Talk Description to Me

Episode 70 - Star Trek

September 25, 2021 Christine Malec and JJ Hunt Season 3 Episode 70
Talk Description to Me
Episode 70 - Star Trek
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

To boldly describe what no one has described before! Ok, that might be overstating it a bit, but can you blame us for being excited? We’re describing the world of Star Trek here! Inspired by the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ casting of Bruce Horak in the role of Hemmer — a blind actor playing a blind character! — Christine and JJ indulge in a descriptive conversation about the every-changing look of Star Trek. From the soft focus treatment of Kirk’s beautiful alien love interests, to the evolution of Klingon cranial ridges, and the view through Geordi LaForge’s visor, Christine and JJ let their geek flags fly!

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JJ Hunt:

Talk description to me with Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.

Christine Malec:

Hi, I'm Christine Malec.

JJ Hunt:

And I'm JJ Hunt. This is talk description to me where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description rich conversations.

Christine Malec:

Now I want to say off the top of this episode is not all about me.

JJ Hunt:

Heh heh.

Christine Malec:

We've had several listener requests to talk about Star Trek and we're not doing this episode because I'm obsessed with Star Trek or because I watch it all the time because I'm super interested. It came from listener requests. And also it's timely because if you're a follower of the trek world, you may know that a blind actor named Bruce Horak has been cast as a blind character in the the upcoming next iteration of Star Trek series. So I'm pretty intrigued by by Bruce Horak's character and what what that's going to look like and I believe he's an Andorian. Is that correct?

JJ Hunt:

Yes, sort of. He's part of an andorian subspecies, the Aenar. So the Aenar as a species are, so Okay, so let's talk about Andorians first, and we can talk about the subspecies. So the Andorians first appeared back in the original Star Trek series, they have kind of a sky blue skin colour, whitish hair, often kind of, you know, a little bit long and mop ish, and they have to horn like antenna with funnel shaped tips that emerge from high on the forehead. And in the most recent series that have andorians in them, the the antenna actually move about independently in keeping with facial expressions and the mood of the character. So that's kind of interesting. And in some series, they actually also have textured foreheads. So there are large bony eyebrows or or ridges, above the eyebrows and so forth. That's the Andorians. The Aenar are ice dwellers. So they are ice dwelling Andorians. So it's a separate group, and they have really pale white skin with like an icy blue undertone. And sometimes they're depicted as having white eyes with no pupils, and they're telepathic. And my understanding is that most, if not all, Aenar are blind. And I've only come across one photo of the character that is going to be played by Bruce Horak named Hemmer and the one photo that's been released that I've come across. He does have this pale, icy white skin, shaggy white hair, and really deep set, white eyes under thick, bony, hairless brows that extend back toward his ears. So the brows go back toward the ears, and then kind of arch forward along the cheekbones in this series of bony bumps and looks like maybe he's got some Gill like ridges along the jaw line too. So I'm not entirely sure what that's all about. And so that is the look of hemmer, the new character played by Bruce Horak.

Christine Malec:

And it's not the first blind character in the Star Trek universe. So Jordy in the next generation was played by a sighted actor LeVar Burton, but what is the visor, his famous visor? What does that look like?

JJ Hunt:

So the visor that Geordi LaForge wore is a kind of worn like a pair of glasses. So it's a thin, slatted visor that goes right over the eyes, worn light glasses over the bridge of the nose, going back to the temples. So it's got a silver frame, with vertical slats in gold. And there were red dots at the temples. They were, I think, to represent the sensors at the temples where the visor was supposed to interface with Geordi's neural implants. And this visor was an interpretation device that allowed the character to see in infrared and ultraviolet ranges. And what was interesting in a couple of episodes of next generation, the audience actually got to see the world through his visor a couple of times.

Unknown:

Oooh!

