When Star Trek Alien Designs Got WEIRD
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
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#startrek #alien #biology
Star Trek: The Animated Series introduced a number of far-out alien designs, beyond what could be done at the time in live action. Upon closer examination, how do they compare to our expectations about aliens in real life?
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Written & filmed by OrangeRiver
Script advisor: Tyler King
Edited by @TimMeierOK & OrangeRiver
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- CHAPTERS -
00:00 Intro
01:16 Sponsored Segment
02:27 Edosians
05:06 Bug Folks
08:03 Aurelians & Skorr
10:07 Sord's species
11:12 Vendorians
13:51 Phylosians
15:14 Aquans
16:44 Lactrans
18:36 Pandronians
20:35 Dramians & Kukulkan
22:29 Humanlike Aliens
24:10 Others
26:06 Outro - Krátké a kreslené filmy
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I really like that the creators of TAS knew the assignment and jumped in and thought up aliens that couldn't really be done in the live action series. That kind of stuff really fleshes out a universe often mocked so much for being populated by "humans with bumps on their heads" they threw the Progenitors into TNG to give a lore reason for it.
Animation is always superior ro love action in ANY GENRE.
Even Lower Decks and Prodigy do things that if done in a live action Trek would require a lot of budget or be impossible to do in live action show.
@@francescozenocchini4428animation isn't constrained by real physics and other limitations but I would submit that a talented actor can accomplish just as much with an amazing performance and experienced effects departments can pull of incredible visuals. Both can be really good
@@ThommyofThenn they excel in different ways. :D
@@marhawkman303 In terms of emoting and the more subtle nuances in acting, definitely live action. When it comes to the fantastic or massive scale, animation lets us make it come to life in ways that would either look silly or be so technically complex as to be impractical. Definitely nice to have both. I love how the LD/SNW crossover episode played with that a bit. I wish LD get more seasons than just 1..... ^^
@@francescozenocchini4428 Well, that's obviously quite subjective. I'd argue that some genres are better with live action, such as body horror, since it relies on the ability for our brain to identify with what we're seeing, and have a visceral reaction to it. An animated version of say, The Thing (1982), just wouldn't have hit nearly as hard as the live action version did (and still does).
Hey Tyler, guys here
I love that you give TAS the respect it deserves.
The Animated Series was awesome, and the willingness to create new, strange, aliens that weren't basically humans with different ears or bumps on their heads was a huge part of it.
I will never forget having my mom take me to Suncoast video in the Paducah, KY mall, so I could buy two VHS tapes of TAS... Then I got them home, dumped a bunch of Frank's Red Hot sauce into a small bag of Doritos... and that's why I still taste hot sauce and doritos every time I watch TAS.
Hank MacLean, is that you?
I agree with everyone else who said it's great how TAS was able to create so many more non-humanoid alien species than the live action series were able to. I wish there was a new animated Trek series that focused on an unexplored area of space that was filled with non-humanoid aliens that had never been encountered before.
I would really like to see an Edosian as a ship's barman.
As a fan of Star trek: TAS, I enjoyed the series myself.
Plus, I liked how we got to see more unusual aliens in the animated series than Live Action.
I’ve always thought it would be cool to reanimate the series. They have the audio and can make it look better
"A giant earthquake isn't going to plunge California into the ocean."
You say that, but uh...it has happened in the past 😅.
There's ruins underwater in the UK and Greece of coastal towns that sank into the sea due to heavy stormy weather, massive landslides, and earthquakes.
And at least one of the ice ages is believed to have been caused by an glacial ice shelf being shifted loose by an earthquake before making its way over North America.
There might not have been a great flood 3 or 4 millennia ago, but the Earth's sea levels did rise dramatically 14,000 years back.
TAS was my intro to Star Trek when I was a kid. Lower Decks did well to revisit a lot of it, too bad it got axed.
