Judging by the recent thread regarding the STO roadmap.
People seem to be very much against Star Trek Discovery. Just an honest and curious question I would like to ask people. Granted I had hoped for more DS9 but it can't be helped and despite my issues with the Klingons. I am generally curious as to current discourse with Discovery. That's all.
Edited vague thread title and moved to correct forum section. -- StarSword-C
I do not and do like it at the same time. Its Schrödinger's SciFi :-P
I like it as an independent new SciFi show with no ties to any franchise I know. The actors IMO are doing a great job, the effects are stunning and they have some nice unique ideas.
As a Trek show it makes me sad because it could have worked if (besides a few name/family relation changes) it was placed in the future and these weird ST:DIS Aliens they call Klingons would be properly called something else which had not been onscreen before. Their insistence to fit themselves between ENT (which IMO tried to be part of the family) and TOS feels awkward and a bit embarrassing; its attention TRIBBLE in complete disregard and disrespect to the entire franchise.
See, not liking it because you dislike the writing, or the overall tone, or the characters - those all fit under matters of taste.
Your complaints about the Klingons, however, sound very familiar to these old ears. I'm hearing echoes of the complaints when the lobster-foreheads debuted in TMP, not to mention derogatory comments about the "space Viking bikers with potato mashers for heads" that came with TNG.
Basically, either (a) Klingons routinely engage in widespread genetic engineering for cosmetic purposes; (b) there are several species of Klingons but they tend to stay to their own kind when choosing ship crews; or (c) every Klingon in existence should look like this
and all those that we've seen in all the movies and every series except TOS must be some kind of "alternate universe Klingons".
Or, of course, the appearance of the aliens is strictly secondary to their story purpose (the Disco Klinks certainly act more like the TOS Klinks than any other incarnation) and is affected primarily by the available budget...
Judging by the recent thread regarding the STO roadmap.
People seem to be very much against Star Trek Discovery. Just an honest and curious question I would like to ask people. Granted I had hoped for more DS9 but it can't be helped and despite my issues with the Klingons. I am generally curious as to current discourse with Discovery. That's all.
Edited vague thread title and moved to correct forum section. -- StarSword-C
I do not and do like it at the same time. Its Schrödinger's SciFi :-P
I like it as an independent new SciFi show with no ties to any franchise I know. The actors IMO are doing a great job, the effects are stunning and they have some nice unique ideas.
As a Trek show it makes me sad because it could have worked if (besides a few name/family relation changes) it was placed in the future and these weird ST:DIS Aliens they call Klingons would be properly called something else which had not been onscreen before. Their insistence to fit themselves between ENT (which IMO tried to be part of the family) and TOS feels awkward and a bit embarrassing; its attention TRIBBLE in complete disregard and disrespect to the entire franchise.
See, not liking it because you dislike the writing, or the overall tone, or the characters - those all fit under matters of taste.
Your complaints about the Klingons, however, sound very familiar to these old ears. I'm hearing echoes of the complaints when the lobster-foreheads debuted in TMP, not to mention derogatory comments about the "space Viking bikers with potato mashers for heads" that came with TNG.
Basically, either (a) Klingons routinely engage in widespread genetic engineering for cosmetic purposes; (b) there are several species of Klingons but they tend to stay to their own kind when choosing ship crews; or (c) every Klingon in existence should look like this
and all those that we've seen in all the movies and every series except TOS must be some kind of "alternate universe Klingons".
Or, of course, the appearance of the aliens is strictly secondary to their story purpose (the Disco Klinks certainly act more like the TOS Klinks than any other incarnation) and is affected primarily by the available budget...
Actually, the essteedee klinks being bad isn't just a matter of taste. It actually is badly done makeup. It is way too thick and over bearing which makes it hard for the actors to emote...or hell even speak. So there is an actual bad not related to just matter of taste there.
That alone doesn'T make it a badly done make-up. What if the job was to create a make-up that made them deliberately less human in their appearance and more difficult to read? If that was entirely unintended, then it might have been bad, but part of the Klingons in Discovery is that these are still very alien to the Federation. The make-up reeinforces that effect, because it makes them alien to us, the viewers, who are very familiar with the TNG Klingons and have a good idea how they think and act. But we're in a time where the Klingons aren't familiar to our protagonists yet, where we still need to figure them out.
I really don't know that was the intention behind it, and it just wasn't someone proving he had a bigger TRIBBLE than all the previous Trek showrunners or something like that. But it's also not a completely unlikely scenario. It would also make sense if they slowly alter the makeup in the second season, because now we are becoming more familiar with the Klingons.
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Judging by the recent thread regarding the STO roadmap.
People seem to be very much against Star Trek Discovery. Just an honest and curious question I would like to ask people. Granted I had hoped for more DS9 but it can't be helped and despite my issues with the Klingons. I am generally curious as to current discourse with Discovery. That's all.
