I remember Zoe Saldana saying that she couldn't stop herself flirting with the JJ Klingons as she found them really handsome. Oh and controversially I like the JJ Klingons too - even if they do look a bit like they belong in a Fantasy Franchise more than a sci fi one - I think they pushed the Worf look a little without tipping it past a point that they no longer look like the same species. If Discovery had gone with this look I'd have had no real complaints - their D4 (fighter like ships) are a little odd - they look a little Romulan like a small bird. But otherwise I like them. Other than that I like the TNG era look when the Klingons dress up and are wearing jerkins and cloaks. Overall though I'd say the Klingons work better than the Romulans in terms of costume and make up. I guess if Picard managed to do something right (not much) but something it was it's Romulans.
Really the kelvin time line no sorry i respect the decision but for me it's the TNG/DS9 klingons for me but good work and a big thumbs up to you from one fan to another . Live long and prosper
Those are pain clips that are stapled into the nerve of the head spine, it keeps them angry and focased and proves to other Klingons who is tougher, an heirloom of Klingon pride distinction. at least thats what I say they are.
In one of the Discovery "making of" features, they discussed that one of the inspirations for the new look of the Klingons was H.R. Giger. The only problem with that H.R. Giger's Alien has been one of the most imitated designs in sci-fi, to the point where even Giger himself wanted to distance himself from it in new designs (such as for the film Species).
The TMP Klingons were called " Warrior Caste". They were stationed on the then new K'tinga class battle cruisers. 2272. That explains their looks. They stood a little taller than your average Klingon. That's why they were sent after the VGER cloud.
And how they design their (discovery) bat'leth is awful, why design a blade that is for defensive purpose? they're blade, they cut stuff, it's like design a gun with a barrel bend into a U shape pointing at the user so that your enemy cant used your weapon against you
Yeah I watched that, interesting they chose gigar though when gigars aesthetic is done right it's really bloody cool. The game scorn handles that very well.
Warrior cultures often had long hair. Greeks Hoplites and their hero Achilles had long hair. Vikings are known to have long hair. Samurai also had long hair, but tied in a knot.
Absolutely! Though there were famous groups that kept their hair short (Roman Legions, for one), it's not too hard to simply tie your hair back, braid it, or keep it under a hat or helmet.
@@BogeyTheBear No it was a status symbol. Only people who had time to care for them had them. Warriors (professional ones, no one time raiders) had plenty of time in between battles to comb out lice, wash them and dry them. A comb, tweezers and a razor are common warrior burial items known from archeological sites. It was same for Slavs, Germanics (Including Norse), some Celtic tribes and later for medieval nobility (knights). Peasants toiled fields from sunrise to sunset and thus had no time for such luxury as long hair. Poor man's graves usually do not have any of aforementioned items so we can assume they did not need them because they had short hair.
I can see why you would like the Kelven timeline Klingons. But I still have to go with the TNG-ENT Klingons. More specifically, when someone stole Michael Dorn's headpiece and they had to make a new one. That felt like the best Klingons. Think that was season 3 or 4 of TNG. The ridges didn't extend as far back on the head.
Yeah, I'd swap #1 and #2 on the list. That said, I agree with all of the points he makes in this video, barring his preference for no hair. Hair makes them look suitably wild and feral.
Seconded I would go TNG / ST3 and then Kelvin.. Kelvins were different, but still Klingon.. Klingon 2.0 if you will... Definitely threatening and yet calculated much more so than TNG.. And I agree the piercings ( as often seen in warrior tribes on earth ) reflected a badassness that was a missed opportunity in the TNG era kilgons.
Seconded. The TNG-era Klingons had an amazing range of character and expression, all thanks to costume and makeup. Star Trek will never match Star Wars in the "weird alien" department, nor should it (maybe?) Let Trek be Trek.
@@edkwon Oh my...... not an appearance from the "everything is racist" brigade. TNG Klingons riff heavily from Japanese Samurai. Nobody calls them racist. TOS Klingons looking like the Mongols is the exact same thing...... Seriously stop looking for things to be offended by on other people's behalf.
This makes sense, actually. The Kelvin Klingons did a modern update of the 24th century design. The Discovery Klingons seemed to take those and just warped their heads into bizarre almost Xenomorph shape.
1) TNG Klingons 2) Kelven Time 3) TOS Klingons 4) Discovery Klingons Reason why I ranked TOS over Discovery is that TOS Klingons uniforms look more practical then the Discovery costumes.
I would never call Kelvin Klingons my favorite(Movie/Next Gen will always win), but after seeing what we got in Discovery, I would've 1000% preferred them. At least I could've believed that they were a different sect/racial group of the Classic designs.
The second I saw piercings on Klingon ridges it was this feeling of this is so perfect and makes so much sense why hasn't it been on day one it's an excellent design choice that I think works really well and I hope we see more of in the future
I hated the new Klingon designs on Discovery. My first reaction was “What the f**k?”. You’re spot on in saying it was overdesigned. The extra set of nostrils and extended headgear made the new design barely resembling the traditional design that the fans love. The redesign of the Klingons in the Kelvin timeline was great. It didn’t stray too far from the traditional design. The new costumes is sort of a combination of medieval knights and gestapo. Plus I love the piercings on the forehead ridges. As for the facial hair, the designer moved away from the fu Manchu style and more toward a full viking beard.
The discovery Klingons looked to bland and generic for me like these alien races of voyager that where introduced for one episode and then never seen again. I get that they changed the Klingons from TOS because their looks where just that way because of budgetary reasons, but after TOS we more or less had one Klingon design that got refined from the movies to TNG, to Voyager and DS9 and even Enterprise. It is now iconic and has been part of the Universe for a long time and I see no reason to change it. I mean why make a film specific in the Trek universe when you do not want to use the established universe and only the brand name and nothing else? I think further refinements and slight changes would have been fine, but discovery completely swapped out the whole race and put a new one in that just used some of the Klingon stereotypes. I mean if Klingons were a real race, that would be considered racist ... The Kelvin Klingons looked more like warriors from house Harkonnen from Dune or whatever ... I think the changes done to the Romulan race by the Picard series is a far better way to do things. They didn't really turn around the established perception of Romulans, they just added something to their looks and culture, refined a few things, clarified a few things and gave us new lore. IMHO thats the right way to do it and maybe you can argue on how successful it was, but their intentions of preserving established lore and building up new stuff were right.
Thank you! So much THIS! And THAT is what they definitely do right in STAR WARS. They would NEVER re-design iconic characters or designs! And the fans are grateful for that. In the STAR TREK franchise on the other hand, it's just a huge mess. Every show seems to feel the need to redesign established stuff. And it makes it all worse and worse.
Yeah, even before Discovery I’d hoped they’d show other varieties of Klingons alongside each other. And then they did it for the Romulans, with varying levels of foreheads and tons of shapes of ears. I especially would like to see them recreate the 80s-00s Klingons with the new prosthetic technologies, and have blends between all 3 varieties. Like they said if they brought Michael Dorn back he would look the same. And Lower Decks had that classic kind of Klingon. Also they already shrunk the head back from Discovery s1 into s2, and the TNG-era Klingons still had bigger skulls than humans for the big forehead and hair piece, so they’re a similar size now. The Into Darkness Klingons basically just tweaked the TNG design with newer more expensive prosthetics too. They could all coexist and be a spectrum of design elements.
Yeah, kinda ironically the wild their design became, the more they just kind of look like an alien of the day with a big rubber mask. What made Klingons work is that they were essentially human with some shit on their forehead and a different baseline culture.
At least the TOS Klingons have that cheesy classic rose-tinted glasses kind of charm to them, I haven’t met a single person that unironically likes the Discovery design.
Once they started growing out hair again, they start to look okay, but even then it's rediculous. They try and save face in Disco season 2 by saying they've started growing out their hair again or something, but could you imagine the nightmare it would be to try and shave around those head ridges? Insanity. I've always been just fine with Discovery for what it is, I like it, but those designs were a huge whiff.
I got a great description for the Kelvin Timeline Klingon helmets. Imagine if Predator wasn't a film made by humans on Earth in 1987, but instead by Klingons on Qo'nos. This is how they would design the Predator's helmet I think.
At least Enterprise tried to create an in universe explanation for TOS Klingons. It might be kinda dumb, but I like it. Makes more sense than the orc Klingons from Discovery.
Actually, it perfectly explains the orc Klingons from Discovery. Enterprise had proven that Klingon physical features are easily succeptible to genetic modification and viral mutation. So any attempts to reverse the physical effects would likely result in extreme physical abnormalities. Some Klingons would simply rather have too much ridge-head than not enough. Even their battle cry "Remain Klingon" further accentuates that they likely went to great lengths to bring those features back. The Klingon in Enterprise himself said that cosmetic alteration would become very popular.
Discovery Klingons have all the hallmarks of designers raised on videogames. Overdesgned to the point of not being practical can only function in a game. I'm shocked that these designs were greenlit for TV. (This isn't a dig at games, btw. I'm just saying that unless you're making animated characters, you need to choose a designer with film or theatre experience).
