Spock Movie Collages

I recently had some time on my hands and created these collages -- one for each Star Trek film.  They feature some of my favourite images of Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

Leonard Nimoy as Spock

Secret Pain

The past few days have seen me fall into a place of deep despair.  Those who know me well will know that I suffer from severe depression.  Every day this week saw new reports of incredible tragedy and human suffering.  I internalized all of these events.  I felt them all as personally as my own pain. Cowardly bombings in Baghdad and Boston that left many dead and others permanently scarred in body and mind, devastating earthquakes that killed hundreds, an explosion in Texas that rocked a small community, the rape of a five year-old girl in India and subsequent violent protests, a good friend who is losing a parent.  More than these events themselves, I was appalled at how they were reported in our news and social media.

I read so many horrible posts and comments so filled with ignorance and hate. News reporters latched on to the fact that the suspects in the Boston bombings were born in Chechnya.  Ignorant of geography and too lazy to bother to check their facts, some of these reporters then began to blame the political situation in the Czech Republic for creating potential killers.  Of course, the Czech Republic is not Chechnya.  Moreover, these two boys (for that is what they were) were more American than Chechen. I started to see horrible, mind-boggling discussions about "evil Muslims" and then people referring to Islam as a race.

Paranoid gun rights lobbyists started using the situation to create a platform saying that Obama's proposed expansion of background checks to purchase firearms were to blame for the tragedy.  Apparently if everyone was armed the bombings wouldn't have taken place.

Facebook and Twitter were full of comments from people supporting alleged rapists in Nova Scotia and California after two teen girls committed suicide after having allegedly been raped by groups of teen boys.  These people ignored the tragedy that two young people had been so desperate they felt the need to end their lives.  The victims' families were left to battle this ignorance.

I don't want to re-hash any of this.  Suffice to say that I found it all profoundly troubling.  I didn't sleep well for a few nights and it got to a point overnight on Friday where I made myself physically ill by dwelling on these events and the conversations they sparked.  I felt incredible shame.  I was ashamed to be Human; to be part of a species that could commit such crimes against itself. There was so much hate, anger and pain that it seemed to engulf my world in a dark black cloud that obscured any goodness.  I could do nothing much yesterday except sleep fitfully all through the day, exhausted and hurting.

During the week I spent my evenings re-watching the original 6 Star Trek films.  I wanted desperately to escape into a place of comfort.  I wanted to find people I could relate to and people I wasn't ashamed to be similar to. Consequently, I ended up isolating myself and ignoring those closest to me. This morning, I found my mind dwelling on Star Trek V: The Final Frontier which is perhaps my least favourite of the original films.  I couldn't get Sybok out of my head.  I kept repeating his call "Share your pain with me and gain strength from the sharing."

It seemed to me that there was something valuable in those words even though the film seems to say the opposite.  Kirk tells Sybok that he won't give up his pain that he "needs his pain."  Yet we see others for whom the release of pain is transformative.  McCoy, for example (in one of DeForeset Kelley's greatest moments) is freed from torment when he shares the pain over the loss of his father.

It occurs to me now that it is not the release of pain that is helpful.  It is the act of sharing it with someone else.  Donne said that "No man is an island" and I must admit that he was correct.  Humans have need of a collective experience.  As much as some of us may wish to live completely independently it is not realistic.  If our ancestors had thought that way we would not be here now to debate the idea.  It is important, and possibly essential to our happiness that we share our pain (and joy) with others who can understand it. It will never go away but like the weight of water spread across the bricks in a dam, the pressure can be lessened.

There is a reason that there is no single star of the original Star Trek.  The trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is important because it is only together that they find peace and satisfaction.  It is almost as if they are not a whole person unless they're together.  Maybe these musings will seem naive.  I am somewhat emotionally stunted and it takes time for me to figure these things out.  I have an amazing set of friends and a wonderful family and too often I try to shut them out and deal with things on my own.  That might be the Vulcan way but, as much as I am loathe to admit it, I do not have the mental discipline to make that work.  I am Human and part of being Human is that the adventure must be made together.