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, there are only a few episodes where they did this where they would plug in and put basically Geordi's point of view on the main screen on the bridge and then on the enterprise. And so the world that Geordi saw was a world of unusually colorful silhouettes. So like maybe green figures against purple box. backdrops or a world of oranges and pinks, where things are silhouetted or outlined, and there was some additional data or data, let's just say data to separate from the character some additional data by way of symbols that looked similar to the kind of overlay that appears on a fighter pilots helmet display system. So when a fire fighter pilot is flying, there's a visor that's got images or data, data that's that's against there to tell you speed and direction and whatever. And there were symbols in Geordi's point of view, through the visor that were part of his point of view what he was seeing through the visor, but they were all symbols that didn't mean anything in any language I spoke.

Christine Malec:

Oh wow!

JJ Hunt:

So just a little bit of that. And these colors, these silhouetted colors, yeah, I only saw it a couple times, but it was always a bit of a treat. Like "Oooh! We get to see the the world through Geordi's visor!"

Christine Malec:

That's so cool. The Star Trek universe is enduring. And it's been around since the 60s and I was thinking about oh, well, you and I actually were talking about the episode in ds nine, where they go back to the the Tribbles episode. And if you're not a Star Trek fan, I'm I'm sorry, there's just no way not to, you know, geek out about this. But there's the scene where characters from one series are transported back to the original series, and they're transposed into into the episode in some film, cinematic fun ways. But the The reason I bring this up is one of the characters from a future episode remarks on the different aesthetic from a few centuries before so can we kind of walk through the different aesthetics from the series as you go through through the Star Trek universe in time?

JJ Hunt:

Totally. And it's, it makes sense, obviously, chronologically, to talk about the you know, the first series, the original series, but also I mean, that series set the tone for everything else, the styles, start there, everything starts there that but the tech in the style of the era in which the the that show was made this late 60s, so we're talking 66 to 69, that had a huge impact on the look of the series as it always does, whatever, you know, whatever era you're in has an impact on the design of whatever world you're creating. And so the design of the 60s has kind of carried or elements of that that have carried on in all the Star Trek universe because that's where the origins are the 1960s. So the first thing that stands out to me if I go back and I look at YouTube clips, or watching an old original episode, the thing that stands out to me first of all, are the colors. The colors in the original series are clean and simple, near primary colors. So the science and medical officers they wear uniforms with blue shirts, red shirts for engineering and communications and a gold color for the command division. And all the lead characters wear these near primary colors all the time. And because the actors are always on screen that has a huge impact. So there are always these clean blocks of color in the uniforms on screen at all times. And the interiors of the ship are all very simple, boxy, kind of influenced by modernism. So furniture with clean lines, not a lot of ornamentation on the walls, no beautification, very clean, very minimal so the captain's chair for examples Angular and boxy. The railings on the bridge are Angular, the walls and ceilings and the corridors are Angular and straight and smooth. So lots of flat surfaces, single colors, no patterns or decorations. And the lighting that they used was clean and crisp. So yes, it's a little grainy because it's the 1960s and the you know, the film quality of the time wasn't what digital film is now but the lighting was very clean and bright. And that gave everything a very modern Space Age look. Although now some of that lighting also highlights just how cheap and false everything looked.

Christine Malec:

Ha ha!

JJ Hunt:

These are kind of like SCTV sets in some cases, they were very simple but at the time that kind of lighting, that stark lighting, clean and crisp lighting made everything look really modern. There's one major exception to this which is the way the show was lit when there was a woman in close up.

Christine Malec:

Oh no!

JJ Hunt:

Do you know of this phenomenon? The vaseline on the lens?

Christine Malec:

No, I don't. No I'm laughing because when I even with blind or sighted viewers, when I watched the old Star Trek there's beautiful woman music.

JJ Hunt:

Yes. Yes!

Christine Malec:

The musical cue is the same every time.

JJ Hunt:

Exactly.

Christine Malec:

You know there's a beautiful woman. I didn't know there was a visual associated with that though. So lay it on me, lay it on us.

JJ Hunt:

There is an exact visual.

Christine Malec:

Ha ha ha!

JJ Hunt:

So there is an audio and a visual. So whenever there was a beautiful potential love interest, she was always given a close up and they were given what was called the soft focus treatment. So they would actually put thin layers of

Christine Malec:

[Snicker] plastic or diffusers in front of the camera lens for these close ups.

