The original concept for vulcans had them with red skin, a tail and even more "devilish ears", they would have "eaten" sunlight via their skin. This concept would never have made it thru the censors at NBC back then..but lets suppose they had let it "slip"...Would it have worked?
Could the original concept for vulcans have worked?
- Thread starter FreddyE
- Start date
If there was any chance of it working, we would have seen some variation of the idea done at some point in the last fifty years. Pretty much all of Trek's other original concepts have wormed their way into the canon at some point.
The red skin and "more devilish" ears? That may have worked.
The tail and Superman-style sunlight absorption? Not so much.
The tail and Superman-style sunlight absorption? Not so much.
Weren't they also Martians?
Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, and similar authors would probably disagree.
Would they? IIRC, the idea was abandoned primarily because it was more fantasy than science fiction.
They weren't the ones NBC was making Star Trek for. It was being made for general audiences. A devil looking character would've been laughed off the screen by most of the country and the show likely would've been constantly pre-empted in the South. It wouldn't have made it thirteen weeks.
With 1960s tech it would have looked awful.
I love the idea of eating sunlight though. We haven't had many plant-inspired sentient alien species.
I love the idea of eating sunlight though. We haven't had many plant-inspired sentient alien species.
I am glad they didn't go that route. As is, Vulcans have an Aristocratic/Elven vibe- going with a more devil look would have been more of an 'in your face- hey, I may look like Satan but I am a good devil" thing. OK for one episode, it would get old after one season I think...
Even on TNG this sort of thing looked cheesy.
Again, Arthur C. Clarke, as well as SyFy, would probbbbbably disagree because they used that exact same concept only a handful of months ago.
He would have looked fine if they put him in some actual clothing/armor that looked decent. Anyone wearing a flesh-colored spandex body suit is going to look ridiculous.[/i]
What about 1953?
2016 is a ton different than 1966.
If the Tellarites managed to make it on screen, I can't imagine someone with red skin and a tail being much worse.So the devil might have looked better in TOS?
You do realize that sci-fi (Childhood's End) was a very small genre in 1953? We are talking about an expensive TV series that would need, at least, 20 million viewers per week.
Yeah, my bad. TOS was too serious for anything that might look a little silly or slightly awkward. A guy with red skin and a tail would have been TOTALLY overboard.
If you can't figure out that a character that looks like a devil wouldn't go over big in 1960's America, there's nothing I can say to change your mind. Star Trek was already borderline cancellation from the get go. Cut out most of the Southeast US (the Bible belt) and the show gets cancelled quickly.
I guess that's why no one's ever heard of Rosemary's Baby, the Masque of the Red Death, and the other devilish films from the 60s. I bet witchcraft was equally taboo, considering the whole Christian mythos, so shows like Bewitched were totally never made. Certainly not as a comedy, at least.
Maybe, it takes a certain je ne sais quoi. Reckon I could make it look good
In all seriousness I suspect it COULD have worked, but it was down to the execs to take the chance, which they apparently didn't
