• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x09 - "All Those Who Wander"

Hit it!


  • Total voters
    224
It IS in the horror genre. It's horror sci-fi.

And my response to the Doctor would be, "You literally have had an entire career of hostile cannibalistic aliens with dozens of evil megacorps over the years. Do NOT try and pass yourselves off as progressive in alien representation."

But I've also stated I don't consider the Alien evil. It's just an animal that's being exploited.
It gets treated as scifi, no qualifier.

I'll have to find the actual Doctor Who scene. It's not about progressive or whatever.
ETA: found it
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
It would've been nice to have had some acknowledgment that they were essentially killing children from a sentient, space faring civilization.
They were too busy trying not to become Raptor Chow.

The idea that Gorn are sentient and spacefaring is not much of an argument in favor of sparing them - they're like the creature from Alien but with their own rides.
 
Honestly I don't understand why so many people here are so butthurt about them killing the Gorn. Life forms kill each other in self defence, get over it. And this was a self defence situation so what did you expect? If the crew deliberately went out of their way to go and hunt Gorn new borns, that would be totally different story and the objection would have some merit, but this isn't what happened here.

Also IMO whether the life form is sentient or not is irrelevant. If they are threatening you to the point where your life is in danger you should be allowed to defend yourself and that may unfortunately involve injuring or killing threat if necessary.
 
I'd worry first about not being killed by reptilian space hatchlings and then - assuming there was time for reflection - regret wiping out alien newborns later. The aggression of the hatchlings necessitated the crew using lethal force to defend itself. And as La'an has stated more than once: the Gorn aren't the types to show mercy.
 
They had me at "There will always be a place on the Enterprise for Nyota Uhura."

You fell for the, Oh my goodness, she's leaving the ship/show, hook? Sukker! :lol:

I do not mind these are not the TOS Gorn. After all it is more than obvious that SNW won't be too much canon friendly or it is "soft reboot" as others called it.

Oooorrrr, these are baby and tween Gorn which eventually grow up to more closely resemble the Gorn seen in TOS. :cool:
 
I'd worry first about not being killed by reptilian space hatchlings and then - assuming there was time for reflection - regret wiping out alien newborns later. The aggression of the hatchlings necessitated the crew using lethal force to defend itself. And as La'an has stated more than once: the Gorn aren't the types to show mercy.
Well, to them, mercy is a quick death.
 
Never understood this hairstyle. Some dudes seem to be under the misguided notion that it makes them look cool, like a Samurai or something. It does not.

It makes them look like a Soccer Mom.

I mean, I personally have never liked the manbun -- I keep my hair in a crew cut most of the time -- but seriously, you sound like a character from Mad Men complaining about all those damn hippies who need a haircut. ;) Let people enjoy the haircuts they enjoy. I like seeing the retro-1960s hairstyles mixed in with 2010s/2020s styles such as the manbuns.

Honestly I don't understand why so many people here are so butthurt about them killing the Gorn. Life forms kill each other in self defence, get over it. And this was a self defence situation so what did you expect? If the crew deliberately went out of their way to go and hunt Gorn new borns, that would be totally different story and the objection would have some merit, but this isn't what happened here.

Also IMO whether the life form is sentient or not is irrelevant. If they are threatening you to the point where your life is in danger you should be allowed to defend yourself and that may unfortunately involve injuring or killing threat if necessary.

I'm not bothered that they killed the Gorn; I would however have preferred it if there had been a line with a character pointing out that these Gorn are, essentially, children acting on instinct and that the necessity of killing them to protect themselves is deeply regrettable.
 
I mean, I personally have never liked the manbun -- I keep my hair in a crew cut most of the time -- but seriously, you sound like a character from Mad Men complaining about all those damn hippies who need a haircut. ;) Let people enjoy the haircuts they enjoy. I like seeing the retro-1960s hairstyles mixed in with 2010s/2020s styles such as the manbuns.
Same. I care very little about my hair and have no interest in particular styles. It's kept short and clipped.

But, I also don't give a crap about people doing whatever with their hair.
 
I mean, I personally have never liked the manbun -- I keep my hair in a crew cut most of the time -- but seriously, you sound like a character from Mad Men complaining about all those damn hippies who need a haircut. ;) Let people enjoy the haircuts they enjoy. I like seeing the retro-1960s hairstyles mixed in with 2010s/2020s styles such as the manbuns.



