From Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Disney is probably the last thing you think of when you watch Star Trek. After all, what do fanciful fairy tales and talking animals have to do with the final frontier (please don’t say that Worf was a talking animal, he finds such comments hurtful)? However, one of the grossest and most horrific episodes in the series was secretly inspired by a fairy tale made even more famous by Disney. The author of the Star Trek: Voyager After all, the episode “Faces” was based on the plot of a kidnapper who falls in love with his prisoner Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast
“Faces” was written by Ken Biller and because of its crazy plot, most fans would never associate it with a fairy tale (Disney or otherwise). This is the hot story of one Foreigner who uses crazy technology to split the half-Klingon, half-human Voyager engineer B’Elanna Torres into two separate people. It’s all an experiment designed to help the alien find a cure for the genetic disease plaguing his entire race, but once he develops affection for her fully Klingon self, Torres must use their combined feminine cunning to create a dramatic… to find a way out.
One of the reasons most fans would never associate this Star Trek: Voyager Follow along Beauty and the Beast is that this is basically a horror episode. There are some basic body horror elements when it comes to the clash between the two sides of Torres and a race of rot Aliens (the Vidiians) is pretty scary in its own right. But none of this can hold a candle to the scene in which the scientist attempts to woo Torres by murdering her colleague and then wearing his face. This was before Bryan Fuller wrote the show, but this scene would have fit right in with his later scene Hannibal Series.
Despite these horror elements, however, “Faces” writer Ken Biller insists that this Star Trek episode has a lot in common with it Beauty and the Beast. He later said he channeled this fairy tale because “it occurred to me that the ideal beauty, coming from that culture, might be someone physically imposing and powerful, like a Klingon.” For an alien who Born dying (even more so than the rest of us), the strong Klingon was a real fantasy, and the author liked the idea that the scientist could “develop an infatuation with B’Elanna and take advantage of this.” Klingon sexuality to get him to do what she wanted.”
Now Star Trek nerds tend to be very literary, so it’s worth noting that Biller didn’t specifically drop the names Disney when comparing his Voyager Follow to Beauty and the Beast. However, Disney’s iconic animated adaptation of this classic 18th century French fairy tale was released in 1991, just four years before the release of Faces. Considering it would have been written even earlier, we’d bet Biller hummed “Be Our Guest” at least once while writing this memorable episode.
As mentioned, Star Trek and Disney rarely overlap, but this Beauty and the Beast The connection in “Faces” proves that it should happen more often. Biller did what some of the best writers do: take inspiration from something old to create something vibrant and new. And if Trek fans agree with it Captain Kirk end the whole thing Original series Film run with a Peter Pan Quote: It’s too late for any of us to say we’re too cool to appreciate a good fairy tale reference from our favorite sci-fi franchise.