JJ Hunt:

And so it gives the image a soft gauzy romantic glow and people talk about it like they spread Vaseline on the lens, that's sometimes what people say. It isn't actually that the technique that they use, but visually that's really what it looks like is that someone has spread Vaseline on the lens. And I'm so glad that yes, the audio and the visual are identical. It is the visual equivalent of that swooning romantic music.

Christine Malec:

Beautiful woman music.

JJ Hunt:

Totally totally.

Christine Malec:

That's what it says in the script.

JJ Hunt:

Yes exactly. Insert beautiful... yeah yeah, totally.

Christine Malec:

Ya. Beautiful woman music .

JJ Hunt:

Heh heh. So one of the challenging things for future Trek series is that all the original alien races and tech

Christine Malec:

Gasp! got their start in this relatively unsophisticated relatively low budget world like so cling ons for example, that episode that you talked about from Deep Space Nine where they go back and and the trouble with Tribbles. There are next generation Klingons in Worf, and original series cling ons in the same scenes and the different techniques for the the the special effects makeup for those Klingons is dramatically different. So the original Klingons were just white actors in kind of a glistening blackface.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, I know. It was awkward, fake mustaches, goatees, bushy, pointed eyebrows and flat foreheads the same as the humans. They were just all white people with blackface.

Christine Malec:

Oh.

JJ Hunt:

Not cool. And then so later in the next generation in Deep Space Nine, those are an overlapping shows that ran from'87 to 1999, they were given the distinctive cranial ridges that we now associate with Klingons. But that was later. So the cranial ridges for Klingons are different for every Klingon, it's not like one headpiece they put on all actors, they're different person to person.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

Generally they're symmetrical on either side of some kind of central line. So sometimes, the high cling on forehead will look like a like a mountain range that runs straight up the center of the forehead, with the with the mountain range going down to the outside, sometimes the entire forehead is covered in deep, bony ridges. Sometimes there's a bony ring that goes all the way around the high hairline. And thankfully, all as far as I know, all of the actors who play Klingons, in next gen in deep space, nine are people of color, no black face.

Christine Malec:

Um hmm.

JJ Hunt:

So that's a very distinct difference, but then it changed again. So in Discovery, which is a show that launched in 2017, Klingons, actually, were given a new look.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

They have more flared nostrils, their heads are bald. And so that lets you see the ridges that start low on the nose, the end. So the ridges for these Klingons go start low in the nose, and in the cheekbones, and then they go all the way over the back of the head. So over this forehead, where they still have the cranial ridges, but they go all the way back over the whole head. And in Discovery, the Klingons have skin tones that have almost a metallic quality, a dark metallic quality. So that's how they've evolved. It's come starting from the 60s, through the 80s and 90s and into shows today.

Christine Malec:

Now what about just sort of the overall aesthetic? So can you maybe compare the interior of the enterprise and the enterprise D. So from the original series and the next generation?

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, so in the next generation, I mean, 20 years passed between the original series and Next Gen. And so there were different film techniques they were you know, there's there was a different idea about what was going to look modern, what was going to look futuristic, which is a word that gets thrown around a lot in description. So with for next generation, the designers went with a bit of a softer, slightly more natural look. So there for example, there are more curves in the design, the railings on the bridge of the next generations enterprise, they were curved polished wood, you wouldn't have seen any polished wood in the original that wasn't futuristic, right? But now they were going for a softer aesthetic. So polished wood elements on the bridge, the helm seats were 10 leather, there was a overall lighting that was just a little bit softer, a little bit more natural. And there was more detail to so instead of flat one color surfaces in the corridors, there might be some patterning in the walls panels or there might be some, some patterning in the ceilings or what looks like a skylight on the bridge, there's this large dome like looks like a skylight on the bridge, which you would not have seen in the original series, a little bit more of that kind of natural look. And the workstations, so the screens, the workstation screens on the bridge, and all around the ship. That's always important, because that's one of the ways that the producers and the designers get us into a new world get us into the future is by by the screens that are on our screen. So the workstations in the original series, they featured a lot of blinking pads of simple colors of you know, like it looked like a there's a game that we played as kids that was what was it, Simon, and you had to press...

