That is STO's design, inspired by a comment from Robert Hewitt Wolfe where he imagined them as armoured lizards.
Your opinion on SNWs Gorn
- Thread starter Rahul
- Start date
The legal department did.
And again, I will say: they don’t have to keep doing derivative things.
Indeed. And right now Star Trek is not looking for being innovative. It is looking at repetitive, and safe. Derivative, even from itself.
That's a statement that collapses quickly in the face of the variety of tones and styles that SNW shifted from, episode after episode, in S02.
The fact they are using similar wallpaper to TOS doesn't make SNW safe. I think the way that the show takes the feel of TOS and drags it into 2023. Derivative? Maybe. But I don't think SNW plays it safe, not by a long shot.
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See, I'm not sure that isn't "safe". Shifting from a light-hearted comedy episode to a dark episode all about war isn't a new thing. Shifting from a big musical extravaganza episode (that other shows have done plenty of times) to a dramatic grand season finale isn't really innovation either. The "big swings" concept the SNW promo team came up with for S2... actually aren't really that big in terms of swing-age. Generally speaking - being episodic sci-fi and shifting tones episode to episode isn't new. It is pretty much the norm for episodic, and the producers have just done a great PR job in playing it up for SNW.
Its not really risky for an episodic show to do that. Indeed, most ST (pre-arc based) has done that since it was invented. Deep Space Nine went from "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" to "Inter Arma". Enterprise went from "Dead Stop" to "A Night in Sickbay". VOY went from "Latent Image" to "Bride of Chaotica!". Those are just a few examples - and we didn't go around dramatizing those as "big swings" or a sign of innovation - it was just what we expected from an episodic sci-fi show that tells different stories each week.
I'm not saying it isn't good stuff and they didn't do it well - but in and of itself shifting tones and styles episode to episode within an episodic format isn't a sign of innovation in the sci-fi TV world (if you're talking CSI or some procedural, perhaps more so - but episodic sci-fi has always done this).
It might not be "safe" as such in execution... but its hardly risky either. I don't think it can be heralded as a prime example of why SNW isn't playing it safe if that is the critique being countered. The SNW PR team have just done a great job at playing it up for S2. Even the "types" of swings in the stories being told aren't innovation - many a show has done a musical (and dare I say, done it better), a war story, a comedy crossover etc.
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You CANNOT have "some sort of secreted resin" without including "Secreted from WHAT?"
What do you do next? "Shave and haircut---" and then just stop there? THOSE are the real monsters!
I really enjoyed Star Trek doing the Alien(s) maybe not even in spite of knowing what was up but because of. The one place it fell flat was trying to make Sam into Hudson. 1) He's not Bill Paxton and 2) he took it out on Spock. Don't give me reasons to dislike Sam!
Where you get into trouble is when you bring the Gorn back, as you have to. What can you do that isn't frothy little homage? Spock's fight with the adult Gorn seemed close to the sweet spot of original enough. It opens the door for potential.
Very well said!
I think safe in that it's not willing to do the longer term serialized arcs, and relying on episodic format that keep people coming back no matter what. Don't like the musical? Here's a more familiar alien? Like one of the other shows? Here's a connection to it.
Not saying it isn't effective; just that it feels safer than some of the riskier ideas in other shows. Some episodes definitely feel riskier, less safe, but then it flips back to something more predictable. That's why I feel it is safer.
Yeah I think SNW is safe in so far as it's learned lessons from the more experimental shows that came before it, and was willing to drop or embrace ideas and aesthetics based on how they were received by audiences. It's not trailblazing a new way to make television or Star Trek, it's just doing both of those things really well.
Having watched it now, to me the old and new are the same thing. Aggressive lizard men from space. It's no more a radical update than what the Klingons went through in TMP.
Clearly they are being set up as more complex than so far presented, but I guess I'll be waiting until 2025 to find out.
Clearly they are being set up as more complex than so far presented, but I guess I'll be waiting until 2025 to find out.
My point is after hundreds of hours of Star Trek, its easier to excuse being derivative. Especially if they were being derivative when Star Trek was new back in the 60s. Was the western genre derivative? Did it want to be derivative.? Also SNW being a self admitted prequel, it is derivative by default in the broad sense that its based on something already established.
Also, to a degree most thing's these days are derivative from each other to begin with. For example, one of the most critically acclaimed Science fiction movies in the last 15 years is "Arrival". One of my favorites. Allot of sci movies fall back into the easy premise that aliens are evil and/or invaders. The aliens in this movie wasn't which was kinda fresh. But the basic premise that the aliens were non linear entities is very similar (in premise) to the Wormhole aliens in DS9 (which I'm sure was derivative from something else). But they changed quite a few things about the aliens in "Arrival" (along with a good script and compelling characters) that made it feel different. Also, to a young consumer of entertainment, a modern movie/tv show will often feel original to to them if they were not exposed to previous versions of the same theme/story.
I think the secret that no-one wants to admit to is great story telling is not often originality. Its actually "variance of a familiar theme" (preferably a theme that historically resonates) but told in a seemingly fresh or slightly different way.
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Indeed, this is the case. I get that for many Star Trek (in some variation) might have been the first introduction to science fiction in some fashion, but that doesn't make any less derivative. As much as I like Trek, yes it will borrow, derive from and rip off of other SF properties. See Heinlein, flat cats and tribbles. Or the Kzin.
I expect it in Star Trek. I expect derivatives, and I expect rip offs. I do not expect much originality from Trek.
TBF it worked gangbusters for Balance of Terror (aka The Enemy Below).
Was The Enemy Below a staple in the minds of science fiction fans? I’ve never even heard of it. Is it a movie? And how much did BoT allegedly rip off from it?
Wasn't TOS heavily inspired by Forbidden Planet and Robinson Crusoe on Mars?
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