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Star Trek Actors Klingon Edition

Who has played a Klingon? Star Trek has been going since 1966 and literally hundreds of actors have portrayed characters across over 700 TV episodes and over a dozen movies. One of the most recognizable Star Trek species are the iconic Klingons, and dozens of actors have played Klingons over the years. Hailing from their home world of Kronos (Qo’noS), the Klingons even have their own language which is the most popular fictional language on Earth today. It is even recognized by Google for translation. Here is a list of recognizable actors whom have donned the Klingon makeup.

The Next Generation CONTAGION 2×11

The Next Generation THE BATTLE 1×09

The Next Generation THE DEFECTOR 3×10

Lower Decks A MATHEMATICALLY PERFECT REDEMPTION 3×07

The Next Generation THE OUTRAGEOUS OKONA 2×04

The Next Generation THE MEASURE OF A MAN 2×09

The Next Generation CODE OF HONOR 1×04

The Next Generation THE MOST TOYS 3×22

The Next Generation SAMARITAN SNARE 2×17

The Next Generation THE VENGEANCE FACTOR 3×09

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Everything You Need to Know About the Klingons, Star Trek 's Ever-Changing Space Warriors

Klingons are one of the most iconic Star Trek alien races. In 51 years they’ve evolved from deceptive villains to honorable allies—and now, with the arrival of Star Trek: Discovery this week, they’re becoming spiritual warriors once again, at odds with our heroes. Here’s everything you need to know about the past, present, and future of Qo’noS’s finest.

The Fall and Rise of the Klingon Forehead

How the Klingons grew from the mustachioed, smooth-headed humanoids of the original series to the ridged aliens of The Original Motion Picture and beyond has been a canonical puzzle Star Trek fans have theorized and debate about for decades. There was never a reason provided for the difference in either the movies or The Next Generation —it was simply declared that these new aliens were still Klingons and that was that.

For years, the closest the series ever got to acknowledging the change was a one-off joke in the special Deep Space Nine anniversary episode “Trials and Tribble-ations,” which saw the crew sent back into the past to the events of the original series episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” When asked by his colleagues why the Klingons of Kirk’s time looked so different to the Klingons they know of in the 24th century, Worf offers a brief but stern rebuttal: Klingons don’t talk about it with non-Klingons.

Fans finally got an explanation for the disparity between the two kinds of Klingons nearly 40 years after their first appearance thanks to Star Trek: Enterprise , which was set in the years before the formation of the Federation. A two-part story in the show’s fourth season revealed that Klingons have actually always had forehead ridges, but a virus accidentally unleashed on the Klingon homeworld when scientists tried to augment Klingons with human DNA caused victims to develop human physical characteristics, including smooth foreheads. A treatment for the virus was developed by Enterprise ’s resident medic, Dr. Phlox, but the physician theorized that it would take generations for Klingon children to be born with ridged foreheads again.

It remains to be seen whether Discovery , which features pre-original series Klingons with forehead ridges, will have something to say about the bizarre evolution of the feature, given its place in Star Trek ’s timeline. But we do know that the series will provide a biological reason for the ridges : they’re covered in extra-sensory receptors, to help Klingons detect and hunt their prey.

The Long Road to Sto’Vo’Kor

Although Klingons have been established as a warrior race from the beginning (honorable or otherwise), one major element of Klingon culture introduced in their post-original Trek appearances is an emphasis on spirituality, borrowing elements from familiar mythological cultures in our own past to turn the Klingons into quasi-warrior monks. The honor-bound nature of the Klingons has led to many instances of their culture clashing with that of the Federation through a love of rituals and remembrances, especially around the act of honoring the dead.

In the Klingon belief system, the body after death is an empty shell. The soul of a fallen Klingon goes to one of two places. If they lived an honorable life and fell in battle, they go to Sto’Vo’Kor, which is pretty much Klingon Valhalla, a heavenly plane of battles and feasting. If they were dishonored or didn’t die fighting, they go to Grethor, a fiery hellscape where their souls suffer for eternity—after the prerequisite journey on a barge through a river of death to Grethor’s gates, of course. Relatives of the deceased can perform honorable acts in their own lives to ensure their fallen relative’s soul goes to Sto’Vo’kor if they didn’t die in battle—which, in some cases, can include offering their own soul for torture in Grethor in their place, as B’Elanna attempted to do for her mother in the Voyager episode “ Barge of the Dead .”

Aside from their ritualized beliefs and honor codes, Klingon spirituality includes no gods, as legendary warriors killed them thousands of years ago. There is one important figure in Klingon religion, though: Kahless, who was the first ruler of the Klingon Empire and established its honor code. Weirdly enough, by the time of The Next Generation and beyond, the Empire was once again led by Kahless... except this time it was a lab-grown clone of the original, a slightly less intimidating figure and more of a figurehead for Klingon society than an actual ruler.

Talking Klingon

As Star Trek ’s portrayal of Klingon culture developed, so did the need to make the race feel alien beyond the makeup-drenched actors of the original show—and part of that was the development of a whole new language for Klingons to speak in. Originally devised by Scotty himself, James Doohan, and Motion Picture producer Jon Povill as part of the film’s wide-scale re-imagining of the Klingons, the Klingon language (sometimes referred to as Klingonese) as we know it today was really developed during the making of The Search for Spock by Dr. Marc Okrand.

Okrand expanded the handful of words created during The Motion Picture into a fully constructed language, and in 1985, he published The Klingon Dictionary. Originally intended as source material for writers and actors, the dictionary expanded on Klingon grammar, such as its unconventional object-verb-subject form. It also gave Klingon phrases for everything as menial as “Happy Birthday” (qoSlIj DatIvjaj) to insulting someone’s mother with the smoothness of their forehead (Hab SoSlI’ Quch!)

Okrand’s work on the Klingon language flourished, not just because of his own additions to it as Star Trek continued, but through the works of fans. Shortly after The Klingon Dictionary ’s release, fans started to learn and teach the rules Okrand had laid down, and groups like t he Klingon Language Institute started forming in the early ‘90s to study the entirely fictional language. In the years since, translations of famous texts have been made available in Klingon—from Bible passages, to the epic Gilgamesh , to Shakespearian plays (inspired by the line from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , “ You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon ”), as well as an entire opera performed in the language , ‘u’ , all done by ardent fans.

Klingons are one of Star Trek ’s most enduring features—their reliable presence across 51 years of the franchise is as defining as their ability to change each time we meet them. Whether it’s in big ways or small, change is fundamental to the Klingons, from the mustachioed brutes of the original series, to the dominating, brutal, and alarmingly spiky armored hunters we’re about to meet in Star Trek: Discovery . No matter how many times they show up, it’s always guaranteed that there’s always going to be something new to learn about them.

Creating the Klingons

We now know the Klingons as a people driven by honor and tradition, but they started out as the opposite. The Making of Star Trek , co-authored by Gene Roddenberry while The Original Series was still in production, describes the “number-one adversary of the Federation” as “[m]ore powerful than the Romulans” and “less admirable characters.”

Their only rule of life is that rules are made to be broken by shrewdness, deceit or power. Cruelty is something admirable; honor is a dispicable trait. They will go out of their way to provoke an incident with the Federation.

The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine would reverse the roles, with the Romulans becoming duplicitous and never striking the first blow.

The Original Series

The Making of Star Trek goes on to describe the Klingon Empire as an “absolute dictatorship” where assassination is common:

Their society is totally devoted to personal gain by the cleverest, strongest or most treacherous. As a result, their vessels often operate much like “privateers” and warlike acts are a way of life. Life on all levels is completely supervised and extensive use is made of “snooping devices” to help maintain total control.

Gene Coon, who wrote the episode “Errand of Mercy” in which the Klingons first appeared, deliberately modeled the species on America’s communist rivals in the Cold War: primarily Russia, to a lesser extent China. Much like the proxy wars of the twentiethe century, the Federation and the Klingons supported opposing sides in a civil war in “A Private Little War”.

The Klingons were allowed no redeeming qualities. Producer Robert Justman wrote to fellow producer Fred Freiberger at the time “Day of the Dove” was being made:

[L]et us never set up a situation whereby those adversaries of ours give any indication of ever being anything but highly aggressive and self-seeking opponents.

Gene Roddenberry disagreed. During the 1990 SeaTrek cruise, Majel Barrett recalled that her husband “never did like the Klingons, because they were represented as being ‘all bad.’ Gene said, ‘There is no such thing as a whole race that is all bad.’ He really hated that.”

The script of “Errand of Mercy” described the Klingons as “Oriental”-looking. Beyond that, makeup designer Fred Phillips had little to go on. “I had never heard of a Klingon before,” he is quoted as saying in These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One . “And nothing in the script that I read told me what it was.”

John Colicos, the actor who played the Klingon commander Kor in “Errand of Mercy”, had a significant influence on the makeup design. He proposed to take inspiration from Genghis Khan, another ambitious military commander, and Dr Fu Manchu. Phillips “thought that was a hell of a good idea,” Colicos told Star Trek: Communicator in 1995.

The look took only about 20 minutes to apply, according to Colicos, and it was relatively cheap. As a result, the Klingons replaced the Romulans as Star Trek ’s favorite villains.

For the aborted Star Trek television series Phase II , John Meredyth Lucas wrote a two-part episode “Kitumba” that would have radically changed Klingon culture and society.

Lucas, who had produced half of the second season of The Original Series , borrowed from Japan give the Klingons a god-like ceremonial head of state, called the Kitumba, who resides on a Sacred Planet. Day-to-day authority would rest with a Warlord — analogues to the Japanese shogun — who lives on Ultar, the Klingon home world.

The story would have revealed that only members of the warrior caste are called “Klingons”. They are served by technicians and subjects.

The Next Generation established the existence of a Klingon High Council, chaired by a chancellor. But the emperor returned in “Rightful Heir”, when a Kahless clone is elevated to the long-vacant Klingon throne.

Fred Phillips was given the chance to recreate the Klingons for Star Trek: The Motion Picture , which had a much bigger budget, but it was costume designer Robert Fletcher who invented the now-distinctive Klingon cranial ridges.

“I did sketches for the Klingon, including the knobby forehead and head,” Fletcher said in an interview for the 2002 DVD of Star Trek III .

The Makeup Department, very generously, said, “That’s great, we’d like to use it.” Gene Roddenberry was not too enthusiastic. He thought they should look more like just people. I said, “Yes, but these are real aliens, and they’re evil aliens.” I think the people, the audience, wants to see something that is not just folks, that goes beyond just folks.

Roddenberry came around and suggested that the cranial ridges might be an outgrow of the Klingon spinal cord, proceeding up the back of the neck and over the head.

Fletcher agreed:

In my mind, all the bumps on the forehead and so forth are vestigial remains of a people that evolved like crustaceans, like lobsters, who have their skeleton on the outside of their bodies.

The makeup went through various iterations. The final product was uncomfortable for the actors to wear. Mark Lenard, who played one of the Klingon commanders in the movie, recalled in an interview with Starlog that the nose piece, which extended down from the upper area of the head piece, over the actor’s nose, was “pretty warm” and itched.

Fletcher refined the Klingon look for Star Trek III , telling Cinefantastique in 1987:

There had never been a good marriage between the forehead appliance and the actors’ faces. We tried to keep them in character rather than have these obstructive things on their heads.

Applying the makeup took two hours per actor each day. By the time of Star Trek IV , John Schuck, who played the Klingon ambassador, spent up to four-and-a-half hours in makeup before shooting.

The Klingon costumes were inspired by Japanese culture. Fletcher is quoted in The Making of the Trek Films as saying, “I always liked to think of them as authoritarian, almost feudal, like Japan had been.”

