Star Trek's 6 Most Ridiculous Alien Races
On paper, Star Trek has always been about exploring a fantastic universe teeming with exotic life. But in reality, the exotic aliens have to be played by actors, usually with something glued to their forehead.
Part of the central charm of the franchise is how they always try to get around these limitations with clever, imaginative writing. But on occasion, they'd just slap something together and call it a day. That's how we wound up with...
#6.
The Catullans a.k.a. Space Hippies
Appeared in:
Star Trek, Episode 76: "This Way to Eden."
When we call the Catullans Space Hippies, we're not joking. That's what they are. They're also responsible for what is probably the lowest point in Star Trek history, as you'll see shortly.
In the episode, the Enterprise is tracking a stolen spaceship, which they manage to catch up to when the irresponsible layabouts piloting it let the engines overheat. The ship stealing aliens are beamed aboard, and upon arrival they immediately start busting out trippy tunes on their space guitars and rebelling against the Man, rudely chanting "Herbert" at Kirk whenever he tries to talk sense into their thick hippie skulls.
Come on guys, be cool, if you just got to know Kirk you'd realize the only reason he keeps hanging around is because he's hoping for an orgy to break out.
It seems the Catullans are on a quest to find a planet named Eden, and after seducing the crew with rock music and their brazen navel-exposing women, they take over the ship. The Catullans find Eden and beam themselves down, but when Kirk and the crew follow only minutes later they find the Catullans have, predictably, all accidentally killed or injured themselves eating poison fruit or walking on acidic plants in their bare feet.
Silly space hippies, if only you'd listened to authority!
Oh and by the way, the main hippie who dies from eating poison fruit was named Adam. Get it? Adam? Eden? Consider your mind blown man.
Video Evidence of Catullan Lameness
Which brings us to the video clip, the aforementioned low point for Star Trek as a franchise. Charles Napier in rainbow colored hotpants jamming with Commander Spock? The seamy seduction of Ensign Chekov? Gene Roddenberry was clearly willing to go to any lengths to deliver his important anti-hippie message:
#5.
The Iotians a.k.a. Space Mobsters
Appeared in:
Star Trek, Episode 49: "A Piece of the Action."
Looking to score yourself some bootleg Romulan ale, a few green hookers and the best damn cannoli in the quadrant? Well head on over to Sigma Iotia II, home of low-down dirty space mobsters, the Iotians.
Never before has a man looked so smug wearing a straw hat and purple bow tie.
Now you're probably wondering, why the hell is there a planet populated entirely by cartoonish Italian mobster stereotypes? Don't worry, there's a perfectly logical answer.
See, 100 years before Kirk and crew stumbled upon them, a previous Federation ship had visited the planet and somebody left behind that classic piece of 22nd century literature "Chicago Mobs of the 1920s." Upon finding and somehow decoding the book, the Iotians, in a perfectly reasonable move, decided to completely model every aspect of their entire society after it. Holy shit, it's a good thing nobody left them a copy of Lolita.
By the way, this was hardly the only time Trek producers had the crew dress up in stock costumes and romp around some Hollywood backlot. How do you top space mobsters as villains though? Well...
We think that episode ended with Kirk punching Hitler.
Video Evidence of Iotian Lameness
Kirk goes undercover among the lotians, in a scene that somehow encompasses every single thing there is to love about William Shatner. Observe Shatner hamming it up as Captain Kirk hamming it up as an alien hamming it up as an Italian gangster.
So laugh all you want about the idea of a planet basing their whole culture around gangster stereotypes. We plan on basing our whole culture on William goddamned Shatner.
#4.
The Xyrilians a.k.a. Shemale Lizards
Appeared in:
Star Trek: Enterprise, Episode 4: "The Unexpected."
Sex and Star Trek don't mix. They keep trying; you'll notice the ads for the J.J. Abrams reboot love to show the lady taking off her shirt. But every episode and movie that has touched on the subject has wound up exploring new frontiers of awkwardness.
Even the birds and bees, a subject we trust seven-year-olds to be mature enough to handle, is enough to make the Trek writers lose their goddamn minds. For proof of this we refer you to the Xyrilians.
