Your opinion on SNWs Gorn

[Tallguy]

Literally don't understand why all these species design changes need explanations... and then there's the Borg. Nobody bats an eye at that redesign.

Not batting an eye at the redesign. Never did for the Klingons either. (In either TMP or in Disco.)

Blinking furiously that Arena is no longer a first contact story. And the fact that it is treated as if it is, largely by a crew that we now see has suffered greatly and personally at the hands of the Gorn makes several characters, especially one James Kirk seem very stupid indeed.

"I'm engaged in personal combat with a creature apparently called a Gorn. This makes no sense to me. The Gorn have shown themselves to be ridiculously violent, often luring foes in by subterfuge and deceit and then attacking from a position of strength... No. No wait. I hear it now. I was thrown off by the 1960's rubber costume."

Hands up from the "They messed with the Gorn for SNW" crowd (should this be a separate thread with a poll?): Who gives a hoot that they changed a 1960's looking lizard man into a 2020's looking lizard man? Who cares, rather, that they Gorn are in ONE episode of TOS (and a largely well regarded one) that doesn't make much sense anymore from a character / story perspective?

I keep hearing the rationalization that "You can't expect them to look like the Rubber Suit Man" or "Hey, there might be lots of different looking Gorn." Sure. Bingo. All agreed.

Other than the "They reproduce kinda like in a Ridley Scott film" (which was certainly outside of anything we should have seen in Arena and certainly fair game) the Gorn in SNW act exactly like the Gorn in Arena. Rubber Suit Man and Really Cool Puppet Creature are clearly from the same society. Heck, they act more like their TOS counterparts than any Klingon in TNG ever did.

So why is Kirk not totally in the know about a species / culture / faction that has been causing trouble for the Federation in general and his ship in specific for over a decade?

I will be bold enough to speak for most if not all of the Gorn discenters here and elsewhere: We do not care what the Gorn look like!

 

[Yistaan]

cut scene from Arena episode--

Kirk: So, are you going to lay eggs in me now?

Gorn captain: Lay eggs in you?! That's the most disgusting thing I ever heard! We don't all do that, just a deviant subspecies. We don't go around assuming all Vulcans cosplay as Romans and use cloaking devices just because the Romulans do now, do we?

cut scene from Wrath of Khan--

Chekov: Your Ceti eels von't vork on us! Vhy, the Weliant's twansporter biofilters vill wemove them once they lock onto us!

Khan: Ah, but these Ceti eels are of the same molecular structure as Gorn eggs, which are undetectable by your transporter biofilters, or at least were when I read up on your biofilters back when I was reading the Enterprise computer.

 

[fireproof78]

Not batting an eye at the redesign. Never did for the Klingons either. (In either TMP or in Disco.)

Blinking furiously that Arena is no longer a first contact story. And the fact that it is treated as if it is, largely by a crew that we now see has suffered greatly and personally at the hands of the Gorn makes several characters, especially one James Kirk seem very stupid indeed.

"I'm engaged in personal combat with a creature apparently called a Gorn. This makes no sense to me. The Gorn have shown themselves to be ridiculously violent, often luring foes in by subterfuge and deceit and then attacking from a position of strength... No. No wait. I hear it now. I was thrown off by the 1960's rubber costume."

Hands up from the "They messed with the Gorn for SNW" crowd (should this be a separate thread with a poll?): Who gives a hoot that they changed a 1960's looking lizard man into a 2020's looking lizard man? Who cares, rather, that they Gorn are in ONE episode of TOS (and a largely well regarded one) that doesn't make much sense anymore from a character / story perspective?

I keep hearing the rationalization that "You can't expect them to look like the Rubber Suit Man" or "Hey, there might be lots of different looking Gorn." Sure. Bingo. All agreed.

Other than the "They reproduce kinda like in a Ridley Scott film" (which was certainly outside of anything we should have seen in Arena and certainly fair game) the Gorn in SNW act exactly like the Gorn in Arena. Rubber Suit Man and Really Cool Puppet Creature are clearly from the same society. Heck, they act more like their TOS counterparts than any Klingon in TNG ever did.

So why is Kirk not totally in the know about a species / culture / faction that has been causing trouble for the Federation in general and his ship in specific for over a decade?

