‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Rips Off ‘Alien’ (Which Ripped Off ‘Star Trek’)

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 /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 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 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