Gorn with the Winded…

Updated on April 1, 2013 By Ken Begg 20 Comments

FoJ Marsden sent me this, and it’s pretty hilarious. I have never quite gotten a handle on how Shatner at the same time can be such a genuinely raging egomaniac, and yet so comfortable making fun of himself. It’s a weird magic that no one I can think of has in such measure.

The Gorn suit, as silly as it is, has an elemental power that the more ‘realistic’ Gorns in the video game doesn’t. I think one reason there have been so few CGI monsters that have really caught hearts and the imagination is that CGI allows for much too much texturing, etc.

Look at the Toho monsters; the ones that really stuck are the very simple ones–Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Ghidrah–and while the designs of the newer monsters are often quite cool, they just don’t lodge in the imagination the same way. Probably the last monster to really catch hold of the public’s heart is the Alien, and while it has a lot of details, I think it’s very sleekness, with that huge toothy shiny black head, really has a simplicity that lends itself to becoming an icon.

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  • Marty McKee

    I’ve always suspected Shatner is not the raging egomaniac he has been said to be. While I have little doubt he does have a healthy ego–anyone who has been a major star for fifty years deserves one–many of the nasty comments about him have come from actors with an agenda. As much as I admire Doohan and Takei, for instance, they seem to have retroactively decided that STAR TREK was an ensemble show like HILL STREET BLUES and not a drama with two leading men (or arguably three, but I don’t think Kelley ever really was considered a lead) and a number of rotating supporting actors. For every actor who says Shatner was a nightmare on set, I can find two that loved the guy and loved working with him.

    I’ve wondered the same thing. How could such a vain monster so successfully poke fun at himself? The answer: he couldn’t.

  • Ken_Begg

    Marty — I kind of agree, but it’s hard to ignore the evidence of Star Trek 5 on the other hand. That film is all about how awesome Kirk is. Contrast to the first film in the series that Nimoy directed, The Search for Spock, which Spock is barely even in.

  • Gamera977

    I’m always wondered the same, the narcissists I’ve known never had any real ability to poke fun at themselves or have others make fun of them. I wonder if after the knock The Shat fad started everyone just started piling on him.

    If you ever read Herbert Solow and Robert Justman’s ‘Inside Star Trek’ (I think was the title, I’ll have to look tonight’ it’s frankly Roddenberry that comes off as the lying, cheating, two-faced king of assholes. The Shat had nothing on him.

  • Marty McKee

    Kirk is awesome! And even though Spock is hardly seen on camera in STIII, the entire film is about him. Characters talk about Spock constantly, and the damn film is even named after him. I think part of the reason is that Nimoy found it difficult or thought he would find it difficult to direct and play a major role simultaneously. Also, STV (which has some interesting material poking around all that lame comic relief and revisionist characterizations) is not about Kirk’s character. Not only does Shatner give Nimoy some quality material, he hands DeForest Kelley the best damn dramatic scene he got to play in the whole film franchise. So he did make an effort to spread the wealth in STV.

  • I got the feeling Trek V was more for fans and gave them what they theoretically wanted: Kirk taking care of business. While not the best entry in the series, it’s a giant step (or three steps) up from the fourth film. It’s what we came to see in the first place, Kirk fighting with bad guys and leading his men into battle. I’m not saying it holds together just great or anything, and the central ‘hidden pain’ premise is goofy as all get-out, but the film is great fun.

  • It’s a better Gorn suit than the one that turned up on Big Bang Theory a couple of times, though.

    Very funny! Probably the best ad I’ve seen in years!

  • Flangepart

    Yeah, I read that. Gene had some major ego problems. Yet, how can Hollywood avoid it, since ego drives it?

  • Marsden

    As cool as that skit is, I look at those game clips and it makes me want to cry. I love how Shatner and the Gorn reinact some of the actual moves from the battle from Arena, one of my all time favorite episodes, and then he poops out. Gorn are strong but slow, those friggin things in the game are not Gorn, their some kind of lizardman that couldn’t make the cut for a Doom clone.