Edited vague thread title and moved to correct forum section. -- StarSword-C
I do not and do like it at the same time. Its Schrödinger's SciFi :-P
I like it as an independent new SciFi show with no ties to any franchise I know. The actors IMO are doing a great job, the effects are stunning and they have some nice unique ideas.
As a Trek show it makes me sad because it could have worked if (besides a few name/family relation changes) it was placed in the future and these weird ST:DIS Aliens they call Klingons would be properly called something else which had not been onscreen before. Their insistence to fit themselves between ENT (which IMO tried to be part of the family) and TOS feels awkward and a bit embarrassing; its attention TRIBBLE in complete disregard and disrespect to the entire franchise.
See, not liking it because you dislike the writing, or the overall tone, or the characters - those all fit under matters of taste.
Your complaints about the Klingons, however, sound very familiar to these old ears. I'm hearing echoes of the complaints when the lobster-foreheads debuted in TMP, not to mention derogatory comments about the "space Viking bikers with potato mashers for heads" that came with TNG.
Basically, either (a) Klingons routinely engage in widespread genetic engineering for cosmetic purposes; (b) there are several species of Klingons but they tend to stay to their own kind when choosing ship crews; or (c) every Klingon in existence should look like this
and all those that we've seen in all the movies and every series except TOS must be some kind of "alternate universe Klingons".
Or, of course, the appearance of the aliens is strictly secondary to their story purpose (the Disco Klinks certainly act more like the TOS Klinks than any other incarnation) and is affected primarily by the available budget...
Actually, the essteedee klinks being bad isn't just a matter of taste. It actually is badly done makeup. It is way too thick and over bearing which makes it hard for the actors to emote...or hell even speak. So there is an actual bad not related to just matter of taste there.
It's like that all went to Joan River's plastic surgeon.
Why do you expect to be able to easily read the expressions and body language of an alien species? Hell, I can't even manage that trick with humans reliably, and I grew up on this planet!
Why do you expect to be able to easily read the expressions and body language of an alien species? Hell, I can't even manage that trick with humans reliably, and I grew up on this planet!
Because of what the Klingons are. A passionate alien race that likes to fight. Therefore, it is necessary to show their emotions even if it is some weird alien method like they have skin that changes colors. Now if Vulcans looked like Discovery Klingons, then it wouldn't matter as much due to lack of perceived emotion.
We WERE going to get the Earth-Romulan War, which was an ESTABLISHED CANON EVENT in that time period. I believe it was some stupid corporate decision that axed Enterprise before we got to it, and gave us the rather lackluster, but somewhat interesting nod to an event in TNG, series finale. Was kinda funny having Riker compare the NX class Bridge to the Galaxy class Brig. But it did kinda detract from the Ent crew.
We WERE...shame they wasted the first 3 seasons on the 'Temporal Cold War' business, which in addition to being boring, also revolved around a bunch of events and races that we KNOW, because it's a PREQUEL, will never be mentioned, seen or heard from again.
The reason Ent got the same complaints, is because it and Discovery are both prequels, and if you're going to do a legitimate prequel you have to accept that there are certain constraints placed on you story/aesthetic wise...or you can do what Ent flirted with, and what Discovery has enthusiastically embraced as it's motto, of saying"TRIBBLE it! We don't care if it makes no sense of any kind in relation to anything that happens after, we want to do all this cool world-shaking galaxy reshaping stuff and I guess the whole universe just suffers severe brain damage later on and totally forgets about all of it."
And my point is... where are the rants about Enterprise now? They were shifted over to the Kelvin Timeline movies when they came out. Now... we got people ranting and raving about Discovery, and we don't hear about the KT movies.
Why are people criticizing the new currently airing show and not the one that got cancelled 14 years ago, or the movies that are currently in limbo after the last one was released 2 years ago?
Gee, dunno, it's one of the great mysteries of the universe.
The way I see it... the so called "True Fans" have set expectations so high... that unless we had the second coming of Roddenberry unleashing TOS 2.0, complete with 1960s asthetics, nothing will please them. And they will attack it, and anyone who doesn't agree with them, without mercy.
I am frankly sick and tired of these "True Fan" arguments and attacks. Being a "True Fan" does NOT require you to worship anything and attack anything that doesn't conform 100% to what came in the past, be it asthetics or story "quality". If the requirement of being a "True Fan" of Star Trek is to hate everything new, nitpick it to DEATH, wish DOOM on it without even giving it a chance to stand on its own merits rather than the merits of something from the 1960s...
I'm proud NOT to be a "True Fan" if that is the case. Because frankly... I feel like its getting to the point where no one actually cares that we're getting something new. If its not post Nemesis (which I'm sure they'd rant about if "they got it wrong") or looking like it was made in the 1960s, its blasphemy and must be destroyed.
And the way we see it, there are some people out there who really are just obsessed with the Star Trek name, and not actually anything in particular about it, and thus if CBS handed them a rotting half-eaten ham-sandwich on a plate with "Star Trek" written on it in ketchup would sing it's praises as the finest and most delicious meal ever prepared, and declare anyone who criticized it of just being some rabid 'true fan' who can't stand anything new.
to read it first there have to BE body language and expressions.