Christine Malec:

I loved that game.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah! Very simple colors that would light up and you know reds and greens and yellows and blues. And you had to press one after the other end, the lights that were on the workstation screens in the original series kind of looked a little bit like that very simple blocks of color. In the next generation. The screens showed images that looked more like intricate schematics written in a code that we didn't have access to. So lots of glowing golden lines that linked boxes of glowing symbols. And that's what was on the on their pads. That was what was on screens, these schematic looking things. And so that was the interface, not dials and knobs that were physical. But what we would now know as touch screens with these intricate schematics on them. That was that's how the look of the next gen changed. And then we get into the like the most modern Star Trek. So it's funny, I mean, I still think of next generation as being new. But you go back and look at some of the early stuff. And next gen is old, like it's like mid 1980s. That's old. Now we've got modern Trek. So you know, we're talking things like Discovery and Picard. And things have changed again. So the lighting and the camera work this, these are the real changes for me, the improvements in special effects and CGI, obviously, that's a given. But the overall look, the visuals are changed so significantly by the lighting and the camera work. So first off, almost everything that's indoors in modern Trek is dramatically, dimly lit all the time. So really dim.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, totally. Really dim. And all the lights coming from interesting sources, including those screens, right, so you get a lot of glow from screens glow in the background so that it cast light from behind an actor. So lots of dim lots of dramatic lighting. And in the case of discovery, the background control screens and the main viewer screen are really very prominent. The screens within our screens are constantly a glow, they use multiple image data sources with the screen. So like there, you'll sometimes have within one screen, they will be like side screens and different pieces of information that are on the main screen. So it's not just like you're looking at looking at a window, which is a next gen, they would say bring it up on the main screen, and the main screen would come up and it would be like a TV show of what's happening outside just the one image. Now in discovery, you bring it up on the main screen, you get whatever's happening outside, plus, you have a little side panel of a graph piece of information over here. And then you've got data running down the side of the screen. Again, this is like that, that visor look that we talked about from a fighter pilot. All of that is integrated into the one screen because that's how we are communicating with our screens. Now multiple windows open at any given time. And so the lighting changes because there are so many screens, screens everywhere. So the light from those screens... there's a blue character. So the control screens are interactive on Discovery. Characters manipulate this digital matter, sparkly blue amorphous gel-like material that kind of comes out of their control panels. And again, that changes the look of the show. You're constantly seeing these different kinds of digital light. And then the other thing that's huge is the camera movement. So an older shows like Deep Space Nine and next generation. They were filmed more like TV dramas, so lots of stable camera shots. Sometimes the camera would pan around room or across the hall of the ship if it was you know a special effects shot from outside. And you know, you would occasionally shift focus from one character to another. But for the most part, it was pretty stable camera work when there was a battle in Deep Space Nine or next gen, the camera would shake to make a sighted audience feel the violent rattling of the ship.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

only in high-action scenes would you get that kind of camera movement and that kind of you know feel. Now the camera movement is constant even during a simple conversation between two characters, the camera might be slowly circling around them. You have quick edits that go from one actor to another. Or maybe we're going to enter a scene with the from the point of view of like swooping down from the ceiling, and then the camera moving around the bridge between characters, the camera movement is constant, even in the CGI. So even if there's like a battle scene, or if there's a ship in dock and it's being fixed, you will rarely get a static image of the ship. That quote unquote camera that's looking at the ship in CGI is still in constant motion. So constant motion, very quick edits. That's very much the style of new Trek, but also really modern action movies and TV shows in general and that has that has the most significant impact on the viewing experience of these shows.

Christine Malec:

Wow, I had no idea. There's so much to talk about, we could, I could do this all day. Um, maybe we can talk about some individual characters and and races and earlier you mentioned Data as opposed to small D data. And Data his appearance gets sort of referenced from time to time in in scripts where they say he he looks artificial or someone who doesn't know much about what are you and so in what ways does does data's character look not like a regular human?