There was a practical reason for caking on that much makeup and prosthetic. Otherwise you would be able to instantly tell that Voq was who he turned out to be later on, the moment you saw his face you'd be like "Oh, that is so OBVIOUSLY Voq in disguise"
To me they look quite vampiric in design particularly the armour, as well as highly impractical for a race with a strong warrior society. I did like the attempt to show the minuet differences between the klingon houses but i would have much prefered the do so with the old armour
@@Ericshadowblade The armor was almost straight out of the concept artwork for the Motion Picture costumes, which they couldn't create at the time because they were too budget intensive, especially for such a short scene.
The very fact that a video ranking the various designs of the same alien species is even possible, is a pretty concise reminder that the meticulously consistent canon which nostalgic Trek purists love to evangelize, never existed at all.
I'll be honest with you though when they do stuff like radically alter the designs it takes me out of it and I'll confess does stop me enjoying the show. I'm not a huge Trekkie and I don't know or even care about every little piece of canon. But on the other hand I watch Star Trek for escapism and in order for me to escape into a story like Star Trek it has to feel somewhat real and therefore be at least somewhat consistent. Otherwise the illusion is gone and I can't forget I'm watching a TV Show. And I'll be honest with you I kind of resent being made to feel bad about that. Everyone enjoys things for different reasons and if you can turn your brain off and not care about big stylistic shifts and when what you're watching is inconsistent then good for you. But I think for a lot of people myself included it's frustrating.
You could make the argument that Trek has been majorly overhauled in both design and tone on 5 different occasions, first with TMP, then with TWOK, next was TNG, and finally Kelvin timeline and DSC era. Each featured radical redesigns, with Klingons, the Enterprise, the uniforms and in style and tone. It's always a soft reboot with in canon explanations for those differences, but those are superficial at best. For example, there is no way that the refit Enterprise is the same ship as the original. Overall shape is similar, but look in detail and all of the shapes and dimensions are off. Refit is just code for "we had a bigger budget and designed a better ship". Honestly, Trek would never have survived for 50 years if it didn't reinvent itself every now and then.
What about the Enterprise genetic experiment Klingons? They did have distinctive makeup to TOS with a design that would have been used going forward if the show had not been cancelled.
The show was already cancelled before that episode aired. The fourth season was just to get the episode count necessary for syndication, there was no intention to continue the show beyond it... which is probably why they seemed to not at all care when outside writers were brought in to work on certain S4 episodes. They were probably like "Do whatever. You're already cancelled anyway"
The Batarians occupy the same narrative role in Mass Effect as the Klingons did in Star Trek (direct territorial/resource rivals to humans) and the Discovery Klingons look very much like two-eyed Batarians.
@@connormacleod4922 Well... actually they kind of do. They just don't call them slaves. They call them 'subjects of the Empire'. Same end result - you work hard for your betters or you get beaten to death. And they also had a bit of a Roman style in regard to their slaves - they could rise in society if you impressed them, though you'd always be second class to a Klingon. They also had a bit more of a 'hands off' approach, with them basically ignoring you so long as you provided the demanded tithes on time and didn't give them any attitude when they arrived to collect.
@@andromidius Well at least with the Klingons you had or have a chance. Batarians don't give you chances, and they subject you to brutal practices for their amusement.
it just doesn't explain how it spread across the entire empire,... nor how the effects diminished a century later,... and how nobody in the 23rd Century who saw smooth-headed Klingons had any reaction to those who's ridges had grown back. Hell,... the moment in DS9 when Bashir says "Those are Klingons?", there would still be people alive who would have seen them without ridges,... not to mention him and O'Brien idolizing a captain who met those same Klingons on at least four separate occasions, then ridged-Klingons on another three. I preferred when we just said "they always had ridges, they simply couldn't do the heavy makeup in the 60's"... but a tongue in cheek joke during an anniversary episode messed that all up forever. "They are Klingons, and it is a long story" was NEVER meant to be taken seriously.... But that's fandom for you, we take EVERYTHING too seriously
"I wanna stop the comments section being as terrible as it was in the last few supplementals," Rowan said, a bottle of petrol in one hand, an oily rag in the other, and a lighter in his back pocket with the words 'TOS Klingons are boring' etched into it.
@@edkwon oh I'm not disputing that at all, I just know that a certain subset of TOS stans go ballistic whenever you imply that the omnissiah Gene Rodenberry didn't nail everything in that show.
@@edkwon To be "racist", they have to be aimed at a specific race, in insulting or uncomplimentary manner. Not true. It was a cheap, quick costume, as Rowan pointed out. BUT, despite the blandness, which IS a fair criticism, elements of that did go forward, like the swarthy look, beards, and general appearance of costumes, lines, boots, sashes and so forth. Which created an iconic look which lasted for decades, combined with their ships. Which is why the STD designers were fools.
@@filmandpage1138 Lots, my guess. But the suck is now and that won't change. STD is not one of those that will age well or become more highly regarded with time.
I can't understand why anyone would get angry about one other person's opinion. I like hearing opinions different from my own. And is there anything with lower stakes than taste in science fiction aesthetics?
That’s interesting I think I’ve always sort of dismissed the Kelvin Klingons because I didn’t like that film very much and just felt those Klingons were underused My favourite was always TMP Klingons - I just remember seeing them for the first time in the theatre as a 10 year old not knowing they had been redesigned and being blown away by them - that V’ger attack sequence at the beginning of that film was so mind blowing to me - the Klingon ships didn’t explode they just electrocuted and than disappeared
As someone who repudiates what Abrams did to Star Trek, I find it continually astonishing that you can make sense so often on other matters, but can keep rating the Kelvan timeline so highly.
Honestly I really like the Klingon Cleav ship ( the one that went through one of the Section 31 ships during the final of Discovery season 2). That idea of using a ship to cut another ship apart is so Klingon to me that I'm surprised it hasn't happened before
The Kelvin Klingon cranial ridges were like cookie cutter Klingons. No distinctions. So no thank you. TMP+ Klingons were the best. Not thrilled about DSC Klingons.
Glenn Hetrick had given an interview, talking about the Disco redesign of the Andorians & Tellarites, that it was important not to get too crazy, so people could immediately recognize both species, then he didn't take his own advice with the Klingons. I think they look amazing, just not as Klingons, should have just been a new alien species. I'm still particular to TNG/DS9 Klingons, but the Kelvin ones are pretty good.
@@stevebruns1833 Yea, its like he forgot a lot of the criticism he used to give the artists, especially in regards to allowing actors to speak in prosthetics. I think his design is pretty cool, just not as Klingons, because its too much of a departure and as he put it, isn't instantly recognizable. Bummer Syfy canceled Face/Off too, it was one of the few decent "reality" shows worth watching.
I really like the Kelvin Klingons too, they look genuinely mean and threatening. I think I agree with your assessment really, the Disco Klingons were over designed. Something between the TNG and Kelvin Klingons would have worked well for Disco. Saying that, by Disco S2, they were toned down a bit and looked better.
We have the same favorite Klingon design! So awesome to find someone else who loves their design from Into Darkness. Also I’m The crazy hedgehog lady on your Patreon. Love your channel, and thank you so much for all the great entertainment and content. My hedgehog (Quillemina) and I think you rock. 👍🏻🦔
The Kelvin-movies dialed up the Klingons to 11, Discovery to 13. Design-overkill wherever possible. Just the bat´leth as an example: TNG and DS9 presented a sleek weapon. Kelvin: more spikes and edges. Discovery: what the hell am I looking at - a bow with pincers?
Pragmatically speaking the DSC batleth was more usable as a weapon. Other people have covered the issues with TNG batleths and their designer, they have shitty reach and are cumbersome and slow and the so called martial artist they hired was a fraud. But while sticking with the basic concept the DSC version works a lot better and even somewhat resembles actual functional weapons.
All the people that have a issue of a Klingon without hair. They forgot that General Chang was bald and Worf's hair was very short in first season, later grew out.
I actually quite like the DSC Klingons. I can see your point of them being overdesigned, but to me that stylized look highlighted their alien-ness. Which as you say was probably the point. It was different to anything we've seen before, and at first I wasn't sure about it. But I kinda dig it. They look very theatrical which fits with the Klingon culture as we know it. Never gave the Kelvin design much thought, they amount to nothing more than a cameo in the movie, but you gave me a new appreciation for their design. But ultimately, I gotta give the top spot the the movie/TNG era designs. Because in that era the Klingon culture took shape and became what we now know it to be. Special mention to TUC's General Chang. He was the baddest looking Klingon. The bald head, the bolted on eye patch. Glorious!
TUC and Chang are two of my favourite Trek staples, right up there with Q Between the Sheakspeare, the eye patch, and the Bird of Prey, TUC was truly something special
And as Voltaire put it "And what is with the Klingons? Remember, in the day they looked like Puerto Ricans and they dressed in gold lamé now they look like heavy metal rockers from the dead with leather pants and frizzy hair and lobsters on their heads"
When they teased the helmets in the Kelvin timeline, I was hoping it could be a tie-in to the ridges/no ridges situation. Following the augment virus, all warriors could have been required to wear helmets planet-side or in various postings in order to appear as a unified force and to avoid discrimination among the ranks. Ridge-less warriors would all serve on the same ships and be sent to the frontiers of the Empire, like the systems bordering on Federation space. Once onboard their ships, it could be a custom on ridge-less warrior ships to chuck all those helmets into a storage locker due to pride and to only wear them when dealing with other Klingons.
