The Romulan foreheads are likely are racial thing among the Romulans, as in not all Romulans have ridges. To support this theory:

-90% of Romulans wore helmets anyway. For all we know, some of them could have had ridges.

-In Unification Spock walked freely on Romulus without anyone stopping him and asking "why don't you have ridges?"

 

[Richard Baker]

The 'Proto-Vulcans' in "Who Watches The Watchers" had the Romulan ridges as well.

I guess, like Odan in 'The Host', ‎Trill's sometimes have them, sometimes just those giraffe spots.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I suddenly want Ruffles potato chips.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, most of the Romulans we saw in the 23rd century were wearing helmets that covered their foreheads, with only a few exceptions: The Commander and Centurion in "Balance of Terror," the Commander and Subcommander Tal in "The Enterprise Incident," Xerius in "The Time Trap," the Commander in "The Survivor," the Commander and a background crewman in "The Practical Joker," Ambassador Caithlin Dar in ST V, and Ambassador Nanclus and several Camp Khitomer delegates in ST VI. And we know that some smooth-headed Romulans still exist in the 24th century; even before we saw Nero and his Narada crew, we saw that Spock was able to impersonate a Romulan without needing forehead makeup, suggesting that there must have still been Romulans who were indistinguishable from Vulcans.

So I've always tended to assume that in the 23rd century, the smooth-headed minority became politically dominant and occupied most of the high-ranking roles like command officers and diplomats, while the ridge-browed ones were all in the background wearing those helmets that happened to hide their foreheads. Whereas by the 24th century, the minority had lost power and was found mainly in the working classes, like Nero's mining crew.

 

[Shat Happens]

IRL, the helmets were used in Balance of Terror to hide the actor's ears so they wouldn't all have to have pointy ears and save money (apparently ears are more expensive than helmets).

Of course, in that episode, Romulans looking like Vulcans was a plot point.

There's a theory TNG producers think stupid audience would mistake Romulans for Vulcans, so they invented the ridges. (at the same time, they decided all Romuland have the same hairstyle as Nimoy)

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't know about fandom in general, but when I saw the New and Improved Romulans in TNG: The Neutral Zone, my reaction was "Why the hell did they do that?"

I think it was for audiences to easily distinguish Romulans from Vulcans, but--IMO--the original point of them in TOS was that Romulans and Vulcans were indistinguishable from another except in their mannerisms.

How to originally tell a Romulan from a Vulcan:

• A Vulcan may lecture you.
• A Romulan may shoot you.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

The Romulan 'problem' isn't necessarily even a problem at all. It could easily be within the normal genetic deviation of Romulans to have highly pronounced ridges or ridges so small they're effectively invisible (compare, for instance, the facial structure of a Pug with that of a Whippet - but they're still the same species).

For a long time, the Klingon problem didn't really have to be a problem, either, but the writers back themselves into a corner when they started reusing specific characters who had been shown on TOS in vaguely mongolian looking makeup and then 100 years later all of a sudden their skin is 20 shades darker, their forehead has a built in helmet and their obviously human teeth are suddenly very non-human.

 

[Christopher]

There's a theory TNG producers think stupid audience would mistake Romulans for Vulcans, so they invented the ridges.

Unlikely, considering that there had hardly been any Vulcan characters in TNG at that point (the admiral Henry Darrow played in "Conspiracy" is the only one I can think of). The reason for it is probably the same reason behind the Klingon redesign in the movies: because now that they had more sophisticated makeup technology, they were free to make aliens look more distinctive than they had in TOS. Yes, maybe they did want to differentiate the Romulans from Vulcans more, but that was probably just because they could, or because Michael Westmore wanted to put his own creative stamp on the design.

For a long time, the Klingon problem didn't really have to be a problem, either, but the writers back themselves into a corner when they started reusing specific characters who had been shown on TOS in vaguely mongolian looking makeup and then 100 years later all of a sudden their skin is 20 shades darker, their forehead has a built in helmet and their obviously human teeth are suddenly very non-human.