Presuming of course that Klingons should exhibit the same style of social regulation as humans and other human-like species do. They could just not rely on implicit social cues through body language and facial expression just as they don't rely on tears to carry a variety of that social information (which incidentally is a lot more questionable, as literally stated, than a variety of human having limited body language and null expression.) With an alien anything is justifiable from a creative standpoint. The issue here is simply a disconnect between what you think ought to have been done and what was actually done (which one can certainly argue for on the basis that adding more distance between the Klingons and the audience from their immediate portrayal set up the later humanization for greater impact in reconciliation. If they're relatable in the first place there's not so much a journey but a simple affirmation through rote plot developments. To me, that's boring.)
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The reason Ent got the same complaints, is because it and Discovery are both prequels, and if you're going to do a legitimate prequel you have to accept that there are certain constraints placed on you story/aesthetic wise...or you can do what Ent flirted with, and what Discovery has enthusiastically embraced as it's motto, of saying"TRIBBLE it! We don't care if it makes no sense of any kind in relation to anything that happens after, we want to do all this cool world-shaking galaxy reshaping stuff and I guess the whole universe just suffers severe brain damage later on and totally forgets about all of it."
At least Enterprise had the decency to be set 100 years before TOS and not introduce any 22nd Century technology that wasn't in the 23rd Century.
Discovery had the perfect chance to get rid of the Spore Drive in Season 1 and ruined it. All it would take is "We just have enough Spores to make a trip to Qo'noS and back. After that there is no more Spores in our universe and as a result the Spore Drive is useless from now on." Instead they sporeaform a planet to make more Spores and keep the Spore Drive around for at least another season.
OMG...the level of denial you STDers have for this show.
And this sort of comment is exactly what shuts down discussion and starts all that TruFan(tm) gatekeeping nonsense.
If you saw an alien with no hair and spend 20 years living with it and getting to know it, it does not suddenly grow hair after 20 years.
I had hair for most of my life. I don't now. Did I break continuity and create an alternate universe?
And the aliens I spent over a decade getting to know looked like greasy humans with Fu Manchu facial hair. Yet somehow, I was supposed to just "accept" that the new guys with the lightbulb-shaped heads and cheese-grater foreheads were the same aliens as the ones I'd seen before.
You know what the weird part was? I did accept that. I had no problem with it at all. And I really don't understand why some folks get so very hung up on trivialities like an alien race's appearance or the upgrading of special effects. I mean, nobody complained when TNG worlds stopped looking like monochrome globes with off-color streaks around them, like a fancy bowling ball, even though these were supposed to be the same planets we saw in TOS...
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
OMG...the level of denial you STDers have for this show.
And this sort of comment is exactly what shuts down discussion and starts all that TruFan(tm) gatekeeping nonsense.
If you saw an alien with no hair and spend 20 years living with it and getting to know it, it does not suddenly grow hair after 20 years.
I had hair for most of my life. I don't now. Did I break continuity and create an alternate universe?
And the aliens I spent over a decade getting to know looked like greasy humans with Fu Manchu facial hair. Yet somehow, I was supposed to just "accept" that the new guys with the lightbulb-shaped heads and cheese-grater foreheads were the same aliens as the ones I'd seen before.
You know what the weird part was? I did accept that. I had no problem with it at all. And I really don't understand why some folks get so very hung up on trivialities like an alien race's appearance or the upgrading of special effects. I mean, nobody complained when TNG worlds stopped looking like monochrome globes with off-color streaks around them, like a fancy bowling ball, even though these were supposed to be the same planets we saw in TOS...
Right...because changes over 100 years is the same as changes in 10 years.
There were 100 years between "Turnabout Intruder" and ST:TMP, where we first saw the lobster-heads?
OMG...the level of denial you STDers have for this show.
And this sort of comment is exactly what shuts down discussion and starts all that TruFan(tm) gatekeeping nonsense.
If you saw an alien with no hair and spend 20 years living with it and getting to know it, it does not suddenly grow hair after 20 years.
I had hair for most of my life. I don't now. Did I break continuity and create an alternate universe?
And the aliens I spent over a decade getting to know looked like greasy humans with Fu Manchu facial hair. Yet somehow, I was supposed to just "accept" that the new guys with the lightbulb-shaped heads and cheese-grater foreheads were the same aliens as the ones I'd seen before.
You know what the weird part was? I did accept that. I had no problem with it at all. And I really don't understand why some folks get so very hung up on trivialities like an alien race's appearance or the upgrading of special effects. I mean, nobody complained when TNG worlds stopped looking like monochrome globes with off-color streaks around them, like a fancy bowling ball, even though these were supposed to be the same planets we saw in TOS...
Comparing Discos 'Lumpy rubber suits because we feel like it!' Klingon look change to TMP's remains completely disingenuous.