I loved the Kelvin timeline Klingons; in fact, I really enjoyed the world building as a whole. It was well thought out without seeming over done. They also stuck to the ingenuity that the OG Star Trek used to create sets; in some BTS the set designers explained that they used lamp shades, etc to make the transporter set. I enjoyed the drag of the Discovery Klingons, I feel like that would be more ornamental for special occasions but otherwise Kelvin was the best. I feel like the lower level Klingons who would constantly be fighting would have no hair and the higher levels would grow their hair out. But I enjoyed that they didn't have hair either, it was practical and honestly quite striking in addition to the ridge piercings.
I think most people imagine the TNG/DS9/VOY ear when they think Klingons. I think it’s unfair to base the Kelvin Klingons on just the one we saw (maybe pierced ridges were unique to him). But I think we can all agree that the discovery Klingons looked a lot better when they added hair
I think the Disco Klingon design would have been awesome... if they were something other than Klingons. There's a TNG episode that says that Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Humans have a common ancestor/proto-species, so Klingons kinda have to be designed closer to the other humanoids.
Agreed completely with this ranking. Yes, Into Darkness was terrible in so many ways, but the Klingon designs stand out as one of the few bright spots. Discovery, on the other hand... ugh. I feel like the overwhelming negative reaction to the design was one of the reasons they decided to move the show to the far future... and I can't help but notice we didn't see the Klingons at all in S3.
I'd completely forgotten the Kelven ones even existed, that entire range of movies left essentially no impact on me. It's a decent enough design, cool silhouette. But they don't actually do anything, reducing them to Nausicaan-level of cool looking, yet still wasted potential.
It's no great surprise to find the TOS Kingons at the bottom of your list. And I suppose it's warranted. But I wouldn't judge too harshly, given the severe material and financial limitations under which the original series was produced--the proverbial "shoestring budget," as they say. On the whole, I'd say they did pretty well given the constraints within which they had to work.
I was looking to see if someone would mention the budget restrictions from TOS. Star Trek TMP was the first actualization of Klingon appearance. Star Trek New Voyages, though not canon, and Enterprise made the connection that not all Klingons on were infected by the augment virus. By the time we meet Kor, Kang Koloth on DS9, a complete cure was found and all those infected, including offspring, regained their racial appearance or they received cranial implants.
I wonder if the much more damaged version of Q'onos and Praxis seen in the Kelvin movies is a result of them using the Narada in warfare while they held Nero in captivity.
Maybe it comes down to Deep Space Nine Bias, but I have say that the Prime Movies/TNG/DS9/ Enterprise designs are my favorite designs. The Discovery Design is the kind that works much better on paper in my eyes.
I actually like the Discovery Klingons - they seem more alien than the more simple TNG ones, but the Kelvin ones never seemed all that impressive to me
Regarding the Klingon home planet of Q'onos, I think it is very telling that in TNG and DS9 the planet was not unlike our own, definitely industrialized but with plenty of thriving nature to acknowledge. In those iterations I did not see Klingons as so much war-like as they were warriors of honor, easily motivated to fight but not out of malice so much as a sense of duty to protect themselves and their ways of life at any cost. Therefore, yes, I imagine plenty of wars occured throughout Klingon history, but I think they respect each other enough as fellow warriors, even if on opposing sides, not to take it to the point of destroying their planet in order to win the fight. Regardless of which side won the war, both sides would be committed to preserving their culture for future generations to uphold, and nuking their planet does not help that. Besides, they were very driven to fight by hand, even when being shot at, and I almost think using nukes would have been outside the realm of an honorable battle (yes I know they shoot disruptors and torpedoes in space but you can't fight hand to hand against an enemy starship). As evidence of this theory, consider how throughout the Klingon civil war in TNG the opposing armies frequently drank and partied together as brethren, even if they were going to fight each other the next day.
I'd count the Disco Season 2 Kingons as a design of their own, given they _heavily_ moderated the design down to something much more in keeping with Movie/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT designs. Had the Season 2 design been the Season 1 design, there would probably have been a lot of complaining, but I don't think people would've had quite the same problem with them. I'd entirely forgotten about the Kelvin Klingons, and they're fine. The costumes are the best element. I've never seen the fact that Klingons generally have long hair to be much of an issue, as no Klingon worth their qagh would let you get that close in a fight without you being presented with your own intestines first.
Except for all those times we see exactly that happen lol, one thing I can say about the batleth is it's perfectly designed for a cinematic fight, naturally made for those tropetastic shooting matches with snarling banter.
I've always thought that the STD Klingon design aesthetic resembled the Necromongers from Chronicles of Riddick. Also, the best Klingon Design from Into Darkness was the rejected bird of prey by Pierre Drolet.
I like TNG overall, it was simple but effective As far as ship design, the Bird of Prey from Undiscovered Country is a classic, as was General Changs bolt patch
For me, TNG era wins because they look less alien, and more human. Given the big reveal in The Chase that all the races in the galaxy have a common progenitor, I always have a soft spot for “basically a human, with some extra bits” aliens. I loved the Disco Klingons as being super alien, but that went against The Chase, and that knocked them down a few places. Same with the Kelvin Klingons.
To me Disco Klingons are a disaster, since the Klingons aren't always bad guys. Star Trek at its finest (TNG IMO) never made any major alien race out like all of them are bad guys, not even Cardassians, Ferrengi, or even Romulas. To allow us to empathize with them and at least respect their cultural differences benefits from a reasonably human appearance in my strong opinion, at least enough to see their most subtle changes in facial expression. To make them so grotesque and hideous alienates [pun intended] audiences from being able to see things from their POV and empathize.
The Klingons from TNG and DS9 were the best! Black people don't get proportional representation in sci fi (or media in general). So it was good for me to see a race of brown-skinned people kicking so much ass! Some of the Kilngon actors were white...but I did not consider them being in "blackface". They were portraying aliens...not Africans or African Americans. So I was a bit disappointed when Discovery came out and they re-imagined the Klingons as not being brown skinned. Don't get me wrong...pigmentation does not matter to me like it EXTREMELY matters to most of primitive humanity. I'm just saying represent EVERYONE! And do so proportionally!
Fun fact: both the Klingons and the apes from Planet of the Apes both represent Japanese soldiers during WWII. Both were created by soldiers who fought the Japanese (and in the case of Pierre Boulle, held captive for several years).
The hair thing definitely made a difference for me in terms of getting used to the new Klingon look in Discovery. I do think if they had some of the long viking hair on the new design it would have clicked for me right away. I know there's an argument that short hair is "practical," for a warrior, but the Klingons were never necessarily the most practical people. The vikings were also a bunch of bloodthirsty bastards, so using that design element always made a ton of sense to me intuitively. That said, Kelvin cranium jewelry is one of those things that made a ton of sense once you saw it. It's surprising in retrospect that it wasn't a part of the design before 2009.
Yeah, I'm normally pretty chill with lore, canon, all that. I get that Star Trek is a TV show and sometimes production and creative decisions are made that are outside the purview of canon, but even I was upset over Discovery Klingons. Klingons are at this point such an iconic alien design that to change them so drastically was just insane. The explanation that they wanted them to look more alien so that viewers would have a new impression of Klingons is noble, I get that. For the first time I'm hearing that and I can dig it. But still, maybe not THAT design. I agree that the design they got in the Kelvin films is probably the best version of that. They definitely look like Klingons as we understand them, just now their prosthetics have a top-tier movie budget so they can actually look good and properly alien.
I’m just getting started in fully immersing myself in Star Trek for the first time (I’ve only seen the original series all the way through) but IMO Worf is exactly how Klingons should look
I agree. Glad they returned to a more classic design recently with Pivard Season 3 (Worf) and SNW Season 2. I thought the STID Klingons looked really intimidating and it looked like the ridges were more integrated into their skulls rather than just slapped on the forehead. I think SNW Klingons are somewhere between TNG and STID Klingons.
The Kelvin Klingons are used so sparingly that I forget about them in terms of being a different design. Frankly this design should have been used for Discovery instead of the melted turd monstrosities they used. lol My only counter to the way Kelvin Klingons are depicted is the notion that Klingons are so warmongering that they practically have destroyed their home world. Klingons are warriors, warriors are not necessarily warmongers. You can have a world of warriors that also can maintain a society enough to not nuke it. That is a detail that plainly illustrates one of my issues with some of the Kelvin universe world building: overly simplistic interpretations of concepts, characters and worlds that were far more complex and interesting in the Prime universe.
Regardless of how they look, no one has performed a Klingon better than the original: John Colicos as Kor in Errand of Mercy. "Fools! Will I have to kill them all???" "A shame, Captain. It would have been glorious!"
Don't worry about the critics :) . To me Klingons need to have hair. I have always thought of this as more of a more a Mongol aesthetic than a Viking one.
