contents Introductions.................................................................................2 Nichelle NIcols...............................................................................5 Article, Edit
Interviewing Fandom Grandma.....................................................7 Article
Picture Collage..............................................................................8 Analysis of Kirk and Spock’s Theme..............................................10 Gene Roddenberry Quote.............................................................11
The compassionate, and possibly alcoholic, doctor. The nickname ”Bones” was coined by the captain, with it being a play on the term Sawbones, which is an epithet for qualified surgeons. Bones speaks his mind freely, often more than not in protest, around even those in charge. He acts as the conscience of the captain, countering Spock’s logic with his unbridled empathy and passion.
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Half-human, half-vulcan; born a child of two worlds, Spock possesses a childlike curiosity and the heart of a scientist. A signature traist of his is expressing fascination for unique occurrances, despite his continual denial of possessing the capability. Spock struggles with finding balance between emotion and logic. Often opting for the latter, Spock represents the mind of the heroic triad, contributing with cold intellectualism and logic.
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Having become the youngest capain at the age of 32, Kirk runs his ship with the belief that there are no �no-win scenarios�; and despite experiencing the massacre at Tarsus IV first hand he remains kind and hopefull even in the grimmest of situations. With the help of Spock and Bones, Kirk tends to make choices tempering intellect with emotion and emotion with intellect. In fact, he often leaps beyond both of them to make leaps of intuition and hang plans on charisma.
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NICHELLE NICOLS May 2nd, 2013
Trekkies will recognize her in the groundbreaking role as Uhura and her part in the first interracial kiss on U.S. television. But, she also was responsible for recruiting Sally Ride, the first female astronaut, and Guion Bluford, the first Black astronaut, during her work with NASA. Heck, MLK Jr. was a fan.
Born 1932, Robbins, Illinois. As a child she was always interested in song, dance, and even had a fascination with science. At the age of 14, Nichols started her professional song & dance career in Chicago, where she would soon be discovered by the famous Duke Ellington. She was hired to choreograph and perform a ballet for the musician, and finished his tour as lead singer. Nichols did a number of theatrical musicals and plays, one of which caught the eye of Hugh Hefner (a parody of his Playboy Magazine). She later performed at his Chicago club as a result. However, it was Nichol’s debut on Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” television series that provided her first big break. Her role as Lieutenant Uhura, a bridge communications officer, was significant because it was one of the first portrayals of a Black woman in a non-servant role on TV. Nichols made history in November 1968 episode, “Plato’s Stepchildren”, when she and white co-star William Shatner performed the first interracial kiss on U.S. television, breaking major taboos at the time. Nichols recalls how she and Shatner purposefully flubbed every take that nervous NBC executives directed them not to kiss in, just so they’d be forced to go with the original take in the script of them kissing. One scene Shatner even humorously crossed his eyes, much to the executives’ chagrin. Though the show only lasted for three seasons (spanning from ‘66 to ‘69), she made made quite the impact on a number of people, specifically including Whoopi Goldberg and Martin Luther King Jr, who was a big fan of hers. He was the one who convinced Nichols to stay on the show, even as things got tough for her on set, because she inspired a generation of black children and young women. After the show ended, Nichols partnered up with NASA to recruit women and minorities for the space agency when she wasn’t starring in the Star Trek movies. Some of Nichols’ most famous recruits were Dr. Sally Ride, the first female astronaut, and USAF Colonel Guion Bluford, the first African American astronaut. An advocate of space exploration, Nichols he has also served on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society since the 1980s. In recent years, Nichols made waves when posing with President Barack Obama, who admittedly had a crush on her as a young boy.
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INTERVIEWING:
”Fandom Grandma” D
ee, or ”Fandom Grandma” as she was fondly referred to online, was an avid fan of Star Trek since it began ariring in 1966. She shared her experiences in a three part interview on her blog before she passed in late Feburary, 2018. Dee interview transcript, Jan. 24, 2018 [What is your very first memory of Star Trek? Was it love at first sight, or did it take you some time to get “into” it?] I started out in science fiction, before Star Trek was ever on the air. And in 1966, I was living in Oregon and was part of a women’s writing group, a women’s science fiction group. We were all writing, wanting to write. Some of the members of our group had written professionally, and some were trying to get scripts into Hollywood and so on, but we were all focused on writing. Science fiction in the 1960s was not considered the purview of women. When Star Trek came out, I imagine [my science fiction club] was how I first heard about it, because I didn’t watch a lot of TV. I had this little black-and-white, eight-inch screen with the bunny ears. I don’t know why the first episode that aired [The Man Trap] is so disliked, because my memory of it was of just being fascinated. Science fiction … on TV was considered for children. And this was not for children. These were well-developed characters, real plots that you could get into, you could imagine their plight, Bones had a love interest. And there was this Vulcan, who was just a member of this rest of the crew. It was startling, and I was absolutely riveted from that very first day. I had my science fiction club where we would go and talk about it. [Did your sci-fi group watch?]
