Oy vey. The indirect quote in Beaker's initial post.
TMP never happened
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Oy vey. The indirect quote in Beaker's initial post.
The following is from an interview with Westmore on bbc.co.uk/cult/st/interviews/westmore/page7shtml
As he states it here, he's basically taking credit for giving them their harsher forehead look.
As folks have said upstream, maybe bits of the interview for the "History Channel" piece were edited out, and what was left sounded like he was taking full credit for the look.
As he states it here, he's basically taking credit for giving them their harsher forehead look.
As folks have said upstream, maybe bits of the interview for the "History Channel" piece were edited out, and what was left sounded like he was taking full credit for the look.
^ I agree, the History Channel bit looks to have been edited, and I think what Westmore takes credit for in that interview you quoted is reasonable. None-the-less, I think he's a little off in seeming to suggest that the movie look was only a slight departure from the TOS look. "They put a little forehead on them?" Mark Lenard's Klingon captain from TMP is drastically different from any Klingon seen in TOS and more significant than "putting a little forehead on them."
^^^
Right, it's clear the forehead Klingons are an invention of ST:TMP. These Klingons were the guys we saw after, forehead and teeth, spiny armour, Worf included. Doesn't mean a thing that the bumps were different. Sheesh, Westmore just refined a process. He did not come up with the idea at all. His language doesn't really say he did, just that he refined it.
Right, it's clear the forehead Klingons are an invention of ST:TMP. These Klingons were the guys we saw after, forehead and teeth, spiny armour, Worf included. Doesn't mean a thing that the bumps were different. Sheesh, Westmore just refined a process. He did not come up with the idea at all. His language doesn't really say he did, just that he refined it.
I saw the same show, the edited comments do make it sound like he was taking full creative credit. If I recall the edited part of the show was similar to this..
I broke apart the paragraphs to illustrate how I recalled his words in the interview clip.
My first thoughts were 'Hey what about TMP'. *shrugs* That did kinda stay with me though not to the point of anger :P
Seeing the entire quotes now..well I would be irked a bit if I were Mr. Westmore. That really was a poor bit of editing on the part of the HC.
I broke apart the paragraphs to illustrate how I recalled his words in the interview clip.
My first thoughts were 'Hey what about TMP'. *shrugs* That did kinda stay with me though not to the point of anger :P
Seeing the entire quotes now..well I would be irked a bit if I were Mr. Westmore. That really was a poor bit of editing on the part of the HC.
An "indirect quote" isn't a quote at all. Before I'd jump in and join (or defend) a fannish rant, I'd at least want to know what was actually said.
As Plum's complete quotation demonstrates, Westmore's statement was edited down for this special. He does acknowledge the movies, though it appears that he was referring to the Klingons in the third and fourth movies most of which fit his description. That's reasonable, since that's what the state of the makeup design was when he came on in 1987.
awww. Thanks! I hope things haven't been too boring in my absence. Well we'll fix that right fast.
No love for me? Look how I've been fighting the good fight, you fannish ranter you! 
Brutal Strudel said:
No love for me? Look how I've been fighting the good fight, you fannish ranter you!
Hey, my love for strudel is legendary. Fight on, you mad pastry you!
If forehead ridges there must be, then I would have to defer to the uncomical prosthetics employed in TMP.
I noticed his snafu, too. I just chalked it up to misspeaking. Not thinking out what he was going to say. I doubt he meant it as any kind of malevolent, veiled slap against ST:TMP.
You should visit the TNZ.
That might as well be our official motto.
That might as well be our official motto.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
The individualized foreheads didn't happen till TFF ... Nimoy wanted the klingons to look the same and kept turning down the fancier sculptures. I hadn't heard of McCoy, but I guess he was part of Burman's team? At any rate, Richard Snell who produced appliances for nearly all of these shows, was very specific in '91 about nobody getting to have fun with klingon heads till Shatner gave them free reign on TFF.
As for Westmore ... based on a whole lot of interviews, I'd say he is a classic credit-grabber, practically in the old Hollywood tradition of the studio art department head getting credit for designing every flick the studio released, even if he didn't even see a script. I've talked to folks who worked on DEATH BECOMES HER as well as TREKs 5 thru 9 who all worked for Westmore at one or more times, and it was pretty much accepted that he would take credit for whatever his team devised, only occasionally singling out team members who actually did the work. I think that MASK was a show where he won an Emmy without actually doing any creative work outside of signing an approval.
