Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread

[tomalak301]

Finished my rewatch of SNW. A Quality of Mercy is the best episode of season 1 and fanwank done really really well. I wonder if they are going to cast a Scotty in this series because that little easter egg was fun.

Looking forward to the new season in a week and a couple days.

 

[fireproof78]

I'd say the original concept is so thin that there is very little to depart from in the first place.

Imagine if we based human portrayal in media based upon one human.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Imagine if we based human portrayal in media based upon one human.

One particularly cruel human who just wants to kill and thinks violence is a big laugh.

I’m actually not sure if I’m misremembering, but I’m sure the Gorn of TOS cackles.

 

[cooleddie74]

He makes reptillian hissing noises.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

He makes reptillian hissing noises.

Does he not go sort of "heh, heh, heh!" sometimes?

 

[cooleddie74]

A chuckle, yes, I believe he does make a chuckling sound.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I get that people hate the idea of the Gorn being viewed as a Trek version of Xenomorphs, but the concept itself really doesn't 'retcon' anything from Arena at all. There's nothing about the big, bipedal lizard man that proves his entire childhood development followed normal bipedal human patterns. Lots of species metamorphosize at different points in their life cycle, and it would actually be kind of cool to have some Star Trek main alien species that work along those lines.

 

[UssGlenn]

Perhaps losing their tail in the final stage has a big impact on mobility

 

[DaveyNY]

Perhaps losing their tail in the final stage has a big impact on mobility

... and their temperment.

 

[Lord Hierarch]

Now I’m wondering what a cackle sounds like.

 

[fireproof78]

get that people hate the idea of the Gorn being viewed as a Trek version of Xenomorphs, but the concept itself really doesn't 'retcon' anything from Arena...

Yes my only objection is the Alien bullshit not any perceived retcon of a species with one appearance.

 

[DaveyNY]

Now I’m wondering what a cackle sounds like.

Classic ...

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Just plain weird ...

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[Yistaan]

The Gorn capture James Kirk and force La'an to watch while they turn Kirk into a breeding sack. They then capture T'Pring and also plan to turn her into a breeding sack at the same time as Kirk, while forcing Spock to choose who he's going to save, Kirk or T'Pring. Spock chooses Kirk, while La'an rushes to save T'Pring. La'an is successful, but Kirk is implanted with eggs and Paul Wesley pulls his best Shatner overacting routine.

La'an, believing Kirk is a lost cause after being infected with eggs, shoots him down. The Gorn then reveal that, knowing La'an's psychological profile, they expected this and in fact Kirk was just implanted with chicken egg yolk and La'an killed him for nothing. They then beam away, having made their point.

Spock uses a mind meld to save Kirk (like Sarek did to young Michael Burnham) and also in the process erases Kirk's traumatic memory of the Gorn. Spock insists that he acted logically and in the Vulcan way in choosing to save Kirk over T'Pring, and that as a Vulcan T'Pring should understand this. She claims she does, but immediately returns to Vulcan and goes on a date with Stonn.

In a post-credits scene, the Gorn tell Stonn that everything went according to plan, and receive a suitcase of latinum in return.

 

[Lord Hierarch]

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.... I mean the witch at :18 does it well I think .

.... But dang, I thought it was called witch's crackle. Its actually cackle? So weird. I don't like it much. Change pls #noRsinmyword

 

[eschaton]

This bring up a question I'm curious about -

As a viewer, do you think the 10-episode season works or do wish it was the old 20-something episode? Or something like 13-15?

I think a 10-episode season is a sweet spot for serialized Trek, which seems to fumble repeatedly when it comes to pacing longer-form story arcs.

But for SNW, since it's essentially an episodic show with a bit of ongoing character growth, I think the answer should be that they just write however many episodes they have good ideas for each season.

Indeed, since the standing sets are just sitting there, collecting dust in a Paramount studio in Canada, I'd argue that padding out SNW with additional episodes is literally the cheapest way to get MOAR TREK to fans quickly.

 

[Sci]

That’s because nobody has been able to get them right. Great concept - an actual alien that’s not just another bumpy-head-of-the-week (all due respect to Michael Westmore) - but always poorly executed. TOS probably had the best portrayal, but horrible production values due to lack of budget ruined suspension of disbelief. Future productions tried to use CG to depart from the slow moving man-in-the-suit nonsense, but departed from the original concept too much to make them recognizable as the same species.

What "original concept?" There's almost no concept to depart from. It's a predatory anthropomorphic lizard and the only thing we know about their culture is that their feelings of territoriality drive them to massacre a civilian population and lure a military vessel into battle. That's extremely little -- it could go in a lot of different directions from there.

I don't think the whole "big lizard with human proportions that is cruel and evil because reptiles are all cruel and evil" concept is really that amazing. Don't get me wrong, I think the TOS Gorn are better than the average Trek alien of the week, but I do still think that they feed into the really overdone trope of reptiles being evil. It's like the Xindi - the reptilian and insectoids are depicted as the bad ones while their mammalian counterparts are depicted as the good ones. For a franchise that talks big about progressive themes, the message of "those who are more similar to us are good, those who are more different are bad" is pretty off-putting.

100%.