I will be bold enough to speak for most if not all of the Gorn discenters here and elsewhere: We do not care what the Gorn look like!

The record will so stipulate.


I personally never treated Arena as first Contact so the unfamiliarity now comes from not expecting the Gorn to be slow or lumbering.

 

[Yistaan]

The Gorn captain was slow and lumbering because he was mocking Kirk, playacting at how he thought humans moved.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Maybe they'll explain their lack of knowledge of the Gorn via time travel or memory removal.

 

[Yistaan]

Maybe they'll explain their lack of knowledge of the Gorn via time travel or memory removal.

(A Gorn kills La'an)

Kirk: La'an!!! NNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! And Carol dumped me too, I never had a chance to tell La'an. I will spend the rest of my life hunting down and killing all Gorn everywhere!!!!!!!!!!

Pike: Spock, do something now! Kirk locked us out of the Enterprise computer, he's about to orbitally bombard the Gorn homeworld!!!

Spock (grabs Kirk's face with his hand in a forced Vulcan mind meld): Forget.

 

[Tallguy]

Maybe they'll explain their lack of knowledge of the Gorn via time travel or memory removal.

I honestly hope that they don't. I'm still smarting from "Nobody knows about Michael Burnham because it is TREASON to talk about her!"

That's the low point of "fixing" things. The high point is when Jim Kirk explains to La'an that everyone calls his brother George but Jim. "Literally nobody calls him that" she says. See? That's clever and plausible.

(A Gorn kills La'an)

Kirk: La'an!!! NNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! And Carol dumped me too, I never had a chance to tell La'an. I will spend the rest of my life hunting down and killing all Gorn everywhere!!!!!!!!!!

Pike: Spock, do something now! Kirk locked us out of the Enterprise computer, he's about to orbitally bombard the Gorn homeworld!!!

Spock (grabs Kirk's face with his hand in a forced Vulcan mind meld): Forget.

Yeah. Please no.

 

[Yistaan]

I honestly hope that they don't. I'm still smarting from "Nobody knows about Michael Burnham because it is TREASON to talk about her!"

That's the low point of "fixing" things. The high point is when Jim Kirk explains to La'an that everyone calls his brother George but Jim. "Literally nobody calls him that" she says. See? That's clever and plausible.


Yeah. Please no.

More "fixing" things.

Spock: So Uhura, I propose we have a weekly mind meld.

Uhura: Sounds hot, I'm more than happy to help you move on after Christine dumped you for that Roger Korby.

Spock: On the contrary, there is nothing romantic about this proposal. The weekly mind melds would be conducted as a backup plan to restore your memories in the event you are ever mindwiped by a rogue overpowered space probe.

Uhura: ...

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Other than the "They reproduce kinda like in a Ridley Scott film" (which was certainly outside of anything we should have seen in Arena and certainly fair game) the Gorn in SNW act exactly like the Gorn in Arena. Rubber Suit Man and Really Cool Puppet Creature are clearly from the same society. Heck, they act more like their TOS counterparts than any Klingon in TNG ever did.

Which, frankly IMO should be the benchmark for "not the same species" at this point... which personally helps me with the S1 "Disco Klingons" but YMMV.

So why is Kirk not totally in the know about a species / culture / faction that has been causing trouble for the Federation in general and his ship in specific for over a decade?

Well, S3 of SNW could easily answer that depending on how the ongoing conflict goes... Alternatively we could acknowledge that they aren't the same Gorn (at minimum equivalent of "North and Southern Romulans"/Vulcans") and that part of the confusion could have been them being in the "wrong place".

 

[Yistaan]

Vs. the Gorn who have (counts on hands) two appearances.

You seem to be forgetting the mention of the Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness, which literally mentions one being pregnant, seemingly excluding the method of reproduction seen in Strange New Worlds. The contradictions are far more severe when you take that into account.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Unless they impregnate their own in the same way, and "C-section" was McCoy's shorthand for removing the implanted babies.

 

[Tallguy]

You seem to be forgetting the mention of the Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness, which literally mentions one being pregnant, seemingly excluding the method of reproduction seen in Strange New Worlds. The contradictions are far more severe when you take that into account.