William Campbell, who had played Koloth in “The Trouble with Tribbles”, and who would reprise the role three decades later for the episode “Blood Oath” of Deep Space Nine , said during the 1991 SeaTrek cruise that he had a “difficult time” with the makeup changes:

When they did the first movie, it looked like the Klingons had gone through some metamorphic stage. In the classic series, the Klingons looked like humans. I never understood the reasoning behind the extensive makeup change except for the reason that it is a new show.

Roddenberry and Phillips came up with the explanation that there might be different Klingon races, but this was never mentioned on screen.

The Next Generation

Roddenberry initially wanted no Klingons, nor Romulans, on The Next Generation in order to differentiate it from The Original Series . Writer and Co-Producer Herb Wright claimed credit for softening Roddenberry’s position in an interview with Cinefantastique in 1992, “by squeezing a Klingon on the bridge.”

It was Justman who provided the most persuasive argument: putting a Klingon in Starfleet would be a great way to show that a century had passed since the original show, and that both human and Klingon attitudes had grown.

Dorothy C. Fontana, a veteran writer of the first Star Trek , agreed there would be story opportunities if the second showed the Federation and the Klingons at peace.

Roddenberry relented, which led to the creation of Worf. But he was still adamant that there would be “no stories about warfare with Klingons” on The Next Generation , and that these Klingons should be different.

Michael Dorn, who had watched the original Star Trek growing up, recalled in a 1991 interview with The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine that Roddenberry told him, “Forget everything you’ve ever read or heard about Klingons.” Klingons would have redeeming qualities after all.

Makeup artist Michael Westmore could borrow from the movies to create Worf’s look. He also wanted to add something of his own, writing in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Makeup FX Journal that he got Roddenberry’s and Producer Rick Berman’s permission “to lend a little more ferocity to their overall appearance.”

Westmore made the forehead ridges more pronounced, so they were more visible on the small television screen. “I took it a step further,” he told Cinefantastique in 1991, “and brought it into their nose area, so it doesn’t just look like a forehead that we’ve added on.”

Westmore and his team created a different ridge pattern for every Klingon — a decision he would quickly regret:

It was the beginning of what I would eventually call “Klingon Hell”: the self-imposed task of sculpting a new and different head for virtually every Klingon actor.

Maurice Hurley, the Season 1-2 producer who co-wrote “Heart of Glory”, believed the Klingons helped bring a sense of balance to the series. “The show gets so intellectually smug and self-serving,” Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman quote Hurley as saying in Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages . “With the Klingons you’re dealing with emotion and passion,” and that’s something The Next Generation needed every now and then: “someone willing to storm the barricades.”

Ron Moore fleshed out these concept. His first script, “The Bonding”, was Moore’s ticket aboard the Star Trek staff.

“I didn’t start out with the intention of focusing on Worf,” he told Cinefantastique in 1990. But when Michael Piller, who had by then taken over from Hurley as producer asked him to combine two stories into a script that would become “Sins of the Father”, Moore had the chance to put his mark on Klingon culture.

“They had these real intricate codes of honor and poetry, like the samurai,” Moore told Star Trek: The Magazine years later.

They were also like the Vikings; they were big, brawling, larger than life, they liked to drink and sing big songs like the Vikings, or at least our conception of the Vikings. That was where I began with the culture.

Contradicting The Original Series , Moore insisted that Klingons weren’t “evil, tyrannical pirates bent only on pillage and plunder.”

They have a strict, almost unyielding code of ethics and honor and take their responsibilities as rulers seriously. … Klingons respect courage, strength and cunning, in that order … Klingons respect the declared war, the killing stroke, the blood feud, death in the field of battle and clear positions of hostility.

Moore also argued it was time to stop thinking about the Klingons as Star Trek ’s version of the Soviet Union:

The place where the Russians were when I was doing the Klingon shows just wasn’t as relevant any more. The [Berlin] Wall had fallen and it was all about the collapse of this empire, and what they were going to do internally, and how do they become a democracy. I didn’t want to take the Klingons down that road, because it would have essentially defanged them, and I liked keeping them more dangerous.

One Russian influence remained: like the Communists who once governed the Soviet Union, the Klingon elite didn’t live up to its stated ideals.

That was one of the great contradictions of the empire; the society is built around a concept of being honorable, but those principles are often sacrificed and compromised by people like Duras.

Conspiracy, intrigue, larger-than-life personalities — the Klingons lend themselves to what Moore described as “Shakespearean” drama. “It made it more interesting if it wasn’t quite so clear whose side was right.”

Klingon women

The writers’ bible of The Original Series claimed the Klingons had “no patience with women, even their own, and treat them as sometime useful animals.”

“Dave of the Dove” had suggested that wasn’t entirely true. There were two women in Kang’s crew.

Moore established in “Redemption” that women were not allowed to serve on the Klingon High Council (although a female Klingon had been present in the Great Hall during “Sins of the Father”). It differentiated them from the Federation and the Romulans, he argued: Klingons were “a traditionally patriarchal society, even if many elements have disappeared with time.”

Indeed, from Kahlest (Thelma Lee), who calls the Klingon chancellor “fat” to his face, to Worf’s love interest K’Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson) to the Duras sisters (Barbara March and Gwynyth Walsh), none of the Klingon women of The Next Generation seemed particularly deferential to patriarchy.

Improved makeup

The appearance of ever more Klingons forced Westmore to give up his practice of creating a unique look for each one. “Instead of making a cast of each actor’s head,” he explains in Star Trek: The Next Generation Makeup FX Journal , “I would measure their head when they walked in the door.”

If their head size was close to that of a preexisting mold, we would create our new design on an available head mold. Quite often, if we had two actors with similarly-sized heads, I would sculpt the first forehead design and after taking a mold from it, the clay sculpture would still be intact. This would eliminate the need for “basing it up”; the process of putting the clay on the mold.

Rather than spend a whole day on a new sculpture, Westmore would be able to resculpt the second head design in three or four hours.

William Shatner gave Westmore’s counterpart on the fifth Star Trek motion picture, Richard Snell, leeway to experiment with different forehead designs. “I always felt that their foreheads should be like a thumbprint,” Snell told Cinefantastique , “and on V , Shatner said, ‘Go ahead, make ’em different.’ I thank him for that. That opened the door and now the sky’s the limit.”

Michael J. Mills, one of Snell’s makeup artists, recalled in a 1992 interview with Cinefex that Nicholas Meyer gave slightly stricer instructions on Star Trek VI : “He wanted the audience to watch the actors’ faces and not be distracted by the makeups. So every one had to be a custom job – which translated out to be about three-and-a-half hours.”

Deep Space Nine

When Moore transitioned from The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine , he felt Klingon culture had been established well enough to poke some fun at it. “This is a point where you’re saying they are kind of silly,” he told Star Trek: The Magazine in 2000. “Let’s enjoy that and laugh at them. Not make them look like fools, but let’s not kid ourselves; they do some pretty crazy stuff.” The Klingons of Deep Space Nine were rambunctious, but the Dominion War arc also gave them the chance to prove that they really were brave warriors.

In an attempt to persuade more Next Generation viewers to switch to Deep Space Nine , Michael Dorn joined the third series in its fourth season. “The Way of the Warrior” put Worf and the Klingons front and center.

The writers initially toyed with a Vulcan exit from the Federation, but Ira Steven Behr suggested it should be the Klingons who break off diplomatic relations. “That might have more heat to it.” Rick Berman loved the idea.

So did Dorn, who told Jeanne M. Dillard for the book Star Trek – Where No One Has Gone Before that allowing the Federation and Klingons to be at war again “makes the Klingon characters what they were originally created to be.”

John Colicos, John Garman Hertzler and Michael Dorn

“Trials and Tribble-ations” forced Deep Space Nine to reckon with the still-unresolved issue of the Klingons’ changed appearance from The Original Series . But even Moore, who created so much of Klingon culture, couldn’t think of a simple way to explain the discrepancy.

So we just said, “Just have Worf say it’s a long story and leave it at that, you know? And that’s fine.” And it’s a wink and a nod to the audience, like, “Okay, we know this doesn’t make sense. Just go with us, okay?”

Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens ultimately came up with an explanation for Star Trek: Enterprise : in an attempt to create a biological weapon, Klingon sciencists inadvertently unleashed a virus that smoothened out the Klingon forehead.

Moore did rethink the limited role of Klingon women. While writing “You Are Cordially Invited”, in which Worf would marry Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), he realized he had done Klingon woman a “disservice” by not allowing them to get involved in politics. “The fallout from [that] was that the role of Klingon women got much smaller, and I hadn’t intended to do that,” he told the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion .

So I figured that if men run the Council and rule the houses, maybe women rule the social structure, and within that structure the mistress of a great house wields pretty much unchallenged power.

Moore barely got a chance to write Star Trek ’s most prominent female (half-)Klingon: B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson). He transferred to Voyager after Deep Space Nine ended in 1999, but quit within weeks when he fell out with Producer Brannon Braga. He was able to write “Barge of the Dead” before he left, which revealed the Klingon version of Hell.

Star Trek's Different Klingon Designs, Explained

The Klingons have been part of every iteration of Star Trek since 1966, but the iconic aliens have had a variety of character designs over the years.

Star Trek: The Original Series introduced Klingons and created the franchise's most iconic aliens.
The Klingons were redesigned for The Motion Picture and The Next Generation -era series.
The rebooted Star Trek films and Discovery redesigned them further, but Strange New Worlds walked those changes back.

The Star Trek saga spans six decades and over 800 hours of storytelling on television and in film. While the universe created by Gene Roddenberry is vast and dynamic, the Klingons have appeared in every iteration of the franchise. Yet, since their debut in Star Trek: The Original Series in 1966, the Klingons' character design has changed over time. From regular humans with brown makeup and stylized facial hair to the intricate alien prosthetics on the characters in Star Trek: Discovery , there's more than one way to skin a Klingon.

Save for the odd standout like Khan Noonien Singh , heroes and starships are more important in Star Trek than its many villains . Instead, the alien antagonists that menace Starfleet explorers are mostly known by their species, like Romulans or the Borg. This is true of Klingons, which are immediately recognizable, though casual fans may not know General Chang from T'Kuvma. It wasn't until the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Klingon bridge officer Worf that the franchise truly started to examine the culture of this war-like race. Thanks to his appearances in both Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Picard Season 3 , Worf has appeared in more Star Trek episodes than any other character. He also laid the foundation for storytellers to create an in-narrative reason for the disparity in Klingon appearance. In the real world, the simple answer for the many different Klingon character designs comes down to money and technology.

RELATED: How Strange New Worlds Perfected a Star Trek: The Next Generation Premise

The Klingons in Star Trek: The Original Series Were Simple on Purpose

The Klingons were, effectively, created by Gene L. Coon, often called " Star Trek 's other Gene." He conceived of the characters as an allegory for the Soviet Union, according to the special features on the DVDs for Star Trek: TOS . Intended to be just one-off antagonists for the Season 1 episode, "Errand of Mercy," writer David Gerrold brought them back for Season 2's classic "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode. Crafting that story made the producers realize the Klingons could be the ongoing antagonist for Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise crew they'd been looking for.

Despite being an expensive series, Star Trek: TOS was always struggling with budget and time. Makeup supervisor Fred Phillips worked with actor John Colicos to design the characters' look. However, outside of raised eyebrows -- similar to both Vulcans and Romulans -- and stylized facial hair, the Klingons were mostly defined by their glittery uniforms with a gold sash. The makeup process for The Original Series -era Klingons often took less time than even affixing Spock's Vulcan ears each day. The character design for early Klingons was simple and effective for TV, but that soon changed.

