RIP, Leonard Nimoy, 1931-2015

[GeorgeC]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/arts/ ... at-83.html

He was sick for a while due to obstructive pulmonary disease. That was attributed to decades of smoking. Nimoy quit smoking in the mid-1980s but he thought that his recent health issues were related to his former habit.

He was preceded in death by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (dec 1991), DeForest Kelly/" Dr. Leonard Bones McCoy" (dec 1999), and James Doohan/"Chief Engineer Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott" (2005).

Nimoy was best known, of course, for originating the character role of Mr. Spock, science officer and first officer of the USS Enterprise on the original Star Trek TV series (1966-1969). He was the only actor of the original series cast to be in every episode of the original series including the series' two pilot episodes. Mr. Spock became the break-away fan favorite of the series during its original run and has remained popular since. The character was reprised by Nimoy in eight Star Trek movies (including the two films of the Abrams' rebooted Trek series) and two episodes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nimoy made numerous guest appearances in other TV series over the past few decades and had recurring character roles in other series such as the original "Mission Impossible" and the Fox TV series, "Fringe." He also lent his voice to numerous documentaries and audio books. He did voiceover for characters in several animated features including the original Transformers movie (1986) and the Star Trek animated TV series (1973-1974) which was his first reprisal of the Spock role and the first 'revival' of the original Star Trek TV series.

He will be missed. This is a huge blow to the Star Trek fan community. The Spock character was part of the main triumvirate of characters (Kirk, Spock, and McCoy) that was the focus of the original series and the first Star Trek movies. William Shatner ("Captain Kirk") is the last surviving member of that triumvirate. In addition to Shatner, there are only three other surviving Trek TOS members -- George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and Walter Koenig.

[ShyViolet]

Oh no!

Such a wonderful actor, not just as Spock but other roles too. (Loved him in invasion of the body snatchers, the 1976 film). He was also wonderful on Futurama. RIP Leonard!!!!

[Dan]

A few years back I had the fortune to shake Mr. Nimoy's hand during an autograph session at Comic Con. The vast majority of folks were having him sign Star Trek merch, but I was one of the few, if any, who had something else. Seeing the Atlantis: The Lost Empire Illustrated Screenplay hardcover I wanted him to sign brought a smile to his face. One of my favorite Comic Con moments.

Live long and prosper, Mr. Spock. We'll miss you.

[Ben]

I would imagine two things here: that next years's 50th anniversary Trek film is a cert to be dedicated to Nimoy, and that Shatner will see this as a sign to stop fooling around and get on board for a final cameo.

Loved Leonard...and he was a pretty decent director, too, who didn't really get his due recognition or enough chances to prove that.

[GeorgeC]

Shatner definitely has... some issues but I think there's a fair chance he'll be in the next Star Trek film in at least a cameo.

God knows he's not getting any younger! There have been rumors that something is in the works but I think it's all talk until the set photos or scripts for the next Trek film get leaked.

As far as Nimoy's directing. From what I heard in media this past day, he did all he wanted to do in feature filmwork. He felt he had nothing else to prove to himself so that's why he didn't direct a bunch of feature films. He directed two of the Star Trek features (III and IV) and at least two other films. One of those other films was Three Men and Baby but I honestly don't know the name of the other one. He was also an executive producer and contributed story material to Star Trek VI. I've rewatched several of the Star Trek features recently and revised my opinion of Star Trek III. It's a better film than many people give it credit for. I like it better than ST IV which is a bit too jokey for my tastes. ST III is a a very personal film that appeals to people who care about the character relationships. That's something Nimoy and Shatner understood... that's one thing I missed from the last two Star Trek movies. The character relationships have been jettisoned in favor of bigger explosions and other visual junk (not that the films were particularly designed well to begin with)!

(Okay, I DID like what was done with Christopher Pike in the last two films -- except his exit in the last film -- but that's one of the few positive character developments in those films.)

