Exciting and fun...but a bit cheesy, especially the reptilian alien.
The classic Gorn episode. I haven't seen this since I was a kid. Still pretty good, even if some of the fighting is ridiculously cheesy.
Oh. My. God!!!!!
The special effects are not that bad for a 50 years old show. The reptilian costume... well yes, it's awful, but still, for a TV show 50 years old, I guess it's ok. (Although... did people back then think "wow, that looks great, so reallistic!!"? :thinking:). But the growling!!!! And Kirk's fighting skills!!! I thought he was terribly bad at acting, but I had seen nothing yet :joy:
Also, I have to agree with Andrew Bloom's excellent review: this episode is at least 25 minutes longer than the script called for.
A shame, because the story, and the ending, are one of the best so far, I'd probably give it a 8/10. But the rest of the episode is a solid 0.1/10, and only because I can't give negative ratings.
The worst part? I still have to endure another 61 episodes of this, if I want to keep my plan of watching all of Star Trek in chronological order :weary:
what a ridiculous episode. I loved it.
This is kind of the template, isn’t it? Red shirt gets it, advanced race judging humanity. The Gorn, the Vasquez Rocks, it’s what we think of when we think of original Star Trek.
Well, it was okay-ish, certainly not awesome, until the reptile appeared. From this point on, this episode was too silly to be taken serious. Best part: Vasquez Rocks.
In the words of the great Jedi-Master Qui-Gon Jinn: "There's always a bigger fish in the water"
Well, on the surface this looks silly. A guy in a rubber costume moving in slo-mo, the almost comical hissing and growling sounds, that didn't stand the test of time. But the story does.
The part where Kirk thinks he's right for destroying the Gorn. Not even questioning whether there is a legit reason for them to attack. He just concludes it's an invasion and that gives him the right to kill. He's not even listening to Spock's reasoning.
Another highly evolved race intervenes, pitting Kirk against the Gorn captain in a fight to the death, with the addional cost of ones ship and crew should you loose. And during this fight Kirk comes to the conclusion that, maybe, the Gorn did have a reason to attack the colony. He refuses to kill him and thus showing promise that humans can evolve.
A bit over simplistic and the plot is really not as deep as this sounds. But it is essential Star Trek. Just look above the cheesy parts.
I see the Gorn are badasses here too
Shout by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2016-07-21T10:53:14Z
Very dated from a production point of view, and the script is absolutely terrible. BUT, the story itself is exciting and it certainly did some ambitious stuff not seen on the show before.