RELATED: Deep Space Nine Made Star Trek a 'Real' Franchise

The Klingons Look From Star Trek: The Motion Picture Through The Next Generation Era

Nearly a decade after The Original Series went off-the-air, Star Trek: The Motion Picture debuted and introduced fans to a new kind of Klingons. With significantly more budget and time to work with -- the Klingons appeared in only a single scene -- Fred Phillips wanted to make the aliens truly alien. The production of the first Star Trek film was fraught, so if Gene Roddenberry had any objections to changing the Klingon character design, he had bigger battles to fight. The Klingons appeared in each successive film save for The Wrath of Khan , and while their appearance was altered slightly, they maintained the same look.

However, it wasn't until Worf was added to The Next Generation cast that Roddenberry and the writers really began to think of them as a people rather than allegorical Soviets. Now that a Klingon was a hero character, he felt it was an injustice to the characters to reduce them to just being a warrior race. "I take the fact of their fictional existence very seriously," he said in the Star Trek 25th anniversary issue of Cinefantastique . In an interview in the special features of Star Trek: TNG 's first season, actor Michael Dorn noted that Black actors were routinely cast as Klingons to simply save time in the makeup chair. Over the next 18 years, makeup supervisor Michael Westmore had to create dozens of distinct Klingon characters.

In Enterprise Season 4 , the writers addressed the incongruity of the Klingon appearance in Star Trek: TOS with the second-wave era. A storyline was introduced about a genetic modification experiment that went awry. In order to cure a deadly, multi-species virus, Klingons were given a treatment that "smoothed over" the cranial ridges and teeth added to the design to make them look more alien. Yet, even the Klingons not affected by this mutation still looked more human than not. When former Star Trek: Voyager producer Bryan Fuller wanted to redesign them for Star Trek: Discovery , making them more alien was the goal.

RELATED: Star Trek: Humanity Was a Vulcan Pet Project for Centuries

The Design for Klingons in Star Trek: Discovery Was Very Controversial

During episodes of the now-defunct After Trek webseries during Star Trek: Discovery 's first season , the Klingon redesign was an often-discussed topic. The cranial ridges and teeth Fred Phillips added during the first redesign were extended to seemingly cover their entire body. They were given longer, clawed fingers and evolutionary characteristics that were more avian or reptilian than humanoid. The hope was to make the Klingons even more alien and frightening, but the design change proved to be a bit too drastic. By Season 2, the makeup artists gave them hair again. They also introduced a number of different skin tones beyond just brown.

Yet, by Strange New Worlds Season 2, the Klingons looked more like they did during the second-wave era. Unlike Enterprise , there was no in-narrative reason or the different look. The Klingon Empire is an interstellar society with hundreds of billions of citizens. Fans can easily explain away the difference as Star Trek 's continued commitment to Roddenberry's motto of infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Klingons are also able to reproduce with other Star Trek species, which could equally explain the difference.

In both cases, the redesign of the Klingons was meant to highlight their alien nature and take advantage of state-of-the-art makeup and prosthetics. The Discovery design may have been too successful, and franchise producers seem to have reverted the iconic antagonists to their Star Trek: TNG -era design . Still, no matter what they look like, Klingons are integral to Star Trek . They are enemies who became allies, which is the lesson Roddenberry always wanted his show to teach humanity.

A grid of images of Klingons from Star Trek The Original Series, Discovery, Deep Space 9, The Next Generation and Strange New Worlds, all with slightly different looks

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Star Trek has never known exactly what Klingons look like, until now (maybe)

As Strange New Worlds shows us, whatever you think Klingons look like, you’re wrong

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Apart from the benevolent pointy-eared Vulcans , there’s no fictional alien species more iconic than the Klingons — not only in Star Trek , but in pop culture at large. The spacefaring warriors have evolved over half a century from generic Cold War antagonists into a complicated and spiritual culture that evokes both medieval Vikings and feudal samurai. There is a complete, functional Klingon language studied and spoken by fans around the world, who routinely don the familiar armor and forehead ridges at fan conventions. Most people who are even casually familiar with Star Trek would recognize a Klingon should one pass by on the street ( perhaps in Las Vegas , this or any August), and even applaud the remarkable accuracy of their makeup and attire.

And yet, there is not, nor has there ever been, one definitive Klingon makeup design. Despite fan uproar practically every time a substantive change is made to the craggy foreheads and wispy beards of the space conquerors, their look has been in flux from the beginning, and will likely continue to evolve along with the production technology behind Star Trek itself . In honor of the return of a more familiar appearance in the season premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , we’ve taken a deep dive into the rocky history of science fiction’s most famous forehead, from 1966 to today.

The brownface era

A close-up of Kor (John Colicos) in his Klingon makeup, which includes brownface, Spock-like eyebrows, and a Fu Manchu mustache, in a still from Star Trek the Original Series

The Klingons were introduced during the first season of Star Trek , in the 1967 episode “Errand of Mercy.” Writer/producer Gene L. Coon used the story’s conflict between the United Federation of Planets and the rival Klingon Empire over a non-aligned planet as an allegory for Cold War proxy conflicts, but — according to the exhaustively researched book These Are the Voyages: TOS, Season One by Marc Cushman and Susan Osborn — offered only the barest physical description for the new antagonists. In the terse and insensitive parlance of a 1960s television producer, Coon referred to the Klingons merely as “hard-looking Asian types.”

It fell to makeup artist Fred Phillips and actor John Colicos (who had been cast as the episode’s lead Klingon, Kor) to decide what the character — and species — would look like. Colicos takes credit (or blame) for the Klingons’ original look, asking for a “vaguely Asian” makeup effect patterned after conqueror Genghis Khan. At Colicos’ direction, Phillips applied bushy eyebrows, a Fu Manchu, and a heavy layer of greenish-brown makeup to Colicos’ face to make him appear “not of this world.”

Though this became the accepted canonical 23rd-century “ TOS -era” look, the Klingons’ appearance actually fluctuated over the course of the series. In season 2’s Klingon stories, “Friday’s Child” and “The Trouble with Tribbles,” no false eyebrows or dark makeup were used on the (exclusively white) Klingon actors, only short beards, some of them very obviously prosthetic. The brown face paint would return in season 3, and all Klingons who appeared in its short-lived sequel, Star Trek: The Animated Series , would have a brown or orange hue to their skin. This includes individual Klingons who had previously appeared without dark makeup.

There are two major takeaways to any study of the early history of Klingon makeup design. First, that there has never been a point when the look of the Klingons wasn’t changing, and second, that we’re very lucky it did. Ardent Star Trek canonistas rail against any change to Star Trek as a production that cannot be easily explained in-universe, and for almost 40 years, the ever-changing Klingon forehead was exactly that. But maintaining the canon — either through offensive makeup or typecasting — is a dicey proposition.

In short: Change is good.

Enter the latex

A Klingon commander sits and looks at something in red light in a still from Star Trek The Motion Picture

When Star Trek made the leap to the big screen for 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture , advances in makeup effects and a much larger budget allowed for the Klingons to receive a complete visual overhaul. Costume designer Robert Fletcher drew the first sketches of the new Klingons, adding a single knobby ridge that extended from the spine to the bridge of their nose. Fletcher wanted the Klingons to look as alien as possible, like a moloch lizard, but according to Fletcher, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry strongly disagreed with this and wanted the Klingons to appear mostly human. The two came to a compromise, which Fletcher calls “a hairy crustacean.” Fletcher considered the Klingons’ forehead ridges to be the vestigial remains of a species that once had a rigid exoskeleton, a concept that was also incorporated into their costume design.

This concept was translated into a latex makeup design by Original Series makeup artist Fred Phillips and future Oscar-winner Ve Neill, along with a team that included makeup assistant Rick Stratton. By some accounts, it was Stratton who suggested that the Klingons should also have gnarly dental prosthetics, a suggestion that he claims was made mostly to assure himself an extra day’s paid work. Stained, jagged teeth would remain a constant.

Fletcher was called upon to further refine the new forehead design for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . From here on out, rather than having the appearance of a single, thick spine that wrapped all the way up their necks and down to their noses, which obscured most actors’ faces beyond recognition, Klingons would appear to have a bony but less pronounced plate under their foreheads. The Search for Spock also established the idea of Klingon men growing out their hair.

This became the basic blueprint for the iconic Klingon, with makeup effects from this era being reused for years to come. But even during this era of limited revisions, there was a great deal of variation. According to Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens’ book The Art of Star Trek , Star Trek V director William Shatner encouraged makeup supervisor Richard Snell to make every featured Klingon’s forehead “as unique as a fingerprint.” As Star Trek had recently returned to television with The Next Generation and would continue to introduce new Klingons by the dozen, with the new set of forehead prosthetics designed and maintained by the legendary Michael Westmore. Westmore made an effort to create unique forehead ridge designs for every Klingon guest star, a decision he came to regret as more and more of them appeared on the show.

Over the next decade of stories, it became implied that forehead patterns were inherited traits, which reduced that workload somewhat. For instance, Worf, his brother Duras, and his son Alexander all share a similar set of forehead ridges, while the rival Duras family has their own unique “crest” of sorts. Westmore would remain in charge of Star Trek’s makeup effects department throughout the entire run of The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , Voyager , and Enterprise , plus the four feature films released during this era, which cemented his version of the Klingon makeup design as the one most accepted by fans.

The Motion Picture ’s opening scenes introduced viewers to big-budget Star Trek, beginning with the new-and-improved Klingons. This radical redesign of The Original Series ’ most iconic villains was merely a consequence of this production’s superior resources, and was never meant to draw attention to itself. However, the rest of the film’s first act is preoccupied with the unveiling of the “almost entirely new” USS Enterprise, emphasizing that the characters are aware of the ship’s top-to-bottom, inside-out refit. Viewers were told to ignore the first aesthetic upgrade but to make a big deal out of the rest of them. This is arguably the moment that broke Trekkies’ brains forever.

For the next 17 years, Star Trek productions successfully evaded the “Klingon forehead problem,” continuing to treat their change in appearance as a retroactive, behind-the-scenes alteration rather than a canonical event. A 1994 episode of Deep Space Nine even brought back the three most popular Klingons from The Original Series , all portrayed by their original actors but sporting the modern craggy foreheads and long, wavy locks. The message was clear: This is how the Klingons look, and how they have always looked. Don’t worry about it.

In 1996, however, Deep Space Nine celebrated Trek’s 30th birthday with “Trials and Tribble-ations,” a comedic time-travel story in which the DS9 crew revisits the events of the 1967 classic “The Trouble with Tribbles,” splicing the modern crew into scenes Forrest Gump -style. By this point, Klingon Starfleet hero Worf had joined the DS9 cast, and since “The Trouble with Tribbles” employs Klingons as its central antagonists, this meant showing both TOS and TNG -era Klingons on screen at the same time. This would force the writers to acknowledge the discontinuity, which Deep Space Nine ’s writers weren’t interested in doing. Rather than make an issue of it, writers Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria decided to play it for laughs, with Worf reluctantly admitting that yes, those are Klingons, there is a story behind why they look different, and no, he’s not going to talk about it. That’s because in the writers’ eyes, no story could have possibly made sense.

“There’s not a single explanation that is anything less than preposterous,” Moore said in a DS9 DVD featurette.

Eight years later, Star Trek: Enterprise dedicated two full episodes to a preposterous explanation as to why Klingons look different. From the very beginning of the prequel, set a century before The Original Series , Enterprise honored the new Klingon makeup effects, which had been in use for decades and were familiar to a new generation of fans. This was in line with an overall creative decision not to allow the limitations of a 1960s series to dictate how storytellers in the 2000s depicted the distant future. However, during Enterprise ’s fourth and final season, the show became more fixated than ever on the franchise’s past, leading to the two-part episode, “Affliction” and “Divergence,” in which a genetic augmentation turned virus mutates most Klingons to more closely resemble humans in both appearance and temperament. Only a handful of old-school, “mutated” Klingons appear in the episode, and though there’s no documentation on how it was applied, the makeup certainly looks faithful to the original (read: not great).

