Originally Posted by Bowser:
Maybe the Gorn Kirk fought back in the day was a grandpa Gorn in its last days? :-)
Sure, let's go with that. We certainly wouldn't want to alter canon here from a 1960s TV show that had next to no money to create alien designs. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Yes, TOS is history and is very much a product of its time. That is exactly the point and has been the point when judging a show made 60 years later for an entirely different audience.
Again, if you're talking about the Gorn, they did develop what already existed and they did it exceptionally well. They took an old, ridiculous design of a villain that had been considered little more than a joke for decades and made it a serious brutal threat to the Federation. You don't need to look any further than the near-universal acclaim for both Gorn episodes (including here with with a recent comment to your own praise suggesting that it was "pretty well pitch perfect").
An alien that is a dog dressed up in a funny little costume with a horn also exists in TOS too. That doesn't mean any Star Trek these days should be held to the same budget/design constraints or shouldn't update them to fit a TV show made in 2023.
Why isn't it the Gorn? Because it doesn't fit a ridiculous design from a no-budget 1960s TV show (that Roddenberry no doubt would have altered himself had they had the money/technology to do so)? They have re-imagined its design to fit a modern show with a modern audience and created two of the best Trek episodes in decades. What the hell is there to bitch about?
It's not the Gorn because it has no resemblance at all to the source material. They've done something completely different and slapped a Gorn nametag on it. Lazy, weak storytelling. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bowser:
Maybe the Gorn Kirk fought back in the day was a grandpa Gorn in its last days? :-)
I want a ST:TOS reboot but Spock isn't an alien. He's just a French guy who is studying Philosophy. Everybody has a hard time connecting with him emotionally because of the language barrier but he's really smart. [Reply]
Originally Posted by listopencil:
It's not the Gorn because it has no resemblance at all to the source material. They've done something completely different and slapped a Gorn nametag on it. Lazy, weak storytelling.
The source material (at least with respect to the Gorn) was ridiculous and due only to budgetary/monetary/technological constraints that existed in 1967 that do not exist in 2023. They've now modernized the design to make the Gorn a terrorizing villain that have been an integral part of two of the best episodes so far on the show. That isn't lazy, weak storytelling in the slightest. It's a creative way to update what was no longer relevant and use it in service of something better. [Reply]
Originally Posted by listopencil:
I want a ST:TOS reboot but Spock isn't an alien. He's just a French guy who is studying Philosophy. Everybody has a hard time connecting with him emotionally because of the language barrier but he's really smart.
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
The source material (at least with respect to the Gorn) was ridiculous and due only to budgetary/monetary/technological constraints that existed in 1967 that do not exist in 2023. They've now modernized the design to make the Gorn a terrorizing villain that have been an integral part of two of the best episodes so far on the show. That isn't lazy, weak storytelling in the slightest.
Nope. The source material went beyond the appearance of the character, don't be so shallow. And if the show wanted to use it then they should have done so rather than simply slapping a Gorn nametag on their own ideas. [Reply]
Originally Posted by listopencil:
Nope. The source material went beyond the appearance of the character, don't be so shallow. And if the show wanted to use it then they should have done so rather than simply slapping a Gorn nametag on their own ideas.
Yes, the source material (at least with respect to the Gorn) had long been considered little more than a joke despite it very clearly not being intended to be as such. The producers of this show took that old silly character design and made it into something that worked incredibly well in a modern version of Trek. What is there to possibly bitch about? [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Yes, the source material (at least with respect to the Gorn) had long been considered little more than a joke despite it very clearly not being intended to be as such. The producers of this show took that old silly character design and made it into something that worked incredibly well in a modern version of Trek. What is there to possibly bitch about?
They didn't make the original into anything. They brought in something new and slapped a Gorn nametag on it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by listopencil: They didn't make the original into anything. They brought in something new and slapped a Gorn nametag on it.
Sure they did and they did it very well. You just, for whatever reason, wanted the design to be a closer to an absolutely ridiculous 1960s costume design that could never and would never be stuck to in 2023. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Sure they did and they did it very well. You just, for whatever reason, wanted the design to be a closer to an absolutely ridiculous 1960s costume design that could never and would never be stuck to in 2023.
No, I wanted them to actually use characters from ST:TOS if they were going to introduce them to ST:SNW. If they picked a hard one; tough shit. That's the choice they made. Make it work. [Reply]
