It was great when they made two excellent seasons of television in S1 and S2 (the best first two seasons of Trek since TOS), including two incredibly well-produced Gorn-related episodes.
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Why are you guys so unhappy about the Gorn? At least now they’re scary enough and interesting.
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Because they're apparently not enough like the silly 1960s costume version for them (but really it's because they're just looking for something to bitch about at this point).
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Don't wear yourself out dragging that same straw man in from the fields over and over and over again.
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Because it isn't actually the Gorn. They've done something else and slapped that name on it.
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I only wish for your sake it was a straw man.
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No, it is a straw man. You've repeated the same crap many times. Crap that no one but you is saying. You're doing it because you don't have an argument against the actual point.
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Because, as I've said repeatedly, there's no way Kirk could beaten one of these things alone and unarmed. It would have run him down and killed him instantly. The end. Also, the Enterprise crew knew almost nothing about the Gorn during the TOS episode. That's completely out the window now as well.

Do I hate it? No. Was it a good episode? Yes. Will I keep watching the show? Of course. But things that fly in the face of established canon annoy me. Not the first time it's happened (like purple Klingon blood in Star Trek VI, Scotty not thinking Kirk was dead in Relics), and I'm sure it won't be the last. I got over those, and I'll get over this. This franchise is nearly 60 years old, and these things are going to happen. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. And this particular gaffe is really egregious, since they built an entire storyline around it.

As Listo and I have both said, several times, had they just made this a newly encountered, different race, we'd have no issues with it at all.
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I agree, but at the same this is hardly the first continuity violation in this SNW/Discovery iteration of Trek, and arguably not the worst. It's kind of like shooting a dead body at this point.
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What would have been fantastic is if Spock would have built a mortar out of the Cayuga's wreckage and fired a crystal through the Gorn's gut.

Is it too much to ask for deep cut fan service with every episode?
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It isn't. You keep saying that the Gorn they depicted isn't actually the "Gorn," that their depiction of them was not done well, and you're saying it because the Gorn depiction isn't close to the 1960s television version (which employed a silly 1960s clunky costume which solely was a product of the budget and technology of the era).

It is an absurd take considering how effective these episodes are (and the obvious need for updating such a character design for a modern era of television with a modern audience), but it is the position you've taken here for whatever reason.
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Which makes sense. Strictly upholding the continuity/canon of a 1960s TV show with enormous budgetary restrictions a lifetime ago should probably come second to creating a good television show now.
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You beat me to it. This discussion piqued my curiosity and I broke out my DVD of Arena to see if I remembered what I thought I did. And you're correct, Kirk and company had no clue who the Gorn were.

One had to wonder why they chose to go this route. They seem to want it both ways. They say they don't want to let canon get in the way of story telling. OK, that's fine. But why go out of their way to shit all over canon when it wasn't necessary at all? The Gorn as seen in TOS were a one-off species, certainly not tied to the bigger fabric of Star Trek mythos. So why go back to them to use in SNW? Only to COMPLETELY rewrite them. What's the point exactly?

As you said, they could have done EXACTLY what they did, told the EXACT same story, called them the "whatever species" and they could have done their story and not messed with the past history at the same time.
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Ah okay, now it makes more sense.


I mean, they did say that they were going to play it a little fast and loose with standard ST canon, so I've just been taking the aberrations for what they're worth.


Besides, the original Gorn were kind of silly really. This version is much more interesting as an archenemy.
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Let me guess. It might be because they wanted to pay homage to TOS but took one look at this 1960s era costume and realized they had to update the character design for 2020s television.

Originally Posted by :
They seem to want it both ways. They say they don't want to let canon get in the way of story telling. OK, that's fine. But why go out of their way to shit all over canon when it wasn't necessary at all? The Gorn as seen in TOS were a one-off species, certainly not tied to the bigger fabric of Star Trek mythos. So why go back to them to use in SNW? Only to COMPLETELY rewrite them. What's the point exactly?

They didn't shit all over canon (although in this case that wouldn't have been a bad thing). They updated a character design so it that would actually work in 2023 instead of something that people would laugh at. It has proven to be an enormously popular and effective choice amongst the majority of the fans (at least those who aren't worried about sticking as closely as possible to a 1960s television show; I mean there are people here seriously complaining that 1960s Kirk wouldn't win a fight against one of these lizard people today as if that should somehow be any kind of consideration for the writers/producers).

Also, didn't you say you had given up on the show after last week and wouldn't watch it again?
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