Star Trek’s Surprise Connection to Avatar
While Star Trek has had some crazy crossovers across the years (including a truly strange book in which Captain Picard’s crew teamed up with the X-Men), this sci-fi franchise has never crossed over with James Cameron’s Avatar universe. However, that didn’t keep one of Trek’s greatest guest stars from linking these franchises together with a single line of dialogue.
In the Discovery episode “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” Rainn Wilson played Harry Mudd and came up with sarcastic names for the ship’s crew, at one point calling the alien officer Saru “Avatar” in an unused take.
Do The Time Loop Again
Before you can appreciate this strange connection between Star Trek and Avatar, you need to know a bit more about the episode in question. “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” was Discovery’s time loop episode, with Harry Mudd trapping the ship in a loop so he can figure out how the spore drive works and ultimately sell the ship to the Klingons. Reality resetting over and over allows Mudd to execute Captain Lorca and others in a number of ways, each one more bizarre than the one before.
An Old-School Villain
Harry Mudd was a villain from The Original Series, and this Discovery episode helped us learn more about what makes him tick. Unlike his earlier adventures with Captain Kirk, this version of Mudd is highly malicious and clearly takes pleasure in the pain of others. Meanwhile, actor Rainn is much more lighthearted, and the endless takes of killing Captain Lorca gave him plenty of chances to engage in his own weird sense of humor.
Avatar
During each take where Mudd murdered the crew, Wilson would give one of the Discovery characters a nickname. Some of these were pretty straightforward, including nicknaming the cranky Lorca “old man.” The unexpected connection between Star Trek and James Cameron came from one of his nicknames for the tall alien Saru played by Doug Jones, whom Wilson simply dubbed “Avatar” at one point.
The Many Nicknames For Saru
Apparently, Saru got the lion’s share of nicknames from Wilson. In addition to this Star Trek: Discovery guest star calling the alien “Avatar,” he called him “Lurch,” in reference to the tall butler from The Addams Family. He also nicknamed him “Stilts” as a more generic reference to Doug Jones being incredibly tall, a trait which has helped him specialize in playing lanky aliens and monsters throughout his storied Hollywood history.
Sadly, none of Wilson’s specific nicknames made it into the final cut of the episode, likely because the Star Trek: Discovery producers feared a lawsuit from James Cameron over the reference to his own sci-fi franchise. The tongue-in-cheek Wilson also courted legal trouble by dropping references to real-life people in his nicknames for Saru. This included nicknaming the alien officer “Manute Boi” and “Yao Ming.”
Rainn Wilson Is A Perfect Fit For Star Trek
Given all the differences between the two franchises, we’re unlikely to see an official crossover between Star Trek and Avatar (though we’re still holding out for an official Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover). However, thanks to The Office legend Rainn Wilson, the worlds of Gene Roddenberry and James Cameron came closer than ever. Because of this, we’re happy to give Harry Mudd his own Trek nickname: Assistant to the Regional Captain.
