Thanks to modern effects, animated aliens can now appear in live action Star Trek.
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00:00Things have changed an awful lot in the Star Trek universe since the early 1970s. Now that sounds
00:05like a heck of a statement because things have changed since last Tuesday, let alone anything
00:09else. But when you think about it, when Star Trek the animated series first hit screens all the way
00:16back then, quite frankly, there was no plan for the future. There was no movies at that point.
00:22There was in fact just the cancelled TV series that went before. So quite frankly,
00:27Filmation had a bit of fun with some of the designs. We got some really great aliens in them.
00:33Now that technology has come along that bit better, we can have some of these aliens. So the time is
00:39about right. Not least because we are now on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek the animated series.
00:47I'm Sean Ferric for Trek Culture and here are nine Star Trek the animated series aliens that should
00:54appear in live action. Number nine, Pandronians. Pandronians first appeared in the episode
01:00BAME, B-E-M, which actually stood for Bug-Eyed Monster. The fun thing about Pandronians is they
01:05can split themselves into three, which in 1973 was a case of, all right, illustrator, let's split this
01:13into three. You know, if we were going to do this on live action, we just wouldn't. Not the 70s anyway.
01:19Fast forward all the way to today and the Pandronian has appeared in Star Trek Lower Decks.
01:24Now again, the nature of that animation makes it that bit easier to do than splitting it up.
01:31However, we can now achieve things like that with, you know, when I say ease, I mean relative ease.
01:38I mean, I couldn't do it myself, but I am not a CGI artist. Just before the CGI artists out there say,
01:44you saying I work as easy, Sean? No, no, I am not. But they are fun. They refer to themselves in the
01:49third person or say this one when talking about themselves. They are often used to test Starfleet
01:55officers, which could be a lot of fun in a setting like Strange New Worlds, but could be a lot of fun
02:02if we ever get the season two of Prodigy that we want or Starfleet Academy, which should be set in
02:10the 32nd century as well. Number eight, the Magans. The Magans are a funny one because they appeared
02:17in the episode The Magic of Magus 2, which is bonkers, but also there's, it pays a lot of homage to
02:25the Crucible and, you know, Satan. That's actually not as much of a throwaway comment. That is because
02:32one of the Magans takes the form of Lucian, who very much takes the stereotypical image of the goat
02:38legged, goat horned, oddly shredded, upper bodied, well, satanic character from popular culture.
02:47However, the Magans themselves are more elongated humanoid creatures that could quite easily these
02:54days be realized in live action. They exist in the center of the galaxy. So on the one hand,
03:01you might have that being off putting for dealing with them in live action because, well, quite frankly,
03:07we don't like going to the middle of the galaxy in live action unless it's the original series,
03:11unless you're going to find God. They also have this history with Earth as well. So it would be
03:15very interesting to see how they would interact with, you could arguably deal with them in strange
03:22new worlds, just have, I don't know, Spock go off somewhere for the day or like that again, deal with
03:28them far in the future now that they've had about a thousand years to watch humanity grow.
03:33Number seven, Lactron. All right. Okay. So look, they're not one of the prettiest alien designs
03:41in Star Trek. Okay. But look, we've got Armus floating around out there. So I'm not going to
03:45be pointing any fingers. The Lactrons appeared in the episode Eye of the Beholder and effectively,
03:51they resemble sort of giant slugs. They are, however, quite intelligent. And as the Enterprise
03:57arrived over Lactron 7 to find missing members of a previous expedition there,
04:02they realized that the Federation was still quite simplistic. They invited the Federation to revisit
04:08their planet again in, well, let's just say a few years. Their invitation would be a perfect time
04:15for Starfleet Academy to revisit them. That would allow everyone to kind of get on the same page.
04:22Now, also, we know that where back in the day to save money, you would have had sentient gas clouds
04:27or, you know, rubber monsters. The technology that Discovery has been using, or, you know,
04:33Star Trek at the moment is these would, you know, these are much more realizable. That's not a word.