I'm not bothered that they killed the Gorn; I would however have preferred it if there had been a line with a character pointing out that these Gorn are, essentially, children acting on instinct and that the necessity of killing them to protect themselves is deeply regrettable.

They were like children for 10 minutes. They basically became adults instantly.
 
Same. I care very little about my hair and have no interest in particular styles. It's kept short and clipped.

But, I also don't give a crap about people doing whatever with their hair.

People can do whatever they want with their hair but I still think it's hilarious. Manbuns are a blight to the eyes. Lol
 
Let's be honest, rhe Gorn we saw in Arena was stupid. A product of its time, a good episode, they did what they could with the time, money and resources they had but it's Kirk fighting a man in a rubber lizard costume which is the only reason why the episode is so well known/"iconic." If he was fighting a humanoid alien he couldn't communicate with the episode wouldn't be quite a noteworthy. It's good too see them trying to make the Gorn something "more."

Turning their babies into chest-burster Xenomorphs? Yeah.... That's a bit much. It should've been like their dogs or something.

Its bullshit to keep just pushing TOS to the side. It came first, its events take priority over any NuTrek. Yeah, sure, there is problematic stuff that should be ignored (like comments in Turnabout intruder about women not commanding starships, the fact that basically no women after the original pilot were ever allowed to wear pants, the general treatment of women and the very bare presence of non-white people, etc), but the events of the damn episodes happened, at least in the prime universe. The Arena is not Threshold, which was an episode that should be ignored for several reasons. The Gorn in The Arena was fine, and its canon.

If SNW is in the actual Prime Timeline, then a single human male from Iowa can defeat a Gorn even unarmed. Thats assuming he has a bit of luck and knows how to build a handmade bazooka, admittedly, but its still not as dire of a fight as SNW would have you believe. If its in its own third timeline (which is what they really should have done), then sure, Gorn can be unstoppable killing machines where a single one could probably kill everyone on a planet or something equally as stupid.

You can just about accept the TOS gorn maybe being a species that lays eggs in people, and you can definitely understand them being marauders that capture and eat other sentient beings. But when it comes to their physical prowess, TOS takes priority over SNW, period. So the adult Gorn are physically powerful and capable of planned out attacks, but at least as adults can't spit acid/impregnation juice or move in the same way as young Gorn. That even kind of matches the xenomorphs, where facehuggers have abilities that the adults don't.

I would prefer to consider DSC/SNW its own timeline, but if they are going to claim to be Prime then the events of TOS will be taken into account, even if the technology is at least a hundred years more advanced in SNW then anything in TOS, the ships are insultingly huge, etc.
 
A tragic episode, I quite liked the character that was offed. But all pretense that this is set in the Prime Timeline must be dropped. In "Arena", Kirk didn't even know the race of the alien and it's inconceivable that he wouldn't. This is the Discoverse, which in some aspects lies close to the Prime Universe (mostly Pike's fate) but it's clearly not the Prime Timeline while others don't (the size of the ships, the Enterprise itself and a thing or two about the characters). And a few things were too close to "Alien". 6/10.
 
2. inspiration, vague similarities, perhaps. are they the same, are you sure? is their ship a starfleet ship, are they part of the federation, why are their uniforms so different, etc. etc. (hint: they're not the same setting) :p
^^^
If that's you rational for saying Star Trek wasn't derivative of Forbidden Planet, then exactly what in this episode is derivative of either Alien, Aliens or Predator?

It's not derivative of Alien or Aliens as:

- The Gorn embryos are not implanted via a 'Face-Hugger'.

- The ship is crashed on a Planet and not a Moon.

- The Planet is not named LV-426 or LV-223,

It's not Derivative of Predator as:

- The Gorn 'children' are not using technological alien weapons to hunt the Humans.

- The Hunt isn't occurring in a hot jungle locale.

So yeah, by that logic, this ISN'T a derivative episode of Star Trek at all.:bolian:
 
Last edited:
Really, at this point, I'd say blur or go against canon (new timeline) for Spock/Chapel. (What's the portmanteau for that Spapel? Chock?) Because just feels intense between them and not it all on par with what goes on between them in TOS. This isn't a Spock who's going to throw her soup out his room door against the bulkhead.

I do agree that the chemistry between Ethan Peck and Jess Bush is way more intense than between Leonard Nimoy and Majet Barrett. That isn't the kind of onscreen chemistry the writers should just disregard or throw away -- you've gotta do something with it. Going full Spock/Chapel would be an interesting take, and would give both characters an arc to distinguish themselves from their TOS versions.

