What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Tallguy]

Kira is Dukat's daughter, and he treated her as if she was his daughter, since the pilot of DS9.

No, he was never hitting on Kira, you're just terrible at recognizing paternal affection, when you see it.

Dukat would totally hit on his daughter.

But given all the information that we have he's not. (Kira was already born when Dukat met her mother.) Also, either he doesn't know himself or he would have told Kira. That's a secret he would find too good to keep.

And finally, I didn't like it when Lucas pulled that crap either.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Dukat would totally hit on his daughter.

But given all the information that we have he's not. (Kira was already born when Dukat met her mother.) Also, either he doesn't know himself or he would have told Kira. That's a secret he would find too good to keep.

And finally, I didn't like it when Lucas pulled that crap either.

A step Daughter is LIKE a full daughter if you love her mother enough, which he did, as much as he could, being a monster with no soul.

 

[FredH]

There are too many classes of starship. If you're doing a new Trek series set anywhere between the 2250s and 2380s there's already a huge number of canon and fanon classes to choose from, we don't need another one without a bloody good reason. Lower Decks is a good example of this – part of me wishes that they'd used the New Orleans-class, Freedom-class, or Cheyenne-class instead of inventing a whole new class of never-before-seen-but-apparently-ubiquitous starships.

Entirely true, but you know that for any new series, they’re always going to want the hero ship to be brand new, hence a new design.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Then you have the 2013 alternate reality video game Gorn, who infect everyone with a virus to make them attack each other.

But when I was writing the pilot, I was looking for something that was just monstrous, that was Cthulhu-like. Something that was unthinking. Our shows are empathy generators and I wanted to have an element which was in relief of that. I wanted something that you couldn’t identify with, something that was utterly alien, something that was all appetite and instinct in ways that we couldn’t quite understand. And I also wanted to signal place and time in a way that personally I found interesting. So you should definitely blame me for this one.

So, what, (the original) Borg-asaurus?

Part of the twist of “Arena” is realizing the whole mess is a misunderstanding. The Gorn aren’t “unthinking.” They are not monsters, savages, animals or facehuggers on LV-426. They’re people making bad choices in a misunderstanding over defending their home. Instead of not being able to identify with the Gorn, the entire episode is built around a future where humanity is able to find empathy for something alien, even giant lizard men that have killed a bunch of colonists, in order to recognize that maybe the entire situation is a giant mistake. Goldsman's use of the Gorn is the exact opposite intent of what Coon was getting at.

I suppose like the good Borg, Romulan defectors, etc, you have a faction of good Gorn who just want to be left alone.

 

[fireproof78]

keep hearing "storytelling beats canon". I have yet to see the story that was both unavoidable and just really the best best best story that it just HAD to contradict something from a previous show. La'an's story and all of the Gorn episodes would have been just as gripping, if not more so, if the Alien-wannabe's were called the Ri'y-Sc'tts or something.

And then we get the "Where we're they in TOS?" arguments. And it would again leave the Gorn as being defined by one appearance in one episode. No depth, no variety. Just a rubber costume lizard man.

Canon and continuity have become almost painful in discussions. Why? Because it feels like minutia must win. And I feel like it ignores characters for the sake of midling details.

 

[Lord Garth]

Part of the twist of “Arena” is realizing the whole mess is a misunderstanding. The Gorn aren’t “unthinking.” They are not monsters, savages, animals or facehuggers on LV-426. They’re people making bad choices in a misunderstanding over defending their home. Instead of not being able to identify with the Gorn, the entire episode is built around a future where humanity is able to find empathy for something alien, even giant lizard men that have killed a bunch of colonists, in order to recognize that maybe the entire situation is a giant mistake. Goldsman's use of the Gorn is the exact opposite intent of what Coon was getting at.

I've never been a fan of the Gorn. TOS or SNW. In TOS, I just can't take the Gorn costume seriously, even by 1960s standards. "Arena" is a good episode with a good message, but that costume just ruins it! In SNW, well, if I want to watch the Alien movies, I'll watch those. I have them on Blu-Ray. I think they would've been better off choosing a different name for them.

And if you have a situation where two series conflict, are we going to say well since Strange New Worlds is newer it has primacy and retcons TOS? Or does TOS have primacy since it's the source? Or do we sit here and tie ourselves in pretzels spending more time trying to make two TV shows fit together than some of the people who make them do? I just think it's easier to say it's all Trek, but they're not connected to each other.

In Season 2 of PIC, when Picard refers to Kirk's Enterprise, I think of TOS.

 

[cooleddie74]

Me too.

