I am the kind of person who enjoys “big weird” scifi like Stanisław Lem. Stories about trying to relate to and find common ground with something so alien that the prospect of even understanding is basically hopeless. Star Trek usually doesn’t do stories that, which makes sense as it often uses alien races as allegories or stand-ins for real-world human relations.
That said- I thought those early Klingons were super weird and scary because they were just so alien. It really made sense thinking about how it took a century before they could get to the events of Star Trek VI, and it made the Khittomer accords feel like so much more of an accomplishment. Like- you made a treaty with WHAT?
And just aesthetically their ships and armor looked like something out of HP Lovecraft or HR Geiger:
This is not to say I dislike how Klingons were portrayed previously, kinda like Mongols in TOS or Vikings in DS9, just that they never felt scary to me. They never felt like warriors. I was never afraid for the gallant crew of the Enterprise D (a science and exploration vessel) going into battle against Klingons. But I really enjoyed the alien-ness Disco tried to go with. Anyone else with me?
EDIT: PEOPLE I SAID WHO’S WITH ME NOT WHO ISN’T CM’ON 
I remain amazed that many people insist that T’Kuvma and company are irreconcilably different from the TNG era portrayals. These are big, carnivorous-looking aliens with prominent forehead ridges and significant individual variation in appearance. They’re different in some small details, like the extra nostrils, but outside of the most extreme visually literalist stance, is it really that hard to square these guys against Chang, Martok, and Worf? Replace the shine and detail with a classic rubber mask, silicon makeup, and matte brown body paint in exactly the same head and body shape, stick them at a side table in Quarks circa S6 of DS9, and I challenge you to notice anything amiss.
What this rework did do was make them feel so much more alien, and so much more dangerous. They outright eat people, which was occasionally hinted at but is noted far more literally in Discovery, and very, very easy to believe looking at these guys. I wish they hadn’t backpedalled so hard with a return to the 1980s makeup in SNW 2x01, because I would have loved to see these monsters chumming it up with Spock: that scene would immediately have been slightly more unsettling, bringing the audience closer to what Spock and his crew are likely feeling about their momentary drinking buddies, instead of the much more casual feel we got from Klingons who look just like our old friends from DS9. These guys are still dangerous aliens whose friendliness is tenuous and temporary; they would literally eat Spock if circumstances were slightly different. We shouldn’t forget that.
Absolutely, well said. To quote Kirk “People can be very frightened of change.”
because I would have loved to see these monsters chumming it up with Spock
Augh I didn’t know I wanted this until now. Now I’m upset all over again!
I very much enjoyed that in season one, each Klingon house had their own uniform, and customs. In the TNG era there is a uniformity to the Klingons, which flattens them to monoculture. Even the simple touches of having House Mo’Kai engage in facial scarification, or House Kor wear war paint implies an expansion to their culture that makes me far more interested in them.
Also, I’ve always enjoyed the scheming Klingons, like the ones we see in TOS, or the Duras Sisters, so Kol really appealed to me as an antagonist.
The new prosthetic seemed like a natural progression of what we saw from TOS, to TMP, to “The Search for Spock” and TNG. I do think the decision to make them all bald in season one was a miss, but it’s otherwise a good design that effectively communicates the ferocity the species is supposed to have.
I wonder if they wanted them to all be bald if it wouldn’t have made more sense to have T’Kuvma’s followers be bald, and the others that arrive after he lights the beacon engage in tonsure once T’Kuvma becomes a martyr.
Oh, and the elongated craniums on the women was also an odd choice that I’m glad was walked back for season two.
I thought it was all a bit confusing - it was introduced with no explanation, which felt like it was setting up some big reveal that never came.
I like the, as you say, Giger-esque design but felt it was such a departure that they may as well have introduced a new species.
it seems like the kind of thing that’s obviously an out of universe design choice. it’s like asking for a lore reason why the male Enterprise crew members stopped wearing eyeshadow after Kirk’s five year mission.