TMP changed the look of the Klingons because it was the first Trek production not to be operating on a shoestring budget with a makeup and wardrobe department that consisted of "Ask your wife if you can borrow her compact, and go see what's in the discount bin at the Halloween store." TMP took advantage of it's budget and resources to finally give the Klingons an alien look, and that look remained largely consistent with minor tweaks and variations for the next 30 years not because of limitations of budget or technology, but because that's what Klingons looked like.
Up until Disco came along and, while loudly insisting it's not a reboot or a re-imagining but set in the same exact universe and timeline as all the other series...redesigned the Klingons to the point of being unrecognizable for absolutely no other reason than to remind everyone that they don't really actually give a TRIBBLE about the rest of Trek except for whatever bits they think will get you to cough up money for nostalgias sake.
As for the rest, the problem with Discovery is not the tech, it's the aesthetic, more specifically the total lack of anything remotely resembling the TOS aesthetic. You don't need cardboard sets but how about, you know, some actual light and color? JJTrek actually managed this, it's obviously far more modern and has all sorts of vastly more 'advanced' technology bits, but aesthetically it still hearkens back to TOS in color and lighting etc.
Like comparing the Klingon look change to TMP, claiming that people jsut want cardboard 60's set is just dishonest misdirection trying to defend Discos decision to actively reject any kind of aesthetic or tonal connection to TOS, in spite of supposedly taking place immediately prior to it.
Why do you expect to be able to easily read the expressions and body language of an alien species? Hell, I can't even manage that trick with humans reliably, and I grew up on this planet!
Then introduce a new species that is actually alien, and that doesn't have the human features we rely on for communication and expression. When you have an overtly humanoid race like Klingons, even Disco Klingorcs, that have all the same humanoid features we do, even if there's lumps and ridges and whatever else, their inability to actually move their faces or much more than their lips doesn't come across as 'alien and inscrutable', it comes across as "look, they've got so many layers of rubber and plastic glued to their faces that they can't actually emote anything."
Though I assume you must have thought the TOS Tellarite design was absolutely sublime then, so alien and inscrutable it almost looks like they were wearing cheap Halloween masks!
Here's the thing: They didn't make them 'more alien', they just made them less interesting.
No, they made them more alien (in every sense of that word and we've covered those points in previous discussions) and to me that's much more interesting than providing simple affirmation of fan expectation. If I'm to bother with a new Trek series I want it to tell me something I don't already know or show me something I haven't seen before. New Klingons? Great, but for my tastes I would have preferred something even more alien (the species is a great template.)
Then, following your theory, they removed teh whole reason you use actors instead of CGI or Claymation-they made costumes and makeup that doesn't allow the actors to act.
Except that a physical actor on set is typically easier and cheaper to shoot (and better reference for other actors) than incorporating live action and digital elements that approximate said actor to a degree that blends with its physical environment. CG these days is good (claymation, seriously?) but it's not a perfect creative substitute, especially on a TV budget (see. creative changes made to the Tardigrade during development to accommodate what they were able to practically achieve. They didn't scale up his role when the decision was made to use CG over a physical prop.)
PS. for further reading I'll direct you to the Kuleshov effect and what that means for the relative importance of gesture and expression in cinematic story telling. It can be of use but it's only one tool and should NEVER be taken as an absolute requirement in characterization.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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I mean, even though Peter Weller, when talking of his time on Robocop.....he originally wanted to incorporate fluid like motions, and hired a known mime expert, a student of Marcel Marco (or however it's spelled) to help him with it. But the suit was so heavy and clunky, the mime fellow helped Weller of moving more like a 'beast'. That suit, while cumbersome, allowed Weller to still do a damned good performance.
Same with the aforementioned original Chewbacca make up.
The 2 Kodan officers, and Grigg from The Last Starfighter, had good make up, allowing them to emote. Even the masks from the old TMNT movies...well, the first 2, anyhow, did better in emoting that the Disco Klingons were able to.
Make something alien? Great.
Make it where it's like we're looking at Joan Rivers and Jim Ross?
NOT great.
Presuming of course that Klingons should exhibit the same style of social regulation as humans and other human-like species do. They could just not rely on implicit social cues through body language and facial expression just as they don't rely on tears to carry a variety of that social information (which incidentally is a lot more questionable, as literally stated, than a variety of human having limited body language and null expression.) With an alien anything is justifiable from a creative standpoint. The issue here is simply a disconnect between what you think ought to have been done and what was actually done (which one can certainly argue for on the basis that adding more distance between the Klingons and the audience from their immediate portrayal set up the later humanization for greater impact in reconciliation. If they're relatable in the first place there's not so much a journey but a simple affirmation through rote plot developments. To me, that's boring.)
The disconnect here is that you are promoting "weird" for the sake of "weird".
