Arena

[STNeish]

Honestly, I never thought the fight sequence was cheezy, nor did I think the costume was.

Sure, the Gorn moves slowly, but he's SUPPOSED to. Slow, but powerful. Kirk hits him as hard as he can, then tries a chop to a nerve center... all seems reasonable to me.

It's still one of my favourite Star Trek episodes. Top 10 easily, probably top 5.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah, the suit at least works for me. It BLINKS. That's impressive, especially for the time. Maybe it's a little rubbery, but that's par for the course with reptile physiology.

[Madner Kami]

Honestly, I never thought the fight sequence was cheezy, nor did I think the costume was.

Sure, the Gorn moves slowly, but he's SUPPOSED to. Slow, but powerful. Kirk hits him as hard as he can, then tries a chop to a nerve center... all seems reasonable to me.

It's still one of my favourite Star Trek episodes. Top 10 easily, probably top 5.

The suit is fine even great, considering the standards of the time. It really is the speed that is throwing one off, imo. It doesn't convey a slow-but-strong image and it doesn't make sense either from a scientific point of view, much less even from a martial point of view. The Gorn's attacks are dodgeable by a grandmother on crutches and that's just cringeworthy, even by the standards of the time. If your opponent can be overcome by walking away from him at a speed of a slow sunday afternoon stroll, then the opponent is no threat.

[Fixer]

Yeah, the suit at least works for me. It BLINKS. That's impressive, especially for the time. Maybe it's a little rubbery, but that's par for the course with reptile physiology.

That's the remastered version you're seeing with extra special effects.
STO retconned the bug-eyes into eye-shields and had regular reptillian eyes beneath. Enterprise had their CGI Gorn with normal eyes.

[Morgaine]

How in the world was THIS not remade with the Chris Pine crew?

It... sort of was with the JJTrek videogame.
Where the Gorn were now invaders from another dimension. Yes really.
Sort of completely misses the point about the Gorn being hyper territorial and thinking they were defending their space. But that's what JJTrek always did best. Miss the point.

[Archanubis]

And yet during the Dominion War in the second half of the 24th century they run around like they're fighting in World War II (if that).

Their space fights, yes. The ground war... I don't even know what war they're referencing there. At least in WWII, troops had things like tanks, heavy artillery, air support, etc... Starfleet's running around with the sci-fi equivalent of a bolt rifle, Colt pistol and little else; they don't even have KABARs. Granted, those rifles and pistols have a lot of power, but still! The only mortar ever shown is in this episode, and never seen again.

This and other early TOS episodes also seem to have the only Trek writers who realize that ships at this technological level are not going to be dogfighting within a few hundred/thousand meters of each other.

Price of not having a budget to have ships facing off against each other on the same screen. Trust me, if Roddenberry had had the budget and sfx tech DS9 had, he'd have shown the Enterprise facing off against a Klingon D7 like two man-of-wars at sea (hell, Meyer did for WoK).

[CareerKnight]

Price of not having a budget to have ships facing off against each other on the same screen. Trust me, if Roddenberry had had the budget and sfx tech DS9 had, he'd have shown the Enterprise facing off against a Klingon D7 like two man-of-wars at sea (hell, Meyer did for WoK).

I have often heard the excuse that they have to do it that way to make it dramatic but when B5 attempted a long range battle (the long twilight struggle) I felt it worked pretty well and didn't hurt the sequence at all.

As for the fight scene in this episode, I don't have any problems with the Gorn suit (which is pretty damn good by tos standards and the blinking added in the remastered is a nice touch though I wish it had been used a bit more evenly) but the fight itself... yeah that just looks awful. From the fact that they didn't need it to move that slowly to get across that Kirk is faster, to the inconsistency it creates as the Gorn never moves that slowly again.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

If we need a watsonian explanation from an apologist...maybe it moves so slowly because it's cold-blooded? The gorn doesn't repeat that slowness because it's had time in the sun to bring it's body temperature up to optimum.

[Independent George]

I'm trying to think of real-world analogues for a mighty glacier, and can't come up with any. All of the really strong animals that seem like they should be slow and plodding also tend to be swift-moving death on four legs. Hippos, elephants, bison, bears... all of them can move when they want to.

The closest thing I can think of is a Walrus when it's on land, but that's really a matter of being in the wrong environment. Maybe the atmosphere was too thin for the Gorn, and he was out of breath?

[Darth Wedgius]

I liked and didn't like the introduction of the mortar. They should have armaments in between a rifle and a photon torpedo. With this case, though, I think Kirk might have called down fire from the Enterprise. Hey, it worked when Kirk fought God, right?