FYI, while many people have said that the heart of Star Trek died with Nimoy I'm not entirely sure that I agree. I think the most significant Trek death prior to Nimoy was definitely DeForest Kelly. McCoy was a critical part of the TV series and movies and I think at the latest (ST III) it was very obvious that character was not secondary. The original Star Trek was mainly a triumvirate. I felt somewhat worse when DeForest Kelly died (1999) -- that was totally unexpected to me. That's when Star Trek: TOS was officially over for me. I had heard stories about his health issues but his passing was more surprising than Nimoy's. It was very obvious for the last few years that Nimoy was not in good shape.

[Randall]

I met Nimoy twice, and was always a big Trek fan, from about age 7. Last night, I watched the Blu-ray of ST:TMP, which felt right---- a film that gave everyone a chance to see their favourite characters "one more time," though fortunately not for the last time. He was a great speaker, too, and spoke well of everyone, even making apologies for his friend Bill, whom other cast members disliked to varying degrees.

I preferred III to IV as well. Who couldn't love a film that brought Spock back to life?

[Ben]

Count me in as a III to VI fan...always felt the humor, badly dated now, was a bit shoehorned in as a way to brighten things up after the darkness of II and III. And VI was good too (Nimoy and Meyer again), though I (whisper) do have a spot for the much maligned Generations.

Loved Spock passing on the baton up in Star Trek X, although with respect I wish he'd been left out of his redundant 30 seconds pop-up in Into Darkness.

[GeorgeC]

I preferred III to IV as well. Who couldn't love a film that brought Spock back to life?

Nah, that's not it for me... I watched it again and realized that besides being a Kirk film -- it's really about him struggling with his career and letting go one of his dreams (the Enterprise) and coming to grips with the most personal death of his life -- it's really about McCoy realizing that Spock is his friend, too.

(Well, yeah, there is a segment of fandom that still can't deal with the fact that the original Federation Starship Enterprise died for good in ST-III but Spock was brought back... Much as I love that ship, it means nothing without the crew. It's an inanimate object and that's easy to replace. They used the same model for six pictures!)

Count me in as a III to VI fan...always felt the humor, badly dated now, was a bit shoehorned in as a way to brighten things up after the darkness of II and III. And VI was good too (Nimoy and Meyer again), though I (whisper) do have a spot for the much maligned Generations.

I saw Generations all the way through some months ago for the first time in many years. I never dealt well with the impact of that film when it first came out. Much as I didn't care for the design of the Enterprise-D, I felt it was stupid to destroy the ship in the first TNG feature film. Didn't like the way they killed off Kirk and didn't want to let go... I also felt at the time that Picard didn't come off particularly well in the film.

Looking back at it again, I changed my mind. I like the film better now. I STILL don't like how Kirk was killed off but accepted the character was dead. (I must confess that I really, really hate seeing my heroes die on-screen...) I finally accepted that the film was as much about Picard as it was Kirk and passing the baton. It's one of the finer moments that Picard had. I have to confess that I did not care for the Picard character until Season 4 of TNG... The turning point for me was the episode, "Family," where he visited his family home in France and dealt with his older brother. It humanized him quite a bit for me...

[droosan]

My earliest memory of Leonard Nimoy was as the host of In Search Of... which, as it happens, I'd recently purchased as a complete-series DVD boxed set. I've spent much of the past couple of days 'binge-watching' selected episodes. Many of the 'mysteries' presented on that show have since been either solved or debunked as frauds/forgeries .. but Mr. Nimoy's earnest narration still lends the show an air of scientific gravitas. (it remains a much more responsible presentation of 'paranormal' phenomenon than similar modern fare like Ancient Aliens, Ghost Hunters, etc).

Mr. Nimoy also served as the host for a series titled Lights, Camera...Action! which aired on Nickelodeon in the early-1980s. The show offered a 'behind-the-scenes' look at then-current movie-making, most memorably (for myself) The Secret of NIMH, The Dark Crystal, Rock & Rule, and Nimoy's own starring turn in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It gave me my first look at the industry in which I would later forge my own profession.

He also figures prominently in my favorite episode of The Simpsons .. "Marge vs the Monorail".

But, of course, it was his portrayal of Mr. Spock for which he is most (deservedly) famous.