Personally my ranking would be 1_Movies/TNG... (they are the Klingons I grew up with) 2_Kelvin timeline (same reasons as you, but I just prefer the others) 3_TOS (mostly because I loathe the Disco design) 4_Discovery (just told you why !). One thing though. You're talking ship designs. MY problem with the Kelvin timeline is the weapons. TO STAR WARS-ISH ! They emit phaser blast instead of phaser beams... weapon wise, I've always associated blast with Star Wars and beams with Star Trek... and those Kelvin-verse blasts are bothering me ! I know it's silly but it dies anyway ! Thanks for your videos.
Pretty much agree with Rowan here, lol, other than changing the Kelvin Klingons out and making TNG ones top of the list. To be honest when we got to number two and that was TNG Klingons I was baffled what other Klingons there actually were that he had on the list. I actually quite like 'Into Darkness' as a stand alone movie, even though it's a mess where Trek canon is involved, but you hardly see the Klingons in it. Theres the one fight scene thats edited so fast you never really see the Klingons without their armour other than that one guy and then thats it, they're gone So they never made an impact on me. I know Rowan does say that due to expense TOS Klingons looked 'boring' and that is accurate. That is exactly why they are the way they are. The shows back then were on a very tight budget which is one reason that when the Romulans are around most of them wear helmets so you can't see they didn't bother doing their ears, LOL. However I wish he hadn't harped on about how boring and bland they were. They are a sign of the times as much as anything else and the face paint wasn't an issue back then. We had some of the best baddies in the entire TOS thanks to the Klingons with Koloth, Kang and Kor who were so memorable they come back in the movies and later tv shows.
Huh. It wasn't until this video that I realized there's an unfortunate implication of growing biodeterminism in how the depiction of Klingons has changed over the decades. Originally, they weren't significantly physically fiercer than humans; for example the bar brawl in "Trouble with Tribbles" wasn't implied to be more perilous for the Enterprise crew than if it had been with any other gang of average ruffians. Klingon belligerence was entirely cultural, and the Organians allude they'll develop out of it in time. But with the cinematic redesign, the notion that Klingons are physically evolved for battle (and therefore crave it) starts to grow, and TNG ran with this concept, arguably cementing it in the episode "Ethics" by descriging Klingon anatomy as uncommonly hardy. By the time of Voyager, there's a character lamenting her Klingon heritage as a source of inborn aggression, so that culture isn't even a factor anymore. All this is mirrored by increasingly brutal physical appearance, until by Discovery Klingons are pretty much space-orcs, animalistic killling machines that can't be reasoned with. Personally I think this a bad direction, and not just for the ugly real-world beliefs it resembles. Its just boring, sacrificing nuance for cool visuals. It was your reiteration of the "Into Darkness" designer's statement about their homeworld being bombed-out because they're so inherently warlike that really made it hit, because that sounds too much like disdainful right-wing justifications for ethnic neighborhoods being run-down.
Just like the Enterprise-era ships I also really dislike the Enterprise-era Klingons. So very bland and uninteresting. I do love the Klingons from STVI: The Undiscovered Country. Especially Chang and his screwed-in eye patch. How very Klingon. Plus, Worf's gramps - complete with movie style ridges but in the TNG House of Mogh pattern. I love that attention to detail.
The Kelvin klingons were the only ones that, to me, felt both alien and realistic. TNG klingons always just felt like scary asians with raisin forheads, but not really like a different race. Discovery klingons were just a joke tho, someone put a lego toy in the microwave and puked all over it. Laughable.
Great video! I was never a fan of the Kelvin Klingons but I feel like I didn't notice as much about them as you did. They always reminded me of the Uruki-hai from LOTR, but without an interesting one that stands out. I really like the TNG era style, so I would put them at number 1, then Discovery, then Kelvin then TOS.
The discovery kilngons were really what is wrong in the whole show..m fixing problems that weren't broken... JJ had better klingons than discovery!!! Undiscovered country had my favorite klingons.. their uniforms, head ridges, and their blood!!! Loved it
Klingons weren't a warrior speices until the h'Urq invaded in the 1500s before that they were a poetic agrarian society , they did become expansionist but the warrior cult didn't become dominatnt untill the 2100s . Durring the 20th century they were lest warlike than humans by a lot.
unpopular opinion, but i thought the discovery Klingons are my second favorite. I actually quite like extremely alien looking aliens with really good prosthetics, and star trek fails at that quite often in my eyes. for me it's: 1) DS9 (which had a slightly rougher but more consistent appearance than the rest of TNG era, but i still consider them the same design so when i say "TNG" im picturing Martok and such) 2) discovery 3) kelvin (hair and proper klingon armor would have bumped them up above discovery) 4) TOS this is all debatable of course, but I do need to say that anyone who thinks the TOS Klingons are above discovery is just wrong. even if you dislike the new design and you have it somewhere at the bottom of your own list, personally it's an insane argument to suggest that "regular dudes with a bit of facepaint and a fake goatee that even looked bad at the time it was made" is significantly better than a genuinely alien and relatively realistic looking set of makeup/prosthetics. you can dislike the design, which is understandable (and i do still HATE the discovery Klingon SHIP designs btw), but in my mind you really can't say it's an "objectively bad" redesign, and if they had used the exact same makeup for a brand new species I doubt it would get even a fraction of the criticism. I would just say that redesigning the iconic and much beloved TNG/DS9 Klingons in the first place was the biggest mistake. More people probably dislike that they changed at all, and not even really what they changed into. Nobody was asking for it and we have loved the TNG/TMP design for decades, so it stands to reason that there would be some resistance to it... and most trek fans didn't like at least season 1 of discovery in general, which probably makes the new Klingons even harder to accept.
What about the Enterprise "Augmented" Klingons? We only saw them briefly, but I think they look great and brilliantly and less problematic update the TOS design
I think the kelvin time line design was the best design personally for me and I loved this video and your analysis, the klingons are my favourite alien race in star trek so any video on them is always gonna draw me in. Seeing someone else who gets really passionate about kilingons really gives me hope that people are gonna love the alien races in my own science fiction universe I'm developing that I'm working on while I'm at university and will be releasing the first phase of creative projects in it in the upcoming two years, video games and animated motion comic series and published graphic novels. I'm gonna do a card based table top rpg too. So this gives me a lot hope and enthusiastic reassurance that people will love my sci Fi universe.
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I remember Zoe Saldana saying that she couldn't stop herself flirting with the JJ Klingons as she found them really handsome. Oh and controversially I like the JJ Klingons too - even if they do look a bit like they belong in a Fantasy Franchise more than a sci fi one - I think they pushed the Worf look a little without tipping it past a point that they no longer look like the same species. If Discovery had gone with this look I'd have had no real complaints - their D4 (fighter like ships) are a little odd - they look a little Romulan like a small bird. But otherwise I like them.
Other than that I like the TNG era look when the Klingons dress up and are wearing jerkins and cloaks. Overall though I'd say the Klingons work better than the Romulans in terms of costume and make up. I guess if Picard managed to do something right (not much) but something it was it's Romulans.
Really the kelvin time line no sorry i respect the decision but for me it's the TNG/DS9 klingons for me but good work and a big thumbs up to you from one fan to another . Live long and prosper
Those are pain clips that are stapled into the nerve of the head spine, it keeps them angry and focased and proves to other Klingons who is tougher, an heirloom of Klingon pride distinction. at least thats what I say they are.
The DS9 Klingons are my favorite. The ascetic is from TNG and it was good. DS9 made them better by fleshing them out more as a race.
Totally agreed
I literally came to the comments to say that....how could humans breed with a discovery klingon.????.
Yes same for the Romulans they just look soo much better there.
In one of the Discovery "making of" features, they discussed that one of the inspirations for the new look of the Klingons was H.R. Giger. The only problem with that H.R. Giger's Alien has been one of the most imitated designs in sci-fi, to the point where even Giger himself wanted to distance himself from it in new designs (such as for the film Species).
Discovery Klingons look like fish bone costumes.
The TMP Klingons were called " Warrior Caste". They were stationed on the then new K'tinga class battle cruisers. 2272. That explains their looks. They stood a little taller than your average Klingon. That's why they were sent after the VGER cloud.
And how they design their (discovery) bat'leth is awful, why design a blade that is for defensive purpose? they're blade, they cut stuff, it's like design a gun with a barrel bend into a U shape pointing at the user so that your enemy cant used your weapon against you
Yeah I watched that, interesting they chose gigar though when gigars aesthetic is done right it's really bloody cool. The game scorn handles that very well.
Warrior cultures often had long hair. Greeks Hoplites and their hero Achilles had long hair. Vikings are known to have long hair. Samurai also had long hair, but tied in a knot.
Absolutely! Though there were famous groups that kept their hair short (Roman Legions, for one), it's not too hard to simply tie your hair back, braid it, or keep it under a hat or helmet.
I think the idea is long hair is what you want stuffed under your helmet to act as dunnage for a tight fit, if not for outright cushioning.