JJ Hunt:

Data from next generation had a face that was... so first of all, it's just just the actor. You've got to start with just the actor for for this character. Not a lot of prosthetics, not no different shape to the head or face or nothing major, it's mostly just the actor Brent Spiner's face painted a white color with this hint of a golden metallic sheen. There's almost a fine sparkle to the the makeup. His dark hair slicked back into a like a helmet like wig. With pointed sideburns, and contact lenses that were a little bit yellow, the lenses changed over time, but generally a bit of a yellow tint to the to the lenses in the eye. And what I thought was really cool about these choices is because visually, what you're doing is making a human body a little bit false. So it's near perfect human. This is a near perfect humanoid, an Android, but not an absolutely perfect one. So there are other androids of the era in different shows like in Blade Runner or in Alien, where there were supposed to be androids that were so perfect, they look exactly like us. And so they don't do anything to the actors they just let them be. And obviously from a special effects standpoint, that's really easy to pull off. They're just like us. But for Data they made him just look a little bit like a robot and visually I found that really interesting. That's a look at Data.

Christine Malec:

You have stuff on other races too. There's so many. Give us a bit of vision visual on the Cardassians

JJ Hunt:

So these are the major villains in Deep Space Nine and these are the design was supposed to be snake-like humanoids. My understanding is that the design for these aliens was very heavily inspired by the first actor that was hired to play a Cardassian Mark Alaimo a very tall thin man with a long neck and so they are they already written the the characters they'd already written the race but then when they hired this actor, this long neck of his really inspired the makeup supervisor to design these really cool, scaly, almost ridged prosthetics that go up the side of the neck from the close to the shoulder to behind the ear. So these are big swooping neck pieces that extend the neck, from the from the, you know, the behind the ear, all the way down in a curved line in an arcane line all the way down to the shoulders. And so these are scaly prosthetics and the scales continue up the temples and then there were bony bumps around the eye sockets and, and that bumps that create this upside down teardrop shape in the middle of the forehead. hair tends to be dark and slicked back a little bit greasy skin is an ashen gray or sometimes a dirty pink color. So again very reptilian very snake like humanoids for the Cardassians. And then you get like the the Romulans and the Vulcans. So Vulcans are probably one of the best known alien species in Star Trek because of Spock pretty simple back in you know, the day comes from the 1960s so they didn't have a lot of the same kind of good prosthetics you could put on a face and things so Spock in the Vulcans are known for their pointy ears so kind of like little elf like pointy ears and the eyebrows that curve up near the temples. So on the outside of the head, the eyebrows curve up and a little bit pointy, and hair, generally for Vulcans. down across the across the forehead with straight bangs all the way across above the eyebrows. Romulans are very similar. There's a you know story about the Romulans and Vulcans and how they are related to each other. So the Romulans have a very similar look. The similar hair similar ears. The hair is sometimes cut with a with a pointy peek down the center like a widow's peak so instead of having straight bangs across, that there will be a pointy peek in the middle. But they also the Romulans have a V shaped forehead Ridge that comes to a point above the bridge of the nose. So not as dramatic as a Klingon. But, but still this V shaped forehead Ridge above the nose.

Christine Malec:

I have a question about the different actors that get cast because I I'm pretty sure the actor who played tuvok on Voyager who's a Vulcan is black. And so within a race in Star Trek, do you get different skin tones?

JJ Hunt:

You do, you do and that's one of the things that I really like about the Star Trek universe. Certainly this is more the case when you get into the 80s and 90s and beyond. It's not, you know, the original series was mostly, you know, Caucasian actors. But it it of course, just makes sense that if just because you're a Vulcan doesn't mean you're white. Right. So you do have a Vulcans in particular you've got a people of color. You've got people who are Asian, you've got all kinds of actors with a different look themselves that are then brought into these characters. So you can have a black Vulcan who has the same prosthetics as anyone else. But, but the skin tone is their own skin tone, which is really interesting. And that happens with a lot - in fact, even the Cardassians. Originally, the first few Cardassians had this ashen gray color, but then like I said that the some of them have a dirty pink color. And so there's a skin tone, even when you are fully creating the makeup, you are applying makeup they actually had, they were individuals, each character was individual, both in terms of the prosthetics, and in terms of skin tone. So there were variations on that it wasn't like, this is the color of a clean on even Klingons who were typically dark skinned. Again, coming from this more blackface era, they were generally I didn't I don't think I ever saw a cling on that wouldn't be considered a person of color had dark skin tones. But there's a range and that skin tones just as there's a range in the skin tone of people of color of who are human, which I always found that, you know, part of the diversity of the world that is fantastic.