Story-telling is both an art and a science. It's origins go back centuries. Aliens act "like humans" so the audience can connect with them. So that we can see characterization and motivation, allowing the story to be told. If said alien is so drastically different that they cannot express or understand human interactions and emotions, the story-teller must explain this. This is a technique called "world building" and it is absent as far as the Klingons are concerned. The Klingons are murderers looking for an excuse to murder. Their "alien appearance" is irrelevant, because they are monsters not "intelligent beings". The Klingons could be ambulatory potted plants or space hamsters or angsty human teenagers. All of them would have been interchangeable as far as the story was concerned. Klingons cannot be reasoned with, only murdered.
Presuming of course that Klingons should exhibit the same style of social regulation as humans and other human-like species do. They could just not rely on implicit social cues through body language and facial expression just as they don't rely on tears to carry a variety of that social information (which incidentally is a lot more questionable, as literally stated, than a variety of human having limited body language and null expression.) With an alien anything is justifiable from a creative standpoint. The issue here is simply a disconnect between what you think ought to have been done and what was actually done (which one can certainly argue for on the basis that adding more distance between the Klingons and the audience from their immediate portrayal set up the later humanization for greater impact in reconciliation. If they're relatable in the first place there's not so much a journey but a simple affirmation through rote plot developments. To me, that's boring.)
The disconnect here is that you are promoting "weird" for the sake of "weird".
Story-telling is both an art and a science. It's origins go back centuries. Aliens act "like humans" so the audience can connect with them. So that we can see characterization and motivation, allowing the story to be told. If said alien is so drastically different that they cannot express or understand human interactions and emotions, the story-teller must explain this. This is a technique called "world building" and it is absent as far as the Klingons are concerned. The Klingons are murderers looking for an excuse to murder. Their "alien appearance" is irrelevant, because they are monsters not "intelligent beings". The Klingons could be ambulatory potted plants or space hamsters or angsty human teenagers. All of them would have been interchangeable as far as the story was concerned. Klingons cannot be reasoned with, only murdered.
Yeah, that's nonsense, you're assuming you can't have characterization while being alien and weird.
The disconnect here is that you are promoting "weird" for the sake of "weird".
Story-telling is both an art and a science. It's origins go back centuries. Aliens act "like humans" so the audience can connect with them. So that we can see characterization and motivation, allowing the story to be told. If said alien is so drastically different that they cannot express or understand human interactions and emotions, the story-teller must explain this.
No, they shouldn't. That's hackery. DSC set up a very direct arc to humanize the Klingons in spite of the distance set at the start of the series by literally humanizing one of them. Hanging a light about how alien they are through exposition in initial reactions would have been heavy handed and completely unnecessary to the point that "the aliens aren't human" (established by the visuals, one should use the various components of the media for effect) but that doesn't mean that reconciliation isn't possible (message to the audience: get over your preconceptions for who you can be friends with.)
And Aliens acting like humans is NOT a requirement of the genre. Take 2001 or the works of Larry Niven or Charles Sheffield. Aliens acting like humans isn't (in the main) a conscious choice over a readily available plan B to allow the audience to connect to aliens. More often its a product of the writer failing to consider the full range of behavior and motivation possible in their setting. They are thus constrained into writing aliens in very familiar human terms. It's how they think and process the world. They want to tell a story in terms familiar to them (and the human literary tradition) and dispense with overly challenging considerations of cross-species translation for which there are fewer examples (while still having the desired effect.) The convention is there for human-like behavior in non-humans, so they use it as the path of least resistance. Aliens become nothing more than allegorical to human personality types or demographics, reducing the explorative motifs of sci-fi to contemporary introspection regarding human social affiliations (in-groups and out-groups, in line with human literary tradition [see. gods, demons, spirits, monsters reducing the world to human terms] but failing to make use of the alien concept which challenges the human preconception.)
That style of sci-fi has its uses (see. most, but not all, Star Trek) but it's worth not holding that up as a standard that should be followed irrespective of context (else you're just cutting the genre off at the knees.) More challenging options are available and they should darn well be considered when the story is literally about finding common ground with a species which doesn't immediately present a relatable front. In DSC that's achieved through dialog (both the literal word choices and the use of another language) and their complimentary design (seriously, this is a basic example of complimentary parts in mass media entertainment contributing to theme and characterization.)
Unrelatable Klingons at the start of the series was used for effect to establish a very explicit arc. It is a valid and (IMO) well executed choice. Whether or not you went along with that arc to find the Klingons more relatable at the end of the series is both a personal matter (ie. were you watching the series with an open mind or simply reacting to preconceptions being broken, seeking not so much a story but personal validation) and a matter of how L'Rell and Voq's arcs were handled in terms of their specific characters, plot points, and pacing of those arcs (separate issues and something I think DSC does deserve criticism for. To put it simply, it got lost half-way through and didn't stick the landing. The design of the series is fine. It's season-spanning narrative that Trek is still having some difficulty with [DSC also having to compromise with the tradition of syndicated story telling core to the early series.])
