“Bare bones of what Star Trek would ultimately become”: D.C. Fontana reveals original Star Trek script had a different idea for Spock 

Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock from Star Trek is the most popular character in the franchise, and his friendship with Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in The Original Series is one of the show's most heartwarming aspects.

Distinguished by his pointed elvish ears, Mr. Spock is a half-Vulcan and half-human, who primarily embraced his Vulcan's logical and reasoning side.

While creator Gene Roddenberry introduced an entirely new alien species in science fiction through Spock, he was initially written as a Martian (an alien species from Mars).

As Star Trek writer and eventually editor D.C. Fontana once revealed in an interview, Roddenberry's original Star Trek 1964 draft was just 'bare bones', with Spock written as an entirely different species and appearance.

More on this in our story.

Gene Roddenberry initially wrote Mr. Spock as a Martian in Star Trek

Mr. Spock is inarguably the most famous and intelligent character in Star Trek, but it is astonishing to note that Gene Roddenberry initially envisioned a very different kind of Spock from what Leonard Nimoy portrayed in the show and the movies.

While Martians were the most common alien species in comics and on the small screen, Roddenberry also wrote Spock as half-Martian. But as D.C. Fontana revealed in an interview with startrek.com, he eventually rewrote the character because of logical reasons:

''Gene handed me a series treatment that was about 10 or 11 pages long and asked me what I thought of it, it was the bare bones of what Star Trek would ultimately become. The ship was the U.S.S. Yorktown, not the Enterprise; it was commanded by Captain Robert T. April and Mr. Spock was a Martian, not a Vulcan.''

She also discussed how Roddenberry was sure that Leonard Nimoy could pull off a character like Spock:

'''Who's going to play Mr. Spock?' Gene pushed a picture across the desk to me of Leonard Nimoy and I was thrilled about that, because I knew Leonard from way back.''

Why did Gene Roddenberry change Spock from a Martian to a Vulcan?

While the half-Vulcan Mr. Spock is a fan-favorite character to many, Roddenberry's decision to change him from a Martian to a Vulcan was interesting and, like the species itself, lies purely in the creator's logic and reason.

While alien species from the Red Planet are the most common and earliest stories in science fiction, Roddenberry changed his decision because he believed that humankind would one day land and explore Mars.

In Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry, David Alexander explains that Roddenberry was optimistic that humans would land on Mars one day and would naturally not find pointy-ear aliens like Spock, so he changed this species to a fictional Vulcan.

For purely logical reasons, Roddenberry decided to develop Spock as a half-Vulcan, hailing from his home planet Vulcan, which interestingly has a rusty brown appearance similar to that of Mars.

In addition, out of all the main characters from the original Star Trek pitch, only Spock was included in the final draft. While Captain Robert April evolved into Christopher Pike and eventually into Captain Kirk, Dr. Philip Boyce became the basis for Dr. McCoy, and the Yorktown was replaced with the Enterprise.

Only Spock/Nimoy appeared in the final draft of Star Trek, with some changes. He was rewritten as a half-vulcan, and the original red colour (which also made him look devilish) was skipped, since he no longer hailed from the planet of Mars.

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