Christine Malec:

Now, I've often heard Ferrengi described as troll-like. Is that accurate?

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, totally. Especially in the early portrayals. They're almost like cartoonishly Goblin, like they skulk and they, you know, their shoulders are hunched over and they you know, they tend to be short and stature. Yeah, so I mean, that was the early ones as they progressed throughout. Especially in Deep Space Nine when there were some more important characters. They were a little bit less troll like but the look was still the same. So the look of a Ferrengi again, is shorter in stature, big bald heads. With these, I mean, there's no other way to say it, but these bum shaped bumps on the forehead, that they could have come out and really just look like a bare bum.

Christine Malec:

Ha ha!

JJ Hunt:

A heavy brow ridge that goes straight across the front of the head, and then curves around and turns into these massive ears on either side of the head. Truly huge. So again, from the bro line all the way down to the jaw line huge huge ears with lots of you know concentric rings inside the ear, concentric arcs inside the ear and then ridges up the nose. So a big you know, kind of plump nose with ridges that go all the way up the bridge and then sharp pointy teeth so not the most attractive for a race, the Ferrengi. Skin tone for the Ferrengi, actually mostly this kind of this pinkish color like a red pink color for the Ferrengi skin tone.

Christine Malec:

I'm interested in attractiveness because there's lots of interspecies romance which is awesome and it's obvious that some characters are meant to be perceived of as attractive and they're not all human and so how does attractiveness play out when you're looking at a different species? Is it all the body?

JJ Hunt:

Ah that's a good question. It is the body and it is the makeup and the attractiveness of the actor is usually the case. Like they didn't have a lot of Ferrengi love stories.

Christine Malec:

No.

JJ Hunt:

But you could get a, you could get a Klingon love story because both male and female Klingons could be created to be, to look big and strong and powerful and sexy in that way. And like the Klingon women, there's some great stories about the prosthetics the the costumes that were put together for Klingon women that were very buxom and big and kind of leather wearing, almost like a courset. There's like a really rough dominatrix look. I read a story once where Gene Roddenberry was on set and went up to one of the women, the Klingon women and poked what he thought were great big fake breasts, like "Oh these look great."

Christine Malec:

Oh no!

JJ Hunt:

And it wasn't... they'd just been, you know, squeezed up in a certain way to show off the... ya.

Christine Malec:

In DS9 for example, there's some female characters who are definitely you know, meant to be attractive. So two different species involved there's Kira who's a Bajoran and the DAX so that involves sort of two two female characters Jadzia and Ezra and they both they end up both hosting the symbient but yeah, if you're not a Star Trek fan you don't need to understand that part but they those are two actors of the same meant to be the same species so I assume those are all attractive women so how is that conveyed given that they're not human?

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, because these were going to be these characters were going to be love interests to a human audience. The characters were... I mean, first of all, the actresses are all beautiful. For all three, the two Trill and the Bajoran, and the prosthetics that they are given are prosthetics that they are enticing visually, or just their body makeup. In the case of the Trill it's just body makeup. So you've got characters that are beautiful white women, and they have these dots, they're like leopard spots that go down from the, from the hairline on either side, down the sides of the neck, and then occasionally there would be some reason to get a glimpse of the body. So you would get a hint at how far down the body these leopard spots went, which is just enticing. So that worked. So in that case, it's makeup that works with our all ready established understanding of what is physically attractive. And then same with Bajorans. Bajorns have a very small bit of prosthetic work on the bridge of the nose. So just these ridges on the bridge of the nose, and then a little tiny bit maybe that might go up above the eyebrow but not nothing severe, nothing like a Klingon or even a Ferrengi, and then big looping earrings. They often had one earring that had lots of lots of loops and whatever. So that's it. That's what makes this race look like this race. So you can cast any attractive actor you want these bits of prosthetics go on. And all they do is they're a little bit enticing. It's just a little bit different.

Christine Malec:

Should we talk about seven of nine?