04:40But these are much more realizable in today's modern age. Look at species 10C, for example. If you can do
04:46something like that, you can do giant squid kind of snail creature. Can we think of a better word for
04:53these? Number six, M3 Green's species, the Nassat. M3 Green was introduced in the episode The Jihad
05:01and was effectively a big sad-eyed beetle. It was also a thief and a master locksmith that became part
05:07of an adventure to find a religious relic. M3 Green was displayed as a wee bit of a coward over the course
05:14of the adventure, and it was actually up to their teammate, the reptilian sword, that they were able
05:23to go through with the mission altogether. The novel series Star Trek Starfleet Corps of Engineers
05:28features a rapid response engineering team. That's where we get the name the Nassat from,
05:33and we get P-8 Blue, who's another member of this species, from that. Now, having that in live action
05:38would be quite a contrast against engineers like Torres, O'Brien, Geordi. You know, it'd be fun to
05:46see a purely alien engineer like this. And I mean, we're not saying that Lanthanite aren't alien,
05:53or that Enar aren't alien. I just want to see my bug creature, okay? I just want to see my bug creature.
05:59Number five, swords species. Now, this is from the same episode, The Jihad, as M3 Green's The Nassat as
06:07well. Sword species are shown as a large reptilian, large-clawed, big-crested species. So, straight
06:16away, we might be thinking, well, hang on, there's a nice luck on reptilian species in Strange New
06:22Worlds at the moment that's scaring the absolute piddle out of people. The difference between the
06:27Gorn and sword species is that the Gorn have proven themselves time and time again to be fearsome,
06:34quite frankly, lacking compassion or empathy, and a brutal race of creatures. Whereas, if sword is
06:41anything to go by, his species is far, far different. He is shown helping M3 Green through the trial to
06:50get to the religious relic in the Jihad. He is shown showing compassion and feeling toward others as
06:57well. So, knowing that we can now realize reptilian, larger creatures in Star Trek with the technology
07:04afforded to us, it would be nice to have this as a foil or even as a comparison, if you like, to the
07:10Gorn. You've got one reptilian creature trying to rip your head off and another one trying to give you
07:16a nice little cuddle. And quite frankly, isn't that what we all want? Number four, aquan. The animated
07:23series episode The Ambergus Element introduced the Aquans into Star Trek's history. They had once been
07:29an air-breathing race, but once their planet Argo underwent a massive transformation, the Aquans had to
07:36adapt to live underwater, which they did via genetic manipulation, which would eventually go on to be
07:44mutations. So, this is an alien species that exists in its current form thanks to the very kind of thing
07:52that sets the Illyrians on edge when it comes to Starfleet. Frankly, the Federation doesn't want anything
07:59to do with genetic engineering, or at the very least, it won't let anyone serve in Starfleet. Asterix, asterix,
08:06asterix, asterix, basically depending on the situation. What could be very interesting now is having
08:11something that requires the advanced medical knowledge of a creature like the Aquans to be used by a Starfleet
08:19medical personnel. For example, what if Mbenga had to single out the Aquans as the only race who would
08:26be able to help him in the search for a cure for insert condition here? That would then lead to yet
08:34another exploration of Starfleet's, well, if you like, relationship with genetic engineering and the
08:40fallout from that. On the one hand, I think it would make for a fabulous story here in Strange New Worlds.
08:46On the other hand, I think it is something that could be revisited perhaps in Starfleet Academy as
08:52well, because at some point we need to see a relaxation of the laws around genetic engineering
08:58when it comes to Starfleet. We know that as recent as Prodigy, Dal had to be given special permission
09:06to join Starfleet Academy as a warrant officer. So it would be nice to see in the 32nd century
09:12that at least by then Starfleet's got it right. Number three, Edozians. Now, Edozians are perhaps
09:19the most iconic alien from Starfleet the animated series. I'll get back to another one. But when you
09:27think of the animated series, if you're like me, you might think of Lieutenant Ariks. Ariks is the
09:33tri-pedal navigation officer that sits opposite Sulu on the bridge of the Enterprise. Effectively,
09:40he nicked Chekhov's job. So, you know, fair play. Fair play. He was voiced by James Doohan and he is
09:45one of the images that just spring to mind straight away from this period of Star Trek. Think of Species
09:518472. Now, this is early doors. This is mid-90s when we're talking about realising that in, well,
09:59I say live action CGI. And of course, we're 20 years on from then, longer. And we've seen with,
10:05if you look at, say, the Ba'ul, for example, from Star Trek Discovery and other alien races that show
10:13that we can do more now. The Edozians have been shown again in Star Trek Lower Decks as still very
10:19much being part of the Federation. So, seeing them come into live action, this to me feels like one of
10:27the most obvious choices that we should be looking for to bring into live action. If you check out as
10:34well on YouTube, the production company O-Toy, O-T-O-Y, have actually done an image of Ariks in
10:42live action. And, you know, there's a little bit of Uncanny Valley going on, but it looks really good.