@@BogeyTheBear No it was a status symbol. Only people who had time to care for them had them. Warriors (professional ones, no one time raiders) had plenty of time in between battles to comb out lice, wash them and dry them. A comb, tweezers and a razor are common warrior burial items known from archeological sites. It was same for Slavs, Germanics (Including Norse), some Celtic tribes and later for medieval nobility (knights). Peasants toiled fields from sunrise to sunset and thus had no time for such luxury as long hair. Poor man's graves usually do not have any of aforementioned items so we can assume they did not need them because they had short hair.
I can see why you would like the Kelven timeline Klingons. But I still have to go with the TNG-ENT Klingons. More specifically, when someone stole Michael Dorn's headpiece and they had to make a new one. That felt like the best Klingons. Think that was season 3 or 4 of TNG. The ridges didn't extend as far back on the head.
Seconded
Yeah, I'd swap #1 and #2 on the list.
That said, I agree with all of the points he makes in this video, barring his preference for no hair. Hair makes them look suitably wild and feral.
Seconded I would go TNG / ST3 and then Kelvin.. Kelvins were different, but still Klingon.. Klingon 2.0 if you will... Definitely threatening and yet calculated much more so than TNG.. And I agree the piercings ( as often seen in warrior tribes on earth ) reflected a badassness that was a missed opportunity in the TNG era kilgons.
Seconded. The TNG-era Klingons had an amazing range of character and expression, all thanks to costume and makeup. Star Trek will never match Star Wars in the "weird alien" department, nor should it (maybe?) Let Trek be Trek.
Undiscovered country leading into TNG was my favourite design
I'll take TOS basic over whatever the hell they did to Klingons in DISC.
The TOS Klingons were sloppy racist caricatures
@@edkwon Oh my...... not an appearance from the "everything is racist" brigade. TNG Klingons riff heavily from Japanese Samurai. Nobody calls them racist. TOS Klingons looking like the Mongols is the exact same thing...... Seriously stop looking for things to be offended by on other people's behalf.
@@edkwon shut up fool take your views and yourself and flush it
@@edkwon oh, shit the heck up,
I like the Discovery design, just hate kt for Klingons.
This makes sense, actually. The Kelvin Klingons did a modern update of the 24th century design. The Discovery Klingons seemed to take those and just warped their heads into bizarre almost Xenomorph shape.
1) TNG Klingons
2) Kelven Time
3) TOS Klingons
4) Discovery Klingons
Reason why I ranked TOS over Discovery is that TOS Klingons uniforms look more practical then the Discovery costumes.
kelven hehehe
*kelvin
@@PolarBear-rc4ks I liked Kelvim better
The TOS Klingons were sloppy racist caricatures
Undiscovered Country leading into TNG
Kelvin
Original Series
were just basically a little extra hair
I would never call Kelvin Klingons my favorite(Movie/Next Gen will always win), but after seeing what we got in Discovery, I would've 1000% preferred them. At least I could've believed that they were a different sect/racial group of the Classic designs.
The second I saw piercings on Klingon ridges it was this feeling of this is so perfect and makes so much sense why hasn't it been on day one it's an excellent design choice that I think works really well and I hope we see more of in the future
When u go to a Trek convention or a Comic Con most people always cosplay as the TNG version because is the best.
I hated the new Klingon designs on Discovery. My first reaction was “What the f**k?”. You’re spot on in saying it was overdesigned. The extra set of nostrils and extended headgear made the new design barely resembling the traditional design that the fans love.
The redesign of the Klingons in the Kelvin timeline was great. It didn’t stray too far from the traditional design. The new costumes is sort of a combination of medieval knights and gestapo. Plus I love the piercings on the forehead ridges. As for the facial hair, the designer moved away from the fu Manchu style and more toward a full viking beard.
They should have used the Klingons from the Kelvin timeline for discovery. At least they'd look close to worf, martok, etc.
That Enterprise episode finally told why TOS Klingons were human looking.
I always had the same theory.
The discovery Klingons looked to bland and generic for me like these alien races of voyager that where introduced for one episode and then never seen again. I get that they changed the Klingons from TOS because their looks where just that way because of budgetary reasons, but after TOS we more or less had one Klingon design that got refined from the movies to TNG, to Voyager and DS9 and even Enterprise. It is now iconic and has been part of the Universe for a long time and I see no reason to change it. I mean why make a film specific in the Trek universe when you do not want to use the established universe and only the brand name and nothing else? I think further refinements and slight changes would have been fine, but discovery completely swapped out the whole race and put a new one in that just used some of the Klingon stereotypes. I mean if Klingons were a real race, that would be considered racist ...
The Kelvin Klingons looked more like warriors from house Harkonnen from Dune or whatever ...
I think the changes done to the Romulan race by the Picard series is a far better way to do things. They didn't really turn around the established perception of Romulans, they just added something to their looks and culture, refined a few things, clarified a few things and gave us new lore. IMHO thats the right way to do it and maybe you can argue on how successful it was, but their intentions of preserving established lore and building up new stuff were right.
I agree. The best Klingins started with TMP then got refined in ST III. after ST III theclook stayed and that should be the only way they look.
Thank you! So much THIS! And THAT is what they definitely do right in STAR WARS. They would NEVER re-design iconic characters or designs! And the fans are grateful for that. In the STAR TREK franchise on the other hand, it's just a huge mess. Every show seems to feel the need to redesign established stuff. And it makes it all worse and worse.
Yeah, even before Discovery I’d hoped they’d show other varieties of Klingons alongside each other. And then they did it for the Romulans, with varying levels of foreheads and tons of shapes of ears. I especially would like to see them recreate the 80s-00s Klingons with the new prosthetic technologies, and have blends between all 3 varieties. Like they said if they brought Michael Dorn back he would look the same. And Lower Decks had that classic kind of Klingon. Also they already shrunk the head back from Discovery s1 into s2, and the TNG-era Klingons still had bigger skulls than humans for the big forehead and hair piece, so they’re a similar size now. The Into Darkness Klingons basically just tweaked the TNG design with newer more expensive prosthetics too. They could all coexist and be a spectrum of design elements.
Yeah, kinda ironically the wild their design became, the more they just kind of look like an alien of the day with a big rubber mask. What made Klingons work is that they were essentially human with some shit on their forehead and a different baseline culture.
At least the TOS Klingons have that cheesy classic rose-tinted glasses kind of charm to them, I haven’t met a single person that unironically likes the Discovery design.
Once they started growing out hair again, they start to look okay, but even then it's rediculous. They try and save face in Disco season 2 by saying they've started growing out their hair again or something, but could you imagine the nightmare it would be to try and shave around those head ridges? Insanity. I've always been just fine with Discovery for what it is, I like it, but those designs were a huge whiff.
I got a great description for the Kelvin Timeline Klingon helmets. Imagine if Predator wasn't a film made by humans on Earth in 1987, but instead by Klingons on Qo'nos. This is how they would design the Predator's helmet I think.
I have long hair, I like Klingons with long hair, it is that simple.
If you knit your fingers together and place them on your forehead you'll look like a Klingon, I used to when I had hair!
At least Enterprise tried to create an in universe explanation for TOS Klingons. It might be kinda dumb, but I like it. Makes more sense than the orc Klingons from Discovery.
Actually, it perfectly explains the orc Klingons from Discovery. Enterprise had proven that Klingon physical features are easily succeptible to genetic modification and viral mutation. So any attempts to reverse the physical effects would likely result in extreme physical abnormalities. Some Klingons would simply rather have too much ridge-head than not enough. Even their battle cry "Remain Klingon" further accentuates that they likely went to great lengths to bring those features back. The Klingon in Enterprise himself said that cosmetic alteration would become very popular.
Discovery Klingons have all the hallmarks of designers raised on videogames.
Overdesgned to the point of not being practical can only function in a game. I'm shocked that these designs were greenlit for TV. (This isn't a dig at games, btw. I'm just saying that unless you're making animated characters, you need to choose a designer with film or theatre experience).
Yeah...they look like the Cat Aliens in Wing Commander film...overdone and yet under achieved.
This goes for a lot of the new designs--overdone. Say what you will about the TOS era ships, but they look way more practical/possible. Less is more.
There was a practical reason for caking on that much makeup and prosthetic. Otherwise you would be able to instantly tell that Voq was who he turned out to be later on, the moment you saw his face you'd be like "Oh, that is so OBVIOUSLY Voq in disguise"
To me they look quite vampiric in design particularly the armour, as well as highly impractical for a race with a strong warrior society. I did like the attempt to show the minuet differences between the klingon houses but i would have much prefered the do so with the old armour
@@Ericshadowblade The armor was almost straight out of the concept artwork for the Motion Picture costumes, which they couldn't create at the time because they were too budget intensive, especially for such a short scene.
The very fact that a video ranking the various designs of the same alien species is even possible, is a pretty concise reminder that the meticulously consistent canon which nostalgic Trek purists love to evangelize, never existed at all.
RIP Klingon canon 1984-2017. Only 33 years of consistency.
I'll be honest with you though when they do stuff like radically alter the designs it takes me out of it and I'll confess does stop me enjoying the show.
I'm not a huge Trekkie and I don't know or even care about every little piece of canon.
But on the other hand I watch Star Trek for escapism and in order for me to escape into a story like Star Trek it has to feel somewhat real and therefore be at least somewhat consistent.
