Look, the reason Star Trek aliens are just humans with funny foreheads isn’t because they’re lazy, it’s because Star Trek as a franchise pre-dates both CGI and The Muppet Show, and by the time the technology existed to routinely depict non-humanoid aliens on a TV show budget, it was too late – forehead aliens had already been established as part of Star Trek’s defining aesthetic.
People don’t understand how expensive this shit is.
We look at Spock and that looks like the bare minimum… But at the time, his ear prosthetics were insanely expensive. Episodes with multiple Romulans ended up with romulans wearing helmets because that many ear prosthetics were prohibitively expensive for their miniscule budget.
Their budget was so tight that they accidentally broke the Romulan Bird of Prey model, and couldn’t afford to replace it.
But on their tiny budget, they tried very hard to do things that were truly alien and imaginative. And these are the very aliens everyone uses to make fun of Trek.
(The “Salt Vampire,” Tholians, Horta, and Gorn).
Meanwhile, they also occasionally pushed the prosthetics aliens as far as they could
(Andorians, tellerite, talosian)
You got to admit, that talosian is amazing work, especially for the 1960s.
Budget continues to be the limiting factor up to and including Discovery and Picard. While those two have access to make up techniques and SFX tools that didn’t exist yet even as recently as went Enterprise went off the air, they’re still very much limited by budget and how much suffering the actors can handle.
And these actors absolutely do suffer:
This is a Hirogen. When they were created they were to be Trek’s answer to The Predator. They were to be huge. Beyond human limitations, into special effects huge. They cast actors who were already pushibg sasquatch size, bulked them up, then used perspective tricks to make them look ten feet tall. They made two sets- one normal sized with normal sized props for the hirogen actors, and one that was oversized, with oversized props for Tuvok and Seven.
These suits were giant solid pieces of rubber. Tim Russ said that every second they weren’t filming, Tiny Ron (one of the hirogen actors in this episode, better known as The Grand Nagus’ body guard) needed to be sitting so he wouldn’t die. Russ said that sweat would flowing down his gloves because that was the only escape from the suit. It would be pulling in his boots and pants.
Everything about the Hirogen was untenable. The costumes were made easier, and their size was reduced back to normal human. The cost was too high, both on the budget, and on the actors.
Voyager also tried a completely CGI aliens:
Species 8472, who came from outside the universe. The result was a mixed bag. Great in concept, but realistically was beyond the abilities of a television budget from the late nineties/early two thousands. They didn’t age as well as other aspects of that era of Trek.
Now into Modern Trek, we have Saru. He goes a step beyond most prosthetic aliens, but imagine what Doug Jones goes through to bring him to life? Not just how many hours in the make-up chair, but also his suit, hands, shoes. Imagine how sore he must be at the end of each day!
Behind every “forehead alien” in Trek is an actor who’s had to indure many many hours in the make-up chair, and tens of thousands of dollars to make those prosthetics. And it’s only been extremely recently that the technology has been affordably practical enough that they won’t get made fun of for trying non-humanoid aliens.
amhrancas 