I liked the makeup, but it should have just been done to design a new alien race, not alter an existing race that had a beloved, established look for decades.
I’m going to be honest, Klingons in the TNG era always felt too goofy to me. They weren’t a proud warrior culture so much as borderline clownish space vikings who spent more time getting drunk than actually conquering anything. A redesign and change in how their culture(s) present on screen was welcome for me, and I think Discovery did a great job. I even liked the way they recontextualized the Klingon language, to make it sound more alien and more threataning than the staccato, oft-mispronounced mess that we got in the TNG era.
That said, I also think there was a missed opportunity with them. For a long time, I’ve had a head canon of the different looks of Klingons throughout all of the eras could be chalked up to these all being distinct peoples from within the Klingon Empire. It stands to reason that over a long enough time scale, an empier spanning multiple stars would start to consider people not originally from their homeworld “Klingon,” even if they might be genetically different. I always thought it would be cool if the TOS smooth forehead Klingons were actually just one species that were culturally Klingon, where the Worf-type were another, and the General Chang type was yet another. It would provide a way to smooth over the aeshetic differences with an in-universe explanation that doesn’t require any retconning except for a handful of episodes from ENT that die-hards didn’t like anyway.
But oh, well. One can dream.
I didn’t like the Disco Klingons. It was too much of a change to an established race for me. But, I like your idea and I think I could have been more on board if they had done it that way.
The Bird of Prey design looks… imposing. The Armor, despite being very impractical, looks good. The Alien Race is well-designed, but it’s not what I would think Klingon would be. But yeah I kind of like how they’re portrayed, as a serious threat instead of some goofy alcohol-addicted space Vikings with a kind-of interesting way of life.
I thought those early Klingons were super weird and scary because they were just so alien.
Absolutely. And the costuming choices they made, and the different aesthetic approaches to each Great House, show an amazing amount of thought and care. They’re one big, scary, alien, fractured family.
Yes! Was a bit bummed to see that walked back and the Klingons brought more in line with the TNG-era ones, though I was happy to see some “big weirdness” arise again in S4 with the Ten-C.
Discovery was my “gateway” Trek which led to me watching everything else (except TOS yet) so I had no expectations or anything for what Klingons should look like.
So I didn’t think they looked “off” until I started watching the TNG era shows. Even then, I just attributed it to artistic differences.
All that said, I do like how they refined what they did in DSC for SNW. Those look more like TNG but upgraded
Klingons have had two totally consistent design elements from TOS all the way through Into Darkness that DSC didn’t incorporate. The first is that the majority are fairly hairy, and the second is that their tech is very industrial and bare-bones looking. I can totally buy Klingon factions that stray from either of those things, such as a group that shaves their heads or has more elaborate tech, but the entire species being that way doesn’t work. The facial redesign could have worked, but ultimately the masks were too thick for anyone to emote in and they hindered the acting. Season 2 thinning the masks a bit and adding hair was a huge improvement and showed that the concept could work, but the organic looking tech just doesn’t do it for me at all as the predominant look in the empire.
Overall, I get what they were going for, but they lost what little consistent design language the Klingons had and it just did not work for me at all.
My main issue was less about how they looked and more about what they were capable of. The idea of being able to essentially species change a Klingon into a Human with TOS-era Klingon medical tech sounds impossibly advanced for what the Klingons are known for. Their scientists are few and far between, and even in TNG it’s elaborated on that treatments for disabilities aren’t even looked into, they just tell you to kill yourself. That doesn’t sound like the kind of species that 100 years prior is going to be able to do this insane medical procedure.
The whole deal with that is that they did it, in TOS, without any sort of explanation. We just had that dude, who McCoy discovered was really a Klingon, even though he looked just like a human. That whole thing is just adding an explanation for something that was long-since already there.
Also, you sound like you’re talking about the Orions. Do Klingons even have scientists? Somebody has to build the ships!
I liked the way they talked about science from a warrior race in Mass Effect. The Krogans have scientists but they’re mostly focused on making bigger bangs and booms. I would probably assume the Klingons are similar.
