‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Showrunners Talk Season 3 Premiere And “Retconning” The Gorn
Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers talk about how they have reenvisioned this iconic TOS alien.
“What I loved about the Gorn was it was an opportunity to retcon something into a real monster. What we do in Star Trek—and you’ll see we’ll even do it with the Gorn—is we start by seeing the other and often we end by engaging our empathy and understanding common ground. And that’s great, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t real evil in the world. And so what we wanted to do with the Gorn was to give you a monster, and a monster that at least at first, seemed irredeemable.”
I find this statement a little aggravating, because in my opinion they really haven't retconned the Gorn. In "Arena", they slaughtered the entire Cestus colony, and the Gorn captain is utterly merciless.
"Arena" is about mercy, but the Gorn didn't really earn it in the episode, which was really kind of the point.
Yes! I was just coming here to say the same thing.
The Gorn aren't scary because they're giant Xenomorphs in lizard drag, they're scary because they're intelligent, relentless, and remorseless.
"The Arena" is originally the first meeting between the Federation and the Gorn, with Kirk and the Gorn captain fighting one-on-one.
But, in SNW, the Gorn have already been encountered, although little is known about them yet, due to the fact that they leave no survivors and seem to make no effort to communicate.
The recon is to the timeline and initial encounter with the species, as well as adding in a lot of new details that were never part of the original concept.
The recon is to the timeline and initial encounter with the species
Fair enough - I'll backtrack slightly and say that if there's a retcon, that's where it is, rather than in the Gorn's behaviour.
But there is a bit of wiggle room in "Arena", I think. Kirk certainly seems unfamiliar with the Gorn, but they never really say it's the first contact, and Spock doesn't really say anything one way or the other (a very Spock-like thing to do in any situation).
They definitely have massaged that canon, but I don't think they've really contradicted it.
If it tells you anything about me, my favorite TOS episode has - and always shall be; "Arena".
I love the more episodic format of Strange New Worlds. I love Pike. I love the old-school aesthetic of the sets. I love the entire cast (shout out to my homie Hemmer. RIP). I just freakin' love the entire show. It's exactly what new Trek should be.
However, I have to admit the new Gorn kind of bummed me out. I prefer the goofy-badass-Gorn over the scary-quick-incubatin'-Gorn.
I prefer the goofy-badass-Gorn over the scary-quick-incubatin’-Gorn.
They're iconic for a reason.
I agree with basically everything you said, although I've found more things than just the Gorn in SNW to be cranky about. While TNG era never TRIED to get science and engineering right... they tried WAY harder than SNW, which is saying something and NOT a good something. It's like TNG's attitude was "We know we're goofy, but we DO have technobabble consultants, and we try to link some of what we're doing to real physics and engineering" while SNW is like "We don't even like, bother man... rule of cool in a Hollywood hipstery writer way, we don't really know what we're talking about, nor do we care... hey can we get mocha lattes to the writers room ASAP?" Major pet peeve of mine.
Also, I love Carol Kane as an actress, but she's just Lillian in space, and honestly, I really didn't ever need that. It feels out of place, but shoe horned in anyway.
Certainly, some of my joy in the show also just has to do with it just being better than Discovery (for which I'm like...oh thank god) and just gratitude that at least they're trying to make something LIKE Star Trek.
Lower Decks was a better show. So was The Orville.
'Discovery'... the main contribution from that distraction was giving us Harry "Dwight" Mudd & 'Strange New Worlds'.
As soon as we got a chance to evacuate that starship, we took it; and joined up with a better crew.
You're definitely correct about the writing on TOS. To expand upon your point - look at the widescreen monitors and flip phone communicators, the earpiece devices and other things that they use. Those didn't even exist yet, not really. I'm sure in some ways these things informed the development of the real-life equivalents, however ~ you can't deny the writers did a lot of things as realistically as possible (given the setting). I can't remember ever seeing fire in the vacuum of space in TOS. However, on 'Discovery' we had plenty of whacky-not-in-a-fun-way scenarios.
Lillian in space. Thanks for the chuckle.
I liked LD okay, but the bleeped cursing bothers me. Either fucking cuss or frickin' don't. It happens too much to not be distracting for me. The Orville felt like classic Trek, which is my understanding was on purpose. Seth was a real member of Starfleet, albeit minor.
My head-canon is that there is no retconm, or at least no need for one.
We've seen in ST SNW that where the Gorn are concerned, the younger they are, the faster and dumber they are.
Pike and his crew have only directly encountered hatchlings, adolescents and a very few Gorn of age to serve on starships, perhaps the Gorn equivalent of redshirts.
The logical extension of that idea is that as Gorn mature, they become slower, burlier and more intelligent. The Gorn Kirk encountered in Arena may have a very mature individual, thus his slow, lumbering pace and extreme cunning. Probably overdue for a promotion to admiral.