  • The Rev.

    Oh, man, that is great. It’d be funny even if you hadn’t seen that episode, but if you have, it is, indeed, pretty hilarious.

    An exception to your Toho rule is Gigan; not at all simple, but very distinctive, and at three appearances he’s got more than any villainous monster save King Ghidorah.

  • “it’s frankly Roddenberry that comes off as the lying, cheating, two-faced king of assholes. The Shat had nothing on him.”

    I can only wonder what it must have been like when Roddenberry had to deal with Ellison back when Harlan wrote that one ST episode. I bet the sparks were flying.

  • Now that I watched it — that is hilarious. And I wonder how many people will play that game hoping that they can gun down Wesley Crusher? Or is the character no longer as disliked as he once was?

  • zombiewhacker

    The conclusion I draw is that Shatner was an unbearable egomaniac on the set of the original Star Trek but has long since mellowed with age. He can poke fun at himself now. He was dead serious when he performed Rocket Man at the Science Fiction Film Awards back in 1978.
    Even Nichelle Nichols has gone on record as saying that she despised Shatner, and she never struck me as particularly venomous otherwise.

  • Ken_Begg

    I suspect, though, that Gigan’s multiple appearances were due as much or more to economics than popularity. Those ’70s movies were extremely low budget, and chances are they used him over again because it was cheaper than building another monster suit.

  • Gamera977

    Yeah the game Gorn looks sorta like the CGI one used on ‘Enterprise’. I think the Gorn was impressive because it was slow but unstoppable which is brought out when Kirk hurls a rock the size of his head at the Gorn and it just looks at him and then tosses a boulder the size of a footlocker at our captain. The ‘OMG- I’m screwed’ look on The Shat’s face was priceless.

  • Gamera977

    I looked for the book but couldn’t find it last night. Solow and Justman comment on Ellison turning in a script that would have been great for a two and a half hour multi-million dollar movie. They had to rewrite the whole thing to get something workable on a TV episode’s budget and time-frame. Still Ellison won an award for the script and then at the acceptance dinner got up and trashed the ST team, Paramount, NBC, and the TV business in general for bastardizing his brilliant, wonderful, perfect script.

    There is a hearsay story that at a SF con someone remarked that an up-and-coming new author was the ‘next Harlan Ellison’. On hearing a cough he turned around to see a grinning Robert A. Heinlein ask- ‘in that case can we just shoot him now?’

  • SteveWD

    It’s always seemed to me that the Trek movies (to a point) and especially TNG got better the less Roddenberry had to do with them.

  • I would agree with you, but Toho did build a second Gigan suit (the differences are subtle, but the second suit has a slightly changed look about. J.D. Lees saw both suits hanging in Toho’s prop room while touring the studio in the late 70’s). I suspect the reaction to the creature was favorable after it’s first appearance and that may have been the deciding factor in returning him to aid Megalon.

  • “There is a hearsay story that at a SF con someone remarked that an
    up-and-coming new author was the ‘next Harlan Ellison’. On hearing a
    cough he turned around to see a grinning Robert A. Heinlein ask- ‘in
    that case can we just shoot him now?'”

    I’ve heard that story, with the quote attributed to Larry Niven. And there’s the infamous ‘when Ellison hit on a rather tall lady at a con party’ story, which I can’t repeat here.

  • Gamera977

    Yeap, I say ‘hearsay’ because it may be absolute BS… ;)

  • The Rev.

    Rock beat me to that. Plus there’s the new version in Final Wars. Granted, quite a few monsters showed up in that…anyway, he’s really the only exception. Otherwise you’re spot on.

    Despite a lot fewer movies, it seems to be that way with Gamera, too. Gyaos is the second most simple design (after Viras the giant squid) but is the only opponent monster to have multiple appearances (not counting Gamera: Super Monster, naturally). I will say that Legion was complicated as hell, but very memorable.