Shut Up and Watch the Show: Of Female Jem'Hadar and Gelgoogs That Look Like GMs

 In about a month, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy makes its premiere. I'm looking forward to it. It may be tonally different from typical Star Trek, and that's actually okay with me. I want Trek to do different things. Sometimes, it'll work and be awesome like Lower Decks or Prodigy. Other times, it'll be utter trash like Section 31. They can't all be winners! I'll be giving it an honest shot like I do with all shows in the franchise, and I'll be going in with positive expectations.

She looks like she could kick my ass, and I'd thank her for the pleasure.

One character that's caused an annoying amount of discourse is Gina Yashmere's character Lura Thok. According to pre-release information, Thok is half-Jem'Hadar, half-Klingon. The character is also female, as you can probably surmise. As stated in Deep Space Nine, the Jem'Hadar are a genetically engineered race of all-male soldiers who age rapidly and reach maturity in only a few weeks. This allows their Dominion masters to create platoons of soldiers in a fraction of the time it would take for most species to even complete basic training. DS9 also stated that these beings are entirely male--after all, no need for sexual reproduction in an engineered species designed solely for combat, right?

Of course, people seem to be forgetting that Academy takes place over 800 years after the end of the Dominion War, and, well, a lot of things can change over the course of eight centuries. The character is clearly part of Starfleet, and the Federation has a known history of strict guidelines on genetic manipulation: DS9 showed us what happens when you simply don't disclose the fact that you've had alterations in the case of Doctor Bashir. Poor Dal from Star Trek Prodigy had no idea he was made up of over a dozen different species and he would've been excluded from joining the Academy were it not for Admiral Janeway's intervention. While it's very possible the Federation has since altered its policy on genetic alteration, it's just as possible that the Jem'Hadar have been further altered themselves.

Never forget that Third Remata'Klan, one of the most memorable Jem'Hadar characters, was played by the same guy who played Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld.

The Jem'Hadar's loyalty to the Dominion was controlled via Ketracel White, a drug their bodies needed in order to function. I don't see any White containers on Thok, so clearly, that hurdle has been jumped. I believe there are one of two possibilities: One, the Dominion and/or the Federation modified the species to include sexual reproduction as it's easier and to propagate a species that way instead of relying on engineering; or two, the Jem'Hadar were originally like any other species in the galaxy and were modified into a race of soldiers and were now reverted to their original state. Maybe they shared a common ancestor with the Tossk! There is, however, a simple way to find out what the answer is...

You watch the damn show.

It's as simple as that! There is very clearly an answer as to why Thing That Was Once One Way Is Now Another Way, and you can find out by watching the thing! Quit being some irritating pedant on the internet whining about canon and instead, watch the thing and make your own judgement. Whatever the show is doing, it's not violating canon, it's adding to it. 

This isn't even the first time this happened with Star Trek in recent memory. Remember the excellent season 1 finale of Strange New Worlds, "A Quality of Mercy"? When previews went up, people were going, "duh, they can't be doing Balance of Terror yet, it's too early" or "why are they ripping off Balance of Terror", and all I could think was, gee, maybe we should watch the episode? And it turned out to be a time travel/what-if story, where they asked the question "What if Pike was in command of the Enterprise during the encounter with the Romulans at the Neutral Zone?" The answer was: everything went horribly wrong for everyone except Pike.

I'll never pass up an opportunity to talk about how much I love this thing.

I've already spoken at length about the GQuuuuuuX Gelgoog and why I love it, and it still bothers me that people get mad that it looks like a GM and don't understand why! Once again, the explanation is in the show. It even has a different model number, like come on, people. It's clearly the same suit in name and role only. But of course, people who only pay attention to the latest model kit drops and not the actual show itself complained, because why actually watch the show? I realize that Gunpla is a great hobby and you don't necessarily need to immerse yourself in the worlds of Gundam to enjoy it, but it helps to have the actual context for why things look the way they do.

We've come to think of the lore of our favorite sci-fi and fantasy properties as these monolithic, unchanging things, when that can't be further from the truth. They're always changing, always evolving. Sometimes they realize things work, and sometimes they realize things don't. Star Trek's Trill changed drastically between their first appearance on TNG and the introduction of Dax on DS9, and I think we can all agree that was for the better. Early TNG even stated that the Klingons were part of the Federation, and by the time the episode "Sins of the Father" rolled around, the writers explicitly decided to abandon that because having the Klingons not be a part of the Federation opened up more ideas for Worf. Sometimes, you need to just throw some established canon out the window to tell better stories, and at the end of the day, isn't that what matters?

