Star Trek: Spock why he has pointy ears? – BBC

SCAN THE TELE – The American actor died at age 83 from lung disease was made famous thanks to these two strange appendages. Here are the origins.

Mr Spock pointed ears are an integral part of the mythology of Star Trek as well as the famous Vulcan hi imagined by the late Leonard Nimoy, who died February 27, 2015 at the age of 83, as a result of lung failure in Los Angeles.

But what mystery behind these strange appendages hearing? What exactly are the origins of the famous ears? In short, why Mr. Spock he has pointy ears? All this goes back to the early 60s.

In 1963 to be precise, Gene Roddenberry, a former bomber pilot who had participated in the Pacific War imagine the series Star Trek . Next to the fiery T.Kirk Captain James (played by William Shatner), it added a character named Spock in the first version of the scenario is a Martian red hair. The producers of the NBC quickly forced to humanize this landed alien from the planet Vulcan.

optempère Roddenberry. But he wants to keep the character a singular side. Pointy ears are the gadgets of the time that bloom in television shows like The Fourth Dimension ( The Twilight Zone ) when it comes to representing an alien, a time to aillleurs monster. This is sort of a convention.

In American folklore, and in the tales and legends, specifically to Halloween time, vampires and evil elves wear this kind of oversized ears reminiscent of the big bad wolf. We still remember the nursery rhyme “What you have big ears, big mother.” “It’s better to hear you, my child,” replied the wolf inside his disguise.

For Spock, Gene Roddenberry chooses pointy ears in order to preserve the character a worrying aspect. Technically, this is not expensive. And visually, the effect of strangeness is guaranteed. This is the special effects designer Fred Phillips who is responsible for creating these Vulcan ears.

Initially, Leonard Nimoy does not appreciate everyday poses of these two pieces of plastic that sticks to him before every shoot. Roddenberry even promises to find a scenario tip for planing him over the episodes … which is never the case.

More recently, in an interview occurred during the release of Star Trek Into Darkness released in 2013, Leonard Nimoy returned on this famous pair of ears which has made his fame as well as his blue pajamas and her bangs Roman emperor.

Nimoy had not fired his ear to tell a little known story “Trekkie”: “At the time I was playing in the series Star Trek , had he remembered. And a small special effects guys had seen fit to make me a joke. He had changed the glue used to fix my Spock ears against super glue. At the end of the day, impossible to remove these prostheses pointed. So I left home with. Hoping to loosen them under a hot shower. This is ultimately what happened, thanks to the help of my wife rubbed for hours. In the 60s, we used make-up and pretty rudimentary adhesives. We were pioneers! That’s why, over the episodes, I developed all kinds of skin allergies. “