Star Trek

Another good video

Voyager's intro is my favourite, I think. So pretty and calm.

SNW episode 4 aired today. You can officially put me down as part of #HemmerGang

Edited by DavidMerrick on May 26th 2022 at 12:08:06 PM

I admit to some reservations about the Gorn as the cannibalistic Always Chaotic Evil bad guy.

Was a good episode. Nice moments for the entire crew to shine. I even liked the callback to Discovery even though I dont care for Discovery usually

I'm uncertain that's actually going to prove to be true, as opposed to simply being what La'an believes, based on her horrible experiences.

Edited by ECD on May 26th 2022 at 2:05:30 AM

Possibly.

I also note that what they did here is no different from "Arena." I suspect the Federation really needs to work on finding out where planets claimed by the Gorn are.

"Who wants to work on finding out where the Gorn are?"

"..."

"Come on, guys, this is supposed to be a utopia."

I mean, they don't visibly inhabit them, so I'm not entirely sure why we're assuming these are claimed territories rather than them operating more like the Hirogen and having more changeable hunting grounds that they move through. Lots of potential options.

Edited by ECD on May 26th 2022 at 3:16:27 AM

Probably because "Arena" says the reason the Gorn were so furious is that they had their territory invaded.

The point of Arena being the Gorn are NOT mindless savages and evil reptiles.

Right, the questions are:

1) Is that territory permanent, or changeable?

2) How is it marked?

3) What is it used for?

It's entirely possible for the Gorn to simultaneously be Hirogenesque hunters and to have believed themselves to be defending themselves in Arena. Alternatively (and this would be my preference) there might well be different factions of Gorn with different beliefs/cultural practices.

Not much Scenery Gorn, but plenty of actual Gorn.

I was a bit iffy on last week's episode, I'm not 100% why Pike and Spock didn't catch the light sickness, but I was glued to my seat for this one. I would go so far as to say it's the best episode of any live action Trek since Discovery started. Now, with this new information, in "Arena" Spock should have known what a Gorn was, not immediately, but definitely as the episode progressed. However, I am willing to allow a relatively minor continuity hiccup to be created in a show from over 55 years ago if it means giving screen time to an underutilized Trek species. The only thing is, as was pointed out, in "Arena" the Gorn basically do the same thing they did here, so I don't see how this story arc is going to resolve, when nothing can change between now and "Arena."

Edited by WillKeaton on May 26th 2022 at 5:49:13 AM

I don't think there's a story arc actually.

It's just an episode where they fight the Gorn.

Agree. And that even makes sense. They have no information on Gorn interests/territory/requirements. There's not really a lot of follow-up they could do, beyond try to recolonize the place, which seems risky.

And it even makes sense they don't recognize the ship in Arena, as they look radically different (which assists in my preferred theory of different factions).

Edited by ECD on May 26th 2022 at 4:26:28 AM

A little bit of hyperbole, but this is one of the best episodes of Star Trek period. The absolute confidence the show has in its characters is inspiring, and the story is perfectly told as we see the entire ensemble forced to react to a common instigating event. I got "Balance of Terror," "Wrath of Khan," "Best of Both Worlds" and "Disaster" vibes across the episode, but it is very much its own unique thing. A lot is going on but nothing is wasted, it manages a satisfying conclusion while also taking advantage of the cinematic quality FX the show has. I would say it is what every Star Trek series has aspired to be but was always limited by budget or time.

I'm very glad everyone enjoyed this.

But for me, I have to weirdly say its my least favorite of the four.

Not because it's not fantastic but I just like the others more for their characteristics.

I suspect so many crew dying after mostly bloodless previous ones also influenced my opinion.

It's definitely a highlight of an already strong first season. And definitely one of Trek's better episodes all around. Again, I love how the entire crew is given a chance to shine and show their mettle or overcome some personal issue.

One thing that did bug me was the Gorn's use of flashing lights to communicate ship to ship. That seems liek a bad way to talk to each other. You have to be really close, and other people can see what you're doing.

So, let's talk about the elephant NOT in the room. You don't see any Gorn in the episode. Which is perfectly fine, if this is a one-off thing. If the Gorn become a recurring antagonist, then I'd hope we'd get to see what they look like at some point. Thing is, the Gorn from TOS was an epic case of special effects failure. We did briefly see a Gorn in one of the Mirror Universe episodes of Enterpise, where it was all CGI. Generally Trek has steered away from CGI creatures. Only other instance i can think of is Species 8472 from Voyager. So, if we were to see a Gorn I'm not sure what it would look like.

Since the Brown Dwarf broke communications, I assumed the lights were a backup. Same way RL ships have signal lights alongside radios.

Edited by Ghilz on May 27th 2022 at 11:11:16 AM

I had thought about that, but did the shuttle Spock and Singh were on not send a message to the Gorn ship, saying the other Gorn ship had been taken over by humans? If the Gorn couldn't use their regular communications, and HAD to use the lights, why would they think that the message from the shuttle was authentic? Unless, the shuttle DID communicate the message by flashing its lights. But you'd think the Gorn ship could tell the difference between one of their own ships and something else if they were close enough to see the lights.

Edited by WillKeaton on May 27th 2022 at 12:20:59 PM

I think it's implicitly the Space Is an Ocean version of Morse Code.

Because the whole thing is a submarine movie.

Presumably this works via photosensors, not necessarily a Gorn staring out the window counting light beats

Yeah like the book from her brother is literally just morse code with short and long signals.

EDIT: Rewatching the scene Spock says they remodulated the phasers to do this, so yeah they did just flash lights at the other ship. You also see the shuttle emitting the light. So yeah, communicators are down and this is a backup system like how a RL ship has signal lamps for the same purpose.

Edited by Ghilz on May 27th 2022 at 12:01:02 PM

The Gorn not appearing in person is also probably just an easy way to avoid having to address the design discrepancy, especially if they aren't really intended to be recurring antagonists.

For similar reasons, I don't expect the Klingons to have much of a presence and the Romulans almost certainly won't show up.

In this instance it also invokes Nothing Is Scarier, they are brutal and inhuman enough to be a threatening foe. Given that the newer shows are being more creative with their alien designs, actually seeing what the Gorn look like, even with modern effects, probably won't have the same impact as it did in "Arena."

The Ferengi's literal first appearance in "The Last Outpost" had them actually quite threatening up until you found out they were short little gremlins. The view screen just showed an extreme close up of their face and that combined with their aggressive attitude made them feel like they are willing to do anything.