A classic from Poorly Drawn Lines.

So much of this comes from a sheer lack of imagination on the part of fans. They don't want things to be different. They want it to be exactly the way it was how they remember it. I find that sad. Isn't half the fun of seeing new trailers and information about new entries in your favorite franchise speculating about what things might be? Sure, too much speculation and fan theorizing can lead to disappointment and sometimes outrage when the final product doesn't meet those expectations, but it's better to actually engage instead of just complaining that something may have changed before you've even seen how.

Preserving and Embracing the Cheese vs. Giving in to Nostalgia

 Recently, I decided I wanted to play Resident Evil for the first time in my life. Yes, the classic video game series that coined the term "survival horror" is one I've never played. It's nothing against the series itself; horror just isn't my cup of tea. Back in the 90s, I was still knee-deep in cartoony platformers like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ape Escape, and Croc. This past Halloween, I said screw it, let's get spooky. I downloaded the original Resident Evil on my PS5, and when I say original, I don't mean one of the remakes, I mean the Director's Cut (the version with the good music, thankfully). I wanted to experience the game in as much of its weird, 1996 gory glory as possible: low-quality live action cutscenes, poorly directed voice acting with bizarre translation, and combat that can be best described as frustrating. But I loved it. I loved the whole experience. Sure, I could have played one of the vastly improved remakes, but I wanted to experience the game how it was meant to be enjoyed originally. I wanted the cheese.

Resident Evil has had plenty of remakes and remasters of the classic games over the years, which have been critically and commercially praised. I'm glad these exist, but they're not exactly what I'm looking for. They have better controls and graphics, sure, but the charm and weirdness aren't there. One that did keep the charm and weirdness of the original was the stealth-dropped remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that came back in April. It kept almost all of the original voice acting, only substituting when necessary, and kept most of the original cheesy line reads like "Stop right there, criminal scum!" that we've come to love since the original released almost two decades ago. Most of the new voice recordings are acted just like the 2006 original, and even the famous outtake still remains in the final game. It's the kind of update to the original that doesn't exactly replace it but instead complements it. You can still buy a commercial copy of the original without exactly needing to go to the aftermarket. It isn't like the original Star Wars trilogy where you have to resort to fan edits to watch the theatrical cuts in high definition.

While creating The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni cited the idea of getting all the secondary characters from the old Kenner Star Wars line while their older brothers would get the main characters as their main inspiration. We joke a lot about these B-List characters now, but back in the days of the old Kenner line, these guys were a big deal of many kids' collections. When I think of a lot of these characters, my mind doesn't go to the weird sci-fi names the characters have, but instead the simple names like "Snaggletooth" and "Hammerhead" from the toy packages. I think about the scene from E.T. where Elliot is showing E.T. all of his Star Wars toys. As such, I find most modern versions of figures of the "Cantina Creatures" from the original Star Wars kind of boring and frustrating, with so much attention being put into designs that were originally meant as background filler and worldbuilding. For the children of the 70s and 80s, the toy versions are what mattered, because that was Star Wars to them. When Hasbro announced a set of The Vintage Collection figures painted like the original Kenner toys, I had to get those. I may not have been around when those original toys were released, but the kitsch, the charm of Walrus Man is far more appealing than Ponda Baba. These aren't toys of characters we saw on screen--these are toys of other toys. That's cheesy, and that's awesome.

Transformers Missing Link is quite possibly one of the most astounding toylines on the market right now. The idea was to simply take the classic G1 Transformers of the 1980s and give them modern articulation. Now, that original Optimus Prime you had as a kid can actually do the pose on his box art, and all the cool stuff you imagined him doing! The line has also been used to put out a previously unmade figure in the form of G1 Arcee, which is nothing short of spectacular. The figures don't compromise any of the original design details while integrating parts that originally needed to be removed for transformation and die-cast metal content is exactly where it used to be. Add some Diaclone color schemes that never made it into the Transformers line, and you have a line that combines a traditional reissue line with something new, and you have the best of both worlds for people who can't afford to buy or find the originals. Speaking of The Best of Both Worlds...

Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard featured the reunion of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast after the Star Trek Nemesis 20 years prior. It was long-awaited, and absolutely delightful to see Jean-Luc, Will, Worf, Data, Beverly, Geordi, and Deanna reunited on the bridge of a beautifully restored Enterprise-D. This came with a catch, however: most of the new characters introduced in the first two seasons of Picard like Agnes Jurati, Soji Asha, and Elnor didn't make the cut, not even for cameos. I found this very frustrating, since interactions between Soji and Data, and Elnor and Worf could have been extremely profound. Instead, the show was more focused on getting a cast of 70+ year-olds together again for one last romp through space, against the Borg... again, despite the show featuring a rogue group of Changelings from Deep Space Nine as villains for most of the season who were both extremely cool and compelling.

