The Gorn has become very interesting but in doing so, has also become very complicated.
The Gorn are one of the staples of early Star Trek. First debuted in the season one episode, The Arena (episode 16). They get their first break in the world of Star Trek trying to break James T. Kirk. It was one of the more iconic episodes of the show, as it featured a man in a rubber lizard suit fighting William Shatner against the California desert.
It was hilarious.
They were mostly left alone for about 40 years, until the folks at Star Trek: Enterprise broke canon by bringing them to their show. The debut on that series wasn’t great, as instead of the Gorn being in rubber shoots, they were instead done in shoddy CGI. The suits of the ’60s you can forgive, the bad CGI of the mid-2000s, not so much.
There are still movies and shows from that era with really impressive effects, so the’s no real defense of it.
And then Strange New Worlds brought them back again, this time in a combination of CGI and practical effects and it’s worked really well, but the history now around the Gorn has become a bit muddled, so that’s why we’re giving you a video from Certifiably Ingame.
The video helps recontextualize the Gorn and its history.
The Gorn in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds makes the show unique
The Gorn being used in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has made the show unique and stand out against its fellow series. The show has done a great job re-imagining them in a way that makes sense with the quality of special effects nearly 60 years later, without going so far away from the original that it feels hokey.
It’s a bit complicated to follow the lore around the Gorn at the moment, but that’s why these videos are so useful.