Into Darkness is Kelvin 9/11 Truther garbage. "What Into Darkness has said is unimportant, and we do not hear its words."

 

[Yistaan]

Into Darkness is Kelvin 9/11 Truther garbage. "What Into Darkness has said is unimportant, and we do not hear its words."

I mean, I understand that Roberto Orci has issues (to put it mildly) but it's still onscreen and thus still canon. The Gorn also existed well before 2233 since the Orion slavers mention them in Enterprise.

So yes, the contradiction is there. We can't remove certain works from canon just because we have issues with the writers. If we started doing that, we may end up removing literally almost all of Star Trek (considering it's very possible Gene Roddenberry himself was the one who r---- Grace Lee Whitney)

 

[Daedalus]

Look at "Gorn" as in "Xindi" and suddenly the issue of reproduction isn't so clear cut. It's likely that Primates, Arboreals and Aquatics give birth to live young, whereas the Reptilians and Insectoids may not.

Too simple?

 

[fireproof78]

You seem to be forgetting the mention of the Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness, which literally mentions one being pregnant, seemingly excluding the method of reproduction seen in Strange New Worlds. The contradictions are far more severe when you take that into account.

No.


I'm assuming the life cycle has more to it than the black and white presentation pervasive in this thread.

We can't remove certain works from canon just because we have issues with the writers. If we started doing that, we may end up removing literally almost all of Star Trek (co

That's what fans do with "head canon" all the time. People ignore Kelvin, Enterprise, even nothing outside TOS. Fans love to exclude things from canon based upon their preferences.

 

[Donald G]

Neither did Kirk, Spock(!), Uhura(!), or Scotty(!!!).

Now if SNW really had any balls they would have next season be a whole Romulan arc. No episode other than Balance of Terror ever says that Humans had never seen Romulans before.

Or (and I'm serious) bring Sarek back. There is only one episode that says that Spock and Sarek weren't speaking. If it's just about fun Star Trek then it's worth it to bring back James Frain.

The character who establishes that Spock and Sarek "haven't spoken as father and son for eighteen years" also plainly states earlier in the episode, "And you haven't come to see us in four years."

This implies that Spock has visited his family, and even that he has interacted with Sarek during this 18 year period of estrangement from his father, but that those interactions were not intimate or familial in nature.

 

[Tallguy]

The character who establishes that Spock and Sarek "haven't spoken as father and son for eighteen years" also plainly states earlier in the episode, "And you haven't come to see us in four years."

This implies that Spock has visited his family, and even that he has interacted with Sarek during this 18 year period of estrangement from his father, but that those interactions were not intimate or familial in nature.

This whole thread will be worth it if I get to see Sarek and Amanda again on SNW.

 

[Kor]

Starting with what's shown in the Star Trek: Alien 3 intro episode, my main issue with the portrayal of how the Gorn work as a species in SNW is that they make no logical sense as a species. Canon irregularities become less important when something is just nonsensical in the first place.

If Gorn young kill each other off until only 1 or maybe 2 'strongest' remain while also going after all non-Gorn in an area they would nullify large swaths of land as unable to support the creation of more Gorn. Unless they as a species were born with the ability to travel through space (which is ridiculous) how could they have supported a large enough population long enough to make any technological progress on their home world?

If Gorn spend decades, possibly centuries treating other species as food or breeding stock, it is unrealistic to expect them to even consider engaging diplomatically with them. If people were losing to something we consider animals we might try changing strategies sure, but we wouldn't suddenly consider and treat them as our equals.

Aside from the social/biological aspects - I do personally like the SNW physical design for Gorn better than the previous iterations but that's just my subjective opinion.

I'm still speculating that these specific Gorn may be some kind of genetically engineered super soldier that's different from regular Gorn.

Kor

 

[Yistaan]

Man, if only they had the egg laying concept back during TOS. We all know Shatner would've overacted Kirk getting implanted with Gorn eggs for everything it's worth.

 

[Tallguy]

I'm still speculating that these specific Gorn may be some kind of genetically engineered super soldier that's different from regular Gorn.

Kor

But still the same "organization" that the Enterprise encounters in Arena, right? Who attack and behave (tactically) pretty much like the Gorn from ten years previous?