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Bryan Fuller posted this on Instagram as a birthday greeting to Laurence Fishburne, back on July 30.
So apparently Fuller had intended to carry over the Hannibal cast into Discovery in various parts — and this was how he'd imagined Fishburne in Klingon prosthetics. It also suggests that the much maligned Disco Klingon designs were decided upon after Fuller left as (preliminary) show runner.
ETA: Here is a rundown of the casting plans he had in mind, originally revealed on the D-con chamber podcast. I would have watched Gillian Anderson as a starship captain.
I don't remember this at all. Did I miss some throw away line of dialogue?
Your comment makes it seem you’re taking this very personally. It’s okay to hate a creative decision; there are decisions I could name from every Trek series that I hate, some for very subjective reasons. But to attribute that decision to malice, disrespect, or some kind of secret hatred for some part of the franchise is weird. Attributing it to hatred for the fans themselves sounds kind of petulant, frankly.
Generally, if a writer hates some part of a franchise, they wouldn't repeatedly make it a major part of their shows. They'd ignore it and build up the parts of the franchise they do like. Look at how the people running things back in the '90s handled the animated series. They didn't write a big Edosian War storyline or make a Caitian with a tragic backstory one of their core characters. They simply pretended all those elements didn't exist.
That's what it looks like when someone doesn't care for part of a franchise. Like it or not, a cosmetic redesign like we're talking about just looks like an attempt to freshen things up, and maybe appear more cinematic to grab the attention of a wider audience.
Can you recall any prior series of Star Trek where the Klingons were wiped out in two alternate universes and (mostly) the main one?
No? None in 50 years? Huh. Guess I'm just being petulant by thinking that's a very strong statement choice. It doesn't have to be hate, it could just be lazy I suppose - the latest writers are certainly that.
You guys like Kurtzman Trek - that's fine. Enjoy your shows. I don't.
I'm feeling like it's a waste of time to explain my opinion further when I'll just be infantalised as petulant, so bye.
Obviously not that specific sequence of events, no. However, in addition to seeing Praxis explode in the 23rd century, in the 24th we saw the Klingon civil war, the underhanded instalment of an illegitimate leader, and various ugly internal power struggles, which all culminated in this memorable take-down by Ezri Dax.
If I can watch a likeable character like her calmly declare that "the Klingon Empire is dying and deserves to die" and not think the Berman era writers hated Klingons, I really don't think there's anything you can point at to make me think the Kurtzman era does.
It just seems so over the top to assign these underhanded motives to the writers on so little justification. It's clear to me that they're treating the Klingons as an important part of the mythos. If nothing else, Jay-Den is easily my favourite of the Academy cadets. I'm just not seeing what you see here.
It's a reference to the Confederation reality briefly seen in S2.
Why it's being bandied about as evidence of something, I cannot say.
Ah, that explains it. So two of the examples were alternate universes where the writers had the bad guys wipe out the Klingons to show how scary they were. Kind of like the TNG days where the go-to method of establishing how tough someone was was to have them beat I Worf, I guess.