Star Trek: Voyager Is Still the Rock’s Finest Hour as an Actor

As 2022 ends, it’s exhausting to say that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has had a extra influential yr in his appearing profession, even when that affect was his long-in-the-making Black Adam film nearly singlehandedly tearing aside the DC cinema slate for years. But was it his yr as an actor? Absolutely not, as a result of that’s, was, and endlessly will likely be, 2000.

Because that’s when “Tsunkatse,” the fifteenth episode of Star Trek: Voyager’s penultimate sixth season aired, marking the debut of Johnson’s appearing profession earlier than he would actually explode onto the scene a yr later in The Mummy Returns. Born of an absurd thought for broadcaster UPN to cross over two of its largest exhibits—Voyager and WWF nee WWE Smackdown—Johnson performs a significant position within the episode because the Pendari Champion, a hulking combatant within the melee bloodsport Tsunkatse that goes toe-to-toe with a captured Seven of Nine.

It’s deeply foolish, if solely as a result of for Star Trek followers The Rock is maybe solely the third most notable visitor star—Deep Space Nine legends J.G. Hertzler and Jeffrey Combs, greatest identified for taking part in General Martok and Weyoun (amongst many different roles!) respectively, on Voyager’s predecessor have visitor turns too. Hertzler performs a fellow combatant within the ring of this wildly common deathmatch, a Hirogen—a race of Predator-esque hunters Voyager had beforehand encountered—who trains the captive Seven within the arts of Tsunkatse so she will be able to survive lengthy sufficient to be rescued by the crew, whereas Combs dazzles as Penk, the slimy overlord of the Tsunkatse tournaments that captured Seven as his new final warrior.

But we’re to anticipate delight from Star Trek legends like these stars. The Rock, for Star Trek and for the world at giant past his flip as probably the most iconic wrestlers of his age, was an untested, unproven appearing chameleon, at this level simply beginning out a journey that might result in field workplace dominance and, nicely, Johnson simply form of taking part in a heightened approximation of himself throughout a sea of motion motion pictures. Sometimes, that’s all you want, and it’s all nicely and good, however outdoors of some particular roles, it’s exhausting to significantly argue that Johnson has solid an appearing profession for himself that challenges him dramatically, as an alternative largely difficult him by what number of stunts he can do, what number of tight button up shirts he can match his large arms into the rolled sleeves of, what number of occasions he can blur the road between the character he’s meant to be taking part in and the persona of the Rock within the viewers’s head.

The Pendari Champion is the predecessor to what Johnson’s profession would turn into actually and and spiritually, as a result of they’re actually simply the Rock with some Star Trek alien brow make-up utilized. Perhaps then, it’s the best type of Johnson’s extremely particular area of interest. The thought at its purest, when the Rock being the Rock, But Askance, was a novel factor. You might even say that Johnson has spent nearly two and a half decade lengthy appearing profession chasing the identical excessive as “Tsunkatse,” however finds himself unable replicate the enjoyment of the primary time he might flip the Rock right into a trans-medium efficiency.

Everything that Dwayne Johnson is—on the top of his wrestling profession then, on the top of his appearing one now—is within the Pendari Champion. The taciturn nature, breaking ever so barely for a trademark People’s Eyebrow. The canonization of the Rock Bottom because the second biggest act of martial fight in Star Trek, simply behind the double-fisted punch. The incontrovertible fact that he barely has dialogue, the truth that his costume needed to have a really low-cost harness put in so he really appeared barely completely different than he does on any common episode of Smackdown. It is the embrace of Johnson completely right into a bizarro Star Trek plot about attempting to flee a harmful alien struggle membership: he’s there to be Johnson, and but not Johnson. Is Dwayne Johnson the Pendari Champion, or is the Rock the Pendari Champion?

We have Star Trek: Voyager to thank for this timeless query, the common-or-garden, ridiculous episode of tv that launched the one profession able to tanking a whole superhero film universe in a single go. At least Seven of Nine survived a Rock Bottom the DCEU couldn’t.

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