It is implied that the Klingons spend the next century working on a cure, after which they purge all evidence of this shameful event from their history. This two-parter would turn out to be the Klingons’ final appearance on Enterprise , as the series would be canceled shortly thereafter. All future Star Trek productions would employ some variation on the bumpy-headed Klingon design that Trekkies had come to know, though not all attempts proved to be very popular…

Baldly going

The Klingons greeting Uhura (Zoe Saldana) by standing and looking imposing with helmets on in a still from Star Trek into Darkness

The cancellation of Enterprise in 2005 brought an end to the continuous 18-year run of Star Trek on television under executive producer Rick Berman, but the franchise was almost immediately revived under new management, with director J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company at the helm. Now rebooted as a blockbuster feature film series, Trek once again received the benefit of a fresh start on the big screen, equipped with the latest production innovations and a new set of creative contributors. Though teased behind helmets that obscured their faces in scenes that were shot for 2009’s Star Trek that were ultimately cut for time, the next iteration of the Klingon makeup design was unveiled in 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness .

This new design, created by makeup effects artists David LeRoy Anderson and Neville Page, had to hold up under the unforgiving eye of IMAX cameras. They were sculpted digitally and then 3D printed as reference for the final latex sculpts. While many of the background Klingons had long manes and beards under their helmets, their leader, portrayed by Sean Blakemore, is totally hairless. This allows him to show off not only a triangular ridged forehead but a central, spine-like ridge that wraps all the way from his brow to his back, harkening back to the original Motion Picture revamp.

Anderson and Page made one major addition to the Klingon aesthetic: scarification and ceremonial piercings, not only through the ears but through the forehead ridges themselves. In a featurette included with the Into Darkness Blu-ray, Page suggests that these piercings are akin to painting icons on the side of a warplane, with each one representing a victory. Apart from this ornamentation, Anderson and Page’s Klingons were not an enormous departure from what had been depicted before, though that hardly dissuaded canonistas — who generally reviled the Abrams films — from harping on the change.

However, criticism of the Into Darkness Klingons paled in comparison to the outrage that surrounded the next iteration of the Klingon makeup design, which debuted in the opening minutes of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017. The series, which would shepherd a prolific new era for the franchise on streaming television, was as bold an aesthetic departure from the TNG era as The Motion Picture had been from TOS . There were a number of canon-fudging new elements on Discovery , but none received quite as much hate as the new Klingons, or as haters on social media dubbed them, “Klingorcs.” Where Into Darkness had been an incremental change in the Klingon aesthetic, Discovery was a total overhaul designed by Neville Page and Glenn Hetrick of Alchemy FX Studios, based on the input of original showrunner Bryan Fuller.

According to a promotional interview with CBS News , Fuller mandated that the Klingons should be hairless, leading Page and Hetrick to consider what might have been hidden underneath the Klingons’ locks. They decided that Klingons’ famous head ridges would house sensory pits that grant them a greater ability to defend themselves from ambush, and that these ridges should continue along the entire circumference of their skulls. The skulls themselves were elongated, evoking the shape of the tall headdresses worn by some pharaohs of Upper Egypt. In a final touch, the new Klingons had a variety of grayscale skin tones not found in humans.

Page credits the influence of H.R. Giger in creating this more alien and unsettling Klingon appearance. The new makeup effects employed the latest in available technology, including 3D sculpting and printing that allowed the makeup team to mass-produce forehead elements and mix and match them so that each character could have a subtly different design. The makeup was accompanied by a dramatically different costume design intended to distort the shape of actors’ bodies and imply additional organs inside their frame.

Honorable retreat

L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) interrogating a Star Fleet officer in a still from Star Trek Discovery. L’Rell is tall and gray and has a long, oblong head and forehead ridges, with a skull that resembles Geiger drawings

After the backlash against the new look (and the early departure of Fuller), the second season of Discovery immediately rolled back some of the show’s more aggressive changes to the Klingon design. To begin with, long hair was back in fashion (explained in-story by the end of their war with the Federation), but there were also more subtle changes, like the softening of some of the more pronounced alien facial features.

This design was better received, but the controversy seemed to make the producers of newer Star Trek shows nervous about including the Klingons in further stories. Animated shows Lower Decks and Prodigy employed the TNG Klingon designs, while the following five seasons of live-action Trek ( Discovery seasons 3 and 4, Picard seasons 1 and 2, and Strange New Worlds season 1) would feature no Klingons whatsoever. When the fan-favorite Worf returned for the final season of Star Trek: Picard , he appeared with his familiar “turtlehead” latex appliance, honoring current Trek executive producer Alex Kurtzman’s promise back in 2020 that, regardless of Discovery ’s Klingon redesign, Worf would always “look like Worf.”

Finally, later that year, the initial trailers for season 2 of Strange New Worlds signaled the return of the Klingons, back in the long-haired, craggy-headed flesh. Gone were the extra-bulky bodies, the implied sensor pits, and the inhuman flesh tones. The makeup itself is clearly new, but the aesthetic is unmistakably retro, reproducing the appearance of TNG -era Klingons with modern techniques and resources.

This likely signals the end of bold experimentation with the Klingon forehead. The fans have spoken, and while conceding to the demands of an audience that invariably demands more of what they already have can often be dangerous, few would argue that the online mob was wrong about this one. Still, it would be a mistake to characterize this design reversion as a return to the “real” Klingon forehead. There is no such thing, and there never will be. Like all ongoing fictional narratives (or even complete ones), Star Trek is always changing, as well it should. Attempts to innovate on established concepts and intellectual property should be applauded, even when they’re not entirely successful. Otherwise, we could end up staring into the mirror 50 years from now, embarrassed, with brown foundation and glued-on eyebrows on our faces.

Star Trek: Discovery is cracking open a box Next Gen closed on purpose

Star trek: discovery is finally free to do whatever it wants, the 10 horniest episodes of star trek, ranked by cultural impact, loading comments....

Screen Rant

Star trek: discovery casts three klingon characters.

Chris Obi, Shazad Latif, and Mary Chieffo join the cast of the TV series Star Trek: Discovery as a trio of new Klingon characters.

The Star Trek franchise returns to the small screen - for the first time since Star Trek: Enterprise aired in the mid-2000s - in 2017 with Star Trek: Discovery , a series that takes place a decade prior to the events of the 1960s Star Trek television show (aka. The Original Series ) that started it all. Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller got the ball rolling on Discovery before he stepped down as showrunner , leaving it to his Pushing Daisies collaborators Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts to steer the (in this case, figurative) ship to port.

Casting for Discovery has gotten underway following Fuller's departure as showrunner, with Michelle Yeoh ( Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ) being cast as Han Bo - the captain for the Starship Shenzhou. Anthony Rapp ( Rent ) has also joined the cast as an openly-gay human character in the form of the Starship Discovery's Lt. Stamets; with Doug Jones ( Pan's Labyrinth , Hellboy ) set to play the Discovery's non-human Starfleet Science Officer, Lt. Saru. A few more non-human characters on the new Star Trek TV show have now been officially cast, too.

CBS has now confirmed that Mary Chieffo, Shazad Latif and Chris Obi have been cast as Klingon characters on Star Trek: Discovery . Per Space.ca , Chieffo is playing L'Rell, the Battle Deck Commander of a Klingon ship; Latif is playing Kol, a Commanding Officer in the Klingon empire; and Obi is playing T'Kuvma, a Klingon leader who's on a quest to unite the divided Klingon houses. You can check out pictures of all three new additions to the Discovery cast in the gif below (which was posted through the official Twitter account for the TV show).

CASTING NEWS: Introducing 3 new cast members joining #StarTrekDiscovery as Klingons! @obidon1 @1ShazadLatif #MaryChieffo pic.twitter.com/1cDfbKB9YS — Star Trek: Discovery (@startrekcbs) December 12, 2016

Chieffo is a relative newcomers to the world of mainstream TV, so her turn on Discovery could serve as a breakout role for the soon-to-be up and comer. Meanwhile, the London-born Latif played a recurring role on the TV series MI-5 some years back - and more recently, portrayed Dr. Henry Jekyll on the Showtime gothic horror literature mash-up TV show, Penny Dreadful . Last, but not least, Obi has played small roles in such films as Snow White and the Huntsman and The Counselor over the years; he's also playing the character Mr. Jacquel on the upcoming Neil Gaiman novel-turned TV show American Gods (which Fuller is co-showrunner on).

The Klingons started out as mostly two-dimensional antagonists for Starfleet in the Star Trek franchise, before they evolved into more complex characters. This goes back to the debut of the character Worf (Michael Dorn) on Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 1980s, as well as the 1991 film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ; wherein the characters from the Original Series help to broker a peace deal between the Federation and the Klingon empire. Although there will still be hostilities between the Federation and Klingons on Discovery due to where it falls in the Star Trek continuity , that trend should continue - with the Klingons likely being painted in a complicated and possibly even empathetic light, as occasional antagonists on the series (which features The Undiscovered Country director Nicholas Meyer as an executive producer , as it were).

NEXT: Bryan Fuller 'Not Involved' With Star Trek Discovery Production

Star Trek: Discovery will air its pilot episode on CBS and its premium streaming service CBS All Access in May 2017. Subsequent episodes will air exclusively on CBS All Access.

Source: Space.ca

John Larroquette Played A Star Trek Klingon Again, 40 Years After He Last Suited Up

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Klingon

John Larroquette famously won Emmys for playing Dan Fielding on "Night Court" in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988. In 1989, he felt that he was hogging the spotlight and asked that his name be withdrawn from awards consideration. He's that good. In 1994, he was nominated for another Emmy for "The John Larroquette Show" and then won his fifth one for his work on "The Practice." In 2002, he was nominated for "The Practice" again. Larroquette has also long been beloved by the horror film community, as he provided the opening narration for Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." Loyal to the series, Laroquette likewise narrated the 2003 "Texas Chainsaw" remake, its 2006 sequel, and the 2022 "Chainsaw" reboot.

For Trekkies, Larroquette might be recognizable as the Klingon officer Maltz, one of Kruge's men in 1983's "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock." Maltz was the Klingon who accidentally beamed Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) onto his Bird of Prey, allowing the Starfleet officer to take over his ship. Maltz expected to be killed for his incompetence, but Kirk, being merciful, chose to have Matlz imprisoned instead. Quoted in a 1990 issue of Starlog Magazine , Larroquette said that he merely received a call from director Leonard Nimoy, having made it clear that he wanted to be in a "Star Trek" movie. He felt he wasn't terribly challenged as an actor playing Maltz, but he still had a great deal of fun.

Perhaps as an homage to his participation in "Star Trek III," the January 30, 2024 episode of the newly revived "Night Court" — called "Wrath of Comic-Con" — features scenes of Laroquette, 40 years after the fact, dressed as a Klingon once again.

The Wrath of Comic-Con

The official synopsis of "The Wrath of Comic-Con" is as follows:

"When Dan finds a potential love connection with a woman who has sworn to destroy him, Dan takes drastic measures, which include fully embracing the wondrous world of Comic-Con. Meanwhile, Abby is forced to confront the fact that she might actually dislike someone when a childhood 'friend' (Jessica St. Clair) comes to visit."

Dan Fielding is, for those unlucky enough to have never seen "Night Court," a devious cad, constantly looking out for number one and eager to scheme and connive to get what he wants. It's not out of character for him to dress in full Klingon regalia to dupe a potential paramour. Whether or not he calls himself "Maltz" while dressed as a Klingon remains to be seen. In the same Starlog issue mentioned above, Larroquette joked about returning to play Maltz in a "Star Trek" spinoff series, saying that "Maltz starts off and he has a little hot dog stand on Yakka III out there in the Doofus Galaxy."

