Blarging through the SSDB, I came across a bit of WTF. Just as it was presented:
I have also made a recently discovered addition - a conceptual design of a new Kzinti ship, called the Darkstalker, by Glitchwerk, that was to be used in the never-filmed fifth season of Star Trek: Enterprise. As it was never filmed, it cannot be considered "official", per se, but the discovery of this really cool ship only makes me more irritated that Enterprise was cancelled just when it was starting to get good
OK, so the design is kind of neat...but fucking KZIN of ENT? Thank the fucking MAKER it never happened.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, I read about their plans to visit the Kzinti. It would've been way too easy to mess up, considering how they'd have had to re-jigger so much of the back story to fit it in with all the canon stuff that's come up since. I figured they'd have had to change so much, what would be the point? (Though my sister says the same thing about Ron Moore's version of Galactica, and she's obviously full of shit there!)
Anyway, the only reason I'm disappointed there was no ENT: Season 5 is that they apparently planned to bring Shran on to the main cast. That would've likely been awesome.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Oh, yay. Then we would have had weekly reminders of how they screwed up the Andorians.
--Jonah
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Fuck you guys.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Am I included in that, Mim? I liked "The Slaver Weapon" and the backstory of the Terran/Kzinti hostilities in Trek. I'd rather it be the Caitians, because I find them infinitely cooler, but hey...
--Jonah
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
If Season 4 was any indication, Season 5 of ENT would have been some of the best Star Trek ever.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I had high hopes for Season 5, myself. Especially after Peter Weller guested. I even liked the explanation of the Klingons' heads. But most of the Vulcans were dicks, the Andorians shouldn't have had ears or been from a place called AndorIA, the ENterprise was too advanced for the era, and and the temporal cold war was a lame plotline.
But even with those growing pains, they were starting to find their stride. So yeah, I would have welcomed Kzin.
--Jonah
P.S. I am not mentioning the Ferengi or Borg on purpose. They do not exist in my world prior to the episodes they were introduced in.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I'm not sure why Andorians necessarily wouldn't have ears, but you realize, of course, that it was DS9 that established the word "Andoria"?
Also, Vulcan dicks have been around far longer than ENT, as well.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
DS9 also said 'Andor'.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Hmm.. it looks like they actually looked at earlier Kzinti designs when they came up with this...
Specifically, the 'New Space Control Ship' on this page. Posted by Makotokat (Member # 1041) on :
Kzinti would never have shown up......Larry Niven swore to never allow anyone to use them again after the last time....not until he's dead and buried!
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Source? I seem to recall rather the opposite, that he said he would be open to them being a part of Star Trek again and that it was the Paramount bean-counters/legal analysts/whatevers who kept it from happening. I don't have a source for that either, though.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: If Season 4 was any indication, Season 5 of ENT would have been some of the best Star Trek ever.
While I totally agree Enterprise was becoming great, my opinion on fucking cat-men (or any household pet as an alien species) is on record. Might as well go to fucking Thundera while they're at it.
Posted by Makotokat (Member # 1041) on :
I read it on a Ringworld movie forum (what happened to that movie???) Besides every cat alien you see (Kilrathi) seems to be Kzin....
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"While I totally agree Enterprise was becoming great, my opinion on fucking cat-men (or any household pet as an alien species) is on record."
So, no cat people, dog people, bird people, fish people, lizard people, rodent people... Basically, all aliens played by people should be exclusively monkey-based?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Not at all- just ot household pet related: the Xindi had aquatic species that were very well handled, and the Gorn are not big versions of Earth animals either (neither were the Xindi reptillians). A species can have evolved in or from a particular environment- making it avian, reptillian, aquatic, etc.- without it being a "(insert animal)-Man".
So, while the gorn might be a cool alien, a giant talking turtle-man would be pretty stupid. While an avian Xindi would have been cool to see, a humanoid with a proportionate canary head would be awful.