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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Yeah, that's nonsense, you're assuming you can't have characterization while being alien and weird.
Nonsense is not reading what I wrote.
You can look weird and act like a human. If you look weird and don't act like a human, people are not going to connect with your alien. Your alien will be doing weird things and people will say "wow, that's weird". You are being weird for the sake of being weird.
If you want the audience to connect with your weird aliens, you have to explain what the Hades the aliens are doing. You have to give the audience something they can relate to, or your alien is not a "person", and the audience will not be invested in your creation. Your alien is just another movie monster; an antagonist to be defeated and destroyed.
Lead characters that are either dead within a couple of episodes, or later revealed to be evil counterparts from a parallel universe, or who are mutineers who immediately turned upon devoted mentors the moment that their years of training were finally tested (only to later be pardoned by a real stretch of logic) and that is just for starters.
If you want the audience to connect with your weird aliens, you have to explain what the Hades the aliens are doing. You have to give the audience something they can relate to, or your alien is not a "person", and the audience will not be invested in your creation. Your alien is just another movie monster; an antagonist to be defeated and destroyed.
Read the Draco Tavern by Larry Niven. You'll be surprised, though pleasantly or unfortunately is up to how invested you've become in this idea. You can give the audience something to relate to through sentience, motivation, and basic existence. You don't need to make behavior human like or explain differences through heavy exposition.
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If you want the audience to connect with your weird aliens, you have to explain what the Hades the aliens are doing. You have to give the audience something they can relate to, or your alien is not a "person", and the audience will not be invested in your creation. Your alien is just another movie monster; an antagonist to be defeated and destroyed.
Read the Draco Tavern by Larry Niven. You'll be surprised, though pleasantly or unfortunately is up to how invested you've become in this idea. You can give the audience something to relate to through sentience, motivation, and basic existence. You don't need to make behavior human like or explain differences through heavy exposition.
Yeah, there's only so much you can explain the back story before the story collapses from the weight of the exposition. It's part of why we're fond of optional side dialogs in Foundry! Introduce aliens and if you really want to read the backstory of the alien of the week look it up in-mission on a computer console!
Comments
Your complaints about the Klingons, however, sound very familiar to these old ears. I'm hearing echoes of the complaints when the lobster-foreheads debuted in TMP, not to mention derogatory comments about the "space Viking bikers with potato mashers for heads" that came with TNG.
Basically, either (a) Klingons routinely engage in widespread genetic engineering for cosmetic purposes; (b) there are several species of Klingons but they tend to stay to their own kind when choosing ship crews; or (c) every Klingon in existence should look like this
and all those that we've seen in all the movies and every series except TOS must be some kind of "alternate universe Klingons".
Or, of course, the appearance of the aliens is strictly secondary to their story purpose (the Disco Klinks certainly act more like the TOS Klinks than any other incarnation) and is affected primarily by the available budget...
That alone doesn'T make it a badly done make-up. What if the job was to create a make-up that made them deliberately less human in their appearance and more difficult to read? If that was entirely unintended, then it might have been bad, but part of the Klingons in Discovery is that these are still very alien to the Federation. The make-up reeinforces that effect, because it makes them alien to us, the viewers, who are very familiar with the TNG Klingons and have a good idea how they think and act. But we're in a time where the Klingons aren't familiar to our protagonists yet, where we still need to figure them out.
I really don't know that was the intention behind it, and it just wasn't someone proving he had a bigger TRIBBLE than all the previous Trek showrunners or something like that. But it's also not a completely unlikely scenario. It would also make sense if they slowly alter the makeup in the second season, because now we are becoming more familiar with the Klingons.
It's like that all went to Joan River's plastic surgeon.
Because of what the Klingons are. A passionate alien race that likes to fight. Therefore, it is necessary to show their emotions even if it is some weird alien method like they have skin that changes colors. Now if Vulcans looked like Discovery Klingons, then it wouldn't matter as much due to lack of perceived emotion.
We WERE...shame they wasted the first 3 seasons on the 'Temporal Cold War' business, which in addition to being boring, also revolved around a bunch of events and races that we KNOW, because it's a PREQUEL, will never be mentioned, seen or heard from again.
The reason Ent got the same complaints, is because it and Discovery are both prequels, and if you're going to do a legitimate prequel you have to accept that there are certain constraints placed on you story/aesthetic wise...or you can do what Ent flirted with, and what Discovery has enthusiastically embraced as it's motto, of saying"TRIBBLE it! We don't care if it makes no sense of any kind in relation to anything that happens after, we want to do all this cool world-shaking galaxy reshaping stuff and I guess the whole universe just suffers severe brain damage later on and totally forgets about all of it."
Why are people criticizing the new currently airing show and not the one that got cancelled 14 years ago, or the movies that are currently in limbo after the last one was released 2 years ago?
Gee, dunno, it's one of the great mysteries of the universe.