The "Star Trek" connections to "Night Court" don't stop with Larroquette. Brent Spiner , who played the android Lieutenant Commander Data on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," also played Bob Wheeler, a recurring unlucky rube, on "Night Court." Bob Wheeler, always seen with his wife June (Annie O'Donnell), appeared in six episodes of the series, each time telling a sob story even more pathetic than the last. When Spiner landed the "Star Trek" gig, he stopped appearing on "Night Court."

Spiner, as far as anyone knows, has given no word as to whether or not he will return to the revived "Night Court."

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Published Nov 13, 2011

Qapla' -- Klingon Language Creator Marc Okrand, Part 1

Of all the phenomena within the phenomenon that is Star Trek , one of the most fascinating is the fact that the Klingon language is pretty much considered a real language, spoken fluently by many fans around the world. There's been a Klingon dictionary, an opera, games, clubs and more. Shakespeare has been performed in Klingon. People are Klingon krazy, and for that they can thank Marc Okrand , the linguist who is considered the creator of the Klingon language and worked on several TOS features, TNG and Enterprise , as well as Star Trek (2009) . StarTrek.com tracked Okrand down while he was on the road -- on a trip that would find him touching down in Belgium, France and Germany -- for an exclusive interview. Below is part one of our extensive conversation, and check back tomorrow to read part two.

For the sake of Star Trek newcomers, you are considered the creator of the Klingon language. But before we get into that, take us through what you were doing before you connected with Trek, how you first connected with Star Trek , and what you actually did on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .

Okrand: My background is in linguistics, and I have a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. For a while, I taught linguistics, but for the past 30 years or so, I’ve been involved with the closed captioning of television programs. Closed captioning first went on the air in 1980, and for the first couple of years, the only programs that were captioned were those on tape -- movies, sitcoms, dramas, and so on. In 1982, we devised a way to caption live shows like news and sports. The first program to be captioned live – besides some tests that we didn’t publicize -- was the Academy Awards presentation in 1982. That was chosen because we wanted something with high publicity value -- and with the Oscars, that’s obvious -- and low possibility of things going wrong. The Oscars are mostly scripted, so we could get the script ahead of time, enter it into a computer file, and then just play back the dialogue as it was spoken. When the got to “And the Oscar goes to…” we’d switch to live and caption the winner’s name and the acceptance speeches. If the new technology didn’t work, only parts of the show would be affected, and everything else would be fine. Everyone thought that was a good plan, but the production people pointed out that the script keeps changing up until the last minute, so we’d need someone to keep track of all of that. I was chosen for that task.

So I arrived in L.A. the Monday before the Oscars and called the people I was supposed to call. They said something like, “Welcome to L.A. We’ll have a script for you on Thursday.” So I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with no Oscar work to do. I grew up in L.A. and had family and friends there, but I hadn’t contacted any friends because I thought I’d be working the whole time. Now that I had free time, I got on the phone and started making lunch and dinner plans. During one of these calls, one friend asked where I was calling from. My company at the time had an office in Hollywood and I told her that’s where I was. She said, “That’s about a mile from here. Why don’t you come by today for lunch?” By “here,” she meant where she worked, which was Paramount Pictures.

Your friend was Sylvia Rubinstein, who was the administrative assistant to Star Trek II executive producer Harve Bennett…

Okrand: Star Trek II was in postproduction at the time. She and Harve and I had all known each other for many years. I knew my friends were working on Star Trek , and I thought that was very cool, but I had no further connection. Anyway, Sylvia and I and Deborah Arkelian, another producer’s assistant, went to lunch, and during the lunch conversation, somehow the fact that I had a degree in linguistics came up. Deborah said that that was interesting because they’d been in contact with the Linguistics Department at UCLA. I asked why, and she told me that there was a scene in the film where Mr. Spock and a new character, a female Vulcan, have a brief conversation. This conversation was filmed with the actors speaking English, but, for various reasons, they thought it would be better if they were speaking Vulcan accompanied by English subtitles. The person they were talking to at UCLA was to make up nonsense phrases that matched the English lip movements, then they’d dub them in as if it were a foreign film. I said I thought that was a good idea – a linguist would know which sounds you can see on the lips, which you can’t, and so on, so a linguist would do a good job. Deborah and Sylvia said they thought so, too, but there was some sort of logistics problem and they were worried that the work would not be done in time. I asked when it had to be done. Deborah said, “By the end of this week” – which was exactly how long I was in town. I said, “I can do that.” Sylvia concurred. And at that point, Bill Phillips, one of the producers, walked by with his lunch. They told him about our conversation, and he said, “Come see me after lunch.” And I was suddenly working for Star Trek .

I need to point out that the fact that I was friends with Harve Bennett is not irrelevant to the story. He and I had talked about linguistics over the years from time to time. It was Harve’s decision to hire me. I was a known quantity, not someone who just showed up. But, honestly, I thought I was just going over to have lunch with a friend. Later that afternoon, Bill Phillips, the producer, showed me the scene in the film that needed to be switched to Vulcan. I wrote down the dialogue, only four lines, and then went back to where I was staying and made up syllables that matched the lip movements but sounded different. For example, if the English syllable were “boo,” I’d switch it to “Moe” – looks the same, sounds different.

The next day, Bill showed me a bit of the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture where Mr. Spock is about to accept his achievement of Kohlinar. This scene was entirely in Vulcan, but I hadn’t heard it before I had devised my lip-sync lines. So I quickly made a few changes so the “new” Vulcan would fit in with what was already on film. I then was introduced to the actress playing the female Vulcan, an actress very new to Hollywood by the name of Kirstie Alley , and began working with her so she could dub in her lines. On Friday of that week, I worked with Leonard Nimoy so he could dub in his. By this time, Oscar rehearsals were under way, and I had to attend them. So after helping Leonard with his lines, I got in the car and drove downtown to the Oscars, thinking, “I just taught Mr. Spock how to speak Vulcan.”

For Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , you basically created the Klingon language. What went in to doing so?

Okrand: I started by looking at Star Trek: The Motion Picture , because that’s where Klingon was actually first spoken. There are perhaps a half dozen lines in Klingon with subtitles at the beginning of the film. I wrote down those lines as best I could, made a list of the sounds in the words and figured out what a legitimate syllable was. That was the beginning. All of the sounds and all of the syllables and, for that matter, all of the phrases in the first movie formed the skeleton of what I was to build. When I was looking at the first film, I didn’t know who made up those lines. When I met Mark Lenard , the actor who spoke them in that film, he told me that they were devised by James Doohan . So James Doohan actually originated Klingon. I came along and fleshed it out.

In this process, I had four things in mind as far as the sounds go: (1) the language had to include all the sounds in the first film; (2) the language had to have non-English sounds since it was to be alien; (3) the language had to be guttural, since the script for Star Trek III explicitly referred to Klingon as a guttural language; and (4) it had to be learnable and pronounceable by the English-speaking actors, so it contains many ordinary English sounds in addition to the more exotic sounds. I also tried to make the grammar non-English-like. The vocabulary was easy – I made up only what was needed for the film. If a word didn’t come up, I didn’t come up with a Klingon equivalent. The same went for the grammar – if a particular construction or grammatical element, say a pronoun, wasn’t needed for the film, I didn’t make it up. Later on, I added lots of vocabulary and grammar – stuff not in the film. But initially, the script drove what was made up.

What was it like, teaching the actors to speak Klingon and/or Vulcan for Star Trek III ?

Okrand: The main speaker of Klingon in Star Trek III was Christopher Lloyd , who played Captain Kruge. He was a great student. He was interested not only in getting the pronunciation right, he wanted to know what the words meant and how the sentences fit together. We’d work together pretty much every day they were shooting a scene with spoken Klingon. Most of the other speakers of Klingon in the film were Kruge’s crew. For the most part, they had one line apiece that they shouted out as things were going wrong. I don’t think I ever saw a group of people more enthusiastic about what to them must have been gibberish. Oh – there was one other key speaker of Klingon, and that was Captain Kirk. He had one line, the Klingon equivalent of “beam me up,” towards the end of the film. I wasn’t able to be on the set the day William Shatner filmed that scene, but I worked with him a bit a week or so beforehand. I had no idea how it would come out until I saw the film. He remembered his lessons well and did a great job. There was only one speaker of Vulcan in that film, and that was the new Saavik, Robin Curtis . Robin was a quick study and gave the Vulcan an appropriately emotionless – but still meaningful – reading.

On that film, Lloyd was your best student. Be honest: who was the worst?

Okrand: The worst was a member of Kruge’s crew – whose name I don’t remember – who just couldn’t get it. I’m not quite sure what he was shouting out, but he got the spirit right.

You worked as well on Star Trek V and Star Trek VI . Give us a memory or two from each production. And in what ways did the Klingon language evolve from film to film.

Okrand: Star Trek V was different from Star Trek III in two ways. First, the characters had conversations. In Star Trek III , it was mostly, though not entirely, Kruge giving orders. But in Star Trek V , Klaa and Vixis had, relatively speaking, long lines. This was really more of a challenge for the actors than for me because each one had to learn not only his or her own lines, but also the lines of the other actor so that they knew when to begin speaking. The other way Star Trek V was different from Star Trek III is that after Star Trek III The Klingon Dictionary had come out. When I was making up the lines for Star Trek III , I was doing just that – making them up. If I didn’t like something, I could change it. And if an actor mispronounced something, but it still sounded like Klingon, I could change the Klingon word to match what the actor said. In Star Trek V , I had to go by the book. I was stuck with what I had written whether I liked it or not. Of course, there were new words and new pieces of grammar I had to devise for Star Trek V , but I had to make sure that I used material from the book if it existed.

Speaking of the book…

Okrand: The book was originally supposed to come out at the same time Star Trek III came out, but it was delayed for reasons that are actually interesting and that I should have written down, but now I mostly forget. After I had finished it, and while nothing was happening with getting it published, the film went into postproduction. During postproduction, they changed some lines that were originally in English into Klingon, so we did something like we did with the Vulcan for Star Trek II , except I had to make it sound like the Klingon in the rest of the film, both in terms of sounds and grammar. I didn’t have the relative freedom I’d had with Vulcan. They also changed a couple of subtitles, so a Klingon line that had originally meant one thing suddenly meant something else. This, of course, meant that, in some cases, the dictionary no longer matched the film or lacked some words that were in the film. Because of the delay in publication, however, I was able to make changes to the dictionary so that all of the changes made in postproduction were incorporated into the book.

But by the time of Star Trek V , the book had been published, so I could no longer fudge. This made the creation of dialogue for Star Trek V actually harder than it was for Star Trek III . It’s harder to follow rules than to make them up. Actually, one of the actors did misspeak a line in Star Trek V in a scene that was too complex to reshoot. After Star Trek VI came out, the dictionary was reissued with an addendum to incorporate material created after Star Trek III . I figured out a way for the muffed line to make sense and match the subtitle and included that in the revised book. So the line in Star Trek V is correct after all.

The major new thing in Star Trek VI was the incorporation of Shakespeare...

