Bryan Fuller posted this on Instagram as a birthday greeting to Laurence Fishburne, back on July 30.
So apparently Fuller had intended to carry over the Hannibal cast into Discovery in various parts — and this was how he’d imagined Fishburne in Klingon prosthetics. It also suggests that the much maligned Disco Klingon designs were decided upon after Fuller left as (preliminary) show runner.
ETA: Here is a rundown of the casting plans he had in mind, originally revealed on the D-con chamber podcast. I would have watched Gillian Anderson as a starship captain.
Decent, feels unfinished though.
Apparently people don’t know why lots of fans didn’t like the look of the Discovery Klingons?
I’ll explain as one such person - it was another symptom of the writers not giving any respect or care to the work of those who had written the lore before them, even though they were standing on their shoulders, to the point of malice.
Klingons evolved on an M-class planet of caves, with icy mountain tops housing homes and monasteries, a thick atmostphere, and both cold and warm cave systems - some volcanic, but erupting rarely (~centuries). They had evolved with hair and grew it long to provide warmth, with long hair and well-kempt facial hair (beards, mustaches, large eyebrowa) being common and distinguishing features, along with their head ridges.
The initial Klingons of TOS had no facial ridges, and ENT went to lengths to work an explanation into the lore that they had made a genetic virus to eliminate humans during their first war (or something similar) and it backfired, Phlox was able to help them with a cure, which allowed their head ridges to return. To me, this is the kind of story that someone who appreciates and respects the writers before them and the fans dedicated to the show, would attempt.
Do people not remember that Discovery started out with completely hairless Klingons - no explanation? Until there’s a fan backlash and complaints about season 1… And then they magically have it back for season 2 in specific episodes, with the backpedal ‘oh, they shave it during war’. The now also have wide, flared noses - which given they are mostly black-skinned in season 1, though their actors are mostly not felt frankly pretty borderline cringe race-trope imo… Overall their features are generally really smooth now, like some kind of fish-people that evolved on an aquatic planet.
Discovery writers really seem to hate Klingons to be honest: they blow up parts of their planet in The Burn to kill most of them and make it inhabitable, reducing a proud species of intelligent warriors that have previously brought fear and respect wherever they travel to a sombre group of refugees from a race on the brink of extinction. Then again, in the mirror universe they also destroy Kronos by blowing it up - but properly this time. Disintegrated. Then later in Picard, they wipe out the entire planet’s population with a biovirus… I really don’t see any other conclusion than someone on the Kurtzman crew hates Klingons (or their fans for speaking out about dumb lore changes, or both).
I don’t remember this at all. Did I miss some throw away line of dialogue?
Your comment makes it seem you’re taking this very personally. It’s okay to hate a creative decision; there are decisions I could name from every Trek series that I hate, some for very subjective reasons. But to attribute that decision to malice, disrespect, or some kind of secret hatred for some part of the franchise is weird. Attributing it to hatred for the fans themselves sounds kind of petulant, frankly.
Generally, if a writer hates some part of a franchise, they wouldn’t repeatedly make it a major part of their shows. They’d ignore it and build up the parts of the franchise they do like. Look at how the people running things back in the '90s handled the animated series. They didn’t write a big Edosian War storyline or make a Caitian with a tragic backstory one of their core characters. They simply pretended all those elements didn’t exist.
That’s what it looks like when someone doesn’t care for part of a franchise. Like it or not, a cosmetic redesign like we’re talking about just looks like an attempt to freshen things up, and maybe appear more cinematic to grab the attention of a wider audience.
Can you recall any prior series of Star Trek where the Klingons were wiped out in two alternate universes and (mostly) the main one?
No? None in 50 years? Huh. Guess I’m just being petulant by thinking that’s a very strong statement choice. It doesn’t have to be hate, it could just be lazy I suppose - the latest writers are certainly that.
You guys like Kurtzman Trek - that’s fine. Enjoy your shows. I don’t.
I’m feeling like it’s a waste of time to explain my opinion further when I’ll just be infantalised as petulant, so bye.
Obviously not that specific sequence of events, no. However, in addition to seeing Praxis explode in the 23rd century, in the 24th we saw the Klingon civil war, the underhanded instalment of an illegitimate leader, and various ugly internal power struggles, which all culminated in this memorable take-down by Ezri Dax.
If I can watch a likeable character like her calmly declare that “the Klingon Empire is dying and deserves to die” and not think the Berman era writers hated Klingons, I really don’t think there’s anything you can point at to make me think the Kurtzman era does.
It just seems so over the top to assign these underhanded motives to the writers on so little justification. It’s clear to me that they’re treating the Klingons as an important part of the mythos. If nothing else, Jay-Den is easily my favourite of the Academy cadets. I’m just not seeing what you see here.
It’s a reference to the Confederation reality briefly seen in S2.
Why it’s being bandied about as evidence of something, I cannot say.
Ah, that explains it. So two of the examples were alternate universes where the writers had the bad guys wipe out the Klingons to show how scary they were. Kind of like the TNG days where the go-to method of establishing how tough someone was was to have them beat I Worf, I guess.
Don’t forget purple. Lower Decks didn’t forget.
Yeah, I would say grey and purple are the predominant colours seen in season one. T’Kuvma was the only one I would describe as “black-skinned” off the top of my head.
Five of your examples are black and one is grey?
Or are we calling this purple? I can’t tell becase all the lighting in Disco is brown or yellow.
The wide noses coupled with dark skin is still a borderline race-trope to me.
If you would describe those colours as “black,” I don’t really know what to say.
Most Black people aren’t, like, midnight black. They’re varying shades of brown. Most of these Klingons are in the “Black human” range of colour tones, just with less saturation and a purple tint. They look black to Me in the same way that most Black humans look black.
I don’t think grey or purple are within that part of the spectrum at all, but I doubt we’re going to find an agreement on that one.
In colour theory, the word “tone” refers to light and dark, not to hue. I’m saying the Klingons are mostly the same amount of dark as black people.
Yeah, the racially charged complaint against the DSC design doesn’t entirely add up given the darkface makeup used in all previous versions of (white people playing) Klingons, including the TNG through ENT depictions.
It’s an odd accusation to level against a series that diversified the Klingons like never before, no doubt.
Don’t forget their penises
Never forget their penises.
My only problem with this is that backpedaling is arguably what they did with
One of them you liked, and one you didn’t. And that’s fine.
I mean, one was a storyline and the other is handwaving.
Personally, as a fan of things, I like it when more.
This is getting far into the subjective weeds, but I’d much prefer if the ENT producers hadn’t bothered.
While it does technically qualify as a story, I wouldn’t call it a particularly good one.
I won’t try to convince you otherwise though; I’m glad it has its fans.
I sat down and rewatched “Affliction”/" Divergence" last night after this whole discussion. It is very much a not good storyline, and one that hadn’t needed two episodes if not for some poorly motivated character shifts with Trip and Malcolm.
Enterprise was 20 years after TNG changed the Klingons to a new design… How is that a backpedal?
They worked hard to weave the change into the lore with a well thought-out storyline.
In Disco they backpedaled in the second series by slapping on big (almost comically lustrous) wigs in season 2 and said ‘oh the hair? Yeah we shave it during war’… Nevermind the fact that they’ve had long hair during wartime for the preceding 60 years of ST lore.
I don’t think I’m being inconsistent or unfair at all, these are two very different approaches that paint a very different picture of motives. One was to tie up a loose end in the lore that the writers wanted to remedy in a satisfying way for the lore - the other is a 10 minute fix that just adds more lore issues.