Star trek is so ahed his time that had furrys before it was a thing.
trek is the birthplace of many modern fandom tropes and concepts, furries aren't free of this lol
In Prodigy, there's an Aurelian named Adreek-Hu who served as Chakotay's first officer aboard the Protostar, and it's shown he doesn't have wings. According to Executive Producer Aaron Waltke, there might be some subspecies of flightless Aurelians, just as there are flightless birds.
Yes indeed! We added it to the Star Trek adventures TAS supplement. So it’s beta canon as of now.
I would hazard to guess that some may choose to have their wings removed, or perhaps they are individuals who were born without them (mutants), or ones that lost their wings in some sort of accident, because serving aboard a normal, human-designed UFP starship with a giant pair of wings would be problematic. Also, thanks to ST medical sciences AND transporter tech, they could likely just add/remove the wings on the fly (pun intended).
@@marktaylor6553 For Star Trek Adventures (consulting with Aaron Waltke) we had this:
"The Novolare, a flightless subspecies
of Aurelians, are well suited for Starfleet,
suffering claustrophobia far less than their
winged counterparts. In the 2270s, only a
few winged Aurelians had joined Starfleet,
with most preferring postings on planets or
starbases with open spaces."
The thought was there was a continent which kind of like an Australia, developed it's own unique ecosystem and unlike Australia there were very few natural predators. The rest of the planet was full of them! So while the majority of the Aurelian's evolved to have wings to escape those predators, this sub-species did not.
@@GeekFilter I'm not a big fan of grossly divergent intelligent species evolving on the same world (It just wouldn't happen). I realize what you propose makes more sense in that the two would have a common ancestor, but I'm not even a fan of the Andorian sub-species.
I prefer Occam's razor - the simplest solution works best (when i write - I also develop game products). If Picard can turn himself into an alien 'Devil' using the transporter, anyone can basically look any way they want, without surgery (making several episodes of ST where they had to be 'medically altered' nonsensical).
Cheers
I wonder if those TAS bird species were considered when creating the already dead Xindi Avians. Too bad Enterprise never showed a living one. Lots of fascinating aliens on TAS. Great vid!
Star Trek TAS has something special
She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge
Ah brilliant! Been waiting for this deeper dive! Thank you, keep it up!
I absolutely dig cartoons, (and Trek of course} but have never watched the animated series. I might have to give it a watch. Killer video!
Thanks dude!
It's well worth it. The animation is typical for cheap 1970s Saturday morning cartoons but many if the stories are great.
Cards on the table... I can't say I like so much of TAS becoming defacto canonized at this point they have referred to it enough that it is something to be reckoned with. And yes, the low cost of animation allowed for more out there designs of aliens.
I have never had an interest in watching the Animated Series before but I instantly fell in love with many of these Alien designs so now im going to have to watch it sometime.
The unseen bug people could easily be from a world of higher atmospheric density. It's like jumping in the water, the water supports your weight, a thicker atmosphere means they could be larger without taking other things into consideration, slightly lower gravity, or simply evolving a way to support the weight not found on earth, being a lower density with a larger volume thus not needing to support as much weight. Like birds on earth having lighter bones and generally lighter frames. They could also have a combination of an exo and endo skeleton , there's no reason to assume an alien life form would automatically have to fall into either category exclusively.
There are several "realistic" scenarios that could explain giant bug aliens. If they came from Titan they could probably be 50 feet tall just made of the same stuff earth bugs are, you have both a low gravity compared to earth and a higher atmospheric pressure.
Although your videos are always great this one had been really fun. The animated series doesn't really fit into canon but, by its very nature, it had to be a out there and attention grabbing. I also love the fact that Lower Decks references all other Treks, including this. I really love Lower Decks and can only see it as a compliment. Lastly, I love how you reference real-world physics or biology. It gives so much depth to things that could simply be taken at face value.
Thanks. One correction: there were no witches burned at Salem. ❤
Um......I'm not really sure what to do with this comment lol
@OrangeRiver sorry, in either this video or another with the pilgrims/pan episode, you mentioned witches burnt at Salem, yes?
...Yes? If you're referring to the events of the episode, that is what's depicted.