Okrand: The script was filled with lines from Shakespeare, some spoken in English and some in Klingon. So I had to translate bits of Shakespeare into Klingon, which meant I had to figure out what a Klingon “petard” was, among other things. None of the Klingon lines was used in the film – by the time it was finished, they’d been switched back to English or cut out. There is one line of Shakespeare that is spoken in Klingon in the film, though it wasn’t part of the original script. That line is “To be or not to be.” When the film’s director, Nick Meyer, asked me to create a Klingon version of that, I said “okay,” but I thought “oh, no.” The problem was that there is no verb in Klingon that means “to be,” and I make a big deal about that in the book. I thought a bit and asked Nick if the line could mean “to live or not to live.” He said that was fine and I should go teach Chris. Chris was Christopher Plummer , who was playing General Chang and who was to speak the line. The word for “live” in Klingon is yIn, and what I came up with was yIn pagh yInbe’, literally, “live or live not,” though there are many other ways I might have done it as well. When I said the line for Christopher Plummer, he thought it was a little too timid and asked if there might be some other way to say it. I thought some more, and suggested that taH replace yIn: taH pagh taHbe’. This sounded good to him, especially with the harsh, guttural H at the end of taH, so that became the line. The syllable taH, up until that moment, had been a suffix meaning “to continue doing” whatever the verb it was attached to was, so “eat” plus taH meant “to continue eating.” I sort of gave it a promotion to full verb status, but keeping the same meaning. So a new word meaning “to go on, to continue, to endure,” was created: “To continue or not to continue, to go on or not to go on.”

If you listen carefully in Star Trek VI , you can hear me speaking Klingon. There’s a scene on the Klingon ship after it’s been attacked where there is chaos – loss of gravity, then gravity returns, lots of casualties. And there’s lots of shouting and orders being shouted out by various people. My voice is in the mix there. Somewhere. In the background.

Visit StarTrek.com again tomorrow to read part two of our interview with Marc Okrand.

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The 25+ Greatest Klingon Characters

Vote up your favorite Klingon characters from the Star Trek franchise.

For this poll we've created a list of the greatest klingons of all time, featuring klingons you know from movies, television, video games and more. Of course your favorite cartoon klingons are included, but this list doesn't only feature animated characters that can talk. If your favorite fictional klingon is missing, don't be salty- just add it to the list so that other people can vote for for it too!

What makes this character great:

Rank of Lieutenant Commander
Serious personality

Chancellor of the Klingon Empire
Close friends with Worf

Skilled warrior
Respected leader

Chancellor of the Klingon High Council
Defeated by Worf
Reinstated the House of Mogh

Friends with Kor, Koloth, and Curzon Dax
Pledged a blood oath

Member of Klingon High Council
Became Rodek
Fought in the Klingon Civil War

Human and Klingon ancestry
Mother of Alexander Rozhenko

Commander of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey
Tried to ambush the The Enterprise
Battled Kirk

Leader of the House of Grilka
Visited Deep Space 9
Married Quark

Duras sisters

Captured Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge
Fought against the Empire
Members of the The House of Duras

Loves Shakespeare
Tried to frame Captain James T. Kirk for the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon

The first Warrior King and Emperor of the Klingon Empire
United all tribes
His legacy is passed down from generation to generation

Powerful warrior
Dahar master
Honored with a statue in the Hall of Heroes

B'Elanna Torres

Klingon-Human hybrid
Served on the Federation starship USS Voyager
Friends with Chakotay

Inspired the naming of the USS Gorkon
Promoted peace

Longest-serving Klingon Chancellor of the Klingon High Council
Named Jean-Luc Picard as the Arbiter of Succession
Great warrior in his younger days

Colonel Worf

Skilled attorney
Represented Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy
Unmasked a disguised Klingon sniper

Helped to start the Klingon Civil War
Sold bilitrium to Bajoran Kohn-Ma terrorists
Loyal to her sister

Officer in the Klingon Defense Force
Became friendly with Riker
Served on the IKS Pagh

Father of Worf and Kurn
Ally of Huraga's House
Followed Ja'rod to Khitomer

Alexander Rozhenko

A weapons officer
Member of the House of Mogh and the House of Martok
Enjoys jazz

A mercenary
Hired by Verad
Distrusted the Federation

Duras, son of Ja'rod

Leader of the House of Duras
Was a member of the Klingon High Council
Desired the chancellorship

Arne Darvin

An intelligence officer
Poisoned a shipment of quadrotriticale grain
Used the Orb of Time

Captain of I.K.C. Amar

A Klingon warrior
Member of the House of Duras
Attempted to take over the Klingon Empire
Star Trek Universe
Fictional Characters

Live long, and prosper.

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) personnel
IKS Rotarran personnel
Klingon military personnel

Alexander Rozhenko

View history

Alexander Rozhenko , also known as Alexander, son of Worf , was the son of Starfleet then- Lieutenant Worf and Federation Ambassador K'Ehleyr ; thus he was three-quarters Klingon. He was a member of the House of Mogh and the House of Martok . ( TNG : " Reunion ", " New Ground ")

1 Early life
2 Aboard the Enterprise -D
3 Service to the Empire
4 Personal interests
5.1 K'Ehleyr
5.3 Deanna Troi
6 Alternate realities and timelines
7.1 Appearances
7.2.1 Portrayals
7.2.2 Aging
7.2.3 Production notes
7.3 Apocrypha
7.4 External links

Early life [ ]

Alexander was conceived during a brief encounter between Worf and K'Ehleyr when, in 2365 , the ambassador came aboard the USS Enterprise -D in an effort to defuse a potential crisis presented by the return of a Klingon K't'inga -class battle cruiser , the IKS T'Ong , that had been dispatched decades before as a sleeper ship . ( TNG : " The Emissary ", " Reunion ") After the crisis was successfully resolved, K'Ehleyr departed the Enterprise . ( TNG : " The Emissary ") She concealed her pregnancy and the birth of Alexander from Worf. ( TNG : " Reunion ") Alexander was born on the forty-third day of Maktag , stardate 43205 . ( TNG : " New Ground ") Worf later stated to Miles O'Brien that he never saw his son when he was a toddler, and that it was " something I will always regret. " ( DS9 : " Business as Usual ")

Alexander's conception and birth were finally revealed to Worf by K'Ehleyr approximately one year later, when she returned to the Enterprise as part of a contingent representing K'mpec in his efforts to persuade Jean-Luc Picard to act as the Arbiter of Succession for the Klingon Empire . Until that point, Alexander had lived with his mother, not knowing who his father was.

Despite a coy attitude meant to antagonize Worf, K'Ehleyr wanted Worf to acknowledge Alexander as his son. Worf was reluctant to do so because of his recent discommendation and the dishonor that Alexander would be forced to share as a result. However, despite his concerns, Worf was forced to acknowledge the relationship of K'Ehleyr and Alexander to him when K'Ehleyr was killed by Duras because she had been investigating the circumstances surrounding the Khitomer Massacre and Worf's discommendation.

Although Worf took custody of Alexander following K'Ehleyr's death, he was sent to live on Earth with Sergey and Helena Rozhenko , Worf's adoptive parents, who were identified as his grandparents . ( TNG : " Reunion ")

Aboard the Enterprise -D [ ]

Alexander in 2367

Alexander was brought back onboard the Enterprise -D one year later by Helena Rozhenko. During his time on Earth, Alexander had had problems adjusting. Though smart and high-spirited, he was not always truthful and was sometimes difficult to control. Helena and Sergey believed that Alexander's behavior problems were not unusual for a boy of his age, but could only be solved by the presence of his father. Helena also admitted that the two of them were too old and ill-equipped to raise a Klingon child, even one who was ¼ Human . ( TNG : " New Ground ")

Alexander wasn't a "typical" Klingon child, considering that he had lived with Humans for most of his life. Initially, the adjustment to living on the Enterprise was very difficult. Much to his father's dismay, Alexander displayed tendencies toward telling lies and even was guilty of small instances of theft . Even after his father disciplined him, Alexander's behavior was a problem in school, causing Ms. Kyle to report to Worf that his defiance, along with continued theft and lying, was disrupting the class. His disobedience to Worf and disregard for the instructions of his elders and ship's regulations eventually came to a head when Alexander was nearly killed in a fire in the ship's biolab. ( TNG : " New Ground ")

Alexander eventually settled into life on the ship and made friends, but the adjustment took time. Deanna Troi took a special interest in the child and his difficulties adjusting to the ship and his father. The two developed a strong relationship, so much so that Worf asked the counselor to be Alexander's guardian when it appeared he might die following a dangerous medical operation. ( TNG : " Ethics ") Alexander was also friendly with Counselor Troi's mother, Lwaxana Troi , who came aboard the Enterprise in 2368 to be wed to Campio . In their brief time together, Alexander and Lwaxana spent time together on the holodeck and became good friends, much to his father's dismay. ( TNG : " Cost Of Living ")

While onboard the Enterprise , Alexander at one point developed a Deadwood holodeck program with the help of Reginald Barclay in 2369 . Despite his efforts to find extra duties for himself, Worf agreed to participate in the program as a means of interacting with his son and improving their relationship. To his surprise, Worf enjoyed the program, especially his role as the sheriff with Alexander as his deputy . Initially, the program was too easy and Alexander was disappointed, so he ordered the difficulty level be reset to four, forcing his father to expend more effort in apprehending the criminal characters. At the same time, Lieutenant Commanders Geordi La Forge and Data were conducting an experiment which went awry and influenced the program. The main characters took on the appearance and abilities of Data, and the holodeck safeguards were removed, making the 19th century firearms lethal and placing Alexander in jeopardy. Alexander eventually escaped, but he worried that the episode would mean his father would never again visit the program. His father assured him that, if the town of Deadwood were to be threatened again, they would need a sheriff … and a deputy . ( TNG : " A Fistful of Datas ")

In 2369 , Alexander helped Captain Picard and others regain control of the ship from DaiMon Lurin . The captain, along with Ro Laren , Keiko O'Brien , and Guinan , had passed through a molecular reversion field that had reverted them to a stage of physical youth. Blending in with the ship's civilian children, they re-took the ship. Alexander participated in their plan by distracting several of their guards and stealing items from sickbay . ( TNG : " Rascals ")

Alexander and his counterpart from the future

In 2370 , an adult Alexander, who had traveled back in time from forty years in the future , made contact with Worf and Alexander, posing as K'mtar , gin'tak to the House of Mogh. In an attempt to change history, he tried to convince Worf that his young counterpart needed to be trained in the ways of a Klingon warrior . When it became apparent that his counterpart was not willing to do so, however, he attempted to kill him, only to be stopped by Worf. He explained to Worf that, in his time, Worf had been assassinated on the floor of the High Council , due to Alexander's attempts at bringing peace to the Empire . Wishing to prevent this future, he had traveled back in time in an attempt to ensure that his counterpart would not grow up to be a diplomat, but rather a warrior who could fight at his father's side. Worf told him that, now that he had disrupted the flow of history, his death was no longer a certainty, and that he would be proud of his son no matter what path he chose to follow. After hearing these words, the adult Alexander departed, but not before expressing his love for his father. ( TNG : " Firstborn ")

Following the destruction of the Enterprise -D in 2371, Worf sent Alexander back to Earth to live with his foster parents while he journeyed to Boreth during an extended leave from Starfleet. Upon returning to active service, he chose to leave Alexander on Earth, believing he was far happier there than he was living with him. ( DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ")

Service to the Empire [ ]

In 2374 , after years of avoiding Klingon culture, Alexander enlisted in the Klingon Defense Forces at the height of the Dominion War . He was given the rank of bekk and assigned to the IKS Rotarran under General Martok and Worf, where he manned the ship's sensor console . He had severe trouble serving with other Klingons, as he was unskilled as a warrior and displayed many Human traits that the other crew members found soft and disgusting.