Xyrilian impregnation requires only minor physical contact, the men carry the children and only the genetics of the mother are passed on. So in other words, a brief brush of the hand with a woman and suddenly a guy is stuck carrying a baby that isn't even his.
So do the males wear full-body condoms 24-hours a day? Why would a male sex even continue to exist if they don't pass on their genetic material? Why would women continue to sport obvious mammalian breasts and childbearing hips under their shiny silver jumpsuits if they have nothing to do with carrying the babies? Gene Roddenberry would have taped that shit down in the name of scientific accuracy.
Well, maybe not.
Video Evidence of Xyrilian Lameness
We could only find this brief trailer for the episode the Xyrilians appear in, but it hits the major notes. Commander Trip Tucker having the hots for an alien that looks to be descended from a salamander, pregnant dudes, people making lots of silly faces and of course the wrist nipple.
You thought "wrist nipple" was a typo, didn't you?
Also Riker was a creep
ReplyTrip was a dirty bastard! sure T'pol was a hottie but that guy would F#@k anything! Even Kirk showed some restraint! If Trip had been beamed down to a desert planet to fight that Godzilla lookin f#@ker he wound totally have boned the poor lizard into nextweek.
ReplyAt least the Greek God thing halfway made sense.
Replyye think so?
That breast inspector picture is perfect.
ReplyThe Iotians were silly fun but the Space Nazis episode just gets stupider every time I see it, and for several reasons:
ReplyOne, Nazi Germany wasn't efficient. To be fair, Inside the Third Reich (Albert Speer's memoir which best explains how incompetent the Nazis really were) wasn't out when the episode was made, but surely there had been enough scholarship in the two decades since the war for any reasonably intelligent person to comprehend that the Nazis were a bunch of boobs (I would think the fact that they lost would have been a clue, if nothing else).
Two, even if you believe the whole efficiency nonsense (and, to be fair, the late 60's/early 70's were the high water mark in the whole "command and control" mentality in public policy, so the writers did have some excuse), why the heck would you pick the Nazis to emulate? It's not as if there haven't been plenty of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes throughout history, so why would pick one of the most evil to emulate? Heck, if they wanted to keep the snappy outfits and heel clicking but be less genocide-y 19th century Prussia would fit the bill (I suspect the prop department didn't have enough Pickelhauben in stock). Okay, it's the 23rd century, so a historian like Gill (the Space Fuhrer) might look upon Hitler the way we look upon, say, Ivan the Terrible or Vlad the Impaler, but, still, if I was going to go with absolute monarchy, I think I'd pick Louis XIV or even Wilhelm II over those two.
Three, even if there was a logical reason for picking the Nazis as a template, why would you use the same symbols, terms, etc.? Okay, the immediate answer is that Gill was just plain lazy (and it's not like Hitler was going to sue for copyright infringement), but he had to at least suspect that sooner or later other Federation ships would come out that way and that all the goosestepping and swastikas (to say nothing of the racism and genocide) would raise a few eyebrows, lead to an official Starfleet inquiry, and make the next faculty meeting he showed up at a bit awkward.
Of course, he probably had tenure and so thought, "Eh, the heck with it."
I think what should have been on this list was that one race of aliens that communicated by stating cultural references that only they could understand. It was an episode from Star Trek: the next generation and I think the race was called the Talamarians (or the name was similar to that name). The reason why the Talamarians was ridiculous was because that form of communication couldn't work at all if you are speaking in technical terms. How could that race of aliens be able to design schmatics as complicated as a space faring starship or discuss any form of scientific/mathematical thought while communicating all of their thoughts through literary allusions?
ReplyYeah everything was metaphors and s**t, lIKE SHAKA WHEN THE WALLS FELL! and so on. How do you explain a complex engineering or tactical issue like that?
Simple. 'Geordi in the Holodeck with the hot science chick.' Anybody that knows what the metaphor MEANS can deduce what they are talking about, and therefore get the message across. Besides, design schematics don't necessarily need language, and from what I remember of that episode, it seemed an awful lot that that particular race was still in the rudimentary stages of space travel and culture.
I remember a race of retards that were able to hold hostages and only Data was able to save the Enterprise. There was also that race of people with half black/white faces that hated each other so much, they decided to fight for eternity in some floating cube, rather than lice in peace.
