Are you able to think about “Star Trek” with out Leonard Nimoy as Spock? Effectively, that is virtually precisely what occurred.
The 2016 documentary “For The Love of Spock” (directed by Nimoy’s son Adam) explores each Nimoy’s life story and the way Spock turned a cultural icon. One takeaway from the doc is that these two tales had been inseparable, but it would not elide a few of Nimoy’s early struggles with the character.
Nimoy had appeared on “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry’s earlier collection “The Lieutenant.” This meant Nimoy’s “Star Trek” was simple since Roddenberry particularly needed him on the present. Particularly (as heard in an interview clip included in “For The Love of Spock”), Roddenberry thought Nimoy’s lengthy, sharp cheekbones can be an excellent match for an alien character. Spock’s pointed ears, the best signifier of his Vulcan (initially Martian) heritage, had been designed to particularly complement Nimoy’s appears to be like (and so they did).
In one other interview included within the documentary, Nimoy remarks on his preliminary issue carrying the ears. So, he and Roddenberry reduce a deal: they’d attempt 13 episodes with Spock’s pointed ears. If Nimoy nonetheless did not like them after that, “I am going to write a script the place Spock will get an ear-job” Nimoy recalled Roddenberry telling him. In fact, it did not come to that.
Spock, ears and all, virtually bought pushed out of “Star Trek” for a a lot completely different cause, although. NBC was involved with Spock’s look, calling his pointed ears and eyebrows Satanic and saying viewers would reject him. “We’re very depending on the numbers within the Bible Belt, and they won’t settle for of their houses a personality who appears to be like Devilish with these pointed ears,” Nimoy mentioned, recalling the essence of NBC’s grievance.
Regardless of the ears, Star Trek’s Spock isn’t any Satan
The primary signal of NBC’s hesitation with Spock got here, as Nimoy recalled, in an early black-and-white “Star Trek” promo. The image straightened Spock’s ears and eyebrows, eradicating any “Devilish” visage from Spock.
NBC
As he fought to maintain Nimoy/Spock on “Star Trek” after the unique pilot “The Cage” failed, Roddenberry fought to maintain Spock’s ears and received. Roddenberry was famously an atheist, whose unfavourable view on faith was echoed sooner or later he dreamed up, so I think about this complete kerfuffle may’ve been very amusing or very irritating for him (if not each).
Clearly, Spock trying just like the Satan did not impede the character’s recognition. “For The Love of Spock” paperwork how Spock’s “otherness” made him an icon, and his distinctive, not-quite-human look completely helped contribute to that. Certainly, in response to Nimoy, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than NBC utterly modified their tune, and gave Roddenberry the precise reverse grievance about Spock: “Why aren’t you doing extra with that Martian on the present?”
Nonetheless, this would possibly nicely have impressed a joke within the “Star Trek” episode “The Apple.” After Captain Kirk (William Shatner) frees a primitive civilization from their deity “Vaal,” Spock quotes the Ebook of Genesis and ponders in the event that they disadvantaged the aliens of their blissful ignorance. Kirk turns it again on Spock, asking if there’s “anybody on this ship who remotely appears to be like like Devil?”
These days, with Spock being as well-known as he’s, we do not consider him (or different Vulcan characters) as trying just like the Satan, however merely trying like Spock.