Mr. Spock was always in control, except when he wasn’t. His Vulcan side was often struggling with his human side. It was most illogical, but always fascinating. A supercut with autotune from Melodysheep makes a fitting tribute to our favorite Starfleet science officer. (via Laughing Squid)
The death scene of Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is pretty much an homage to Robert A. Heinlein and the protagonist of his short story, The Green Hills of Earth, published in the Saturday Evening Post 'way back in 1947.
In that story, a radiation-blinded, unemployable spaceship engineer called 'Noisy' Rhysling crisscrosses the solar system writing and singing songs. Rhysling realizes that his death of old age is near, and manages to cadge a ride on a spaceship headed to Earth so he can die and be buried where he was born.
A malfunction threatens the ship with destruction, and Rhysling, despite being blind, enters the irradiated area to perform repairs (This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Many people, whether blind or not, are perfectly capable of doing things like this as well as sighted people). While making the repairs, he realizes that he has received a fatal amount of radiation and will soon die, so he tells them to record his last song, which he creates and sings as he completes the repairs to the ship – then dies just moments after singing the final verse, which contains the phrase used as the title of the story.
And Leonard Nimoy would have been familiar with this – heck, for all I know he himself might have suggested it to the screenwriter – as he had recorded a dramatic reading of the story just five years earlier in 1977.
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ReplyDeleteThe death scene of Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is pretty much an homage to Robert A. Heinlein and the protagonist of his short story, The Green Hills of Earth, published in the Saturday Evening Post 'way back in 1947.
ReplyDeleteIn that story, a radiation-blinded, unemployable spaceship engineer called 'Noisy' Rhysling crisscrosses the solar system writing and singing songs. Rhysling realizes that his death of old age is near, and manages to cadge a ride on a spaceship headed to Earth so he can die and be buried where he was born.
A malfunction threatens the ship with destruction, and Rhysling, despite being blind, enters the irradiated area to perform repairs (This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Many people, whether blind or not, are perfectly capable of doing things like this as well as sighted people). While making the repairs, he realizes that he has received a fatal amount of radiation and will soon die, so he tells them to record his last song, which he creates and sings as he completes the repairs to the ship – then dies just moments after singing the final verse, which contains the phrase used as the title of the story.
And Leonard Nimoy would have been familiar with this – heck, for all I know he himself might have suggested it to the screenwriter – as he had recorded a dramatic reading of the story just five years earlier in 1977.
-"BB"-