As long as it stays clear of the hybridization of Dr. Moreau, it's fine- the Kzinti do not. Those books are chock full of cat-references and thewy even made catnip a narcotic to this (supposedly) alien species. Even the best-possible representation of Kzinti (the one made up for STIII) was pretty lacking, and the one from TAS was laughably bad.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Star Trek III? Do you mean the two Caitians in the Federation Council scenes from Star Trek IV?
--Jonah
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The Gorn looked like a guy in a bad T. rex suit. And, by "looked like", I mean "was".
If you draw a distinction between "looking like a lizard" and "looking like a housepet lizard", then the Kzinti should be fine, shouldn't they? After all, they looked more like tigers than house cats.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: ...the one from TAS was laughably bad.
*SMACK* Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Smack yourself- no amount of nostalgic rationalecan make a humanoid cat-man in a pink jumpsuit anything but lame.
quote:If you draw a distinction between "looking like a lizard" and "looking like a housepet lizard", then the Kzinti should be fine, shouldn't they? After all, they looked more like tigers than house cats.
Should But does not: mainly because of all the idiotic baggage tied with the Kzin- purring when content, catnip narcotics, etc.- pretty much every lame-ass cat-owner cliche' was tacked onto them as the popularity of the Man-Kzin books grew and the author kept churning them out Stephen King style.
quote:ek III? Do you mean the two Caitians in the Federation Council scenes from Star Trek IV?
They were cupposed to be Caitians? mmmm...still pretty bad, but I suppose you could work something less lame than the Kzin with them...kinda dumb to see something with fur wearing clothes though....by TNG it could be holographic, but still... You'd have to do away with any of the (really really bad) Peter David stuff he did with that TAS Caitian character- all the cat cliche nonsense but far worse than Niven.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
M'Ress. And those guys could be static masks as they were meant to be seen only in passing. Never underestimate the degree of corner-cutting that goes on in movies. *heh* M'Ress was portrayed simplistically in TAS, but I thought the character had potential. I disagreed with the anthropomorphisation (i.e., if she had any noticable breasts, she'd probably have six, in accordance with her felinoid ancestry), but it's understandable in context. I tend to think of the Caitians as being more Kilrathi/Hani in appearance and demeanor. And even though they have fur, clothes are a sensible convention -- especially if it is a uniform for an organisation to which your world belongs and in which you serve.
And as much as I like Peter David, he's done some things with New Frontier that bug me.
--Jonah
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Smack yourself- no amount of nostalgic rationalecan make a humanoid cat-man in a pink jumpsuit anything but lame.
From Memory Alpha-
The pink uniforms for the Kzinti came to be because the director, Hal Sutherland has a kind of color blindness. Usually, the art department would revise his color schemes, but the animators received his original instructions and gave the Kzinti pink uniforms.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"I disagreed with the anthropomorphisation (i.e., if she had any noticable breasts, she'd probably have six, in accordance with her felinoid ancestry)..."
Assuming, that is, that Caitians are descended from Earth cats, for some reason, and not from some alien creature that just happens to look superficially like an Earth cat.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
And Hal Southerland apologized profusely for making the Kzin have pink uniforms.
Since TAS is not considered canon, there's never been any canon background for the Kzinti to contradict.
I've liked the idea of the Kzinti since I played Star Fleet Battles years ago. I've been waiting to see them included in offical Trek canon. I think they would have been pretty cool.
Either Kzinti or adapt one of the other species such as the Caitans. I've also read where the Tzenkethi were supposed to be a cat like race.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Bad enough there's a thousand species that "just happen" to look like humans in every way save their skull shapes.
Besides, there's so much that can be done with the energy and time required to somehow make a cat-person even mildly believable (or any anthropomorphing of Earth animals for that matter)...we could probably get a fantastic (and intresting!) new species instead. Hell, even the Remans are a better idea. (sorry MMoM, but it's true)
All this debate aside, that ship is pretty bad- it's a nice render of an escapee from Flash Gordon (which also had a race of cat-warriors, as I recall).