JJ Hunt:

Oh my goodness. Okay, well let's let's talk Borg. And then we can happily talk about seven of nine for a while. The Borg is a collective of cyborgs. So an entire civilization of people that are you know, they capture others from different races, different groups, and They turn those individuals into cyborgs. And they are assimilated into the collective. So from a visual standpoint, the look of the Borg there's a an Edward Scissorhands, kind of Tim Burton look to the early Borg. So matte black costumes lined with wires and cables and tubes that connect one part of the body to another. And any exposed skin from a simulated beings is sickly and pale, like kind of looks like dead reanimated flesh. And the weapons and tools of a Borg being are integrated into the costume or what is supposed to look like integrated into the cyborg body. So blasters might be embedded into arms or worrying tools that will pop out of a forearm or pop out of the shoulder. So that's what an individual Borg looks like. And then the Borg ship is an extension of that aesthetic. So there was a specific request for Marcus on Twitter to talk about the Borg cube. These are giant cubes made of dirty black and gray pipes. There's a steampunk quality to the look of a cube. No discernible engines or weapons or flashing lights or impressive tech, even windows on the outside of a Borg ship. Just a giant gray industrial cube, it looks a little bit like you've taken scrap metal and and compressed it into a cube in a you know, in a junkyard or something. But it's a little bit more orderly than that. So there are rows of pipes and things that are on the outside. So that's the Borg. That's the Borg cube. And then there's Seven of Nine. So with Seven of Nine, this is a character that was a rescue rescued Borg. I can't remember exactly.

Christine Malec:

That's right.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah. And so the actor, the actress who plays Seven of Nine, is a woman named Jerry Ryan. And I mean, she's gorgeous, blonde woman great, big smile. Big I think blue eyes, and mostly a very curvy, thin body.

Christine Malec:

I'll just say it for you. She's known for having really big breasts, right?

JJ Hunt:

Big boobs. Gorgeous, she's just gorgeous, and sexy and costumed, in a skin tight spandex outfit, that goes from wrist all the way up to neck all the way down to the floor. And so she's just wearing spandex, so her extraordinary body is fully on display. And from a character standpoint, I guess that would make some sense because her body would technically if she was a rescued Borg probably have connection points from when she was an integrated Cyborg. And so all of that is covered by this. Oh, just so happens to be very sexy skin tight outfit. And then the only bit of machinery, Borg Cyborg machinery that's left on her face exposed to us. Is this a bit of a computer, it's like a metal see that that is over one eye. So kind of goes from the bridge of the nose up and over the brow and tucks back around and touching the cheekbone. That's it. So that is again, it's more enticing. It's just a little bit of computer you know of, of metal that's around the eye, almost like a giant piercing and a giant eyebrow ring. And you know, I think she's got an on her hand. There's a little bit of wire work that's exposed on one hand, but otherwise, she looks human. She looks sexy. Right? So that's kind of how you make a Borg sexy.

Christine Malec:

If I had my way we do a whole episode on ships.

JJ Hunt:

Oh absolutely. I'd love to just do a deep dive on the whole series. I mean, the whole universe, it would be fantastic. If we got anyone from Paramount who's interested in sponsoring a whole deep dive on the Star Trek universe...

Christine Malec:

Dream come true!

JJ Hunt:

Come on, call us! You've got the number.

Christine Malec:

Heh heh heh. We love making this podcast. If you love hearing it, perhaps you'll consider supporting its creation and development by becoming a patron. We've set up a Patreon page to help cover the costs of putting the show together. You can contribute as a listener or as a sponsor to help ensure that accessible and entertaining journalism continues to reach our community. Visit patreon.com slash talk description to me that's pa t ar e o n.com slash talk description to me have feedback or suggestions of what you'd like to hear about here's how to get in touch with us. Our email address is talk description to me@gmail.com our Facebook page is called talk description to me. Our website is talk description to me.com and you can follow us on Twitter at talk description.

Bruce Horak
Geordi La Forge
The Original Series
Klingons
Next Generation
Discovery
Data
Cardassians
Vulcans and Romulans
Ferengi
Attractive Aliens
The Borg