mile a minute, and that’s my first memory oF Gene. I’m pretty sure in that conversation — if it wasn’t that one, it was one very soon after — he said to me: ‘Oh my god, come down to the studio, you can come down to the set. Write about what we’re doing here.’ Because he just wanted people to be excited about Star Trek. He wanted So she had a color TV and we started all watching people to know about it. He wanted us to wriat her house. And there were a lot of machina- te about it. So it was all very accessible in those tions that had to happen because everyone had earliest days. families, everyone had kids. So one week we’d start planning for the next week. Who’s going Dee interview transcript, Jan. 24, 2018 take care of the kids, we need a babysitter. We need to collect money to pay the babysitter, and [Tell me about your experiences meeting Niwhat are we going to do with our husbands? moy, Roddenberry and the rest of the cast.] And we didn’t have access to our own money. We couldn’t get money out of our bank accounts Leonard Nimoy was the only cast member I met without our husbands’ permission, so I remem- when the show was still in its original run. When ber looking under cushions to get change so that he was in Oregon in 1967, he came to the home we could send our husbands out to go bowling of the president of my sci-fi club and chatted or something so we could watch and not be with us for about 45 minutes. disturbed. Gene had invited me to visit the set in 1966, but It was so exciting. And to see the episodes whe- I didn’t go. If I had known that 50 years later Star re Kirk says “She’s a crewman” and where Uhura Trek would still be around and I’d still be a fan, I is working in “Who Mourns for Adonis?” under might have tried harder to get there! her communications panel and the way Spock talks to her [“I can think no one better equipped In 1970, my husband got a job that took us to Pato handle it, Miss Uhura.”]. I can’t tell you. We sadena, which was lucky timing for me. The show were just electrified, because that was not the was beginning its run in syndication and growing world we were living in, and that was the world more popular, Trek fandom was beginning to we wanted to live in. consolidate through the first conventions, the founding of the Welcommittee, the proliferation Dee interview transcript, Jan. 24, 2018 of print zines, and the push to get the show back on the air. I fell in with a group of fans who were [How did your science fiction club evolve to the incredibly busy with all of those things, and thepoint that you were actually meeting the cast re was such a buzz of energy and creativity when and crew?] we met, because everything was new and untried and exciting. Fans were basically inventing Well, I wrote the club newsletter. I didn’t know fandom as know it today, and for almost 4 years any better, so from the operator I just got the I was in one of two spots (the other was NYC) number of Desilu Studios, called up and said: where most of the action was happening. ‘We’re X science fiction club, and we’re wondering if we can speak to one of the writers for an Meanwhile, all the cast except Leonard were pretty much out-of-work actors — they were not article about Star Trek.’ movie stars back then — and living next to LA And, gosh, a few days later I get a call back: ‘Plea- meant it was very easy to get to see them. They se hold for Mister Roddenberry.’ So I grabbed a did not charge anything to come to fan events in pen and sat and we chatted for, I don’t know, 15- those early years. Jimmy Doohan once came to 20 minutes. And he was so excited that we were my house when a bunch of us were meeting for so excited. That’s what I remember about that the campaign to get the show back on the air, conversation. It’s like a fanfiction writer now. You basically because we offered him home-made create these OCs, and then somebody else sees lasagna! what you’re trying to do, shares your excitement, and of course you’re going to want to sit and talk to them about your creation! And by the second year, one member got a color TV and — oh it was a very big deal. In the beginning, we didn’t know that the crew had different colored shirts, or that shirts were related to what job they had on the ship. I remember an early story I wrote where all their shirts were green.
We all watched it; we were all excited that something was coming out on TV. Everyone was married, had kids, it was hard to get away to meet, so we would get on the phone and one person would call another and they would call another and this phone chain would go around talking about the episode. I wouldn’t say it totally evolved into a Star Trek fanclub, but pretty close, and we were all fascinated by The Vulcan, by the fact that there was this character that was an alien but serving with a human crew. It almost turned into a Vulcan appreciation sci-fi group, and speculating about what would an alien species be like, working with humans, is what caught We were interrupting each other and talking a our attention.
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”These are Joanie Winston’s photos, I believe. That’s Joanie on the far left in the second row (first photo) and in the blue on the right, sitting on the couch with George (second photo). That last photo, of Leonard and Nichelle goofing around, is typical of the organizer’s room antics in the early seventies, when the cast were not “celebrities” we gazed at from afar. They hung out and could be just as silly as any of us.”
-Fandom Grandma
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In the two Star Trek films Wrath of Kahn and the Search for Spock, both of which are scored by James Horner, Kirk and Spock’s themes exist in a music theory relationship of a perfect inverse. While listening to Kirk’s theme, one may notice that the first two notes leaps from the tonic note to a major sixth. Spock’s theme does the exact and perfect opposite: Starting on tonic note and leaping down a minor third. When playing the two themes together, when they leap, regardless of where they started, or what interval they are leaping, the relationship is so perfect, they land on the same note. Intervals have long held a lot of symbolism in music composition and writing, mentioned that the major sixth is used plentifully in Romance music, (Tchaikovsky, among others) and also in tender film scores, notably in William’s Star Wars score for Han and Leia’s theme. The other symbolism with the major sixth is that it is an expansive interval. It is a more expanded fifth, and symbolizes expressiveness and uplifting openness. Doesn’t that sound like a certain Captain we all know? The minor third is an interval that is reserved. unlike a major third, the minor is a half step closer to the tonic, symbolizing something more closed off, and confined. And if that doesn’t sound like Spock, I don’t know what does. And yet, in relativity to the tonic note, the major sixth, emotional and expressive, and the minor third, reserved and reflective, meet perfectly together, in unison, when they make an inverse motion towards one another. That is the most clever writing of a score I can ever think of to describe their relationship.
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“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. [‌] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.â€? -Gene Roddenberry
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