Alexander's adjustment to life among Klingons was difficult. He was unable to offer a full explanation for his change of heart to either Worf or Martok but seemed to recognize, as he reached Klingon maturity, that his path lay with his people. Though none questioned his commitment, his combat skills were sorely lacking, and his lack of knowledge of Klingon customs hurt his standing on board. Upon being reunited, Alexander was emotionally cold towards Worf and was resentful and bitter at being abandoned by his father. Alexander also corrected Worf in conversation when Worf referred to his adoptive parents as Alexander's grandparents. ( DS9 : " Sons and Daughters ")

Moreover, his presence on the vessel proved a trial for Worf and a source of resentment among the crew. At Martok's urging, Worf attempted to mend his relationship with Alexander, both as a father and a first officer . Martok advised Worf to let matters essentially tend to themselves; that Alexander would find a place on the ship, and by extension, learn about Klingon culture along the way. Though he might suffer some broken bones, as well as other injuries, he would survive. When Alexander forgot to clear a battle simulation from the sensors, he called an alert, believing they were under attack. When the mistake was realized, the crew laughed. Martok told Worf the crew had accepted Alexander, and Worf replied yes, as the ship's fool.

Tension continued between Alexander and Worf when Martok agreed to Worf's request to have Alexander transferred off the ship at the next opportunity, due to Alexander's inability to master basic combat skills and his ongoing resentfulness towards Worf, which clouded his judgment as well as his lack of a real answer when Martok challenged his motivations. All of these made Martok believe Alexander unfit for battle. Alexander accused Worf of never accepting him. The Rotarran was attacked shortly after. While attempting to make repairs, Alexander managed to lock himself into a corridor, the ship's fool once again. When Worf observed the affection the crew held for Alexander and his own graceful acceptance of the role, Worf changed his mind about transferring Alexander off the ship, telling Alexander, " I cannot fix the mistakes I have made, but from now on I will stand with you. I will teach you what you need to know to be a warrior, and you will teach me what I need to know to be a father. " Alexander challenged Worf by saying, " Let's see if you mean it. " Eventually, the two reached a full reconciliation that led to Alexander joining the House of Martok . ( DS9 : " Sons and Daughters ")

Alexander continued his service aboard the Rotarran and strengthened his relationships with his fellow Klingons. He continued to make mistakes, such as flooding an entire corridor with superheated hydraulic fluid. This did not strain his position within the ship, however, as the crew considered him a good luck charm; the more mistakes Alexander made, the fewer they would make in battle. Later that year, along with most of the Rotarran 's crew, he transferred to the IKS Ya'Vang , where he hoped the goodwill toward him would continue. ( DS9 : " You Are Cordially Invited ")

By 2375 , Alexander had been made the Ya'Vang 's weapons officer due to their being shorthanded. ( DS9 : " Penumbra ")

Personal interests [ ]

Alexander in his "Deadwood" holoprogram

Worf considered Alexander to be more Human (in personality and interests) than Klingon and tried desperately to change him. ( TNG : " Reunion ", " New Ground ", " Cost Of Living ") It wasn't until the revelation that K'mtar was actually an older Alexander from an alternate future that Worf began to accept his son for who he was. ( TNG : " Firstborn ")

Alexander had a fondness for jazz music due to the influence of William T. Riker , and much to the annoyance of his father. ( TNG : " Phantasms ")

Alexander also had a fondness for the Wild West and often played in holodeck scenarios. ( TNG : " A Fistful of Datas ")

Although clumsy with a bat'leth , Alexander had some proficiency with the d'k tahg when dueling with rival Klingon officer Ch'Targh . ( TNG : " Firstborn "; DS9 : " Sons and Daughters ")

K'Ehleyr [ ]

Alexander only knew his mother briefly, but his love for her, and hers for him, remained with him his entire life. Likewise, her death marked him forever. It was the first time Alexander had seen death, and the powerful image of Worf over the bloody body of K'Ehleyr was particularly difficult for him. ( TNG : " Reunion ")

Many years later, the fear of losing his father in the same way that he had lost his mother haunted Alexander and drove him to travel back in time in order to prevent his father's death. ( TNG : " Firstborn ")

Worf and Alexander

From the beginning, Worf had a hard time adjusting to the presence of Alexander in his life. He was particularly distressed that K'Ehleyr had not taught the child anything of Klingon tradition before her death. His distress was made even more acute by Alexander's continued insistence that he had no desire to become a warrior. ( TNG : " Reunion ")

After Alexander came to live on the Enterprise , Worf was shocked to discover his son lied often and even stole objects. Despite his efforts to teach his son the values of Klingon society through traditional stories, such as the story of Kahless and Morath , Alexander did not take readily to the lessons. For a brief time, Worf considered sending Alexander away from the Enterprise to a Klingon school. Eventually, he decided against this, unable to part with his son, and offered Alexander the greater challenge of remaining onboard with him. ( TNG : " New Ground ") Still, it was the thought of his son that caused Worf to abandon thoughts of ritual suicide in 2368 and choose a risky surgery when he was paralyzed in an accident. ( TNG : " Ethics ")

In 2372 , Worf brought an image of Alexander to starbase Deep Space 9 when he was stationed there. ( DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ") However, Alexander's relationship with Worf had not improved and he elected to live on Earth with the Rozhenkos rather than join his father on DS9.

That decision haunted both Alexander and his father. Alexander felt that, because he had not been the son that Worf wanted, he had been rejected, and Worf acted as if he had no son. This rejection continued to divide father and son when Alexander came aboard the Rotarran . He declared that he had no family or House and that any honor earned would be his own. Worse, his obvious lack of combat skill and previous declarations to never be a warrior led Worf to accuse him of being ill-suited for life during the war, and eventually tried to transfer him off the ship. Alexander refused, and the confrontation between the two was only resolved after the rest of the Rotarran crew began to accept Alexander. ( DS9 : " Sons and Daughters ")

Not long after, the two continued to mend their relationship, when Worf asked Alexander to act as his Tawi'Yan , or swordbearer, during his wedding to Jadzia Dax . Alexander was honored, even more so because it was clear that the couple had altered their plans in order to include him in the wedding before he transferred to the Ya'Vang . ( DS9 : " You Are Cordially Invited ")

Deanna Troi [ ]

During his stay on the Enterprise -D, Alexander looked up to Counselor Troi, and Worf had considered her to be the closest thing to a mother that Alexander had. Worf asked the Troi of an alternate quantum reality to be Alexander's Soh-chIm , which meant that, if anything were to happen to Worf, Troi would take custody of Alexander. ( TNG : " Parallels ")

The elder Alexander, as K'mtar, suggested to the younger Alexander that he had female cousins around his age on Qo'noS , possibly the daughters of Kurn , as K'mtar said he had no male heirs. ( TNG : " Firstborn ")

Alternate realities and timelines [ ]

In 2370 , when Worf returned from a bat'leth tournament on Forcas III , Worf encountered a quantum fissure and began switching places with other versions of himself in alternate quantum realities. In some of the realities experienced by Worf, Alexander didn't exist. ( TNG : " Parallels ")

Alexander Rozhenko from 2410 , as K'mtar

In 2410, Alexander traveled back in time forty years into the past, made contact with Worf and Alexander, posing as K'mtar, gin'tak to the House of Mogh. In an attempt to change history, he tried to convince Worf that his young counterpart needed to be trained in the ways of a Klingon warrior. When it became apparent that his counterpart was not willing to do so, however, he attempted to kill him, only to be stopped by Worf. He explained to Worf that, in his time, Worf had been assassinated on the floor of the High Council, due to Alexander's attempts at bringing peace to the Empire. Wishing to prevent this future, he had traveled back in time in an attempt to ensure that his counterpart would not grow up to be a diplomat, but rather a warrior who could fight at his father's side. Worf told him that, now that he had disrupted the flow of history, his death was no longer a certainty, and that he would be proud of his son no matter what path he chose to follow. After hearing these words, the adult Alexander departed, but not before expressing his love for his father. ( TNG : " Firstborn ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

" Reunion " (Season 4)
" New Ground " (Season 5)
" Cost Of Living "
" Imaginary Friend "
" Rascals " (Season 6)
" A Fistful of Datas "
" Firstborn " (Season 7)
" The Way of the Warrior " (only in a picture) (Season 4)
" Sons and Daughters " (Season 6)
" You Are Cordially Invited "
" Change of Heart " (only in a picture)

Background information [ ]

Portrayals [ ].

Alexander was portrayed, in all, by five different actors: Jon Steuer ("Reunion"), Brian Bonsall (seven episodes from TNG Season 5 through TNG Season 7), James Sloyan ("Firstborn"), unknown actor (in a photograph: "The Way of the Warrior" and "Sons and Daughters"), and Marc Worden ("Sons and Daughters", "You Are Cordially Invited", and in photograph: "Change of Heart").

According to the call sheet , Alexander's makeup in The Next Generation episode "Cost of Living" was applied by makeup artist Tania McComas .

For the adult alternate future version of Alexander, Rick Berman and Michael Piller were hesitant to cast James Sloyan in the role in "Firstborn", coming as it did so soon after the actor's first appearance as Doctor Mora Pol in the DS9 episode " The Alternate ". However, Jeri Taylor convinced them that the Klingon makeup would hide this fact, making Sloyan less recognizable. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion (2nd ed., p. 292))

As was also seen with another Klingon, Toral , this serves as an example of the phenomenon commonly referred to as Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome . Being portrayed by four different actors over an eight-year period, the presentation of Alexander appears to establish that Klingon youths mature more quickly than Humans do.

In his first appearance in the mid-Season 4 episode "Reunion", Alexander was described in the script as "a Klingon boy", specifically, "the boy should look about five human years old." It should be noted that Alexander was conceived a year and a half prior, near the end of TNG Season 2 . The Alexander's future self (in "Firstborn") from recalled that he had been three at the time of his mother's death, alluding to the fact that one Earth year was roughly equal to about three Klingon years.

His later appearances, beginning in mid-Season 5 through Season 7 , he grew at a "normal" rate. His age was not specifically addressed in any of these episode's scripts, with exception to a note in the mid-Season 7 episode "Firstborn", which stated that his friend, Eric Burton , as "about Alexander's age"; Burton was previously established in the script for " Masks " as being twelve years old.

Alexander then served on the Rotarran (in DS9), appearing to be the size of a mid-teenager, despite actually being age eight. In fact, according to the script, he was described both a "whiskerless youth" and as a "tall, thin, beardless young Klingon […] on the cusp of manhood." Ronald D. Moore directly addressed the seeming age discrepancy while talking about "Sons and Daughters": " We're pegging Alexander as being roughly the equivalent of a thirteen to sixteen-year-old Human male, although his actual age is much younger. Hey, Klingons mature faster, okay? " ( AOL chat , 1997 )

From an alternate production standpoint, Steve Oster explain that " [t]he role demanded a lot of time on the set. And the amount of time you have with a minor is very restrictive. Add to that the fact that Klingon actors need to go through three hours of makeup in the morning, and suddenly you have very little time with your actor. So his age was important. Also, we kept in mind the fact that if the actor was too young, Worf would seem too harsh. He'd come off like an abusive father, rather than a father who wants the best for his son. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 490))

Production notes [ ]

Alexander was further referenced in the first draft script of the DS9 Season 4 episode " Body Parts ", where Worf remarked that, since he was sent back to Earth, " He is happier. I am happier, and there is much less noise. "

Apocrypha [ ]

The novel A Time for War, A Time for Peace established that, upon Worf's return to Starfleet, he nominates Alexander to succeed him as Federation ambassador to the Klingons. When Alexander asks why, Worf simply tells him that he once had a vision of Alexander's future (referencing "Firstborn") and Worf says Alexander's service to the galaxy will be one worthy of song. Alexander also appears in the two novels of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Left Hand of Destiny .