And the way we see it, there are some people out there who really are just obsessed with the Star Trek name, and not actually anything in particular about it, and thus if CBS handed them a rotting half-eaten ham-sandwich on a plate with "Star Trek" written on it in ketchup would sing it's praises as the finest and most delicious meal ever prepared, and declare anyone who criticized it of just being some rabid 'true fan' who can't stand anything new.
Presuming of course that Klingons should exhibit the same style of social regulation as humans and other human-like species do. They could just not rely on implicit social cues through body language and facial expression just as they don't rely on tears to carry a variety of that social information (which incidentally is a lot more questionable, as literally stated, than a variety of human having limited body language and null expression.) With an alien anything is justifiable from a creative standpoint. The issue here is simply a disconnect between what you think ought to have been done and what was actually done (which one can certainly argue for on the basis that adding more distance between the Klingons and the audience from their immediate portrayal set up the later humanization for greater impact in reconciliation. If they're relatable in the first place there's not so much a journey but a simple affirmation through rote plot developments. To me, that's boring.)
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At least Enterprise had the decency to be set 100 years before TOS and not introduce any 22nd Century technology that wasn't in the 23rd Century.
Discovery had the perfect chance to get rid of the Spore Drive in Season 1 and ruined it. All it would take is "We just have enough Spores to make a trip to Qo'noS and back. After that there is no more Spores in our universe and as a result the Spore Drive is useless from now on." Instead they sporeaform a planet to make more Spores and keep the Spore Drive around for at least another season.
I had hair for most of my life. I don't now. Did I break continuity and create an alternate universe?
And the aliens I spent over a decade getting to know looked like greasy humans with Fu Manchu facial hair. Yet somehow, I was supposed to just "accept" that the new guys with the lightbulb-shaped heads and cheese-grater foreheads were the same aliens as the ones I'd seen before.
You know what the weird part was? I did accept that. I had no problem with it at all. And I really don't understand why some folks get so very hung up on trivialities like an alien race's appearance or the upgrading of special effects. I mean, nobody complained when TNG worlds stopped looking like monochrome globes with off-color streaks around them, like a fancy bowling ball, even though these were supposed to be the same planets we saw in TOS...
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Comparing Discos 'Lumpy rubber suits because we feel like it!' Klingon look change to TMP's remains completely disingenuous.
TMP changed the look of the Klingons because it was the first Trek production not to be operating on a shoestring budget with a makeup and wardrobe department that consisted of "Ask your wife if you can borrow her compact, and go see what's in the discount bin at the Halloween store." TMP took advantage of it's budget and resources to finally give the Klingons an alien look, and that look remained largely consistent with minor tweaks and variations for the next 30 years not because of limitations of budget or technology, but because that's what Klingons looked like.
Up until Disco came along and, while loudly insisting it's not a reboot or a re-imagining but set in the same exact universe and timeline as all the other series...redesigned the Klingons to the point of being unrecognizable for absolutely no other reason than to remind everyone that they don't really actually give a TRIBBLE about the rest of Trek except for whatever bits they think will get you to cough up money for nostalgias sake.
As for the rest, the problem with Discovery is not the tech, it's the aesthetic, more specifically the total lack of anything remotely resembling the TOS aesthetic. You don't need cardboard sets but how about, you know, some actual light and color? JJTrek actually managed this, it's obviously far more modern and has all sorts of vastly more 'advanced' technology bits, but aesthetically it still hearkens back to TOS in color and lighting etc.
Like comparing the Klingon look change to TMP, claiming that people jsut want cardboard 60's set is just dishonest misdirection trying to defend Discos decision to actively reject any kind of aesthetic or tonal connection to TOS, in spite of supposedly taking place immediately prior to it.
Then introduce a new species that is actually alien, and that doesn't have the human features we rely on for communication and expression. When you have an overtly humanoid race like Klingons, even Disco Klingorcs, that have all the same humanoid features we do, even if there's lumps and ridges and whatever else, their inability to actually move their faces or much more than their lips doesn't come across as 'alien and inscrutable', it comes across as "look, they've got so many layers of rubber and plastic glued to their faces that they can't actually emote anything."
Though I assume you must have thought the TOS Tellarite design was absolutely sublime then, so alien and inscrutable it almost looks like they were wearing cheap Halloween masks!
No, they made them more alien (in every sense of that word and we've covered those points in previous discussions) and to me that's much more interesting than providing simple affirmation of fan expectation. If I'm to bother with a new Trek series I want it to tell me something I don't already know or show me something I haven't seen before. New Klingons? Great, but for my tastes I would have preferred something even more alien (the species is a great template.)
Except that a physical actor on set is typically easier and cheaper to shoot (and better reference for other actors) than incorporating live action and digital elements that approximate said actor to a degree that blends with its physical environment. CG these days is good (claymation, seriously?) but it's not a perfect creative substitute, especially on a TV budget (see. creative changes made to the Tardigrade during development to accommodate what they were able to practically achieve. They didn't scale up his role when the decision was made to use CG over a physical prop.)
