Vitek: of all Star Trek character they chose this goofy twit to include in this gritty series

thomq: All this talk about Klingons and their emotions. Is Klingon emotional expression supposed to be the same as Human emotional expression?

thomq: One thing I always try to keep mind: this is not a documentary. They're merely presenting their interpretation of the information they have of what happened, and doing the best they can with the secondhand descriptions. It doesn't surprise me that it seems like details are missing or that the aliens look different than prior interpretations. That just goes with only having second hand information from the…er…a future of…umm…ours? You know, it's like journalism, but in the reverse direction of writing history as it will have happened, and of course being as inaccurate and as ineffectual at providing corrections (with more inaccuracies) as journalists.

On the other hand, I'm suspecting the new look for the Klingons might be a matter of being able to use any actor they want regardless of the facial and skin characteristics of the actor. And perhaps not so readily stereotyped as a human.

All this talk about Klingons and their emotions. Is Klingon emotional expression supposed to be the same as Human emotional expression? Is emotional expression universal, or is all of this just a call for Klingon emotions to be translated into Human emotions for easier comprehension as we view the presentation? Not every human culture has been the same when communicating, even smiling is not interpreted as friendly in every culture, or even in the same way by everyone within the same culture. Sort of like dialects of a language, but different than that.

Perhaps there is too little handholding from the automatic translation, of the universal translator transparently overlaying all of their experiences of speech, gestures, and facial expressions? Perhaps as an audience we're experiencing something as difficult as in the ST:TNG episode with that culture that the universal translator couldn't provide anything other than idioms that couldn't be understood without knowing their history? Do we want see the humans and aliens, or do we want see humans and might-as-well-be-humans?

victorchopin: Liked the idea behind the latest episode where they imortalized Elon Musk and Santos Dumont as "space and aviation pioneers" and such. Props to the ST team! :D

DaCostaBR: On a sidenote: Apparently all the longtime fans are too close to Star Trek to notice it, but the old Klingons with just the forehead ridges denoting them as alien look silly. It worked for 1989, but in 2017 people aren't going to buy it. Your aliens have to look more alien than that. Of course, the vulcans are even worse, being just humans with pointy ears and weird eyebrows, but changing that look would result in riot, so it has to stay the same.

Breja: First - yeah, you're kinda right that I don't think the forehead ridges looks silly. At least not that silly given what passes for an alien no problem in a big budget hit. And apparently just a slight update was good enough for the big screen in Into Darkness, and among many issues people had with the movie I don't remember "Klingons look silly and not believable" being one of them.

Breja: But, again I have to stress this, the problem isn't just that they changed their appearance. It's like you're not reading what we're saying at all. The problem is that they changed it badly. The make up works against the actors, they can't emote, they seem to be barely able to speak, slurr their lines, stand around like statues as if they could hardly move and their perfomances are indistinguishable. Just compare it to something like the Narn from Babylon 5. Full face make up that didn't restrain the actor, worked with him and allowed Katsulas to deliver one of the best performances in sci-fi history. And that was twenty years ago.

Like I said, a friend of mine who could not care less if they made Klingons purple and two-headed can't stand the Discovery Klingons too, because they are just so tedious to watch.

DaCostaBR: Maybe because they had all those other things to complain about instead? I didn't even remember there were Klingons in that movie. And Guardians of the Galaxy works because it's going for a completely different, sillier, tone.

DaCostaBR: I've been reading the posts, and I've seen plenty of "they didn't need to change it", and that's what I was addressing with my post.

DaCostaBR: Kudos for sticking with the made up language though, and not giving excuses for switching to english, to ditch that handicap.

DaCostaBR: I'm pretty sure they mentioned Santos Dumont instead

Breja: Fine let's simplify it - here's the incredibly alien looking alien villain from the 2009 Star Trek movie, successful with critics, general audience and box office.

Breja: Well, they didn't. They could have gone with a new race entirely and avoided the comparison alltogether. Why go with "Klingons" if you don't like how they look and jettison everything about them that has ever been established?

Not that the stiff, unworkable make-up would be good regardless of what you call them.

Breja: Yeah, having the actors drone on with no idea what they're saying is really helping get rid of whatever emotion might have made it through the make-up.

I don't see why we'd even need an excuse. If we can have people in ancient rome speak english in movies, why not aliens? A good performance would be much more appreciated than such attempts at "realism".

victorchopin: Precisely! :P

DaCostaBR: The movie also had Kirk sleeping with an alien that was just a woman painted green. Different tone, different choices. If you're being serious, it takes more than that.

DaCostaBR: Why did the old movies go with Klingons if they didn't like how they looked and were going to change them anyway?

DaCostaBR: Because if everyone in the story is roman it doesn't make a difference what language they speak, but if the romans meet the gauls for the first time and, what do you know, turns out everyone in this entirely different culture with little to no contact with the protagonists' just so happen to speak the same language as them! It's not just silly, it's immersion breaking.

Breja: When they meet- sure. That's when the difference matters. Then you have one group speak a different language. But when there are only romans in the scene, there is no point in having them speak latin just because eventually they will meet gauls.

DaCostaBR: And wasn't that movie pretty much an action movie romp instead of a sci-fi? Like Guardians, though with a couple less jokes? I remember people complaining that it wasn't real Star Trek at the time.