Well, even then, the implicit explanation was the one Roddenberry asked fans to accept when TMP came out: That the Klingons had always had ridges and TOS just hadn't shown it correctly. Since "Blood Oath" didn't acknowledge any change in Kor, Koloth, and Kang's appearance, the implication was that they'd looked this way all along. (Note that DC's TOS comic did the same thing a decade earlier: In its debut storyline in 1984, it portrayed both Koloth and Kor as TMP-style Klingons, without any suggestion that they'd ever looked any other way.) It wasn't until "Trials and Tribble-ations" that the TOS-style Klingon look was officially acknowledged as something that had been real after all, and that was only because their reuse of TOS footage required them to acknowledge it.

 

[Last Redshirt]

IRL, the helmets were used in Balance of Terror to hide the actor's ears so they wouldn't all have to have pointy ears and save money (apparently ears are more expensive than helmets).

Easier to stick a bunch of tinpots on people's heads than have each of the extras' ears fitted and molded.

 

[Christopher]

Yep, ears are more expensive than helmets because time is money, and it takes a lot of time -- hours -- to attach latex ear tips to an actor's ears in a way that makes them look like they're actually part of the actor's body. It takes mere moments to pick out an appropriate-sized helmet and put it on an extra's head.

Not to mention that a helmet, once made, can be reused (and the Romulan helmets were repurposed as Vulcan helmets in "Amok Time," also to save money on extras' makeup), while latex appliances were used only once (or a few times at most) and then discarded, so they had to be constantly replaced.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It really annoyed me. They thought we were too stupid to tell Vulcans and Romulans apart without an added ridge? Dumbed down Trek.

 

[Christopher]

^Like I said, it's more likely they made the change simply because they had better makeup technology and budget and saw an opportunity to use it. It makes perfect sense to me that Michael Westmore and/or the producers would've wanted the Vulcans and Romulans to look different just because they were different. They probably wanted to suggest that they were related species that had diverged somewhat -- because at the time "The Neutral Zone" was made, I don't think it had yet been locked down just how long ago the Vulcan-Romulan schism had occurred or how it had happened. Maybe they were assuming that the species had diverged much earlier than the 4th-century date that was subsequently settled on, and wanted to portray them with distinct makeups simply because they now had the talent, resources, and money to give each species a distinct makeup and wanted to use it.

It's a common mistake to assume that other people's reasons for their choices are somehow petty or malicious. The majority of the time, it turns out there's a much more innocent reason for it.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

The ridges never made any sense to me. TOS seemed to imply that Vulcans and Romulans were essentially the same race, so there was no reason for them to have ridges when the Vulcans didn't. I think when someone says "the Romulans are hailing us" the audience will know that the people on the viewscreen are Romulans, not Vulcans.

 

[Christopher]

The ridges never made any sense to me. TOS seemed to imply that Vulcans and Romulans were essentially the same race, so there was no reason for them to have ridges when the Vulcans didn't.

It implied they had the same origin, but as I said, it wasn't made clear how or when they'd diverged. Westmore and the first-season producers may have been assuming they'd been separated long enough to evolve different appearances.

 

[junkdata]

Because its a tv show...

 

[Shat Happens]

Also of note that TaslSHiar implanted ridges in Deanna Troi in that episode, but the same was not needed when Kirk infiltrated.

I remember now Picard and Data were also ridged in their turn.

Because its a tv show...

I'm going to ignore that for the duration of my stay on this site

 

[KaineMorrison]

I don't know about fandom in general, but when I saw the New and Improved Romulans in TNG: The Neutral Zone, my reaction was "Why the hell did they do that?"

I think it was for audiences to easily distinguish Romulans from Vulcans, but--IMO--the original point of them in TOS was that Romulans and Vulcans were indistinguishable from another except in their mannerisms.

How to originally tell a Romulan from a Vulcan:

• A Vulcan may lecture you.
• A Romulan may shoot you.

Vulcan = Greedo
Romulan = Han