PS. for further reading I'll direct you to the Kuleshov effect and what that means for the relative importance of gesture and expression in cinematic story telling. It can be of use but it's only one tool and should NEVER be taken as an absolute requirement in characterization.
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I mean, even though Peter Weller, when talking of his time on Robocop.....he originally wanted to incorporate fluid like motions, and hired a known mime expert, a student of Marcel Marco (or however it's spelled) to help him with it. But the suit was so heavy and clunky, the mime fellow helped Weller of moving more like a 'beast'. That suit, while cumbersome, allowed Weller to still do a damned good performance.
Same with the aforementioned original Chewbacca make up.
The 2 Kodan officers, and Grigg from The Last Starfighter, had good make up, allowing them to emote. Even the masks from the old TMNT movies...well, the first 2, anyhow, did better in emoting that the Disco Klingons were able to.
Make something alien? Great.
Make it where it's like we're looking at Joan Rivers and Jim Ross?
NOT great.
Story-telling is both an art and a science. It's origins go back centuries. Aliens act "like humans" so the audience can connect with them. So that we can see characterization and motivation, allowing the story to be told. If said alien is so drastically different that they cannot express or understand human interactions and emotions, the story-teller must explain this. This is a technique called "world building" and it is absent as far as the Klingons are concerned. The Klingons are murderers looking for an excuse to murder. Their "alien appearance" is irrelevant, because they are monsters not "intelligent beings". The Klingons could be ambulatory potted plants or space hamsters or angsty human teenagers. All of them would have been interchangeable as far as the story was concerned. Klingons cannot be reasoned with, only murdered.
My character Tsin'xing
No, they shouldn't. That's hackery. DSC set up a very direct arc to humanize the Klingons in spite of the distance set at the start of the series by literally humanizing one of them. Hanging a light about how alien they are through exposition in initial reactions would have been heavy handed and completely unnecessary to the point that "the aliens aren't human" (established by the visuals, one should use the various components of the media for effect) but that doesn't mean that reconciliation isn't possible (message to the audience: get over your preconceptions for who you can be friends with.)
And Aliens acting like humans is NOT a requirement of the genre. Take 2001 or the works of Larry Niven or Charles Sheffield. Aliens acting like humans isn't (in the main) a conscious choice over a readily available plan B to allow the audience to connect to aliens. More often its a product of the writer failing to consider the full range of behavior and motivation possible in their setting. They are thus constrained into writing aliens in very familiar human terms. It's how they think and process the world. They want to tell a story in terms familiar to them (and the human literary tradition) and dispense with overly challenging considerations of cross-species translation for which there are fewer examples (while still having the desired effect.) The convention is there for human-like behavior in non-humans, so they use it as the path of least resistance. Aliens become nothing more than allegorical to human personality types or demographics, reducing the explorative motifs of sci-fi to contemporary introspection regarding human social affiliations (in-groups and out-groups, in line with human literary tradition [see. gods, demons, spirits, monsters reducing the world to human terms] but failing to make use of the alien concept which challenges the human preconception.)
That style of sci-fi has its uses (see. most, but not all, Star Trek) but it's worth not holding that up as a standard that should be followed irrespective of context (else you're just cutting the genre off at the knees.) More challenging options are available and they should darn well be considered when the story is literally about finding common ground with a species which doesn't immediately present a relatable front. In DSC that's achieved through dialog (both the literal word choices and the use of another language) and their complimentary design (seriously, this is a basic example of complimentary parts in mass media entertainment contributing to theme and characterization.)
Unrelatable Klingons at the start of the series was used for effect to establish a very explicit arc. It is a valid and (IMO) well executed choice. Whether or not you went along with that arc to find the Klingons more relatable at the end of the series is both a personal matter (ie. were you watching the series with an open mind or simply reacting to preconceptions being broken, seeking not so much a story but personal validation) and a matter of how L'Rell and Voq's arcs were handled in terms of their specific characters, plot points, and pacing of those arcs (separate issues and something I think DSC does deserve criticism for. To put it simply, it got lost half-way through and didn't stick the landing. The design of the series is fine. It's season-spanning narrative that Trek is still having some difficulty with [DSC also having to compromise with the tradition of syndicated story telling core to the early series.])
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You can look weird and act like a human. If you look weird and don't act like a human, people are not going to connect with your alien. Your alien will be doing weird things and people will say "wow, that's weird". You are being weird for the sake of being weird.
If you want the audience to connect with your weird aliens, you have to explain what the Hades the aliens are doing. You have to give the audience something they can relate to, or your alien is not a "person", and the audience will not be invested in your creation. Your alien is just another movie monster; an antagonist to be defeated and destroyed.
Read the Draco Tavern by Larry Niven. You'll be surprised, though pleasantly or unfortunately is up to how invested you've become in this idea. You can give the audience something to relate to through sentience, motivation, and basic existence. You don't need to make behavior human like or explain differences through heavy exposition.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
My character Tsin'xing