Star Trek: Discovery Producer Explains The Klingons’ New Look

Star Trek fans finally have an explanation as to why the Klingons of upcoming prequel series Star Trek: Discovery look significantly different from those of Star Trek: The Original Series or any of the series that followed.

It was former showrunner Bryan Fuller and current co-showrunner and executive producer Aaron Harberts who pushed to update the look of the Klingons. Harberts says there was no particular story reason for the change, but that they are simply keeping with the 50-year tradition of updating the Klingon’s appearance for each new iteration of the franchise.

“In the different versions of Trek, the Klingons have never been completely consistent,” Harberts tells Entertainment Weekly. “We will introduce several different houses with different styles. Hopefully, fans will become more invested in the characters than worried about the redesign.”

Harberts is correct in that the Klingons have a long history of redesigns and most of those redesigns went unexplained for years before a story was retconned in to fit the change. Time will tell if fans can look past the cosmetic differences in Star Trek: Discovery‘s Klingons in the way Harberts hopes.

Star Trek: Discovery is headed to this week’s Comic-Con International: San Diego. Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, and James Frain will all be in attendance, alongside Executive Producers Alex Kurtzman, Gretchen J. Berg, Aaron Harberts, Heather Kadin, and Akiva Goldsman for a panel moderated by guest star Rainn Wilson, who plays Star Trek: The Original Series character Harry Mudd on Star Trek: Discovery.

Set 10 years prior to the five-year mission of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Discovery follows the adventures of Starfleet on their missions to discover new worlds and new lifeforms, and one Starfleet officer who must learn that to truly understand all things alien, you must first understand yourself. The series will feature a new ship, new characters, and new missions while embracing the same ideology and hope for the future that inspired a generation of dreamers and doers.

Star Trek: Discovery‘s cast also includes Jason Isaacs as the starship Discovery’s Captain Lorca, Rainn Wilson as Star Trek: The Original Series character Harry Mudd, James Frain as Sarek, Spock’s father, and Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou, the captain of another Starfleet ship, the Shenzhou, which will be important to the plot of Star Trek: Discovery. Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp both play science officers. Mary Wiseman will play a final year Starfleet Academy cadet.

Star Trek: Discovery premieres Sept. 24, 2017.

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