Otherwise the illusion is gone and I can't forget I'm watching a TV Show.
And I'll be honest with you I kind of resent being made to feel bad about that.
Everyone enjoys things for different reasons and if you can turn your brain off and not care about big stylistic shifts and when what you're watching is inconsistent then good for you.
But I think for a lot of people myself included it's frustrating.
@@upperbeaches
That is quite true.
Are you dumb? Klingons been KLINGONS for almost 40 years... keep shilling for blingons and klingorcs all you want, fact are facts.
You could make the argument that Trek has been majorly overhauled in both design and tone on 5 different occasions, first with TMP, then with TWOK, next was TNG, and finally Kelvin timeline and DSC era. Each featured radical redesigns, with Klingons, the Enterprise, the uniforms and in style and tone. It's always a soft reboot with in canon explanations for those differences, but those are superficial at best. For example, there is no way that the refit Enterprise is the same ship as the original. Overall shape is similar, but look in detail and all of the shapes and dimensions are off. Refit is just code for "we had a bigger budget and designed a better ship". Honestly, Trek would never have survived for 50 years if it didn't reinvent itself every now and then.
What about the Enterprise genetic experiment Klingons? They did have distinctive makeup to TOS with a design that would have been used going forward if the show had not been cancelled.
The show was already cancelled before that episode aired. The fourth season was just to get the episode count necessary for syndication, there was no intention to continue the show beyond it... which is probably why they seemed to not at all care when outside writers were brought in to work on certain S4 episodes. They were probably like "Do whatever. You're already cancelled anyway"
We can thank John Colicos for the ultimate look of the Klingons.🖖
Why would Praxis be destroyed in the JJ verse for?, in our universe that won't happen until the future. 2293.
The Discovery Klingons have some interesting design concepts, but to me they'd look more at home in Mass Effect or Halo.
The Batarians occupy the same narrative role in Mass Effect as the Klingons did in Star Trek (direct territorial/resource rivals to humans) and the Discovery Klingons look very much like two-eyed Batarians.
@@BogeyTheBear Nah, Batarians are nowhere NEAR Klingons. To compare the two would be insulting. Klingons have honor and they don't take slaves.
@@connormacleod4922 Well... actually they kind of do. They just don't call them slaves. They call them 'subjects of the Empire'. Same end result - you work hard for your betters or you get beaten to death. And they also had a bit of a Roman style in regard to their slaves - they could rise in society if you impressed them, though you'd always be second class to a Klingon. They also had a bit more of a 'hands off' approach, with them basically ignoring you so long as you provided the demanded tithes on time and didn't give them any attitude when they arrived to collect.
@@andromidius Well at least with the Klingons you had or have a chance. Batarians don't give you chances, and they subject you to brutal practices for their amusement.
I thought ST:Enterprise did a clever job retconning the look of the TOS Klingons
it just doesn't explain how it spread across the entire empire,... nor how the effects diminished a century later,... and how nobody in the 23rd Century who saw smooth-headed Klingons had any reaction to those who's ridges had grown back.
Hell,... the moment in DS9 when Bashir says "Those are Klingons?", there would still be people alive who would have seen them without ridges,... not to mention him and O'Brien idolizing a captain who met those same Klingons on at least four separate occasions, then ridged-Klingons on another three.
I preferred when we just said "they always had ridges, they simply couldn't do the heavy makeup in the 60's"... but a tongue in cheek joke during an anniversary episode messed that all up forever. "They are Klingons, and it is a long story" was NEVER meant to be taken seriously....
But that's fandom for you, we take EVERYTHING too seriously
@@k1productions87 watch enterprise. It explains it all
"I wanna stop the comments section being as terrible as it was in the last few supplementals," Rowan said, a bottle of petrol in one hand, an oily rag in the other, and a lighter in his back pocket with the words 'TOS Klingons are boring' etched into it.
The TOS Klingons were sloppy racist caricatures
@@edkwon oh I'm not disputing that at all, I just know that a certain subset of TOS stans go ballistic whenever you imply that the omnissiah Gene Rodenberry didn't nail everything in that show.
@@edkwon To be "racist", they have to be aimed at a specific race, in insulting or uncomplimentary manner. Not true. It was a cheap, quick costume, as Rowan pointed out. BUT, despite the blandness, which IS a fair criticism, elements of that did go forward, like the swarthy look, beards, and general appearance of costumes, lines, boots, sashes and so forth. Which created an iconic look which lasted for decades, combined with their ships. Which is why the STD designers were fools.
@@gimmeboobes Make a person wonder what things will be considered "racist" about Star Trek: Discovery 50 years from now.
@@filmandpage1138 Lots, my guess. But the suck is now and that won't change. STD is not one of those that will age well or become more highly regarded with time.
I can't understand why anyone would get angry about one other person's opinion. I like hearing opinions different from my own. And is there anything with lower stakes than taste in science fiction aesthetics?
Opinions are one thing, shilling for cbs is another.
That’s interesting
I think I’ve always sort of dismissed the Kelvin Klingons because I didn’t like that film very much and just felt those Klingons were underused
My favourite was always TMP Klingons - I just remember seeing them for the first time in the theatre as a 10 year old not knowing they had been redesigned and being blown away by them - that V’ger attack sequence at the beginning of that film was so mind blowing to me - the Klingon ships didn’t explode they just electrocuted and than disappeared
The Kelvin Klingons just look like the perfect mix of all that came before. Love them.
As someone who repudiates what Abrams did to Star Trek, I find it continually astonishing that you can make sense so often on other matters, but can keep rating the Kelvan timeline so highly.
Honestly I really like the Klingon Cleav ship ( the one that went through one of the Section 31 ships during the final of Discovery season 2). That idea of using a ship to cut another ship apart is so Klingon to me that I'm surprised it hasn't happened before
Discovery Klingons reminded me Orcs. 😂 I really love the TNG/DS9 Klingons but I have to say the Kelvin Klingons were just AWESOME....
Tng ds9 Klingons are what they are for me
Kelvin Klingons wear helmets. Would be curious what they look like under the masks
The Kelvin Klingon cranial ridges were like cookie cutter Klingons. No distinctions. So no thank you. TMP+ Klingons were the best. Not thrilled about DSC Klingons.
They do actual look quite like Lotr movie orcs
Glenn Hetrick had given an interview, talking about the Disco redesign of the Andorians & Tellarites, that it was important not to get too crazy, so people could immediately recognize both species, then he didn't take his own advice with the Klingons. I think they look amazing, just not as Klingons, should have just been a new alien species. I'm still particular to TNG/DS9 Klingons, but the Kelvin ones are pretty good.
So sad, because I really dug Glen on Face/Off--and Michael Westmore was right there, too. It didn't read as a "tribute to," more like a "pissing on."
@@stevebruns1833 Yea, its like he forgot a lot of the criticism he used to give the artists, especially in regards to allowing actors to speak in prosthetics. I think his design is pretty cool, just not as Klingons, because its too much of a departure and as he put it, isn't instantly recognizable. Bummer Syfy canceled Face/Off too, it was one of the few decent "reality" shows worth watching.
I really like the Kelvin Klingons too, they look genuinely mean and threatening. I think I agree with your assessment really, the Disco Klingons were over designed. Something between the TNG and Kelvin Klingons would have worked well for Disco. Saying that, by Disco S2, they were toned down a bit and looked better.
We have the same favorite Klingon design! So awesome to find someone else who loves their design from Into Darkness.
Also I’m The crazy hedgehog lady on your Patreon. Love your channel, and thank you so much for all the great entertainment and content. My hedgehog (Quillemina) and I think you rock. 👍🏻🦔
I'm sorry, but Discovery's Klingons look like demented telly tubbies.
The Kelvin-movies dialed up the Klingons to 11, Discovery to 13. Design-overkill wherever possible. Just the bat´leth as an example: TNG and DS9 presented a sleek weapon. Kelvin: more spikes and edges. Discovery: what the hell am I looking at - a bow with pincers?
Pragmatically speaking the DSC batleth was more usable as a weapon. Other people have covered the issues with TNG batleths and their designer, they have shitty reach and are cumbersome and slow and the so called martial artist they hired was a fraud.
But while sticking with the basic concept the DSC version works a lot better and even somewhat resembles actual functional weapons.
The Kelvin Klingons seem to be wearing concept art for Darth Vader's helmet/mask.
All the people that have a issue of a Klingon without hair. They forgot that General Chang was bald and Worf's hair was very short in first season, later grew out.
The Klingons are the best thing about Kelvin. Also maybe rank acrual alien designs of all species in Star Trek or divide it by show if need be.
I favourite Klingon’s are the tmp klingons
I actually quite like the DSC Klingons. I can see your point of them being overdesigned, but to me that stylized look highlighted their alien-ness. Which as you say was probably the point. It was different to anything we've seen before, and at first I wasn't sure about it. But I kinda dig it. They look very theatrical which fits with the Klingon culture as we know it. Never gave the Kelvin design much thought, they amount to nothing more than a cameo in the movie, but you gave me a new appreciation for their design. But ultimately, I gotta give the top spot the the movie/TNG era designs. Because in that era the Klingon culture took shape and became what we now know it to be. Special mention to TUC's General Chang. He was the baddest looking Klingon. The bald head, the bolted on eye patch. Glorious!