Social media has made it possible for us to be connected to more people in a month than some of our ancestors may have known in their entire lifetimes. Some people collect friends on Facebook like I collect Star Trek items!  It's not the quantity that's important.  It's the quality of our relationships that matters and that quality is entirely dependent upon us.  Our relationships become what we build them into.  Sometimes, a shared experience with one other person is of such quality that great evils perpetrated by many others can fade into memory.

As I struggle personally with being part of an imperfect species I have to remind myself that everyone else is doing the same thing.  As my sister reminded me last night in a blog post of her own, tomorrow is a new day. Though the cynic in me immediately responds that it will never be a new day for the victims of last week's tragedies, it will be a new day for us.  We can make it brighter by being together, remembering those we've lost and trying to understand how we could have helped those who brought so much pain to so many people.  It's when the pain remains secret that it hurts us more.

Laurence Luckinbill as Sybok

Vulcans in Plastic: Star Trek V

Galoob held a license to create Star Trek toys from 1988-1997.  In 1988 they launched the first Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures and later they created a successful line of Star Trek MicroMachines.  But in 1989, they released what are perhaps the worst Star Trek action figures ever made, for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

By 1989, high-end Trek collectables were becoming very popular so instead of standard action figures, Galoob released five "Limited Edition" figures that were more like statues made of rubber: Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sybok and Captain Klaa.  Obviously, the two Vulcan ones are of interest to us here.

Without a doubt, this is the worst Spock figure ever created.  It looks like a Vulcan but nothing like Leonard Nimoy.  The head is disproportionately large and it features one of the ugliest Starfleet uniforms ever designed.

This figure does have articulated arms but, like the others, the feet are mounted to a black plastic base embossed with the film's logo.  The base has a slot at the back to slide in a cardboard backdrop.  The art on the backdrop might be the best feature of this figure.

The Sybok figure is slightly better.  His head is not quite as disproportionate as Spock's and the sculptor did a good job of recreating his costume, albeit in a basic, textureless fashion.

Sybok has no articulation whatsoever.  He reminds me a bit of the giant, hollow vinyl Marshmallow Man figure from the Ghostbusters movie.

Overall, perhaps these are fitting collectables for the Star Trek film that is least popular.  As action figures they are sorely lacking and as higher-end collectables they are also sorely lacking.  Lost somewhere between two worlds, these items are still fairly highly sought-after since not very many seem to have been made.

Nilo Rodis: Costumes From the Final Frontier

Nilo Rodis (or Nilo Rodis-Jamero) worked at ILM in the 1980s.  He served as a visual effects art director on The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.  He is credited as the designer of the popular Klingon Bird of Prey first seen in Star Trek III.  He went on to work as a costume designer for Return of the Jedi and as an art director on Star Trek IV, V and VI.  When William Shatner saw the detail that Rodis put into his storyboards for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, he hired him as a costume designer.  He shared those duties with Dodie Shepard.

Nilo Rodis in the Star Trek V DVD Bonus Features

In his designs for Sybok, Rodis displays his knowledge of Vulcan design from previous Trek films.  I really like that he put so much emphasis on including triangular shapes.  Triangles have been important visual cues in Vulcan design since William Ware Theiss created the IDIC for TOS.  Designers in for ST: TMP continued the trend and brought it into Vulcan architecture.

Robert Fletcher continued to develop the idea with his costumes for Spock in ST: TMP and for T'Lar in Star Trek III.  

Here are some sketches and a storyboard featuring Sybok by Nilo Rodis.

Maintaining these kinds of design archetypes really helped Star Trek continuity over the years.  Vulcans are easily distinguishable from Klingons, Romulans and everyone else because of design tricks like this.  These designs provide Vulcan clothing with a sense of geometrical order which seems to me, perfectly logical.  The resulting costume for Sybok displays echoes of the previous designs so he can be identified as a Vulcan even though he's the most different Vulcan we've ever seen.

After Star Trek VI, Nilo Rodis has continued to build a rich career in design for film.  Most recently, he served as visual effects art director on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.  His attention to detail is a trait shared with most Trek designers and one of the things that allows Star Trek's designs to hold up so well over time.

A good source for more of Rodis' work is The Art of Star Trek by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.