My Star Trek TOS rewatch has taken me to season 3, and Day of The Dove. In this episode, Kirk captures a Klingon crew, but a glowy space orb helps the Klingons escape. What stood out to me is that while Klingons had always been darkened a bit, they really went all out with Kang.
This is Koloth, Kor, and Kang.
Kang was played by Michael Ansara (who many on this forum would likely know as the voice of Mr. Freeze in Batman TAS). It just really stood out how dark they made him (and the other Klingon guest stars) compared to past ones.
Here he is without all the makeup on another Star Trek role, where he was going to marry Troi's mother.
Now it's worth noting that they got all three of those original Klingons back for a Deep Space Nine episode, and put them in modern makeup.
Koloth looks about the same. Kor looks even darker than his TOS days (though that might just be the lighting in this shot), and Kang is a lot closer to the actor's skin tone.
Here's another shot of Kor, standing next to Worf.
But at the end of the day they're still darkening their skin. And it wasn't just a TOS thing.
Here's Robert O'Riley as Gowron.
And Star Trek's greatest Klingon, General Martok.
On Star Trek Discovery, we have L'Rell. Rather than going with dakrer skin, they just went for a grey skintone.
So I guess the moral question of the day is this. Does being a race of aliens put into more of a grey area? Does it make it even worse since they made the warrior race, a race that was often played as an antagonist, darker?
And I guess the biggest question of all. Why not just get black actors to play the roles. Thinking through it, the only notable Klingons I can think of who were played by black actors were Worf, Torres, and Worf's brother Kurn.
This is Koloth, Kor, and Kang.
Kang was played by Michael Ansara (who many on this forum would likely know as the voice of Mr. Freeze in Batman TAS). It just really stood out how dark they made him (and the other Klingon guest stars) compared to past ones.
Here he is without all the makeup on another Star Trek role, where he was going to marry Troi's mother.
Now it's worth noting that they got all three of those original Klingons back for a Deep Space Nine episode, and put them in modern makeup.
Koloth looks about the same. Kor looks even darker than his TOS days (though that might just be the lighting in this shot), and Kang is a lot closer to the actor's skin tone.
Here's another shot of Kor, standing next to Worf.
But at the end of the day they're still darkening their skin. And it wasn't just a TOS thing.
Here's Robert O'Riley as Gowron.
And Star Trek's greatest Klingon, General Martok.
On Star Trek Discovery, we have L'Rell. Rather than going with dakrer skin, they just went for a grey skintone.
So I guess the moral question of the day is this. Does being a race of aliens put into more of a grey area? Does it make it even worse since they made the warrior race, a race that was often played as an antagonist, darker?
And I guess the biggest question of all. Why not just get black actors to play the roles. Thinking through it, the only notable Klingons I can think of who were played by black actors were Worf, Torres, and Worf's brother Kurn.