Besides, the events to which Picard refers are ones that happened during and after the TOS Enterprise's service record and how it looked so, yeah, it seems even at the end of the 24th century and the beginning of the 25th Starfleet still tends to think of the NCC-1701 as James Kirk's ship first and foremost and his missions and adventures.

 

[Tallguy]

And then we get the "Where we're they in TOS?"

Where were the (list almost all of the alien races in TOS) in TNG?

Of course by this argument, story is NOT more important than canon. "We can't introduce a new race because that race was never in any of the TOS episodes" is just as bound by minutia as "Hey, how come we know so much about the Gorn now?" More so, really. Somehow I suspect SNW will continue to introduce cultures we never heard of in TOS.

Because it feels like minutia must win.

If you want to argue that one can no longer enjoy Star Trek without first refreshing you knowledge of every detail that was written about Klingons over every show and movie over 50+ years, that's minutia. You can learn everything there is to know about the Gorn in less than an hour. That's not minutia, that's an episode.

And it would again leave the Gorn as being defined by one appearance in one episode. No depth, no variety. Just a rubber costume lizard man.

Somehow we have managed for nearly 60 years with one appearance. Where they are depicted as capable but territorial space travelers that can eventually be negotiated with.

Heaven knows what we must think of the Horta. Also made of rubber and only in one episode.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

ENT had a mirror universe Gorn (CGI). And Into Darkness mentioned them being pregnant. LD and PRO had friendly Gorn.

 

[cooleddie74]

And the LD and PRO Gorn looked like the TOS Gorn, as did the skeleton seen in Lorca's private lab in Season 1 of DSC. So yep, different looks for Gorn in the Hegemony or at the very least the hatchlings look and act very differently from their adult stages. I do enjoy how pretty much all the variants we've seen in live action seem to exist in streaming Trek.

 

[fireproof78]

Of course by this argument, story is NOT more important than canon. "We can't introduce a new race because that race was never in any of the TOS episodes" is just as bound by minutia as "Hey, how come we know so much about the Gorn now?" More so, really. Somehow I suspect SNW will continue to introduce cultures we never heard of in TOS.

I sure hope so. And yes, I agree to your point which is why I discard minutia at this moment. I did the Trek encyclopedia thing and you know what I found with it? Boredom. It became an excise in utter frustration and then people would use that knowledge to box me out of conversations. That's frustrating. It's when I decided that continuity/canon are not that important to character and story first. Could they do a race not the Gorn? Yes, and would be just as shellacked for it as now.

So, might as well expand on what we barely knew we knew.

If you want to argue that one can no longer enjoy Star Trek without first refreshing you knowledge of every detail that was written about Klingons over every show and movie over 50+ years, that's minutia. You can learn everything there is to know about the Gorn in less than an hour. That's not minutia, that's an episode.

And what do we know? And what is contradicted?

Somehow we have managed for nearly 60 years with one appearance. Where they are depicted as capable but territorial space travelers that can eventually be negotiated with.

Really? Negotiated with? After wholesale destruction and Kirk having to beat him with a rudimentary firearm?

From a transcript:
KIRK: No. No, I won't kill you. Maybe you thought you were protecting yourself when you attacked the outpost.
(He throws the dagger away, stands up and shouts to the sky)
KIRK: No, I won't kill him! Do you hear? You'll have to get your entertainment someplace else!
(The Gorn disappears, and a young blond boy in a white shift appears instead.)
KIRK: You're a Metron?
METRON: Does my appearance surprise you, Captain?
KIRK: You seem more like a boy.
METRON: I am approximately fifteen hundred of your Earth years old. You surprise me, Captain.
KIRK: How?
METRON: By sparing your helpless enemy who surely would have destroyed you, you demonstrated the advanced trait of mercy, something we hardly expected. We feel there may be hope for your kind. Therefore, you will not be destroyed. It would not be civilised.
KIRK: What happened to the Gorn?
METRON: I sent him back to his ship. If you like, I shall destroy him for you.
KIRK: No. That won't be necessary. We can talk. Maybe reach an agreement.
METRON: Very good, Captain. There is hope for you. Perhaps in several thousand years, your people and mine shall meet to reach an agreement. You are still half savage, but there is hope. We will contact you when we are ready.

Not sure where the Gorn are shown to be able to be negotiated with.

 

[Shat Happens]

And then we get the "Where we're they in TOS?" arguments. And it would again leave the Gorn as being defined by one appearance in one episode. No depth, no variety. Just a rubber costume lizard man.

Canon and continuity have become almost painful in discussions. Why? Because it feels like minutia must win. And I feel like it ignores characters for the sake of midling details.

