The Caitians Kirk sleeps with

[Gingerbread Demon]

Shouldn't those two woman be a lot more hairy or was that done so audiences didn't get grossed out?
I thought caitians were a lot more hairy like M'Ress from the animated series.

 

[Christopher]

It was never stated in dialogue that they were Caitians, and it doesn't count if it's only from offscreen sources. They may have been scripted as Caitians, but as far as the movie establishes, they're just tailed women of an unspecified species. Since their species didn't actually matter to the story, the director and makeup crew presumably just decided to go for a simpler makeup.

Of course, it's always possible that they're Caitian by residency and nationality but not by species. Trek has an unfortunate tendency to equate race with identity, to assume that everyone from a given nationality is the same species and vice-versa. One would expect the Federation to have a lot more immigration and intermixing than that.

 

[Spike730]

Obviously there are different breeds of Caitians.

Sphynx cat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Christopher]

Obviously there are different breeds of Caitians.

Yes, even disregarding the ones from the '09 movie, there's never been a consistent design for Caitians. M'Ress was based on a lion, with tawny fur, a mane, rounded ears, and a tufted tail, but for some reason, most subsequent Caitians have been based on housecats and have been maneless, even tailless.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They could be part-Caitian. Or maybe they just look like that in the Kelvinverse the same way as the Enterprise just looks like that in Strange New Worlds.

Plus, the world isnt ready for a Kirk who's a furry.

 

[Christopher]

Or maybe they just look like that in the Kelvinverse the same way as the Enterprise just looks like that in Strange New Worlds.

Or the same way that characters who are live-action in other shows are cartoons in TAS, Lower Decks, and Prodigy. Or the same way Saavik looks different in consecutive movies. It's all just artistic interpretations of what's narratively a single reality. (Including Kelvin, since that's an alternate timeline that diverged in 2233.) In-story, a given species presumably looks the same consistent way, even if makeup artists choose to interpret them in different ways. (Like how Roddenberry asked fans in 1979 to accept that Klingons had always had ridges and TOS just hadn't portrayed them accurately.)

Although I still think it's simpler just to assume they weren't Caitians at all, because again, the name was never actually spoken onscreen in the film. Indeed, it was never spoken in TAS either. I don't think we ever heard the name spoken aloud in a canonical production until Lower Decks.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Although I still think it's simpler just to assume they weren't Caitians at all, because again, the name was never actually spoken onscreen in the film. Indeed, it was never spoken in TAS either. I don't think we ever heard the name spoken aloud in a canonical production until Lower Decks.

Quite. Just as we didn't have any canonical source for whether Arex is Edoan, Triexian, or some other species (did LD resolve that as well?).

 

[Christopher]

Quite. Just as we didn't have any canonical source for whether Arex is Edoan, Triexian, or some other species (did LD resolve that as well?).

No; the term "Edosian" has been used onscreen to refer to various kinds of flower and animal, but it hasn't been explicitly linked to Arex's species yet. If it does happen, it might be on Strange New Worlds, since the Enterprise has an Edoan/Edosian bartender now (at least in "Wedding Bell Blues"), although bizarrely her third arm extends from her back instead of her front.

"Triexian" was purely an invention of Peter David in the novels. Honestly, I've never understood why Peter coined that name for Arex's species but stuck with "Caitian" for M'Ress's. (I've always felt that "Triexian" was a really silly name for a triped named Arex, but on reflection, I suppose it's no sillier than "Caitian" for a cat alien.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Honestly, I've never understood why Peter coined that name for Arex's species but stuck with "Caitian" for M'Ress's.

I vaguely recall reading that (by his own admission) he simply didn't know, until somebody else pointed it out to him.

 

[UssGlenn]

although bizarrely her third arm extends from her back instead of her front.

If Edosians actually have trilateral symmetry, (with the bilateral actor approximating it as best they can) then all she has to do is turn her head 60 degrees and her arm is now on her front.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I believe it was Kevin Dilmore who pointed out that Edoans are "more animated" than Triexians.

For all we know, Abramsverse Kirk's . . . friends . . . could be Eeiauoan.

Probably not Kzinti.

As to "breeds" of Caitans, that turn of phrase sounds uncomfortably like one of Bele's lines.

 

[Christopher]

I vaguely recall reading that (by his own admission) he simply didn't know, until somebody else pointed it out to him.

Yeah, but that's strange. Neither "Edoan" nor "Caitian" was ever spoken onscreen, only established in tie-ins and behind-the-scenes materials. So one would expect that a person would either be acquainted with both names or neither. It's hard to see how someone could be aware that M'Ress is Caitian but not that Arex is Edoan.

For all we know, Abramsverse Kirk's . . . friends . . . could be Eeiauoan.

No way -- if anything, the Eeiauoans/Sivaoans from Janet Kagan's Uhura's Song were even more catlike than Caitians. The twin women in the 2009 movie have no felinoid attributes at all aside from their tails.

Really, it's ridiculous to insist they must be Caitians just because Damon Lindelof said they were in an interview. Indeed, he didn't even volunteer the information; the interviewer asked if they were Caitians, Lindelof didn't seem entirely clear on what he was asking about, and then just agreed with the interviewer. That leads me to suspect that Lindelof had no idea what a Caitian even was and just agreed with the interviewer to get past it to the next question. There's nothing remotely felinoid about the makeup designer's prototype designs, so I doubt they were intended to be Caitian at all.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Omg you can't just ask her what breed of Caitian she is!

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Yeah, but that's strange. Neither "Edoan" nor "Caitian" was ever spoken onscreen, only established in tie-ins and behind-the-scenes materials.

Yes, but there was more sheer volume of material declaring that M'Ress came from Cait, which orbits a star in the constellation Lynx, than there was about Arex being Edoan. I'm pretty sure the former turns up in the Ballantine edition of the Concordance, and possibly in some Lincoln Enterprises material, but up until Arex started showing up in Pocket-era novels, the only references I can ever recall seeing to his being Edoan were in ADF's Star Trek Log books.

The twin women in the 2009 movie have no felinoid attributes at all aside from their tails.

For some reason, I'm reminded of Barf's line in Spaceballs, in which he tells the waitress in the diner that his tail has a mind of its own. I wonder if that's also true of the twins. (And I'm trying very hard to keep my dirty mind in check.) Oh, and it was apparently Into Darkness.

(In my novel, my protagonist's trademark hairstyle is described as a "ponytail with a mind of its own.")

 

[Christopher]

Yes, but there was more sheer volume of material declaring that M'Ress came from Cait, which orbits a star in the constellation Lynx, than there was about Arex being Edoan. I'm pretty sure the former turns up in the Ballantine edition of the Concordance, and possibly in some Lincoln Enterprises material, but up until Arex started showing up in Pocket-era novels, the only references I can ever recall seeing to his being Edoan were in ADF's Star Trek Log books.

You're right, the Concordance mentions Cait but not Edos. However, both planet names originally came from character bios sold by Lincoln Enterprises in 1974:

Animated STAR TREK - Biography of Arex

Animated STAR TREK - Biography of M'Ress

I know the 1980 Star Trek Maps referenced both, establishing Cait as 15 Lyncis and Edos as 92 Trianguli-Rho (which might come from Foster).