Skip to main content

star trek - Did Christopher Lloyd invent the Klingon warrior?


One of the lasting contributions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the now standard appearance of the Klingons, which changed dramatically from The Original Series:


enter image description here


However, those Klingons only appeared very briefly at the beginning of the film, saying and doing very little — they were destroyed within minutes by V'Ger.


In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, we see a lot more of the new Klingons, in particular Commander Kruge, played by Christopher Lloyd:


enter image description hereenter image description here


In Kruge, Lloyd crafts a far more fearsome presence that his Original Series Klingon predecessors, and takes actions and exhibits traits that they did not. In particular, he shows a readiness to die while wrestling with a slimy swamp creature, just to test his own mettle.


Basically, Lloyd's Kruge is far closer in spirit to the TNG-style "warriors" than to the TOS Klingons.


How did these character traits come to be? Did Christopher Lloyd have a hand in it, or was the re-imagining of the typical Klingon officer something that was dreamt up prior to his casting?




Answer



According to Memory Alpha's article on him, the script already described Kruge as being a "War Lord", implying that Lloyd was cast to fit the description, rather than the other way around (Edward James Olmos also auditioned for the part!). This suggests that the writing team already had a somewhat more active, and more three-dimensional conception for their character before Lloyd was cast.


That said, while Lloyd plays the role with a panache that clearly informed later writers, his behaviour is not really all that different from Kang and his crew in "Day of the Dove", or Korax, the officer who started the bar-room brawl in "The Trouble with Tribbles". There are differences of style and of course, budget, but it's not that hard to imagine Michael Ansara's Kang doing the same things Lloyd's Kruge did, albeit with a different flair.


In summary: the basic conception of Kruge appears to have been the writers', but it's Lloyd's performance that made it memorable and ultimately refocused the idea of what a Klingon warrior was. The writers of The Search for Spock did not necessarily set out to completely re-imagine the Klingon race, but no future writer could escape the influence of Lloyd's iconic portrayal.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more