YEAAAAAH CAMBRIAN MENTION!!!
15:30 : Its kind of funny, because some people who believe in the 'Biblical Flood' have said that it was a worldwide earthquake that broke the crust of the Earth, releasing hidden stores of water to the surface, thus Noah's Flood 😅
Also, on the 'Vendorians': I remember reading the novel that was based on the episode where one first appeared (yes, I'm THAT old 😏)
As I recall, in the episode he said that he transformed himself into the shields for the Enterprise, when he had disabled them earlier. In the novel, it was stated that he actually transformed himself into the vital circuitry/wiring/whatever to replaced what he had torn out/destroyed, which makes more sense then him turning into an actual 'energy' form to become shielding.
On "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth': Although it did embrace the 'Ancient Aliens' concept that was big at the time (same as Marvel's "The Eternals"), it was co-written by a Native American, Russle Bates, and had I think the only appearance of a Native American crew member before Chaktoy, Ensign Walking Bear.
Sweeeeet! Seems like a long time since I have seen one of your videos Tyler. Great work as always. #Qapla'
Truly weird aliens is the one thing sci-fi needs more of, especially nowadays now that we have such good CGI.
happy friday, this is makin my day
anyone else going to point out that ONE statue in the backround shots?
So glad this made it as a video. As a He-Man/She-Ra and HannaBarberra fan, I actually love the shoestring look of the show. That and the reuse of animations over and over adds to the unintentional humour and delightfully sleazy look of the show.
But if you look beyond that, a lot of TAS is excellent Star Trek and I credit it for keeping ST involved in pop culture during one of the times where Treks future was not looking great. Some of the voice acting and character designs are so bad you have to wonder what the creators were on while making it, but i consider it part of the charm. If you've enjoyed stuff like Space Ghost or Sealab, you will love this.
TAS was really creative in world-building and inventing new aliens, while Lower Decks only harvested the memberberries.
I don't really think that's fair, tbh -- Lower Decks is kind of a breath of fresh air when it comes to depicting the variety of alien forms in the Star Trek universe, even if it does mainly rely on previously established species. It obviously does invent some new ones
I knew the furry accusations was comin with the planti-digitigrade discussion xD
I love TAS! Thanks for making some content spotlighting it!
*Theory:* Insects in particular tend to vary greatly in size even within a specific species, and especially where gender is concerned. If applied to a space-born species like those 'ancients', they could have had several castes, with queens being extremely large, and thus their architecture would have to allow for the large queen to go wherever she wanted. A good example of this in Scify are the Xenomorphs.
I love how TAS took full advantage of the medium of animation to create races that weren't "humans with bumps on their heads," letting creativity flow and making the federation and the galaxy as a whole feel a lot more alien and lived in
i am curious about the finger on the right side of the video, the green and blue one. Looks a iltte like Tendi
Tali vs Tendi.
Who wins?
Some good aliens 🧐
Some are from the minds of the 70s 🤪
For some reason when i try to imagine the Oankali from Butler's XENOGENESIS books, i picture a Lactran.
Animation is a vastly underrated genre, especially in ScyFi it allows to circumvent special effects constraints.
FYI, the letter xi is pronounced "ksee" or "ksi" (like psi and phi).
This is just another example of your dedication to excellent work. The amount of effort you put into research and presentation of these is phenomenal. Kudos.
Thanks Gopher!
ive done DMT and seen some truly alien things, im not sure if capturing a "truly alien" life form, or landscape, or whatever, would make for good tv 😂 i think the xenomorph and the Thing (1982) get there and work good with horror, though i would probably be very much into StarTrek horror
The Matter energy organism from One of our planets is missing reminds me strongly of TOS' The Immunity Syndrome life draining organism.
I'm not going to watch any new DS9 episodes until you make a video on Section 31's ongoing long-term operation against Worf, the greatest poker player of all time - Not allowing Worf to win a game of poker, after "The Emissary," with the added ridicule from Data and Geordi.
