1.19 : Arena.

Dave

Dave

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The one with the Gorn.

Based on a short story by Frederic L. Brown, it was also filmed as the 'Outer Limits' story "Fun and Games".

During the fight between Kirk and the Gorn captain, Kirk struggles to pick up a rock about the size of a football. He barely manages to throw it at the Gorn, and it bounces off its chest without it even noticing. The Gorn then easily lifts a huge boulder and lobs it at Kirk. If I was Kirk, I would be VERY worrried now!

Why doesn't the Gorn just bite Kirk when he has him in a bear hug? He has big enough teeth!

Why does Uhura scream when Kirk disappears from the bridge? He disappears from the bridge in 'The Squire of Gothos' TOS a week earlier and she didn't scream then.
 
When Kirk has flattened the Gorn, he prepares to stab it with piece of obsidian (?) with a sharp end; however, he has the blunt end aimed at the Gorn's chest or neck at first and has to flip the piece around to the sharp end. This isn't necessarily a filming flub; one could easily imagine that, being keyed up and all, one could make that mistake. But I suspect it wasn't what Shatner intended to do.
 
This is one of my favorite stories, that is FB's ARENA & any TV episodes based on it, including animated ones. But the STAR TREK version has always been near the top of the list.

Though I think the barrel Kirk used in his makeshift gun would likely have blown apart rather than expel its contents at a sufficiently high velocity to knock the Gorn off his feet. :whistle:
 
Jeffbert said:
This is one of my favorite stories, that is FB's ARENA & any TV episodes based on it, including animated ones. But the STAR TREK version has always been near the top of the list.

Though I think the barrel Kirk used in his makeshift gun would likely have blown apart rather than expel its contents at a sufficiently high velocity to knock the Gorn off his feet. :whistle:
Click to expand...

I recall mythbusters doing a show on this. Of course it's highly unlikely but as a teenager boy I didn't stop to quibble. If I did, they poor guy in the rubber suit would have put me off. This is simply good story telling. And fun. (y)
 
I agree; I usually watch TOS because it is unintentionally funny.
 
Dave said:
The one with the Gorn.

Why doesn't the Gorn just bite Kirk when he has him in a bear hug? He has big enough teeth!
Click to expand...
Looking back, by guess is that it's a rubber/'primitive' costume and wasn't possible to make it look realistic. I thought that, when I was a kid first seeing it, maybe it just didn't want to bite/eat smart beings (sentient/sapient beings), and plus Kirk might be poisonous to him.
 
Whoa. Weren't no Gorn in the story, it was the Red Roller, a real scary alien. And the little blue lizards. Too expensive fror Trek, they used a lizard-guy suit, I was suitably unimpressed.
 
not only that, the guy was naked! :whistle:
Moreover, as I recall, it was rather hot. The combatants were separated by a barrier, through which nothing conscious could pass. In the Mighty Atom version, Atom (Astroboy) could not pass until he began thinking of himself as human. I have found no other adaptation that included the barrier.
But, here, we talk of Star Trek, so excuse my diversion! Just love those rocks; though I forgot the outcropping's name.

As far as using diamonds as projectiles, and a large diameter bamboo (why is it in the desert?) to make a firearm, I think that if dropping that rock on the Gorn did not hurt him, nothing other than a sizable mass as a projectile would possibly even faze him. Moreover, the tube would likely explode.

But it was entertaining, & even funny.
 
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This episode seemed to have a little more money backing it than some of them, allowing for location photography, a fairly elaborate Cestus 3 set, etc.

The episode has some Outer Limits shades hanging around it, including the use of the Vasquez Rocks location ("The Zanti Misfits"); the "Fun and Games" plot; Vic Perrin as the Metron voice (he supplied the Voice at the beginning and end of OT teleplays); and a Wah Chang costume for the Gorn (Wah Chang/Project Unlimited designed a number of the creature costumes for the earlier TV series). No wonder "Arena" was one of my most favorite ST episodes when I was a kid.

"Arena" belongs in the category of episodes in which the solution is, to a considerable degree, something that just has to be figured out, as in Miri. The episode might have been strengthened if there'd been time for Kirk to try to come up with a solution and fail once, but then get it right. I don't know how old I was when I first thought it unlikely that Kirk would get the ingredients in the right proportions like that, first time around.
 
J Riff said:
Whoa. Weren't no Gorn in the story, it was the Red Roller, a real scary alien. And the little blue lizards. Too expensive fror Trek, they used a lizard-guy suit, I was suitably unimpressed.
Click to expand...

Even by 1960's standard, That lizard costume looked pretty lame. The remastering of this episode has the lizard guy with winking eyes which ,really does nothing to mitigate it's cheesiness .:D
 
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