Notice in TOS the klingons look human like, yet in the movies they do not? Can anyone explain why? I prefer the TOS Klingons anyway to that of the movies and other Star Trek series.
The Klingons
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I also prefer the TOS Klingons, since their society became a stereotype later in Star Trek.
The official explaination is they contracted a genetic virus making them look like the TOS era Klingons, the unofficial one is that they wanted to make the Klingons look more alien and high budget for the movies.
The official explaination is they contracted a genetic virus making them look like the TOS era Klingons, the unofficial one is that they wanted to make the Klingons look more alien and high budget for the movies.
Then throw Enterprise into the mix and try working it out. 
Enterprise had a two parter which went into this by stating that the turtle headed Klingons were the originals and they were affected by a augmented human virus from some of the eugenic supermen from Kahn's time! This lost them their head ridges and made them more violent and aggressive! The reason for them returning to their 'original' state in TMP and after has not been explained!
JB
JB
I prefer the TOS Klingons and their uniforms as well!
JB
JB
Then throw Enterprise into the mix and try working it out.
Third time's the charm?
Ignoring the retroactive continuity of the later Trek spinoffs, the real-world explanation was that TPTB had a bigger budget for TMP and were able to depict the Trek universe in a more detailed fashion, including making the Klingons more exotic and alien looking. You were basically supposed to imagine that they had always been that way, instead of getting hung up over this piece of minutiae.
But that does not mean that the Klingons were always specifically intended to have ridges on their foreheads. The Klingon look in TOS was basically concocted on the fly by Fred Phillips and John Colicos, as the Errand of Mercy script only gave the vague description of the Klingons as "Oriental, hard-faced."
The TMP Klingon makeup bears some resemblance to the look of the Kreeg from Roddenberry's failed 1974 project "Planet Earth," but it seems like nobody in the know has ever officially acknowledged any direct influence.
Kor
I've always preferred the simple view: just as there are different races of humans there could be different races of Klingons. I imagined the TOS might not be quite a human looking as we saw them while still not as elaborate as the TMP/TNG style Klingons.
Imagine if Neanderthals had survived as a race alongside contemporary humans.
Imagine if Neanderthals had survived as a race alongside contemporary humans.
I had a brief obsession with the Klingons a few decades ago and that was my take. I drew map of the Klingon Homeworld and every makeup variation was assigned a region of origin. Back then there weren't that many. I think STIV was the most recent film and TNG had just started.
My head cannnnon. Is that there were two types of Klingons. The original where taken from earth by the Preservers. Part of the Preservers program was to genetically mix them with local life forms. Thus the bumpy headed versions were born. Before the experiments could be completed the ancient warriors killed the preservers doing the experiments on them. This gave rise to the legend of Klingons having killed their Gods. In my version Khaless was a human type Klingon. After all the blood used to clone Khaless 2 was never firmly identified as that or the real Khaless. Also Klingon iconography representing Khaless as ridged could be no more true than Americans depicting Jesus as Caucasian. If ridged Klingons were in power they would obviously want their saviour to look like them.
But really all of this stems out of my fanboyish desire to have a real life Klingon society here on earth. Having humans be able to be considered real Klingons without having to wear crappy rubber foreheads hardly.
But really all of this stems out of my fanboyish desire to have a real life Klingon society here on earth. Having humans be able to be considered real Klingons without having to wear crappy rubber foreheads hardly.
The idea that Klingons were of different species was a clever one, especially when you remember that Kras and koloth's crew were lighter skinned Klingons than Kor, Krell and Kang's boys! But that all folded when Kor, Kang and Koloth turned up on DS9 in 94, and all three had turtle heads and straggly hair without any explanation!
JB
JB
Yeah, that was a truly stupid thing to do. They should have left things well enough alone or dialed it back. DS9 followed the TMP idea that the Klingons always looked along the lines of the TMP/TNG style only TOS couldn't afford to show that. But then revisting the TOS era created a problem because now you had the DS9 crew interacting with the TOS crew and the drastic difference between Worf and the TOS era Klingons. Also no one comments on why Koloth looks one way in TOS after how we had seen him appear in DS9.
They should have just left Kor, Kang and Koloth more like they initially appeared or not have bothered at all with the "Trials And Tribble-ations" story.
Or have a two parter in TNG where both appear, simply have a socio-political problem within the Empire where they forced the older Klingons into submission after TOS in some internal coup. It would have added the diversity to Klingons and more than the singular honour driven modern versions.
I always took issue with that. I preferred the John M. Ford view that Klingons actually had a shorter lifespan than humans partly due to a higher metabolic rate and more highly aggressive natures.
Of course, that idea cancels out Kor, Kang and Koloth being able to appear in DS9 nearly a century later.
While not canon, one of the background threads woven into the current crop of "post-ENT" novels (to include the ongoing Rise of the Federation series) has been how the Novelverse Klingon Empire struggled to come to terms with the QuchHa' phenomenon. Although I don't know if any of the novels set in later eras have attempted to grasp the other end of that particular nettle, in terms of showing the TOS-to-TMP transition "back" to full HemQuch-ness.
Also, while not canon either, the Klingons over in the Star Fleet Universe are based on TOS Klingons, and have always looked like that form of on-screen Klingon. (Part of that is due to ADB's arcane licence, which prevents any post-1979 Franchise material from being used in the SFU.)
Which made for a bit of a mash-up in Taldren's hybrid Starfleet Command PC games, since they used a more SFU-esque background writeup with a TMP-era Klingon art design.
Also, while not canon either, the Klingons over in the Star Fleet Universe are based on TOS Klingons, and have always looked like that form of on-screen Klingon. (Part of that is due to ADB's arcane licence, which prevents any post-1979 Franchise material from being used in the SFU.)
Which made for a bit of a mash-up in Taldren's hybrid Starfleet Command PC games, since they used a more SFU-esque background writeup with a TMP-era Klingon art design.
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