By far, I prefer these strange aliens over the smorgasbord of 'human' aliens (vulcans, klingons, etc.); the less humanoid, the better.
Honestly, it's difficult to reconcile the contradiction of Star Trek being considered as "hard science" while having human-aliens all over the galaxy (the Progenitors lore is unscientific rubbish that leaves more questions).
TAS is especially amazing when smoking a joint 👍🤣. I was actually quite surprised by how many episodes have really amazing storylines. Some pretty heady/heavy plots for a Saturday morning kid's show! Spock's Salott! 🖖😎🤘🇨🇦🕊️
Do you mean plots that they actually had, or plots that happened because you were high? If the second, I'd love to hear your alternate stories😁
@@gohawks3571 🤣. Good question! 😂 . I watched without smoking pot, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's just fun to watch while smoking pot. It's a different vibe, some of the sillier episodes suddenly become either absolutely hilarious, or deeply profound! Thanks for responding! LLAP! 🇨🇦🖖😎🤘🕊️
Controversial opinion, but I choose to believe that TAS isn't year 4 and 5 of the TOS 5 year mission, I like to think that TAS runs concurrently with TOS and that together they represent a decent cross section of the 5 year mission.
The only supporting evidence for this is that I believe Yesteryear works better as a direct sequel to City on the edge of forever rather than assuming that the Enterprise came back years later for some casual timetravel shenanigans. I mean, she's suposed to be out there exploring, revisiting planets is a job for lesser crews.
But my main interest is that it allows for characters like Arex and M'ress to have been on the ship during the TOS run, simply unseen serving at other stations. Like we have mostly assumed was the case for Checkov in Space Seed.
This means that if in the future, writers want to tell stories set between the episodes of TOS/TAS they have the liberty to use these characters without having to write awkward dialog to soothe the more irritable parts of the Fandom.
The stardates would disagree with you, tbh--that's probably the biggest rebuttal :D
It has to take place in 2269 and later since they visit Beta Niobe supernova from All Our Yesterdays and Bob Wesley retired from Starfleet to become the Governor of Mantilles. We last saw him in live action "the ultimate computer" which would be 2268. It definitely occurs between the 4th and 5th year of the mission.
I was about to skip the ad but that Fum thing actually looks good. I want the nicotine though
Wasn't the 'Matter Energy Cloud' in TNG or Voyager?
Honestly, every Trek series has a matter-energy cloud lol
What do you have against felines? The Capellan Power-Cat deserves a mention.
Could these various species have evolved from earths earlier epochs and became intelligent enough to colonize the galaxy
I always thought that Keenser from the Kelvin movies looked an awful lot like the bug creatures from Beyond the Farthest Star. He has smaller eyes but then again it’s been millions of years so they’re definitely could’ve been evolution.
Cool shirt, where did you get it?
Regarding "Magiks of Megas-Tu", the executions of the Salem Witch Trials were by HANGING, not burning at the stake.
Breaking science fact: genetic and other molecular data in the past few years actually places _Insecta_ as a subclade of _Crustacea_ so insects *are* crustaceans.
But not all Crustaceans are insects
I've only watched through TAS once, but I remember quite enjoying many of the non-humanoid or more fantastical aliens presented. It was fun to see some of them again. Thank you for the video!
God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)
So, off topic, but are you going to do a retrospective look back at the DS9 "Past Tense" episodes and the Bell riots of September 2024?
I made a video about the Bell Riots years ago, but I might revisit it this year!
I don’t nececerslly consider the events of the series canon, but consider nearly all of the concepts to be canon
Hey! You! Thanks for another video!
Given today’s videographic technology, aliens could’ve far more numerous, we could easily make a live-action Edosian like Arex now.
What if the Vadala are just the Kzinti from the far off future, you did say they have time manipulation abilities...
Fascinating and logical, too. 🖖👍✌🤞
Trek animated series will always be canon to me. As will Lower Decks.
🖖🏻
How do the Pandronians levitate? Well, telekinesis _is_ canon in the Star Trek Universe (see TOS "Plato's Stepchildren" and there are probably other examples.)