I've only talked to Westmore once, and he seemed like a really nice guy, but that isn't an excuse for any of this kind of behavior.
ADDON: I just remembered, there was a credit issue with respect to the Borg Queen and the other Borg in FC. Todd Masters did quite a bit of design work along with costumer Deborah Everton, who seemed to get the lion's share of credit, far overshadowing Masters. After my article was done, Westmore asked the mag's editors to deemphasize Masters' work in the finished article and also to mention how his own son did the LEDs -- which you gotta admit, do not rank highly in the scheme of things.
Hmmmm...
I beg pardon? Maltz (below left), Kruge (middle), Torg (right), Valkris, and the various gunners and landing party members - all had individualized forehead appliances; nothing like each other at all. Our ST group studied many pics of ST III Klingons very closely one legendary makeup appliance-making weekend. I feel as if I know every bump of Maltz's head intimately!
On what movie? Ok, maybe Maltz, Kruge and Torg weren't "fancy", but they were most definitely individualised. Some had round bumps, some had angular bumps, some had long bony ridges at the sides, some had lots of wrinkles in sections... (Where they all looked absolutely alike was in the DC Comics adaptation, where drawings of the three actors were given foreheads that seemed to be straight from TMP publicity photos of Mark Lenard's head.) It was TMP's Klingons which all had the same generic spinal column bone piece.
AFAIK, James L McCoy was head makeup artist on ST III. Wasn't Burman ST IV; I don't recall seeing Burman listed in the credits for ST III?
If anything, I'd say that all the Snell ST V Klingons had a similarity to each other - small-knotted central crests - as if they all came from the same family line.
And the ST VI Klingons all had their own similarity to each other, too, with many of them, in the background, full over-the-head masks.
Thanks. The funny thing is, the harsh shadows on that three-shot of ST III's Klingons (once I found the shot I was remembering) does make them look quite a bit alike but, in normal lighting, the appliances were very different patterns, and the individual bony knobs had distinct variations. The Klingon who is ordered to kill David has particularly nasty forehead bumps.
My plaster head mould, with its grey plasticine replica-Maltz bumps, is still in the garage - where it's languished for the past 20 odd years - looks like it has a dog poo lying along the middle of the high forehead.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Therin of Andor said:
I beg pardon? Maltz (below left), Kruge (middle), Torg (right), Valkris, and the various gunners and landing party members - all had individualized forehead appliances; nothing like each other at all. Our ST group studied many pics of ST III Klingons very closely one legendary makeup appliance-making weekend. I feel as if I know every bump of Maltz's head intimately!
On what movie? Ok, maybe Maltz, Kruge and Torg weren't "fancy", but they were most definitely individualised. Some had round bumps, some had angular bumps, some had long bony ridges at the sides, some had lots of wrinkles in sections... (Where they all looked absolutely alike was in the DC Comics adaptation, where drawings of the three actors were given foreheads that seemed to be straight from TMP publicity photos of Mark Lenard's head.) It was TMP's Klingons which all had the same generic spinal column bone piece.
AFAIK, James L McCoy was head makeup artist on ST III. Wasn't Burman ST IV; I don't recall seeing Burman listed in the credits for ST III?
If anything, I'd say that all the Snell ST V Klingons had a similarity to each other - small-knotted central crests - as if they all came from the same family line.
And the ST VI Klingons all had their own similarity to each other, too, with many of them, in the background, full over-the-head masks.
I wasn't speaking of principals, just the bg klingons, who from what I recall, all look like messed-up boxers in the Nimoy pictures. As far as I can tell, they all have the same face. And it isn't like Snell pulled this out of his ass, he worked -- credited and uncredited -- on III through VI at least (and I was talking to him about TUC, not TFF, so he'd have no reason to knock Nimoy and praise Shatner while discussing VI.)
Burman was interviewed extensively about "The Burman Studio" work ST III and BUCKAROO BANZAI in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS. He took the job because Kepler, the guy who did II wasn't all that interested (wasn't all that good either imo.) I doubt Nimoy loved Kepler based on the green pancake blood that he tried to apply on twok.
I checked on the net and saw McCoy is credited as key makeup artist, which is I believe a lead position, but not necessarily special or prosthetic makeup.
Incredibly enough, Snell just died a year ago, while making the PIRATES sequel, under 50 years of age.
I lent somebody my copy of the TUC article, if I get it back today I'll post a relevant quote from Snell.
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