One fan’s tribute to a fallen star
My review of I Am Spock (1995)
(Rating 5 of 5)
On
February 27, 2015 we lost Leonard Nimoy.
As a lifelong Star Trek fan
the loss of Mr. Spock is a painful one, and over the last few weeks I was
trying to think of a right way to pay a tribute to him. I could go on about how Star Trek mattered in my life and his part in it. However on this blog I normally just review
history books. Then I thought for a
moment, back when I was in Middle School and High School I primarily read Star Trek novels. My first ever non-fiction book was I Am Spock. It was a bit of heavy reading for an
eighth-grader, yet that was where my interest was. The book was a follow up to his earlier book I Am Not Spock that he wrote in the
seventies and was trying to clear up some false impressions that the earlier
book caused. So I have decided to do a small review of this book. Now there is one slight problem, although I
still own the book I don’t have it with me.
It is in my storage shed. So I am
going to be doing this mostly from memory so there will be no direct quotes and
I am only going on about the parts that I have a strongest memory about.
SPOCK WAS ALMOST LOST EARLY
When Star Trek’s first pilot, the Cage, was first reviewed by test
audiences Spock was one of two characters that was not well received. The other was the female First Officer, who
we only knew as “Number One.” (The idea of a woman giving orders to men was not
an acceptable thing for polite society.)
The studio was willing to give the show a try but all the characters had
to go except the captain, who they would have to recast because Jeffery Hunter
who played Pike left for a movie career and became Jesus. The creator, Gene Roddenberry, tried to save
the two characters that the studio hated the most. They gave him a choice: the Vulcan or the
woman. According to Nimoy, since
Roddenberry later married Majel Barrett who played “Number One,” the running
joke was Roddenberry kept the Vulcan and married the woman because he couldn’t
do it the other way around, at least not legally. Or as Mr. Sulu would like us to point out, it
was not legal in the 20th century.
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| Might have been Trek, only Spock would go where none had gone before |
NIMOY WAS NOT PREPARED FOR FAME
One of
the funny stories that Nimoy told in the book was a time he got a call from a
fan. The fan was shocked to find Nimoy
in the phone book. Then the flood
happened the phone started ringing off the hook one fan after another kept
calling Nimoy in hopes of talking to him.
If he had any doubts about Star
Trek’s popularity that would have ended it.
WILLIAM SHATNER IS A HARD MAN TO KNOW
It
appreciates a special sort of person to appreciate William Shatner’s humor. And
lucky for Shatner, Nimoy was such a person.
If he had been anybody else I don’t think this would have ended in a
lifelong friendship. When they were
doing the show, Nimoy liked to ride his bike to work. Shatner thought it was really funny to hide
Nimoy’s bike on him. As time would go on
Shatner would be more and more creative about where he would hide it. The final straw came when Shatner, a Doberman
breeder, had the bike surrounded by his trusty Dobermans. Nimoy decided to drive his car, Shatner
reported a ‘strange car’ in the parking lot and it was towed.
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| Spock, thank you for being my friend. If weren't for you no one this cast would even like me. |
I AM NOT SPOCK WAS A
‘MISTAKE’
Although
he enjoyed writing the book, especially the parts where he had dialogue between
himself and his character, he regretted writing I Am Not Spock. Most people,
except really loyal Star Trek fans,
did not read the book. However many
people had heard of it and the negative sounding title gave the rise to the
myth that Nimoy hated Star Trek. (This is a problem that was similar to the response
to William Shatner’s appearance on SaturdayNight Live.) I Am Not Spock and its reputation would be brought up often in
interviews and would be the main motive for writing this book.
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| Error |
LAWSUIT
In
addition to I Am Not Spock, another
reason people might have questioned how much Nimoy liked Star Trek he did have a lawsuit going due to use of his likeness by
the studio. This lead to Nimoy not being
in the discussion for the aborted series Star
Trek Phase II, and delayed him signing on to Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
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| Image that inspired a lawsuit |
HARD TIME KILLING SPOCK
There
were two things I learned about the death of Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath
of Kahn. The first was they had to
rewrite the script because a rumor was circulated about Spock’s death. Originally Spock was supposed to die half way
through the movie and the rest of the film was going hunt down Kahn for killing
Spock. They rewrote it to have Spock have a fake death of the start of the
movie (Kobayashi Maru) and have his
actual death come at the end of the movie.
The second thing I learned was although he was okay with Spock dying for
most of the filming, when it came time to do the death scene Nimoy described as
feeling as if he were a condemned man going to the gas chamber.
STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR
SPOCK WAS A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIE
After Star Trek came to an end, Nimoy took a
role on the Mission Impossible
series. What Nimoy like the most about
it was the teamwork aspect. Each episode
had every character have a special role in order to have their mission be a
success. When directing Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,
Nimoy took elements from Mission
Impossible. The entire plot to steal the Enterprise was done as a tribute to that TV series.
Also the design for the Excelsior was picked by Nimoy out of a series of proposed designs and Nimoy decided on the winning design because in his words it looked the most like the Enterprise. Nimoy's poistion was if Starfleet were real the ships should look like the were designed by the same people. One of the rejected designs became the Stargazer.
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| Nimoy thought these images made it look like the engineers all came from the same school |
In the original
series, it was established that Vulcan men every seven years go to the phase
called pon farr. With pon farr occurs
the Vulcan must mate or have fight to the death. On the Genesis planet Spock body, absent his
mind which McCoy has, has regenerated and reverted to childhood. He begins to
age rapidly causing him to age rapidly. This causes him to pon farr every
twenty minutes. Saavik, a female Vulcan,
takes Spock off camera and they have lots of sex. One of Nimoy’s producers thought the fans
would laugh at this, Nimoy claimed they wouldn’t and made a bet. Nimoy claimed that he won. He thought it was because the audience was
mature, I think it was because they didn’t get it.
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| A lucky young Spock |
THE NEXT GENERATION APPEARANCE
As hard
is maybe to believe, there was a time where fans of the Original Series and the Next
Generation didn’t get along too well.
At one point they were sitting at different places at the
convention. At one convention he was
asked if he would go on The Next
Generation if asked. He informed the
attendees not only had he been asked he had already accepted. The audience went nuts. Spock’s appearance on The Next Generation was
good, but not as good as Scotty’s.
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| Nice but not as good as... |
ALWAYS WOULD GIVE AN AUTOGRAPH
Early
in the book, Nimoy told a story that when he was a kid he met a famous actor
(who I can’t remember for my book is still in storage) and the actor refused to
give young Nimoy an autograph. He was so
upset that he made a vow always to give his autograph when asked. Now I have no idea that if in that last two
decades if he was physically able to keep that promise, however it is always
something that would remember about him.
MY REGRETS
I
regret not having been able to meet Nimoy.
I also regret not knowing until after he died that he was a big of a
Patriots fan as myself.
Rest in peace, Mr. Spock.