Oh, thank the gods! Someone who understands how animals' back legs are designed!
I get annoyed at the were-animal trope of knees breaking and reversing...
Dope video! Now I keep telling myself that I'm going to sit and watch TA, Good or bad.
I just have two questions ,like, can a head Pandronian have a baby with a arm or lower body Pandronian or only with another head from a different colony. Also can only the head Pandronian speak
Saw it in the early 80s, not knowing it was from 73, and thought the navigator was a ripoff of ET
The Megans remind me of Spaaaasce Ghooooost! 😜
25:47 Oh hey, a Boltzmann Brain
Hey Tyler, guy here.
18:52 Hey hey hey, BIM's on the way
🖖
They just let loose with TAS, so many one off aliens that sadly not seen after, like the Ursinoids from Mudd's passion, like 5 frames of screen time. Think they were going for even more when the Motion Picture came out, and then sadly with TNG and the ones after they really dialed back to just forehead/nose appliance aliens. Voyager started getting back there with the Voth and now Strange New Worlds revisited the Gorn, but definitely a dry spell for variety when they 'no masks' mandate was issued.
Why the heck would Vendor *Prime* be the *second* planet in their system?!
Prime planets are usually the main inhabited planet of the system... if there were a "Sol Prime" it would be Earth, not Mercury lol
At the very beginning, next
How Sharper than A Serpent's Tooth was written by a Native American partial as a take down of the ancient aliens conspiracies of the that with maybe the exception of stone henge attributed alien involvement only to non-white people. This was more or less going against that trope with "no they gave everyone technology!" so to me it gets a pass for the ancient alien lore inclusion, unlike that episode of Voyager.
Couldnt call a modern Trek episode Jihad, now in 2024.
8 legs = arthropods.
I loved TAS, but I was right in the demographic it was aimed at. I turned 8 in 1973.
TAS is canon
19 seconds 😁🏆😂
Interesting how you seem to show a grasshopper (an eight-limbed creature) as an example of a six-limbed species. Wings are limbs too.
Grasshoppers have two sets of wings, but they are not modified limbs like in birds and bats. Insect wings are a very different structure and not really analogous to a limb.
STAS is cannon it appears on screen live action or animation its 100% Cannon .
TAS migh have not been the best or even good series, but it took full advantage of the fact that it was animated.
Nom nom nom
@@totalCoolerUsername yep just fixed it
I'm not subscribed. What is the best way to not miss your videos?
Suscribe?
Subscribe, turn on notifications, and pray XD
@@OrangeRiver That sounds to easy. There has to be more to it than that! Also, Edward Jellico was the best captains in the fleet!!! People that are in charge should never let anyone have time off to eat or sleep! Being on a starship is not a vacation.
"Weird" alien designs didn't begin with _Star Trek._
...that's literally not what the title is saying lmao
@@OrangeRiver No, that's what I'm saying.
@MaskedMan66 Okay, but... respectfully, what is that adding to the discussion?
@@OrangeRiver An observation. What else does it need to add? I mean, we are free to speak here, aren't we? I didn't see any posted rules.
@MaskedMan66 People are free to join the discussion and reply to your original post, sure. It's just that, you have to admit, when the video is titled the way it's titled, and you phrased your comment the way you did, it came off as incredibly confusing and out-of-the-blue
quit wierding me out.
Do you really think Tendi is the best Star Trek character? Because somehow that just seems disrespectful to Trek.
I mean, why? That sentiment itself sounds disrespectful lmfao
I enjoyed your video until you got to time index 15:48......keep your unbiblical opinions to yourself the world wide flood, Noah’s Ark and the rest of the book of Genesis as well as the rest of the Bible is historical fact not fiction.
5th Always appreciate your Vids..... ..major Trekkie here.....grew up with TOS as New Episodes ......Playing STO since BETA .... Treks main kind of species are humanoid bipedal.,..with today's tech they can make almost any kind of "Alien" that doesn't have to be --humanoid