Replythe Tardians?
i also love how many star trek nerds are battling it out in the comments
Replyi LOVE Space Mobsters!!!
ReplyThe Tamarians are the lamest alien species of all Star Trek, not to mention the most implausible. How the hell a race with such an unpractical system of communication could develop technology let alone space travel? Just imagine two Tamarians trying to put together an engine, when the words for simple concepts like "nut" "bolt" and "screwdriver" imply narrating an ancient fable.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesOh! Were those the guys who kept going on about "when the walls fell"?
they were but as an English major i found the idea behind their communication fascinating. we have cultures here that don't have past or future tense in their language sooo, i think its just a different take on ideas like that
Implausible yes, but still one of the finest TNG stories.
those cultures that have no past or future tenses just say things like I do the laundry yesterday instead of I did the laundry yesterday. Some Australian Aborigines have no concept of left and right! Wierd huh?
I loved the Original Series. So before you bash it to hard, remember that they were always working on a low budget. Also, the episode with the Iotians was great. And if anyone would like to challenge me to a game of Fizzbinn, you're on.
ReplyThe nazi one was pretty good to... and I'm actually surprised you didn't mention the episode in which they visited a planet that was just like 20th century Earth except the Roman Empire never fell. Obviously, hey ended up in gladiator costumes fighting in the coliseum. Bread and Circuses, I think its called.
Yeah, that was an awesome series. It WAS laughable, but it was also awesome.
the males carry the children? biologically speaking (i know gender is a tricky issue) doesn't that mean they're female? i mean, isn't that the only criteria in most species?
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesNo. I'll cite the seahorse of earth. The male carries the babies.
Yeah in a pouch. The male only carries the eggs AFTER the female lays them.
I agree with Auto and Rayos. Clearly, they were just male-looking females and female-looking males. I've heard crazier things.
Maybe the females pass eggs to the male who fertilizes the eggs with stem cells,the same way we clone s--t like sheep?it would be like the seahorse if the little seahorses were clones of their mothers...
Let's not forget that The Omega Glory was one of the three original scripts prepared by Roddenbury. The Cage is the one they filmed as the pilot episode.
Replywhy do they even post the f*****g videos if they never work. Dammit
ReplyBecause they worked when they posted them two years ago?
Aww...all the videos are gone/disabled. :( Would have LOVED me some Star Trek lameness!!
ReplyYeah, but even though they're gone there's still humor there. Like the one that was removed because they were offensive to Larry Flynt Publications! If you don't immediately see the humor in that then take a minute and look up Larry Flynt.
#3 I think that was the point of the episode. "...story of one woman's brave quest for c**k in the face of lesbian tyranny..." That was what it was about, and she loses in the end. I don't believe homophobia was ever intended to have anything to do with this episode. Xenophobia might have been a better idea.
ReplyThe first Star Trek sucked balls. This concludes my contribution to the discussion.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesMY! What a well-argued, thoughtful contribution it was! Allow me to virtually shake your hand sir/ madam/ sea creature from Europa.
You have to actually make a contribution before you can conclude it, you know.
annnnd you just fed the troll
And you know from ball sucking is the word on the street.
Oh god. that episode with the space lesbos killed me. When they introduced the species and that Riker was going to be interacting with them, I turned to my husband and said, "He's going to give those aliens the space aids....and they're gonna like it."
ReplyRiker was the space-AIDSiest member of starfleet since Kirk. (I suspect Kirk actually GAVE him the space-AIDS after a weird night out)
To be fair, the "space Nazis" episode was a result of a Federation commander directly meddling with the planet. He steered them into the Nazi Germany model because it was "the most efficient time in Earth's history" in an effort to help them build up their society. That efficiency claim may or may not be valid but even assuming it is, thinking that recreating the Nazis would be good for everybody on this plant shows that clearly this commander was very, very, VERY stupid.
ReplyCourse, things predictably went all racismy and the space Nazis ended up independently developing all the traits the regular Nazis bring to mind before you think of their efficiency as workers.
Still more than a little retarded but at least they were artificially steered that way rather than randomly opting to use some weird alien book or just spontaneously evolving an identical society.
This one feels like it was written just for me.
ReplyI'd like to see scrotum on the ballerina.