I blame the Okudas.

 

[Tallguy]

I blame the Okudas.

For BEING AWESOME!

 

[Lord Garth]

I keep hearing "storytelling beats canon". I have yet to see the story that was both unavoidable and just really the best best best story that it just HAD to contradict something from a previous show. La'an's story and all of the Gorn episodes would have been just as gripping, if not more so, if the Alien-wannabe's were called the Ri'y-Sc'tts or something.

It's also super-condescending. "Oh, you silly Trekkies with your 'canon' and your 'rules'. You don't understand we're just trying to tell STORIES." Yes. And again, you don't have that many things that you have to avoid. Erica Ortegas is terrific. And they have clear skies to write her pretty much any way they want.

Maybe this season La'an and Kirk can find the Botany Bay. Storytelling beats canon after all.

The first five episodes of SNW were relatively solid, even though I prefer serialized storytelling. I say relatively because in a few of those episodes, it was the characterization pulling the weight, not the story. After that initial batch, let's see, I've given 6's (meaning 6 out of 10) to half of the last six episodes.

I'm not to keen on this series being shoved down our throats as, "But it's so good! It's so fun!" Yeah, I'll decide that for myself. "All Star Trek should be like this going forward!" I'm going to go with No. One current series like this? Sure. All of them? No thanks.

 

[fireproof78]

The first five episodes of SNW were relatively solid, even though I prefer serialized storytelling. I say relatively because in a few of those episodes, it was the characterization pulling the weight, not the story. After that initial batch, let's see, I've given 6's (meaning 6 out of 10) to half of the last six episodes.

I'm not to keen on this series being shoved down our throats as, "But it's so good! It's so fun!" Yeah, I'll decide that for myself. "All Star Trek should be like this going forward!" I'm going to go with No. One current series like this? Sure. All of them? No thanks.

Agreed. It's like the Orville is Tru-Trek debate I see. So, I rewatched part of the Orville and was like, "This is almost exactly like current productions, including use of CGI." There was nothing there that made me go, "Yes, Star Trek should do this!" I don't want a bunch of shows recreating their greatest hits album. If the producers decided "Yeah, I want to tell a story with these elements from SNW in it" then go for it. I'll judge it on it's own merits.

And I think I lost my point.

 

[Lord Garth]

Agreed. It's like the Orville is Tru-Trek debate I see. So, I rewatched part of the Orville and was like, "This is almost exactly like current productions, including use of CGI." There was nothing there that made me go, "Yes, Star Trek should do this!"

Yup. Back in the late-2010s, it was "The Orville vs. Discovery". Now, the new debate looks like it's going to shape up to be "Strange New Worlds vs. Legacy". That's the direction it seems to be going in.

The same argument, just change the names of the series.

EDITED TO ADD: I tend to think of SNW as less of a spin-off from DSC and more of a break-off.

 

[Tallguy]

This is where I have to flash my "I FREAKING LOVE STRANGE NEW WORLDS" banner.

it was the characterization pulling the weight, not the story

Interesting. I'm not sure I entirely agree with you but I certainly see where you're coming from. The characters are so good! But I'd also argue there have been some humdingers in Season 1. And they're so varied that the odds are you won't / will like some of them. (My daughter loved The Elysian Kingdom. I didn't. It was OK. I liked what they tried. But I loved Children of the Comet. And almost everything else.)

And what do we know? And what is contradicted?

We know that Kirk had never heard of them. And that became increasingly unlikely as the season went on. And from Goldsman's remarks above it will be even more unlikely.

They might be a fun antagonist in SNW. They've been in two good episodes so far. But there was no need to make them Gorn.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Weaponless, I face the creature the Metrons called a Gorn.

Because he doesn't recognize this one as being like the Gorn he's met? And may not recognize the specific ship class.

I'm engaged in personal combat with a creature apparently called a Gorn.

Awkward way of putting it, but still...

 

[fireproof78]

They might be a fun antagonist in SNW. They've been in two good episodes so far. But there was no need to make them Gorn.

There's no need to not make them the Gorn either.

Ultimately, it is preference. And speaking of preference:

Heaven knows what we must think of the Horta. Also made of rubber and only in one episode.

Disappointing is what I think. Completely wasted potential.

 

[Vger23]

SNW could have avoided the "Gorn Continuity Controversy" by simply making the legacy villain the Tholians.



At the end of the day, nothing about SNW continuity bothers me much, though. It's a good show, and it reminds me (in the best of ways) of S3 of TOS. It has some absolute gems, some piles of dogshit, and a lot of good character stuff and edgy sci-fi stories.