And I do think there's a strong argument to be made anymore for treating TOS as "diet canon" rather than fully canonically binding on future continuity.

Kudos to the visual effects department once again, especially as we are shown the stunning visuals of the downed Sambra class starship which looked awesome though at the same time quite foreboding.

This is a nit-pick, but I don't understand the point of referring to the Peregrine as a Sombra-class starship yet treating its exterior and interior as visually almost identical to the Enterprise. Why not just refer to it as a Constitution class?

This could all be argued as being a confirmation that this episode is indeed an ‘Alien’ homage of sorts. But I also thought about this connection back in Momento Mori.

I wouldn't be surprised if the writers were planning on doing an Alien pastiche as far back as "Momento Mori." And doing a pastiche like this is a completely legitimate creative choice -- Star Trek has a long history of doing pastiches of other films and novels. Li Nalas on DS9 was a pastiche of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" was a pastiche of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" were pastiches of Seven Days in May; "Balance of Terror" was a pastiche of the submarine film The Enemy Below; "Elaan of Troyius" is a pastiche of The Taming of the Shrew; "The Drumhead" is a pastiche of The Crucible combined with elements of Judgment at Nuremberg and The Caine Mutiny; etc.

A *super cool* looking alien stumbles on to our screen, the costume and prosthetics are top notch and the CGI facial enhancements make this one of the most alien looking aliens I have seen on Star Trek. Very well envisioned indeed! Well done to the production staff and creative team for a job well done with this alien of the week design.

Buckley was awesome!

The Gorn seem far too primitive to be a space faring species in their own right, I won’t waffle on about this again but my theory is laid out in the Momento Mori episode review thread if anybody is interested.

I really don't think we have enough information about the Gorn culture or biology to come to that conclusion at all. What we do know, really?

We know that at least some Gorn reproduce parasitically, then rapidly develop into canine-size creatures that are extremely violent and aggressive, both among themselves and to other species. This particular variety of Gorn is also capable of reproducing very soon after leaving their gestational hosts. We know that at least one faction of Gorn uses "breeding planets" and appears to abduct alien species for use as breeding stock for the parasitic Gorn.

We know from the Kelvin Timeline that at least some Gorn experience something akin to mammalian pregnancy and that these young can be extracted from the pregnant adult via C-section; we know that Gorn infants born via this process can also be at least somewhat aggressive since Dr. McCoy remarked that they bite. This would seem to imply that there are at least two different species of Gorn, or that one Gorn variety or the other is a heavily-modified subspecies.

We know that at least one faction of Gorn operates sophisticated starships capable of warp travel, with powerful weapons that grant them tactical performance comparable to that of a Constitution-class starship. We know that this faction engages in what appears to be some form of ritualized predatory behavior towards non-Gorn, suggesting the possibility that at least one faction of Gorn interprets their relationships towards alien species through the lens of the relationships between apex predators and their prey.

We know that in about 10 years, the Gorn will respond to the establishment of a Federation colony on Cestus III by interpreting it as a hostile act and encroachment on their territory, but will not attempt to communicate. Instead, this faction of Gorn will massacre the colony, and then fake transmissions in order to lure the Enterprise into a trap. The commanding officer of this Gorn faction will engage in combat with Kirk under the supervision of the Metron, and will yield when defeated and shown mercy. We know that in the 2370s, Cestus III is established Federation territory and the fight with the Gorn is well-remembered.

We know that Gorn have wedding ceremonies, and that in 2380 Rutherford crashed on a planet where one was happening and was attacked for encroaching on the ceremony. We know that in 2381, a Gorn chef was living aboard Starbase 25.

We know that at least one faction of the Gorn is recognized as a sovereign state known as the Gorn Hegemony. We know the Gorn Hegemony had dealings with the Orion Syndicate in the 2150s. We do not know if any of the factions of the Gorn we have encountered so far are affiliated with or part of the Hegemony, or if there might be other Gorn factions.

That's... not a lot. Gorn culture is still very much a blank slate. The fairest summary we can make is that there are at least two species of Gorn; that at least one faction is highly aggressive and treats aliens as prey and breeding stock; that it is unclear if that is the common behavior of most Gorn or to what extent Gorn are politically unified.

