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By Chris Snellgrove
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Disney might be the very last thing you concentrate on whereas watching Star Trek. In any case, what do fanciful fairytales and speaking animals should do with the ultimate frontier (please don’t say Worf was a speaking animal, he finds these feedback hurtful)? Nonetheless, one of many franchise’s grossest and most horrific episodes was secretly impressed by a fairytale made much more well-known by Disney. The author of the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Faces” ended up basing the storyline of a captor falling in love along with his captive on Magnificence and the Beast.
Magnificence And The Beast
“Faces” was written by Ken Biller, and due to its insane plot, most followers would by no means join it to any fairy story (Disney or in any other case). That is the torrid story of an alien who makes use of freaky expertise to separate the half-Klingon, half-human Voyager engineer B’Elanna Torres into two separate folks. It’s all an experiment to assist the alien uncover a treatment for the genetic illness plaguing his complete race, however as soon as he develops affection for her totally Klingon self, Torres should use her mixed female wiles to work out a dramatic escape.
One of many causes that almost all followers would by no means affiliate this Star Trek: Voyager episode with Magnificence and the Beast is that that is mainly a horror episode. There are some primary physique horror parts relating to the 2 sides of Torres clashing, and a race of rotting aliens (the Vidiians) is fairly freaking scary by itself. However none of that holds a candle to the scene the place the scientist tries to woo Torres by murdering her colleague after which sporting his face. Like, this was earlier than Bryan Fuller wrote for the present, however this scene would have match proper into his later Hannibal sequence.
Regardless of these horror parts, although, “Faces” author Ken Biller insists that this Star Trek episode shares a whole lot of DNA with Magnificence and the Beast. He later stated that he channeled that fairy story as a result of “It occurred to me that in the event you got here from this tradition your excellent magnificence could also be somebody who was bodily imposing and highly effective, like a Klingon.” To an alien who was born dying (like, much more than the remainder of us), the robust Klingon was an actual fantasy object, and the author appreciated the concept the scientist “would develop an infatuation with B’Elanna and she or he may use that Klingon sexuality to get him to do what she wished.”
Now, Star Trek nerds are typically extremely literary, so it’s value emphasizing that Biller didn’t explicitly name-drop Disney when evaluating his Voyager episode to Magnificence and the Beast. Nonetheless, Disney’s iconic animated adaptation of this traditional 18th-century French story got here out in 1991, a mere 4 years earlier than “Faces” got here out. Contemplating that it might have been written even earlier, we’d guess all of the latinum Quark has squirreled away that Biller hummed “Be Our Visitor” not less than as soon as whereas penning this memorable episode.
As famous earlier than, Star Trek and Disney not often overlap, however the Magnificence and the Beast connection in “Faces” proves it ought to occur extra typically. Biller did what a few of the finest writers do: take inspiration from one thing outdated to create one thing vibrant and new. Plus, if Trek followers are okay with Captain Kirk ending your entire Authentic Sequence film run with a Peter Pan quote, it’s too late for any of us to say we’re too cool to understand an excellent fairy story reference from our favourite sci-fi franchise.
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