12 Historical Euphemisms for Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll
Consider asking your Tinder match if they want to discuss Uganda.
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- By Andrea Meno, Andres Diplotti
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0 How Heidi Gardner Helped Get Travis Kelce His ‘Saturday Night Live’ Hosting Gig
Lorne Michaels told Gardner that Kelce could host once he won the Super Bowl — twice
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- By Keegan Kelly
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Sorry Hallmark Movies, Big City Folk Are Living Better Lives
In fact, according to a new study, small-town life is much more like a Lifetime network melodrama
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- By Lauren Vinopal
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The Most Fun Bob Odenkirk Had in Show Business Was Doing ‘Matt Foley’ at Second City with Chris Farley
Odenkirk first saw Farley’s superstar potential ‘when I got within 100 feet of him (for the first time)’
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- By Keegan Kelly
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Was Gwyneth Paltrow in a Ski Crash, or Was It Just Margot Tenenbaum?
Did a certain devil-may-care debutante take control of Paltrow during the infamous skiing accident?
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- By Keegan Kelly
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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Rips Off ‘Alien’ (Which Ripped Off ‘Star Trek’)
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![JM McNab]()
JM McNab
JM McNab
Paramount
This week’s episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds shifted genre gears into straight-up horror, with a story that is so reminiscent of the Alien franchise, it’s a wonder that it wasn’t accompanied by a wildly inappropriate line of children’s playthings. “All Those Who Wander” literally involves the Enterprise crew investigating a crashed ship (like in Alien), rescuing a disheveled orphan girl who has survived an alien attack (à la Aliens), and if all that wasn’t subtle enough, we soon find out that the horrifying/not-so-horrifying Gorn have implanted eggs in a humanoid host, which then burst out of his body and terrorize the ship (their only weakness being a cease-and-desist from Ridley Scott’s office).
This isn’t the first time that Star Trek has taken its cues from the Alien franchise; Data and Tasha Yar were reportedly created for The Next Generation purely because creator Gene Roddenberry liked the characters of Bishop and Vasquez in Aliens (although sadly the latter pair never hooked up). Plus, artist H.R. Giger, who famously created the look of Alien’s Xenomorphs (thanks to condoms and human skulls) was a major influence on the look of the Borg.
But this seems pretty fair, considering that the Alien franchise has seemingly taken its fair share from Star Trek; like how Alien's premise of finding extraterrestrial monsters in a creepy cave is distinctly reminiscent of the original Star Trek episode “The Devil in the Dark” – just with slightly less goofy-looking monsters.
And Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek pitch document contained an (unproduced) episode idea concerning a crew member who becomes impregnated with “the larvae of an alien.” More recently, some fans have pointed out that Prometheus, and its villains’ quest to meet a vengeful God on a distant planet, is pretty much a remake of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
One potential reason why these two franchises share so many similarities is that they were both influenced by the landmark ‘50s sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet – so it makes sense that they are continuing to share a somewhat symbiotic relationship. The connection between the two properties was almost made explicit a few years ago with a proposed comic crossover in which Picard’s Enterprise would battle Xenomorphs … presumably through diplomacy.
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Thumbnail: Paramount
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