It’s a shame that the crew did not attempt to capture and domesticate these Gorn - a missed opportunity to study one or more of this species. This could have been a good way of opening up diplomatic channels if this is indeed actually possible? The baby Gorn could be educated in a Federation school, perhaps taught by Keiko O’Brien and then returned or used as an Ambassador like how Worf had a similar role with the Klingons?

I really don't think abducting one of their children and indoctrinating them into Federation culture is a good way to build bridges of peace. That would be an act of colonialism, not an act of diplomacy. In an ideal world, they would have tried to capture the Gorn children and then return them to a Gorn ship peacefully. Though since that was obviously not possible given the resources at their disposal, I don't think the Enterprise crew did anything wrong.

Our away team decide to trick the Gorn by super cooling the entire ship, forcing this cold blooded species in to a contained ‘warm’ area.

Do we actually know the Gorn are ectothermic, or is that an assumption based upon the Gorn children's dislike of cold?

The guns keep on getting bigger, as do the Gorn themselves…

The kids must have gotten into the food storage lockers, because there's no way they could have grown so large so quickly without eating a lot in the meantime.

Again, how on earth did this species get such advanced tech when they are nothing but mindless dinosaurs?

I mean, these Gorn were literally children less than a day old. If anything, they seem comparatively smarter than newborn Humans.

Spock seemed very lost to me at the end.

Sure! Lost in the sense of not knowing how to control the emotions he had unleashed. Presumably, the death of Hemmer -- one of the few non-Humans aboard the Enterprise to whom Spock seemed somewhat close -- also triggered some unresolved feelings of trauma from losing Michael less than a year ago.

But I think he's also realizing that he and Christine are actually more compatible than he and T'Pring -- because, unlike T'Pring, Christine lives a life that's similar to his and actually accepts Spock for who he is rather than trying to make him fit into one box or another. So he's simultaneously feeling like he's found something he didn't know he was missing -- but also extremely disoriented because this is a threat to the life he had planned for himself with T'Pring.
 
But all pretense that this is set in the Prime Timeline must be dropped. In "Arena", Kirk didn't even know the race of the alien and it's inconceivable that he wouldn't.

Nah. It's unreasonable to imagine that Kirk would know the name of every alien species the Federation has had encounters with, particularly if those encounters didn't lead to diplomatic relations. And encounters with Gorn children that lead to no ongoing relationship Gorn society are not really a continuity issue. It's certainly nothing on par with, say, the Hansens and Starfleet knowing about this species called "the Borg" ten years before TNG.
 
No, but after a certain point, it's time to call a spade a spade. I got half-way there during the first two seasons of DSC, when I thought of it as a Visual Reboot. Now I'm all the way there in SNW's case, thinking of it as an out-and-out Soft Reboot.

Given how often TOS violated it's own canon during the actual first run - sorry, nothing so far rises to the point of a 'soft reboot'. Hell, the Bridge in Where No Man Has Gone Before looks very different from the Bridge in the previous two episodes (as do the costumes) as it was the third episode broadcast - and they didn't even do a Starbase visit that we know of.

IE - If it's ALL taken 'as aired' there's nothing in SNW as presented that can't be reconciled with TOS via any further 'mental gymnastics' that it takes to reconcile all the internal TOS inconsistencies; especially since the events of TOS start 5 - 6 years (in Universe) from 'now'. ;)
 
but the events of the damn episodes happened, at least in the prime universe.
Yes, the events happened. Which means that we take all information and come to conclusions. In my opinion, the happened and there are several subspecies of Gorn.

This aren't that hard, and shows zero.zero % disrespect to TOS.

SNW and TOS are canon together.
the ships are insultingly huge, etc.
Insulting to whom? This is ridiculous hyperbole over artists making changes. They are not trying to insult anyone so maybe we try not to take it personally.
In "Arena", Kirk didn't even know the race of the alien and it's inconceivable that he wouldn't.
No, it's not.
Given how often TOS violated it's own canon during the actual first run - sorry, nothing so far rises to the point of a 'soft reboot'. Hell, the Bridge in Where No Man Has Gone Before looks very different from the Bridge in the previous two episodes (as do the costumes) as it was the third episode broadcast - and they didn't even do a Starbase visit that we know of.

IE - If it's ALL taken 'as aired' there's nothing in SNW as presented that can't be reconciled with TOS via any further 'mental gymnastics' that it takes to reconcile all the internal TOS inconsistencies; especially since the events of TOS start 5 - 6 years (in Universe) from 'now'. ;)
Exactly.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top