I know we have a few episodes showing other sides of the castes but generally we only interact with the warrior caste and occasionally see arbiters like in Rules of Engagement (DS9) or Judgement (ENT).
The only time we saw an actual Klingon scientist was in a TNG episode where they had figured out meta-phasic shields or something that allowed shuttles to get closer to a sun than ever before. Crusher was even dealing with some prejudice regarding Klingon scientists and has a few lines about how it feels weird to be working with a Klingon not focused on war and battle.
There was also a Klingon scientist in the Enterprise 2 parter about how the Klingons got smooth heads. He even talked about what it was like being a scientist in a society of warriors.
The idea of being able to essentially species change a Klingon into a Human with TOS-era Klingon medical tech sounds impossibly advanced for what the Klingons are known for.
It’s also something that literally happened in a TOS episode that almost everyone saw and liked.
They would have been fine with hair. The whole thing where everyone is bald was the point that made it look bad.
I have pictures of T’kuvma photoshopped with hair and he looks great.
Another thing I want to mention is that Gene himself never held the series up to visual continuity. When the budget got better, the sets got better and so did the makeup. It was just a natural progression of the series. I don’t feel like it’s a stretch to keep trying to improve on alien appearances, especially as the aesthetic for the show changes and evolves. I like the SNW bridge update. I like that it’s all metal and glass and feels substantial.
The only huge issue I had with them was their makeup was so thick the actors clearly struggled to act through it. Contrast to such expressive Klingons such as Kor, Gowron and Martok which was very difficult to do when you can barely move your face.
If that hadn’t hamstrung the actors so much, I think they would have been more enjoyable than people found them.
I thoroughly enjoy most everything about DSC Klingons. With their appearance, I didn’t like or dislike their look when I first saw it so much as I was surprised. Klingons have a history of looking very different throughout Star Trek. I’ve rewatched DSC so many times, I’m used to how the Klingons look. However, I absolutely love the depiction of Klingon society. I still marvel at the Klingon armor and sets. The dichotomy of such a combative society and the intricate beauty of their ships, armor, everything. Their artistry goes beyond simple functionality. I think it adds depth to the Klingons.
I dug 'em. It was a good experiment in pushing Trek’s aliens beyond a forehead and an accent.
I don’t mind that they tried. And tried to link them with TOS and later Klingons. I just thought the makeup was too heavy. You never really got any memorable Klingon character faces. And I’m just taking about their faces. I enjoyed their costumes and ships.
I rather liked it, and the more alien take on them, but I can also see why people didn’t.
Part of the issue is probably that Discovery changed them too much. Previous alterations to the Klingons tended to be one thing at a time, except for the TOS films, but even they kept some things the same, like their technology.
Discovery went with a bit more of a complete overhaul, with massive changes to the language (following the pronunciation guide more closely), and alterations for both their technology, and the Klingons themselves, which might have been a bit jarring for most, especially when people were expecting more of a settled look for the TNG/TMP Klingons.
You do have the visual changes for the Klingon Empire in the Kelvin films, but that gets excused as it being part of another timeline, hence all the differences.
Things like the Klingon cleave ship, and the T’Kuvma are massive changes from what people are used to when it comes to Klingons. Klingon technology previously tended to be birds of prey that cloaked and shot energy bullets/torpedoes, not cloaked ship-breakers that used ramming speed as their main vector of attack, and Klingon supremacists didn’t really exist like that. The closest we had to something like that was Worf, who was much closer to a Klingon purist/fanatic than a supremacist.
Although I personally feel that there was a missed opportunity not interspersing things with the various other Klingon designs of the time. Having a supremacist faction within the Klingon Empire, with massive visual changes (maybe due to overcompensating for Enterprise’s Augment Virus?), could have been an interesting way to add depth to the Klingons, and the Empire.
Especially if that diversity of thinking between the Houses is/was one of the strengths of the Empire. Each House was more like a separate power, and they simply collaborated under the banner of the Empire.
