10 Obscure Star Trek Secrets That Took Years To Discover

The merciless, reptilian hunters known as the Gorn have only appeared in Star Trek a few times, but whenever they've shown up, they've proven to be worthy adversaries of the Federation.

The Gorn first appeared in the classic Original Series episode Arena, in an sadly dated costume that didn't do much to sell them as a legitimate threat, though the costume was impressive at the time. But still, the Gorn, a reptilian race, stronger, and possibly than humanity, were compelling enough that the writers decided to bring one back for Star Trek: Enterprise, which somehow managed to look worse. The early CGI work was, again, impressive for the time, but hilarious in retrospect.

However, many fans don't know that another reboot of the Gorn was planned for Trek, specifically for the 2009 reboot film. According to Star Trek Magazine Special 2014, the Gorn was designed by Barney Burman and his company, Proteus Make-up FX Team, to appear in a scene at the Rura Penthe prison colony. This scene was eventually cut, so we sadly never got to see the full updated look of the Gorn.

After the disappointment of not getting a good look at the Gorn in the new episode of Strange New Worlds, Memento Mori, let's hope we get a good Gorn redesign some time soon.