Gorn (Star Trek) - Depictions

Depictions

The Gorn have become one of the most popular hypothetical bioforms to appear on Star Trek, due to the striking design by artist Wah Chang, and the Gorn's memorable personality. A hissing, slow-moving, but lethal beast, the Gorn captain is also shown to be quite cunning and devious; chuckling wickedly to himself as he sets a trap for Kirk, and later promising that if the captain gives himself up, the Gorn will make his death "merciful and quick". "Arena" is also considered one of the series' classic episodes.

For years, "Arena" marked the only live-action appearance of the Gorn, although the race was "name dropped" from time to time. In 2005, an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise featured a Gorn (albeit in the Mirror Universe) in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly Part II". In that episode, the Gorn (whose name was Slar) was an overseer of a group of slaves belonging to the Mirror Universe's Tholians in an attempt to steal technology from the Constitution-class NCC-1764 Defiant which had been lured into the Mirror Universe from ours. Slar hid in the ship's corridors and killed several crewmembers until it was killed by Jonathan Archer. For this appearance, Slar was designed and rendered using computer animation, and looked different from the original appearance; the clearest being lack of compound eyes. Slar also moved much faster than the Gorn Captain Kirk fought. Since "In a Mirror, Darkly" takes place entirely within the Mirror Universe, the contact seen between the Earth Empire and the creature does not contradict the first contact seen in "Arena".