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Why Can't Klingon Blood Be Purple Again?

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It's not my favorite, but it seems to be the most critically applauded Trek movie.
 
It's not my favorite, but it seems to be the most critically applauded Trek movie.


I thought that was WRATH OF KHAN?

And the whale movie was arguably the most popular with general audiences, at least up to the reboot movies.
 
Okay, combing through the STVI section of The View From The Bridge, here's what Meyer says on page 217:

"There was a debate over the color of blood, which I wanted to be different than human blood. I would up choosing a pink shade that seemed suitably weird, only to regret my choice down the road when I realized it reminded me of Pepto-Bismol."

That seems to be all he says on the subject. Absolutely nothing about avoiding an R rating. It seems that the pink blood was chosen for the same reason that everyone ate blue food in the banquet scene: to look suitably alien and exotic.

I think we can safely chalk this one up to another ST urban myth.
 
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My headcanon has always been that the Klingon blood in TUC is purple due to radiation from Praxis. As most other Klingon blood we had seen up to that point was red to reddish-black, this made sense to me back then.

The augment solution, while a good one, is retconning. A happy medium between the two, and/or whatever else people come up with that actually makes sense, would be ideal going forward.
 
It's not my favorite, but it seems to be the most critically applauded Trek movie.
Most critically applauded TNG movie, maybe. But TWOK, TVH and Trek XI seem to be far more applauded Trek movies than First Contact.
 
Why can't Klingon blood be purple? I don't know, why can't it? We live in an age when it's possible to change the look of anything in Star Trek if it benefits the story and creative vision. Uniforms, ship designs, even the way some species look. TOS Tellarites had 4 digits per hand, ENT Tellerites had 5. Klingons went from smooth forehead to ridged, to long hair, to no hair and senor like organs behind their ears to back to having hair.

Sounds like Klingon blood can be any color the story dictates.

True, because even animal life here on Earth come in different blood colors. Ever seen an insect with red blood? I haven't.
 
Memory Alpha cites a source which apparently indicates that the original script called for the blood to be green, but it was supposedly changed because green blood was well-known to be a trait of Vulcans. Or something like that.

Kor
 
Or gas leaks within the ship due to damage from the torpedoes, and the gas reacts chemically with the blood.

Kor
 
Yep. Maybe zero-gravity turns Klingon blood pink? I'm sure you could come up with some technobabble to justify that. :)

Or gas leaks within the ship due to damage from the torpedoes, and the gas reacts chemically with the blood.

Kor

Neither of which changes my headcanon that radiation from Praxis has altered the chemical composition of Klingon blood, much the way microwave ovens will do to our food.
 
Or maybe there are normal circumstances under which Klingon blood can change color.

It doesn't have anything to do with zero-G, though, because when Gorkon is being treated on board Kronos One, his blood is still pink, even though gravity had already been restored.
 
Maybe the color changes with their mood, like those shiny rings you used to be able to buy at tourist trap souvenir stores.

Kor
 
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