TUC and Chang are two of my favourite Trek staples, right up there with Q
Between the Sheakspeare, the eye patch, and the Bird of Prey, TUC was truly something special
And as Voltaire put it "And what is with the Klingons? Remember, in the day they looked like Puerto Ricans and they dressed in gold lamé now they look like heavy metal rockers from the dead with leather pants and frizzy hair and lobsters on their heads"
Honestly, the JJ Kilngons are underrated design wise. We didn't get to see much of them but man I loved the way they looked
When they teased the helmets in the Kelvin timeline, I was hoping it could be a tie-in to the ridges/no ridges situation. Following the augment virus, all warriors could have been required to wear helmets planet-side or in various postings in order to appear as a unified force and to avoid discrimination among the ranks. Ridge-less warriors would all serve on the same ships and be sent to the frontiers of the Empire, like the systems bordering on Federation space. Once onboard their ships, it could be a custom on ridge-less warrior ships to chuck all those helmets into a storage locker due to pride and to only wear them when dealing with other Klingons.
I loved the Kelvin timeline Klingons; in fact, I really enjoyed the world building as a whole. It was well thought out without seeming over done. They also stuck to the ingenuity that the OG Star Trek used to create sets; in some BTS the set designers explained that they used lamp shades, etc to make the transporter set. I enjoyed the drag of the Discovery Klingons, I feel like that would be more ornamental for special occasions but otherwise Kelvin was the best. I feel like the lower level Klingons who would constantly be fighting would have no hair and the higher levels would grow their hair out. But I enjoyed that they didn't have hair either, it was practical and honestly quite striking in addition to the ridge piercings.
TOS Klingons: Often viewed on black & white television sets with, perhaps, a 20" screen - and relatively few viewers who had color television sets.
To me the most redeemable thing about the Kelvin Time line is the Klingons. As usual great video bro.
I thought I was the only one that liked the Into Darkness Klingons!
I think most people imagine the TNG/DS9/VOY ear when they think Klingons. I think it’s unfair to base the Kelvin Klingons on just the one we saw (maybe pierced ridges were unique to him). But I think we can all agree that the discovery Klingons looked a lot better when they added hair
I'm like General Chang was like the first shaved head Klingon all the critics of head shaved Klingons forgot.
Just him, not the entire race...
I think the Disco Klingon design would have been awesome... if they were something other than Klingons. There's a TNG episode that says that Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Humans have a common ancestor/proto-species, so Klingons kinda have to be designed closer to the other humanoids.
The plot of the first season relies on them being similar
Agreed completely with this ranking. Yes, Into Darkness was terrible in so many ways, but the Klingon designs stand out as one of the few bright spots.
Discovery, on the other hand... ugh. I feel like the overwhelming negative reaction to the design was one of the reasons they decided to move the show to the far future... and I can't help but notice we didn't see the Klingons at all in S3.
I never thought of those creatures from the Kelven time-line were Klingons.
I'd completely forgotten the Kelven ones even existed, that entire range of movies left essentially no impact on me.
It's a decent enough design, cool silhouette. But they don't actually do anything, reducing them to Nausicaan-level of cool looking, yet still wasted potential.
It's no great surprise to find the TOS Kingons at the bottom of your list. And I suppose it's warranted. But I wouldn't judge too harshly, given the severe material and financial limitations under which the original series was produced--the proverbial "shoestring budget," as they say. On the whole, I'd say they did pretty well given the constraints within which they had to work.
I was looking to see if someone would mention the budget restrictions from TOS. Star Trek TMP was the first actualization of Klingon appearance. Star Trek New Voyages, though not canon, and Enterprise made the connection that not all Klingons on were infected by the augment virus. By the time we meet Kor, Kang Koloth on DS9, a complete cure was found and all those infected, including offspring, regained their racial appearance or they received cranial implants.
I wonder if the much more damaged version of Q'onos and Praxis seen in the Kelvin movies is a result of them using the Narada in warfare while they held Nero in captivity.
Maybe it comes down to Deep Space Nine Bias, but I have say that the Prime Movies/TNG/DS9/ Enterprise designs are my favorite designs.
The Discovery Design is the kind that works much better on paper in my eyes.
I actually like the Discovery Klingons - they seem more alien than the more simple TNG ones, but the Kelvin ones never seemed all that impressive to me
Regarding the Klingon home planet of Q'onos, I think it is very telling that in TNG and DS9 the planet was not unlike our own, definitely industrialized but with plenty of thriving nature to acknowledge. In those iterations I did not see Klingons as so much war-like as they were warriors of honor, easily motivated to fight but not out of malice so much as a sense of duty to protect themselves and their ways of life at any cost. Therefore, yes, I imagine plenty of wars occured throughout Klingon history, but I think they respect each other enough as fellow warriors, even if on opposing sides, not to take it to the point of destroying their planet in order to win the fight. Regardless of which side won the war, both sides would be committed to preserving their culture for future generations to uphold, and nuking their planet does not help that. Besides, they were very driven to fight by hand, even when being shot at, and I almost think using nukes would have been outside the realm of an honorable battle (yes I know they shoot disruptors and torpedoes in space but you can't fight hand to hand against an enemy starship). As evidence of this theory, consider how throughout the Klingon civil war in TNG the opposing armies frequently drank and partied together as brethren, even if they were going to fight each other the next day.
I don't acknowledge discovery Klingons as canon. Worfs ancestors look like that ?
Your lack of acknowledgement doesn't matter - they are canon regardless.
@@andromidius canon is different for each person. we all have our own perception of what we watch&read.
I'd count the Disco Season 2 Kingons as a design of their own, given they _heavily_ moderated the design down to something much more in keeping with Movie/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT designs. Had the Season 2 design been the Season 1 design, there would probably have been a lot of complaining, but I don't think people would've had quite the same problem with them.
I'd entirely forgotten about the Kelvin Klingons, and they're fine. The costumes are the best element. I've never seen the fact that Klingons generally have long hair to be much of an issue, as no Klingon worth their qagh would let you get that close in a fight without you being presented with your own intestines first.
Except for all those times we see exactly that happen lol, one thing I can say about the batleth is it's perfectly designed for a cinematic fight, naturally made for those tropetastic shooting matches with snarling banter.
The whole of WH40K is over the top, but at least it has style. The Klingons HAD style, but STD producers ditched it all for that crap.
Your raking is perfect.
I've always thought that the STD Klingon design aesthetic resembled the Necromongers from Chronicles of Riddick.
Also, the best Klingon Design from Into Darkness was the rejected bird of prey by Pierre Drolet.
I like TNG overall, it was simple but effective
As far as ship design, the Bird of Prey from Undiscovered Country is a classic, as was General Changs bolt patch
For me, TNG era wins because they look less alien, and more human.
Given the big reveal in The Chase that all the races in the galaxy have a common progenitor, I always have a soft spot for “basically a human, with some extra bits” aliens.
I loved the Disco Klingons as being super alien, but that went against The Chase, and that knocked them down a few places. Same with the Kelvin Klingons.
To me Disco Klingons are a disaster, since the Klingons aren't always bad guys. Star Trek at its finest (TNG IMO) never made any major alien race out like all of them are bad guys, not even Cardassians, Ferrengi, or even Romulas. To allow us to empathize with them and at least respect their cultural differences benefits from a reasonably human appearance in my strong opinion, at least enough to see their most subtle changes in facial expression. To make them so grotesque and hideous alienates [pun intended] audiences from being able to see things from their POV and empathize.
If you ask me, the Klingon design is one of the few things TMP got exactly right.
I'd rather have the "boring" and "under designed" Klingons instead of the Klingorcs of Discovery.
Somewhere inbetween the Search for Spock and Kelvin Klingons would be right for my taste tbh.
The Klingons from TNG and DS9 were the best! Black people don't get proportional representation in sci fi (or media in general). So it was good for me to see a race of brown-skinned people kicking so much ass!
Some of the Kilngon actors were white...but I did not consider them being in "blackface". They were portraying aliens...not Africans or African Americans.
So I was a bit disappointed when Discovery came out and they re-imagined the Klingons as not being brown skinned.
Don't get me wrong...pigmentation does not matter to me like it EXTREMELY matters to most of primitive humanity. I'm just saying represent EVERYONE! And do so proportionally!
The new Klingons are a shadow of their former Ds9 brothers.
People gonna hate, but you are spot on.
Fun fact: both the Klingons and the apes from Planet of the Apes both represent Japanese soldiers during WWII. Both were created by soldiers who fought the Japanese (and in the case of Pierre Boulle, held captive for several years).
The hair thing definitely made a difference for me in terms of getting used to the new Klingon look in Discovery. I do think if they had some of the long viking hair on the new design it would have clicked for me right away. I know there's an argument that short hair is "practical," for a warrior, but the Klingons were never necessarily the most practical people. The vikings were also a bunch of bloodthirsty bastards, so using that design element always made a ton of sense to me intuitively.