In Star Trek Online , set in 2409, players of the KDF faction encounter Alexander (under his "K'mtar" alias) on Rura Penthe , where he was imprisoned while attempting to discover a conspiracy against the House of Martok. With the player's aid, Alexander discovers that the House of Torg, whose members included the warden of Rura Penthe, were the masterminds of the conspiracy, aided by Romulan agents of the Tal Shiar . After Alexander and the player bring the evidence to the Klingon High Council, Chancellor J'mpok discommendates Torg and his entire House on the spot. When Torg attempts to kill Worf in revenge, Alexander sacrifices himself to save his father, thus preventing the fate that K'mtar had warned of in "Firstborn".

In Star Trek (IDW) , Alexander, frustrated with Worf's seeming ignorance of him, joins Kahless II's god-killing cult and pitting him against his father and other Starfleet members. Ultimately, Worf is able to rescue his son, but is left with a bitter frustration. His story continues in Sons of Star Trek as he, Jake Sisko and Nog are transported to an alternate universe by Q Junior to help put their problems in order.

External links [ ]

Alexander Rozhenko at StarTrek.com
Alexander Rozhenko at Wikipedia
Alexander Rozhenko at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
Alexander Rozhenko at the Star Trek Online Wiki
3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

FlickSphere

21 Things About Star Trek That Fans Hesitate to Acknowledge

Posted: April 27, 2024 | Last updated: April 27, 2024

<span>Since its first episode aired in 1966, Star Trek has captivated and delighted audiences for generations. From comedic Klingons to purple planets, the epic series has always inspired and provoked the imaginations of its fans, both young and old. </span><span>A trailblazer of its time, especially in the early days, Star Trek was accredited with pushing many boundaries around gender, race, and equality, which is all positive. </span> <span>However, some questionable aspects of this legendary franchise might have us wanting to shout, “Beam me up, Scotty,” before we would like to admit them. </span>

Star Trek Reused the Same Sets Often

There were some sexist vibes.

<span>Suppose we skip to the present-day installments of Star Trek. In that case, we can see more sexual and gender equality with same-sex relationship storylines, gender-fluid characters, and equal power-sharing amongst male and female crew members.</span> <span>Furthermore, </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/" rel="noopener"><span>the current TV series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds</span></a><span> features Dr.Aspen, a non-binary humanitarian aid worker played by Keitel, a trans, non-binary actor. </span> <span>So, just as the current Star Trek series reflects the values and culture of our time, we must appreciate that earlier series were reflective of these components within their time (even if it is light years away from 2024). </span>

Star Trek Was Forced to Move With the Times

<span>Whether you had a thing for Seven of Nine or wanted to be assimilated into the Borg, not many have escaped feeling attracted to an unearthly being from Star Trek. </span> <span>We’ve all witnessed Captain Kirk, Picard, and other crew members hook up with humanoid aliens on the show, so why should we be immune from the allure of an ethereal Star Trek alien? </span>

We’ve All Fancied an Alien on Star Trek at Some Point in Our Lives

<span>The Deep Space Nine (DS9) series, which aired between 1994 and 1999, holds a special place in many people’s hearts. It featured some of Star Trek’s most legendary characters, such as Worf, played by Michael Don, and Quark, played by Armin Shimerman. </span> <span>This series was notably darker and more thought-provoking than any other Star Trek series, but it has been criticized for being too dramatic and appearing more like a soap opera in space. </span>

Drama in Deep Space Nine’

<span>In 1995, Captain Janeway took over our screens as the first female lead of </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/" rel="noopener"><span>Star Trek Voyager, boldly going</span></a><span> where no man (or woman) had gone before.</span> <span>There was a massive backlash from fans and the media about the audacity of having a female Captain in Star Trek and how it wouldn’t work.</span> <span>Somehow, in 2024, it feels hard to believe such a narrative existed, but sadly, it did. </span>

Star Trek Voyager Criticized for Having a Female Captain

<span>It’s no secret that some of Star Trek’s storylines have been dubious, politically incorrect, and, at other times, extremely cringy to watch. </span> <span>Retrospect, S4, Ep 17 has been heavily criticized for its portrayal of a female rape victim and how her accusations and credibility were undermined.</span> <span>In the episode, Seven of Nine accuses Kovin of violating her, but her claims aren’t taken seriously. Kovin disappears without explanation, and Seven’s reliability as a witness and victim is questioned. </span>

The Story Lines Weren’t Always Great

<span>From dodgy prosthetics to fake foreheads and people painted green, sometimes the make-up and costume departments severely missed the mark, and it’s okay to admit that some of the </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://screenrant.com/star-trek-outfits-costumes-best-worst/" rel="noopener"><span>costumes on Star Trek</span></a><span> were not great. </span>

Some of the Costumes Were Not Good

<span>It’s okay to admit that Captain Jean-Luc Picard was your favorite (mine was, too). Apologies if he’s not your favorite, but may I ask why not? </span> <span>The fact is that Picard and </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092455/" rel="noopener"><span>Star Trek: The Next Generation</span></a><span> did just that. They defined the next generation of Trekkies, who have never quite overcome his stepping down.</span> <span>Patrick Stewart brought something special to the role, and his series had a great cast, including legendary characters like Data, Deanna Troi, Worf, and Geordi.</span> <span>This combination of actors created truly irreplaceable on-screen chemistry that was, arguably, never replicated again in the show. </span>

We Want Captain Picard Back

<span>Would you believe that there have been thirteen Star Trek movies? </span> <span>If you have any Trekkie blood in your veins, you will have seen at least some of them, but the consensus amongst true Star Trekkies is that the TV series trumps any movie that has ever been made. </span> <span>Many cite swearing allegiance to the traditional TV show format, while others resent Hollywood’s commercialization of the sacred franchise.</span> <span>If we do have to pick the best Star Trek movie, though, it has to be Star Trek, filmed in 2009, with Chris Pine as the lead actor. The film managed to score well with fans, new and old alike, and it still holds a </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/star-trek-movies-ranked/" rel="noopener"><span>94% meter rating </span></a><span>with Rotten Tomatoes. </span>

Most Fans Preferred the TV Series to the Movies

<span>As you may already know, Klingon is a real language. There is an actual Klingon Institute where you can learn to speak it fluently. </span>

We Have all Tried to Speak Klingon

<span>Whether it’s the idea of traveling at the speed of light across vast galaxies, visiting different worlds with alien species, or being able to vaporize and transport across time and space, sometimes the concepts and ideas in Star Trek can get a little trippy. </span> <span>Although we might not like to admit it, at some point, most of us have felt a little scared or provoked by some of the themes raised in Star Trek storylines. </span> <span>The show forced us to contemplate the possibility of alternate realities, and we could be forgiven for feeling a little existential after watching Star Trek, as it confronts us with the possibility that we are not alone. </span>

Sometimes, Star Trek Was Scary

<span>Whether it was cool or not to admit it, we all loved the Star Trek theme tune of Our Time. </span> <span>Whether it was Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager, or The Next Generation, once we heard that famous theme tune music come on, Star Trekkie mode ACTIVATED. </span>

The Theme Tune Was Awesome

<span>That’s right. Gene Roddenberry, the original creator of Star Trek, wrote the very first series with a woman as Captain Kirk’s Number One on deck (she was called Number One), played by Majel Barrett (Barrett eventually went on to marry Roddenberry).</span> <span>However, test audiences reportedly did not like her character. They rejected the idea of a woman being in charge, with many calling her character </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/_/star-treks-underappreciated-feminist-history" rel="noopener"><span>pushy,</span></a><span> so the idea was soon dropped. </span>

Star Trek’s Original First Officer Was a Woman

<span>“Live Long, and Prosper” – Vulcan Greeting.</span> <span>I don’t care what age you are; we have all impersonated Spock at some point. </span> <span>With his pointy ears and dry, emotionless demeanor, we’ve all been caught trying to sound or look like the legendary character played by Leonard Nimoy.</span>

Spock Impressions

<span>The </span><a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Universal_translator" rel="noopener"><span>Universal Translator</span></a><span> used in Star Trek now exists, and you can wear earphones that will translate what someone else says in any other language into your own. </span> <span>Furthermore, scientists constantly make new claims that align with the Star Trek Universe. For example, NASA now asserts that time travel is possible, and astrophysicists have discovered that what they thought they knew about the Universe is seemingly no longer true. </span> <span>Discoveries like The Fifth Force of Nature, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy have some of us thinking differently about the make-believe fantasy of Star Trek, as we now witness many discoveries within our World and Universe. </span>

Some of the Tech from the Trek Has Already Become a Reality

<span>Unfortunately, Captain Kirk and Spock developed tinnitus after a loud explosion during filming. Tinnitus is a persistent ringing and buzzing in the ears that can be a truly debilitating condition for some. </span> <a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.theaquarian.com/2016/01/27/getting-the-shatner-treatment-an-interview-with-william-shatner/" rel="noopener"><span>William Shatner </span></a><span>even became the official spokesperson for tinnitus at one point, which both actors struggled with, particularly Shatner. </span>

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy Both Got Tinnitus

<span>It’s a gesture that all Trekkies know well, and I can guarantee that at some point, you’ve made Spock’s hand signal while saying, “Live Long and Prosper.”</span> <span>And while you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a made-up alien greeting devised solely for the show, you’d be wrong. It’s a hand gesture used by Orthodox Jews. It represents the word Shaddai, which means God, so it seems that Trekkies may have been blessing each other without knowing for decades.</span>

Spock’s Vulcan Salute is a Special Blessing in Hebrew

<span>That’s right. Star Trek wasn’t only good at reusing sets to save on the budget; it was known for reusing certain actors and reinventing them into new characters.</span> <span>Mark Lenard is famous for being the only actor ever to have played multiple alien species on Star Trek: a Klingon, a Romulan, and a Vulcan. </span> <span>In the original series’ first season, the actor played a Romulan Commander, but he returned a year later as Spock’s Vulcan father, Sarek. </span>

Star Trek Didn’t Only Recycle its Sets; It Also Recycled Actors

The Star Trek Brand Has Become Over-Commercialized

<span>When you think back to the TV shows of the past, it’s hard to believe that some of them ever got the green light. At the time, they were beloved, and they defined generations. But let’s face it – times have changed, and several of them wouldn’t even make it past the pitch meeting today. Let’s look at 18 great TV shows that, for various reasons, just wouldn’t fly today.</span>

18 Formerly Beloved TV Shows That Would Flunk the Political Correctness Test Today

<span>Over the past decade, cinema has completely changed, thanks in part to filmmakers daring enough to tackle issues head-on. These “woke movies” have led to conversations and controversy. For some, these movies represent everything wrong with today’s media landscape, while for others, they’re talking about things we need to address. No matter your opinion of them, here are 18 of the wokest films from the last decade.</span>

18 Films That Went Too Woke in the Last Decade

<p>We’ve all watched those movies where we ask ourselves, “What did I just watch? Did anything really happen?” Whether you find these movies meditative or meandering, they’ve got a special place in cinematic history. So, for all you guys who’ve ever zoned out during a film and wondered, “Was it just me?” here’s a list to make you feel seen.</p>

Empty Screens: 18 Movies Where Almost Nothing Really Happens

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21 Things About Star Trek That Fans Hesitate to Acknowledge

Star Trek Reused the Same Sets Often

Star Trek Was Forced to Move With the Times

We’ve All Fancied an Alien on Star Trek at Some Point in Our Lives

Drama in Deep Space Nine’

Star Trek Voyager Criticized for Having a Female Captain

The Story Lines Weren’t Always Great

Some of the Costumes Were Not Good

We Want Captain Picard Back

Most Fans Preferred the TV Series to the Movies

We Have all Tried to Speak Klingon

Sometimes, Star Trek Was Scary

The Theme Tune Was Awesome

Star Trek’s Original First Officer Was a Woman

Spock Impressions

Some of the Tech from the Trek Has Already Become a Reality