In addition to Shatner, there are only three other surviving Trek TOS members -- George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and Walter Koenig.

Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand) is also still kickin'. A 'minor' TOS cast member, to be sure .. but consider that -- in addition to the TV series -- she appeared briefly in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (in the 'malfunctioning transporter' sequence), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (among the crowd during McCoy's attempt to charter a flight to Genesis), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (in the audience witnessing Kirk's trial), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (as a communications officer on Captain Sulu's Excelsior).

[GeorgeC]

Yeah, "In Search Of" was a great series! I caught it in first-run syndication as a kid and later on saw the reruns on A & E. A couple of the episodes still hold up pretty well... A lot of them have been posted on YouTube. Some of the episodes like the Jack the Ripper episode are still pretty eerie.

"Lights Camera Action" I remember had a segment on Star Trek III. Mini-promo thing.

Heh... and those guest shots/cameos in The Simpsons and Futurama. I think only George Takei even comes close the number of appearances in those shows although Nimoy was in at least two episodes of Futurama versus the one Takei did... (Takei at least had a sense humor about some of the ethnic jokes... He was great as the sadistic Japanese game show host for that torture game show The Simpsons competed in.) I think Nimoy was in the Futurama pilot as well as that near-full cast/'80th' episode of Star Trek/Futurama that had every main surviving cast member (DeForest Kelly was already dead before the episode went into production) except Doohan who didn't want to do it or was too ill... The writers got back at Doohan by giving "Welshie" a horribly painful death!

[Ben]

I always remember the In Search Of...spoof in the Kentucky Fried Movie sequel Amazom Women On The Moon: "Was Jack the Ripper in fact a sixty-foot sea serpent from Scotland? Is it ********, Or Not!?" !:)

[GeorgeC]

I don't remember that bit from the Kentucky Fried Movie but it has been a couple of years since I've seen it...

The most memorable things I remember are Wally/Cleaver (Tony Dow) and the other guy playing Beaver Cleaver (NOT Jerry Mathers; he passed on the movie) appearing in the spectator's section of a municipal court and the spoof of "Enter the Dragon." The "Dragon" spoof really nailed the movie!

[Ben]

Love Kentucky and all its pastiche (yes, A Fistful Of Yen is masterful, the courtroom sequence pure perfect ZAZ, among many other spot on spoofs), but I did say...

Kentucky Fried Movie sequel Amazom Women On The Moon

[GeorgeC]

...And right on the heels of Leonard Nimoy's death, another part of the Trek crew dies.

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/star- ... 4/#respond

Harve Bennett, who helped produce Star Trek after the production fiasco of the first motion picture, passed away on Wednesday. He was 84.

He's probably to the films what Robert Justman and Gene Coon was to the original Star Trek. He was an indispensable part of what the movies between I and VI work. He probably would have been on-board with ST VI if Paramount had gone ahead with his ideas on revamping the ST film franchise. His ideas were dismissed since A) fans still wanted to see the original cast and B) he didn't have enough support from within Paramount to get his Starfleet Academy script produced. The plotline for the Academy script is a lot like the 2009 Star Trek movie. The design of the Enterprise in that script resembles the design of the Starship in the Star Trek: Enterprise TV series. He was just too far ahead of his time with those ideas...

In the meantime, he helped produce two of the better Star Trek movies (II and III) and propelled the franchise past the trouble starting gate known as Star Trek: The Motion Picture and kept his movies under budget. The under-$12 million Star Trek II looks a LOT better than many of the films being made today!

(ST-II was produced, depending on your source for anywhere between one-half to one-quarter the budget of the first motion picture. It's sort of hard to tabulate how much ST-I really cost to produce since Paramount included development costs of the ST-Phase II TV series that was never shot as well as all the special effects shots and models that were unusable for the first film. Nonetheless, the figure I usually see is $44million in 1979/early 1980s dollars By today's standards, that's probably equivalent to at least $150million if not $25million above that. Ouch!)

It's not how much money is spent but how it's used and whether you have a good script to begin with!

[Randall]

Bennett, of course, also was behind The Six Million Dollar Man, another old favourite that I still enjoy.