Saurians

Saurians have not had nearly as much narrative attention as the Gorn.

Gorn have been villains since TOS.

Well, they were villains in one TOS episode. DS9 featured several minor references to the Gorn that implied rapprochement and peace had been established.

SNW is a prequel so the Gorn will naturally be villains. Why complain about the reptilian race being a villain when continuity and cultural wise, they're villains?

Well, I think folks want to see the hints that rapprochement and peace are possible followed up on in some way. So far, SNW has painted its Gorn characters in an extremely one-dimensional, "dehumanizing" (for lack of a better term) light, and I think people want to see the hint that they're more to them than just being homicidal monsters followed up on.

Also, we still know next to nothing about their culture.

The Gorn have Borg potential - as a story element, that could be both a good and bad thing.

I mean, when the Borg showed up in Picard season 3 my reaction was like Kirk's in that Simpsons episode: "Again with the Borg?"

But the Borg gave TNG the thing that Trek's not allowed to have: an adversary without the possibility of rapprochement.

Is that actually a good thing though?

Those Northern Romulans..

Could be different "Tribes" or planets, may be different classes of Gorn, Solder, Leader, Brain Bugs etc. One in TOS/Enterprise may be a brain bug type, while those in SNW are more soldier, warrior types.

Absolutely. For all we know, "Gorn" could be a political identity that encompasses a number of different species.

The Gorn weren't villains in TOS. The whole point of Arena is that the Gorn weren't evil, just caught up in a massive misunderstanding.

Mmmmmm.... I don't know if I agree with that. Cestus III was set up by the Federation, ostensibly as a peaceful research outpost. One would think that if there was a Gorn colony there, or ANY indication of a non-Fed presence in or near the system, they would have kicked in first contact/diplomacy protocols immediately. Prior to the appearance of the Gorn in SNW, there was no indication that the Federation ever even heard of them until "Arena". We can probably easily assume that there were regulations in place against plopping a colony down on an already-claimed world by another power, unless prior permission was specifically given. There was no evidence of any of this happening, at any time.

So, either the advance Federation charting teams EPICALLY dropped the ball researching that area of space, or the Gorn claimed a completely uninhabited world, left behind no indications of such a claim, and got pissy when they discovered that someone else unwittingly moved in, leading to a MASSIVE war-level overreaction by the Gorn. Not to mention deep-faking outpost personnel messages to LURE the Enterprise in to blowing them away, too. That was not self defense - that was straight-up war-crimes murder, leading them quite handily into "villain" territory.

From Trek Transcripts:

I understand and appreciate the emotion of territorial protectionism, but being that way and NOT putting up a sign saying "GO THE HELL AWAY!", however (like what the Tholians and Melkotions did, for example), the onus is pretty much all on the Gorn for this one.

I mean, I agree that it was more than just a "misunderstanding," but I also think that you're imposing a lot of Federation cultural values on a species whose biology may have driven them to develop a radically different culture and set of cultural values. It all could have been more than just a misunderstanding without the Gorn being intrinsically evil. For all we know, in Gorn culture event unintentional encroachments on another's territory may be seen as legitimizing massive violence in response -- the Gorn response could have been proportional according to their cultural values. Another possibility is that the Gorn may not have a taboo against nonconsensual killing the way most Federation members do -- they might think of themselves and of other species as still being part of, and subject to, the food chain. To them this all may be just as natural as we think of eating chickens.

So even if we think their cultural values are awful, I think it's really important to understand how their culture may be different and that understanding one-another's cultures could go a long way towards establishing peace, without that meaning the Gorn are inherently evil.

Admittedly, it's a retcon from over fifty years later, but I did like the implication on Disco that Section 31 had been messing around with the Gorn on Cestus III, which would explain why Starfleet was unaware Cestus was already claimed and why the Gorn took an automatic aggressive stance against them.

The possibility of previous harmful behavior towards the Gorn by Federation-aligned actors should not be discounted, true.

I get that people hate the idea of the Gorn being viewed as a Trek version of Xenomorphs, but the concept itself really doesn't 'retcon' anything from Arena at all. There's nothing about the big, bipedal lizard man that proves his entire childhood development followed normal bipedal human patterns. Lots of species metamorphosize at different points in their life cycle, and it would actually be kind of cool to have some Star Trek main alien species that work along those lines.

Exactly.

 

[Lord Hierarch]

Interesting the support for the 10 episode, I thought there would be more for 13-15.

I think the 13-15 hits a nice sweet spot. Recall ENT's 4th season where you had three arcs a piece and some padding episodes to fill in the gap.

ENT's 4th season and AOS's season arc with mini-arcs inside should be the future of Trek, IMO. You get the best of both worlds.

 

[137th Gebirg]

What "original concept?" There's almost no concept to depart from. It's a predatory anthropomorphic lizard and the only thing we know about their culture is that their feelings of territoriality drive them to massacre a civilian population and lure a military vessel into battle. That's extremely little -- it could go in a lot of different directions from there.

Oh, I dunno. I guess I saw a lot more potential there than other folks on what was shown.

 

[fireproof78]

Having not watched "Arena" until later on I do wonder what people expected from the Gorn after airing?

 

[137th Gebirg]

More?