Star Trek 4: 8 Villains We Might See

The Gorn have long been thought of as a joke thanks to the famous wrestling scene with William Shatner:

There have been one or two attempts to reinvent them as serious threats, but none have really landed. For this reason, the Gorn are ripe for a bold reinvention, especially considering their aggressive hatred of other species, like a non-diplomatic, more primal version of the Klingons.

There are such gaps in what we know of the Gorn's culture and mythology, the creative team behind the next movie can do whatever they want. Having Kirk and the crew stranded and being hunted down by the Gorn would be a nice change from the relentless pace of the previous films- a tense survival thriller similar to Predator, The Thing or Jaws would see the team truly working together to face an unfamiliar threat.

Although they eventually become very sophisticated, meeting the Gorn as they are on the verge of evolving into a higher species would show us a species transitioning from their more savage form- some Gorn may want to better themselves, others wishing to keep things the way they are.

The Gorn's own worst enemy could be themselves, and the Enterprise crew could be the ones to save them.