10:50I think, you know, if we can follow a character like Saru as a main character, we can easily follow
10:55in a Dogean as well. Number two, Kukulkan. The episode How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
11:01was written by Native American writer Russell Bates and co-writer David Wise. This depicts the
11:07alien Kukulkan as a large winged snake-like creature. The main idea of the episode was
11:14dealing with the idea that the Native Americans couldn't have developed their cities and technology
11:21without help from outside cultures. This is an idea that has since been explored in much greater
11:27detail than was, well, frankly known in the 1970s. Kukulkan deposits several members of the Enterprise
11:34crew in a magnificent city which features architecture from Native American style,
11:40Egyptian style, ancient Chinese style, among others. It was the intention of Russell Bates to
11:46say that if, you know, the Native Americans couldn't have designed things without help from,
11:53you know, old fantastic civilizations like the Phoenicians, Egyptians, the Atlanteans,
11:57then neither could any of the other ones as well. The episode in terms of what it tries to do
12:03holds up today. Some of the ideas have since been debunked, but Kukulkan appeared in Star Trek
12:10Lower Decks as a holographic representation not too long ago, meaning that this idea of the
12:16ancient deity having visited Earth, which has been done in Star Trek in live action as early as the
12:22original series for Who Mourns for Adonai as well, I think this is an idea that really could be
12:29revisited quite timely now as well. Number one, the Kizinti. I mean, if you've ever watched any of my
12:37videos, you know I was waiting for the Kizinti. There's a couple of reasons, and it's not just
12:41because I love them. They're big cats, what's not to love? But also, they've been shown that in their
12:46original form, in the slaver weapon, yes, the male Kizinti, they left a little bit to be desired,
12:52let's be honest. They weren't very popular when it came to female Kizinti, nor were female Kizinti
12:58very popular when it came to them. We would like to think that they have grown in the time that it's
13:05between the animated series and Star Trek Lower Decks, where there is a Kizinti serving on the
13:11USS Cerritos. We know via the shields being raised around the Rikers cabin in Nepenthe that the Kizinti
13:17certainly exist in live action. They just haven't been seen yet. Larry Niven's design is one of those
13:23ones that I feel they've been quite omitted up to this point. There have been feline aliens in live
13:30action. For example, if we look at the the Senate room, if you like, from Star Trek IV, The Voyage
13:35Home, we see that, well, what is at least, at least a Kizinti, if not a Kizinti, appears here. You know,
13:42CGI will have learned some mistakes, or learned from mistakes of recent adaptations of long-running
13:49stage musicals for how not to present the Kizinti in live action. So, you know, now that we've seen
13:57how not to do it, perhaps Star Trek can be the one to show how to do it. That's everything for our
14:01list today, folks. What do you think is missing from this list? Let me know. Thank you so much to
14:05our writer, Frank Chavez, who originally wrote this article. You can catch that over on whatculture.com.
14:10Thank you so much to our wonderful editor for making this look so pretty. You can follow us
14:13at TriCulture over on Twitter, and you can follow us at TriCultureYT over on Instagram. Catch myself
14:18at Sean Farrick on the various socials as well. Everyone, you look after yourself until I see you again.
14:23Make sure that you live long and prosper. Make sure to our friends in Ukraine, Slava,
14:28Ukraine, everyone, however long it is until I see you again, look after yourself. Be kind to yourself.
14:34Take a break if you need it. Look out for others. Make it so. Thanks very much.