That said, Kelvin cranium jewelry is one of those things that made a ton of sense once you saw it. It's surprising in retrospect that it wasn't a part of the design before 2009.
ST:D Klingons looked alright to me in Season 2. They backed off quite a bit on the costumes and they (thank god) put the hair back in.
I really like the idea of the kelvin!klingon helmet basically being their version of a deaths-head/skull mask
Yeah, I'm normally pretty chill with lore, canon, all that. I get that Star Trek is a TV show and sometimes production and creative decisions are made that are outside the purview of canon, but even I was upset over Discovery Klingons. Klingons are at this point such an iconic alien design that to change them so drastically was just insane. The explanation that they wanted them to look more alien so that viewers would have a new impression of Klingons is noble, I get that. For the first time I'm hearing that and I can dig it. But still, maybe not THAT design. I agree that the design they got in the Kelvin films is probably the best version of that. They definitely look like Klingons as we understand them, just now their prosthetics have a top-tier movie budget so they can actually look good and properly alien.
I’m just getting started in fully immersing myself in Star Trek for the first time (I’ve only seen the original series all the way through) but IMO Worf is exactly how Klingons should look
I agree. Glad they returned to a more classic design recently with Pivard Season 3 (Worf) and SNW Season 2. I thought the STID Klingons looked really intimidating and it looked like the ridges were more integrated into their skulls rather than just slapped on the forehead. I think SNW Klingons are somewhere between TNG and STID Klingons.
The Kelvin Klingons are used so sparingly that I forget about them in terms of being a different design. Frankly this design should have been used for Discovery instead of the melted turd monstrosities they used. lol My only counter to the way Kelvin Klingons are depicted is the notion that Klingons are so warmongering that they practically have destroyed their home world. Klingons are warriors, warriors are not necessarily warmongers. You can have a world of warriors that also can maintain a society enough to not nuke it. That is a detail that plainly illustrates one of my issues with some of the Kelvin universe world building: overly simplistic interpretations of concepts, characters and worlds that were far more complex and interesting in the Prime universe.
Regardless of how they look, no one has performed a Klingon better than the original: John Colicos as Kor in Errand of Mercy.
"Fools! Will I have to kill them all???"
"A shame, Captain. It would have been glorious!"
Don't worry about the critics :) .
To me Klingons need to have hair. I have always thought of this as more of a more a Mongol aesthetic than a Viking one.
Personally my ranking would be
1_Movies/TNG... (they are the Klingons I grew up with)
2_Kelvin timeline (same reasons as you, but I just prefer the others)
3_TOS (mostly because I loathe the Disco design)
4_Discovery (just told you why !).
One thing though. You're talking ship designs. MY problem with the Kelvin timeline is the weapons. TO STAR WARS-ISH ! They emit phaser blast instead of phaser beams... weapon wise, I've always associated blast with Star Wars and beams with Star Trek... and those Kelvin-verse blasts are bothering me ! I know it's silly but it dies anyway !
Thanks for your videos.
Pretty much agree with Rowan here, lol, other than changing the Kelvin Klingons out and making TNG ones top of the list. To be honest when we got to number two and that was TNG Klingons I was baffled what other Klingons there actually were that he had on the list. I actually quite like 'Into Darkness' as a stand alone movie, even though it's a mess where Trek canon is involved, but you hardly see the Klingons in it. Theres the one fight scene thats edited so fast you never really see the Klingons without their armour other than that one guy and then thats it, they're gone So they never made an impact on me.
I know Rowan does say that due to expense TOS Klingons looked 'boring' and that is accurate. That is exactly why they are the way they are. The shows back then were on a very tight budget which is one reason that when the Romulans are around most of them wear helmets so you can't see they didn't bother doing their ears, LOL. However I wish he hadn't harped on about how boring and bland they were. They are a sign of the times as much as anything else and the face paint wasn't an issue back then. We had some of the best baddies in the entire TOS thanks to the Klingons with Koloth, Kang and Kor who were so memorable they come back in the movies and later tv shows.
Huh. It wasn't until this video that I realized there's an unfortunate implication of growing biodeterminism in how the depiction of Klingons has changed over the decades. Originally, they weren't significantly physically fiercer than humans; for example the bar brawl in "Trouble with Tribbles" wasn't implied to be more perilous for the Enterprise crew than if it had been with any other gang of average ruffians. Klingon belligerence was entirely cultural, and the Organians allude they'll develop out of it in time. But with the cinematic redesign, the notion that Klingons are physically evolved for battle (and therefore crave it) starts to grow, and TNG ran with this concept, arguably cementing it in the episode "Ethics" by descriging Klingon anatomy as uncommonly hardy. By the time of Voyager, there's a character lamenting her Klingon heritage as a source of inborn aggression, so that culture isn't even a factor anymore. All this is mirrored by increasingly brutal physical appearance, until by Discovery Klingons are pretty much space-orcs, animalistic killling machines that can't be reasoned with. Personally I think this a bad direction, and not just for the ugly real-world beliefs it resembles. Its just boring, sacrificing nuance for cool visuals.
It was your reiteration of the "Into Darkness" designer's statement about their homeworld being bombed-out because they're so inherently warlike that really made it hit, because that sounds too much like disdainful right-wing justifications for ethnic neighborhoods being run-down.
The Disco Klingons are the ones I hate. I can deal with the others for the most part
Just like the Enterprise-era ships I also really dislike the Enterprise-era Klingons. So very bland and uninteresting. I do love the Klingons from STVI: The Undiscovered Country. Especially Chang and his screwed-in eye patch. How very Klingon. Plus, Worf's gramps - complete with movie style ridges but in the TNG House of Mogh pattern. I love that attention to detail.
The Kelvin klingons were the only ones that, to me, felt both alien and realistic. TNG klingons always just felt like scary asians with raisin forheads, but not really like a different race.
Discovery klingons were just a joke tho, someone put a lego toy in the microwave and puked all over it. Laughable.
Great video! I was never a fan of the Kelvin Klingons but I feel like I didn't notice as much about them as you did. They always reminded me of the Uruki-hai from LOTR, but without an interesting one that stands out. I really like the TNG era style, so I would put them at number 1, then Discovery, then Kelvin then TOS.
You went with the Blingons. To each their own I suppose.
The discovery kilngons were really what is wrong in the whole show..m fixing problems that weren't broken... JJ had better klingons than discovery!!! Undiscovered country had my favorite klingons.. their uniforms, head ridges, and their blood!!! Loved it
The blood color detail was great, especially as it proved relevant in the extended edition of the film
Did the xindi reptiles take their fashion sense from discovery Klingons?
Kurtzman's abominations are dead last
Klingons weren't a warrior speices until the h'Urq invaded in the 1500s before that they were a poetic agrarian society , they did become expansionist but the warrior cult didn't become dominatnt untill the 2100s . Durring the 20th century they were lest warlike than humans by a lot.
Kelvin Klingon were strangely attractive
unpopular opinion, but i thought the discovery Klingons are my second favorite.
I actually quite like extremely alien looking aliens with really good prosthetics, and star trek fails at that quite often in my eyes.
for me it's:
1) DS9 (which had a slightly rougher but more consistent appearance than the rest of TNG era, but i still consider them the same design so when i say "TNG" im picturing Martok and such)
2) discovery
3) kelvin (hair and proper klingon armor would have bumped them up above discovery)
4) TOS
this is all debatable of course, but I do need to say that anyone who thinks the TOS Klingons are above discovery is just wrong.
even if you dislike the new design and you have it somewhere at the bottom of your own list, personally it's an insane argument to suggest that "regular dudes with a bit of facepaint and a fake goatee that even looked bad at the time it was made" is significantly better than a genuinely alien and relatively realistic looking set of makeup/prosthetics.
you can dislike the design, which is understandable (and i do still HATE the discovery Klingon SHIP designs btw), but in my mind you really can't say it's an "objectively bad" redesign, and if they had used the exact same makeup for a brand new species I doubt it would get even a fraction of the criticism.
I would just say that redesigning the iconic and much beloved TNG/DS9 Klingons in the first place was the biggest mistake. More people probably dislike that they changed at all, and not even really what they changed into.
Nobody was asking for it and we have loved the TNG/TMP design for decades, so it stands to reason that there would be some resistance to it... and most trek fans didn't like at least season 1 of discovery in general, which probably makes the new Klingons even harder to accept.
What about the Enterprise "Augmented" Klingons?
We only saw them briefly, but I think they look great and brilliantly and less problematic update the TOS design
I think the kelvin time line design was the best design personally for me and I loved this video and your analysis, the klingons are my favourite alien race in star trek so any video on them is always gonna draw me in. Seeing someone else who gets really passionate about kilingons really gives me hope that people are gonna love the alien races in my own science fiction universe I'm developing that I'm working on while I'm at university and will be releasing the first phase of creative projects in it in the upcoming two years, video games and animated motion comic series and published graphic novels. I'm gonna do a card based table top rpg too. So this gives me a lot hope and enthusiastic reassurance that people will love my sci Fi universe.
Love the Classic Klingons!
Ah !! Af ellow colour blind Scottish guy! . It warms my heart.
I like the Kelvin timeline Klingon's 2, for what it's worth...