We all cheered when this happened, let's be real. I sure did.

Don't get me wrong, I was so very excited for this show. It brought me to tears on many occasions. But after all was said and done, it felt a bit hollow and cynical, and the fandom reaction to it didn't help matters. Everyone was all, "This is what new Star Trek should be! Terry Matalas should be the new showrunner!" and whatever. While I enjoyed the season as a one-off thing, I was disappointed that it shoved so many of the series' new ideas to the side. It's also worth mentioning that season 2 of Picard had the same writing staff as season 3, and season 2 was not well-received. I found season 2 conceptually interesting, but an overstuffed mess of too many ideas without enough time devoted to any one of them. (Hey, I just described GQuuuuuuX!) So, you got another show with different characters already, which makes it clear that people only wanted to see the TNG crew again. Remove the existing characters we love, and the facade is broken; all that remains is a hollow, lifeless show designed to appeal to nostalgia heads. 

One of the most frustrating toylines on the market right now is the Star Wars Retro Collection. This line has little to do with the previously mentioned Vintage Collection figures besides the classic Kenner style cardbacks and branding. This line started out as reissues of classic Kenner figures from the 70s and 80s, getting the classic figures back in the hands of collectors old and new. I loved these, because in addition to the reissued figures, they made a few new ones previously missing from the vintage line, like Grand Moff Tarkin--you know, the actual villain of the original movie! But for whatever reason, they decided to keep going with these retro-style figures, and have since made them for the recent TV shows like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Acolyte; the latter of which is completely baffling because the crusty old fans who like these figures are the ones who complain loudest about lesbian witches and "muh canon". It's one thing to fill in the gaps missing in the original toyline, but I genuinely don't see the purpose of making figures of characters introduced after 1985 in the Kenner style, at least officially.

This, to me, feels like cynical nostalgia baiting. 

I think if you're going to do something "vintage style", you should make it in the vintage style of the actual toy you're representing. The Star Wars Retro Collection line also includes figures from the prequels, which is just bizarre to me. Why not style them like the contemporary Power of the Force 2 figures? Those are "retro" now. Do we only care about the nostalgia of 80s kids? Don't answer that, I know that's all they care about. You don't think I want some reissues of Transformers in Generation 2 packaging? God, I miss that glorious cardback style.

Remember when we used to get NEW Power Rangers shows instead of just more Mighty Morphin' stuff? I realize the relationship with Super Sentai is weird now (especially with Sentai ending) but there's absolutely no reason why we couldn't have entirely new costumes, monsters, robots, etc. for a series. Instead, we're getting MMPR again. I really don't think the kids are going to care about a 30-year-old TV show even with some horrendous shorts made with terrible new costumes. Power Rangers, like Transformers, Star Wars, Star Trek, and so many more, will always be there, but it's important for it as a franchise to move forward, especially if it's one aimed at kids. 

Revisiting the past is fun, I'm not denying that. I'm a sucker for O-ring figures, and the recent O-Ring Revolution of figures from companies like Delta-17 and Grind Stone Toys has only amped it up. The problem is you can't only have stuff made in the image of the past. It's okay to glance backwards, but at the same time, you must continue to look forward. Glancing backwards should serve as a reminder of how far you've come, not a mission statement that things were better back then, because in many cases they weren't. This obsession with "things being better back in the day" is what has led us to this current awful political climate, where those in power who always had things better are now mad at the fact that they must share the spotlight with people different from them.

It's even worse when it comes to new intellectual properties. We hardly see anything new made that doesn't just homage the past. Companies are too skittish to make new IPs because it isn't guaranteed to make good money, and when they do, they seldom put the effort into it to make it worthwhile. Look at Starfield. The idea of Bethesda doing a new spacefaring RPG sounds really cool, yet it's had no pop culture penetration. I knew a lot of things from Elder Scrolls long before I played any of the games, and I don't think I've heard any memes or references to Starfield.

It's a damn shame, and AI is the zenith of it. Contrary to what the shills and tech bros may think, AI does not create anything new--it merely compresses existing art into a slurry and craps out something resembling the product which it's supposed to resemble. I fear that if we all give up creating new things, even things within the frameworks of franchises and IPs that already exist, we'll have given in to the true slop factory and lost what's truly made us human.