A character with a visor was a mistake

[You_Will_Fail]

Does anyone else feel this way? Not being able to see an actor's eyes is just annoying, its true that you really do see people's emotions etc through their eyes and Geordi always just felt absent to me because his eyes were covered up with that damned visor.

 

[Destructor]

No. Blind people frequently wear sunglasses- they are no less emotional than people whose eyes you can see.

 

[The Castellan]

Does anyone else feel this way? Not being able to see an actor's eyes is just annoying, its true that you really do see people's emotions etc through their eyes and Geordi always just felt absent to me because his eyes were covered up with that damned visor.

I disagree, thought he was ok. And body language, other than the eyes, can show emotions as well.

 

[davejames]

I thought Levar Burton was surprisingly good at expressing himself behind that Visor.

Although in retrospect, it does look a bit clunky on him. It's a shame he couldn't have transitioned to the much cooler occular implants earlier.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

No. Blind people frequently wear sunglasses- they are no less emotional than people whose eyes you can see.

No offense but what an utterly STUPID reply. I'm not saying people can't be emotional when their eyes are covered. I'm talking that from a performance point of view where you have to relay emotions and a character to an audience, having your eyes covered is a major disadvantage and I really felt that with Geordi.

 

[Tosk]

Was it a disadvantage for Burton? Yes.
Did it bother me that Geordi wore a VISOR? No. I liked it.

 

[Shanndee]

I remember an interview in which Burton admitted to being nervous about acting behind the visor. If memory serves, he said he had always felt that his eyes were an integral part of expressing a character, and to lose the ability to "sell" the character with his eyes was daunting.

He saw it as a challenge. I think he met the challenge rather well.

 

[GalaxyX]

At the time I thought the idea was cool. In retrospect, when I watch the series now, it feels like such a dated idea.

 

[Trekker4747]

Dated... because blind people no longer exist? Because blind-people prosthetics are less clunky and more "normal" looking?

 

[doubleohfive]

Dated, probably, as in "Wow, that VISOR prop looked fucking hi tech and awesome in 1987, but today it looks clunky as hell."

 

[Tosk]

At the time I thought the idea was cool. In retrospect, when I watch the series now, it feels like such a dated idea.

What's dated about a fairly streamlined prosthesis that allows a blind man to not only see, but to see "better" than a normally sighted person?

 

[Trekker4747]

Dated, probably, as in "Wow, that VISOR prop looked fucking hi tech and awesome in 1987, but today it looks clunky as hell."

I don't see how it looks "clunky" especially given everything it can do for the wearer. But this a problem with a lot of the tech in Trek as the real world progresses. Look at the "tapes" Kirk uses for information storage in TOS compared to today's flash and thumb drives. Still, I don't think the VISOR is exactly "clunky" looking and think it worked quite nicely in the series and Burton acted well in it, conveying emotion in suck even with the loss of being able to express with his eyes.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It was not mistake.

On the contrary, it's an element of the show that was/is quintessentially of science fiction. Furthermore, it represents a technological advancement that today will likely become feasible, if not in our lifetimes then in that of our children's.

Certainly, it was/is more plausible than either forehead or empathic humanoid aliens.

 

[Kelthaz]

Ocular Implants > Visor.

Pulaski should have performed that surgery on Geordi.

 

[GalaxyX]

Dated, probably, as in "Wow, that VISOR prop looked fucking hi tech and awesome in 1987, but today it looks clunky as hell."

This is what I meant.

Looking at it from a perspective of blindness vs sight, because:

1. I don't know if the brain could be wired to interpret signals as it's portrayed to be possible by the Visor (It's explained to be able to feed visually the entire electromagnetic spectrum into his brain). How would the brain interpret gamma rays? x-rays? radio waves?

2. By the 24th century, blindness would probably be completely eliminated, but also easily fixable with the technology available to them.

 

[Anji]

The visor never bothered me. Everybody has something different about them like a big nose or receding hairline or a mole in a funny place...at first you notice it but after a while it just becomes normal.

 

[Tosk]

2. By the 24th century, blindness would probably be completely eliminated, but also easily fixable with the technology available to them.

So will baldness. Is Picard's head dated?

Who's to say what will and won't be possible by then? Humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future of technology.

 

[Trekker4747]

Ocular Implants > Visor.

Pulaski should have performed that surgery on Geordi.

Considering he declined the surgery (as I recall it was a "no go-backsies" surgery that could have possibly left him with no eyes no ability to use the VISOR) I don't think she had much say in the matter.

 

[Christopher]

No offense but what an utterly STUPID reply.

I sincerely wonder how you think that can possibly be said in that particular way without giving offense.

I'm not saying people can't be emotional when their eyes are covered. I'm talking that from a performance point of view where you have to relay emotions and a character to an audience, having your eyes covered is a major disadvantage and I really felt that with Geordi.

I never did. I've never had trouble seeing, say, Ray Charles as emotionally expressive.

And how is it any different from actors wearing heavy prosthetics, like Rene Auberjonois or Armin Shimerman? Sure, you can see their eyes, but the role of the eyes in human expression is exaggerated. Most of the expression we attribute to the eyes actually comes from the area around the eyes -- the brows, the cheeks,the muscles at the temples. And heavy prosthetics can restrict a lot of that freedom to show expression. But actors can learn to compensate, to find other ways to express emotion through their voices and body language, or by playing a role "bigger" than they normally would. And that can be a good challenge for an actor, forcing them to cope with limitations and develop ways to overcome them.

 

[Trekker4747]

Having a character with forehead ridges was a mistake, I mean how can we tell when Word was frustrated is we can never see him furrow his brow?