Klingons appearance - history repeats itself
- Thread starter PiotrB
- Start date
Throw the monolithic society a bone...
Saw this on reddit, make up designer seems to imply the Klingon look will be explained?
https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/8n4hqp/lead_discovery_makeup_designer_glenn_hetrick_says/
And according to this, they will be exploring more Klingon houses in Season 2
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/29/st...tease-new-and-reimagined-aliens-for-season-2/
Honestly, this would be terrible. As much as I hate the Klingon redesign - I think it's aesthetically bad, gets in the way of performance, and was totally not needed - I think at this point it's better to stand as it is.
I mean, people complain about Enterprise explaining away something that supposedly needed no explanation. How much worse will it be if DIS created a "problem" with the Klingon appearance in Season 1, and then came up with some fanwank explanation for it in Season 2? It's basically the show stepping on its own dick.
Now, if they just start showing other types of Klingons with no explanation, I really woudn't be upset. Although it's weird that they didn't even have a single random background mook Klingon with hair or whatever. And if Discovery does use the spore drive again and ends up in a parallel universe where Klingons look like Worf, that's also not a big deal IMHO. However, if they invent some sort of "augment virus" like explanation I'll be very exasperated.
Well, IRL the "change from 'Worf-ish' Klingons" was to hide the fact that Tyler was Voq. In-universe? I'm not sure why they need an explanation, since no character has ever said, "Hey, why do the Klingons look different than they did before?" They all act like this was always how the Klingons looked.
Has this been confirmed? It seems like I've only seen this idea presented as speculation by viewers.
Kor
- There are plenty of examples of actors in Trek who played a human role and an alien role, including Klingons. People didn't generally recognize them. For example, who really saw Tony Todd play the older Jake in The Visitor and said "hey, wait a second, that's Kurn!
- There are ways they could have further hid Latif's identity using standard Klingon makeup. He still could have been an albino. They could have given him a big bushy beard which hid most of his face. They could have given him prosthetics elsewhere that Klingon makeup doesn't normally have - like the lips - not to make him look alien, but to make the "human parts" of Voq's face look like a different person.
- If worse came to worse, they could have cast a different actor as Voq. There is no in-story reason to have Latif act both roles.
- Finally, making the decision to redesign an entire race for a single plot twist in the first season is unbelievably stupid.
All good points. Now for the rebuttal: How do you know that they didn't just want to make the Klingons look completely different anyway because, well, everything in this show looks completely different from what we've seen before in the Prime universe, and one of the bonuses with that was that they only had to pay one actor for dual roles?
That's a hyperbole.
I do think it was change for change's sake. Either that, or perhaps that Fuller went in with a modest proposal (like he wanted slightly redesigned shaven-head Klingons ala the one in Into Darkness) and the production team, with limited oversight, went to town before the "canon nerds" like Kirsten Beyer could say anything about it. Certainly it seems like there were a lot of cases in the series to date where there was limited discussion between the visual design side of the show and the writer's room, so this would fit to pattern.
That said, what's done is done. An "oops, LOL" at this point would just be another sign that the showrunners believe season 1 was a mistake which should be ignored. IMHO they need to double down on what they've already established, rather than retcon it out of existence.
This I wholeheartedly agree with this. Stop trying to cater to 50+ years of canon/continuity and do your own damn thing.
Did anybody ask why TOS Klingons morphed into TMP and beyond Klingons? And yet we got an answer (one that I'm perfectly happy without, especially since they retconned Koloth, Kor, and Kang's appearance. Why did that happen?)
One of the novels explained that they (Klingons) finally found a cure to the Augment virus in the late 23rd century which most Klingons took advantage of.
Makes sense. Since a virus caused the mutation, it'd make sense that eventually they'd find a way to cure it and return affected Klingons to 'normal'
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