Geordi La Forge


Geordi La Forge is a fictional character who appeared in all seven seasons of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and its four feature films as well as the third season of Star Trek: Picard. Portrayed by LeVar Burton, he served as helmsman of the USS Enterprise-D in the first season of The Next Generation, then occupied the role of the chief engineer for the rest of the series and in the films before appearing as a commodore in Picard. La Forge has been blind since his birth and uses technological devices that allow him to see – a VISOR in the series and the first film, replaced by ocular prosthetic implants in the last three films and in Picard.

Concept and development

created the character in honor of George La Forge, a quadriplegic fan of the original Star Trek series, who died in 1975. He was not the first to honor La Forge in the Star Trek franchise; a character directly named for George La Forge was written into the 1980 Star Trek novel The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold.
A casting call was placed with agencies for the role, which described him as friends with Data, and specified that La Forge should have "perfect diction and might even have a Jamaican accent" and instructed those agencies not to submit "any 'street' types."
LeVar Burton auditioned for the role in 1986. He had previously appeared in Roots and other major network shows. He stated that "years ago I was doing a TV movie called Emergency Room and it was a fairly miserable experience. But there was a producer on that show, a man named Bob Justman.... six, seven years later, I get this call from Bob Justman and he's working at Paramount on this new Star Trek series and he said I remember your love of the show, we've got this character, would you be interested in coming in and seeing us? And I said was Gene Roddenberry involved? He said he is. And I said I'll be right there." Roddenberry was very pleased with Burton at his first audition. Among the other actors considered for the role were Wesley Snipes, Reggie Jackson, Kevin Peter Hall, Clarence Gilyard, and Tim Russ, who would later play Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager. Snipes was close to getting cast, but lost to Burton; he would later say that he was disappointed at first, but later said that he was grateful how things turned out saying if he had gotten the role he would have been in television more than film.
Burton also commented that he was anxious about his role, because he feared that The Next Generation was going to flop: "At the beginning, you know, there was a lot of conversation in the press at what a bad idea this was I thought that since Gene was involved we had a real good shot of making a good show that would carry on in that tradition of Star Trek."
Throughout the series, Burton was equipped with Geordi La Forge's trademark VISOR, which he found extremely unpleasant to wear:
It's pretty much a living hell. 85 to 90% of my vision is taken away when the VISOR goes on. I bumped into everything the first season—light stands, overhead microphones, cables at my feet—I tripped over it all. So it's a sort of conundrum. The blind man, who puts on the VISOR and sees much more than everyone else around him, when the actor actually does that he's turned into a blind person. Then there was the pain. In the second season, we re-designed the VISOR and made it heavier and the way we actually affixed it was that we screwed it, we literally screwed it into my head and so there were screws that we would turn and there were flanges on the inside that would press into my temples and so after fifteen or twenty minutes of that I got headaches. So I had a daily headache for about six years. Which was also no fun.
During the series, Burton's character was Chief Engineering Officer, and thus was often portrayed repairing machines or discovering new scientific phenomena. Burton commented how hard it sometimes was to deliver the technobabble used by La Forge in these scenes with a straight face: "Technobabble brings with it its own challenge. I'm not an engineer, I just played one on TV. The methodology that I found most successful was to really spit it out as fast as I possibly could. Giving the illusion that I knew what I was talking about when, in fact, I really didn't."
Asked about his favorite scenes, Burton answered that he especially liked holodeck adventures: "The Holmes and Watson episodes for Data and Geordi, the Robin Hood episode, you know, those were a lot of fun for us. I think the holodeck was a very cool concept, you know. You can create a three dimensional reality. I mean, how cool is that?"
Following the end of the series, Burton has stated how much he gained from The Next Generation; "When I got married my best man was Brent and my groomsmen were Michael and Jonathan and Patrick. No matter what, we will always be family to each other. I mean in every respect. There have been times when there have been feuds within the family, when it hasn't been all hugs and kisses. But we have stuck together."

VISOR

In universe

In the Star Trek fictional universe, a VISOR is a device used by the blind to artificially provide them with a sense of sight. A thin, curved device worn over the face like a pair of sunglasses, the VISOR scans the electromagnetic spectrum, creating visual input, and transmits it into the brain of the wearer via the optic nerves. The sensors are located on the convex side, that covers the eyes and attaches at small input jacks implanted in the temples. The only VISOR seen on screen was used by Geordi La Forge, who was blind from birth. VISOR is an acronym for "Visual Instrument and Sight Organ Replacement"; however, the complete term never appeared in the series, but only in novelizations and other written tie-in products.
The VISOR also caused LaForge some persistent pain, which could not be treated without interfering with the device. Beverly Crusher and Katherine Pulaski, the two high-ranking doctors who served on the ship, were unfamiliar with the device when first meeting La Forge.
The device does not reproduce normal human vision, but does allow the character to "see" energy phenomena visible to the naked human eye while expanding the wearer's full perceived spectrum to 1 Hz — 100 PHz. This also allowed the character to see human vital signs such as heart rate and temperature, giving him the ability to monitor moods and even detect lies in humans. In the episode "Heart of Glory", Captain Picard keys the main viewer to Geordi's visor allowing him to see the way he does. Seeing all the overlapping and different wavelengths was highly confusing to the Captain, prompting him to ask Geordi how he was able to differentiate between them all. Geordi's response made the comparison of a child hearing many different sounds at once and eventually being able to pick out what they needed; it is a learned talent.
In the episode "The Mind's Eye", the access to Geordi's brain through the interface makes him a target of Romulan brainwashing.
In the episode "Interface", Geordi uses an experimental interface to his VISOR. In an environment too dangerous for humans to be in, Geordi sees, hears, feels and acts through a robot.
Twice in the series, Geordi refused to be granted natural vision, first by Commander Riker, who had been given extraordinary amounts of power by Q, because it would have come at the cost of Riker's humanity, and later by Doctor Katherine Pulaski.
Sometime between 2371 and 2373, before the time of the film Star Trek: First Contact, Geordi's VISOR was replaced by cybernetic eyes, performing the same functions. On film, they are depicted using a combination of cosmetic contact lenses and CGI.
There was a short time period in Star Trek: Insurrection where Geordi gained actual eyesight, due to the effects of fictional metaphasic radiation, in the atmosphere of the planet Ba'ku. However, the effects of the metaphasic radiation wore off after leaving the planet, and the cybernetic eyes were once again used in the film Star Trek: Nemesis.

Reality

New Scientist magazine reported on research as to whether a device similar to a VISOR can actually be created for blind or visually impaired people. Partial sight has been successfully restored to blind rats by installing an implant behind the retina.
Several types of visual prosthesis are in development or trials in humans, and one device has been approved for sale in the European market., 16 blind people worldwide have had sight partially restored in a procedure where electrodes implanted in their brains take impulses from a camera to allow patients to see lights and outlines of objects. There is a device developed by NASA called a Joint Optical Reflective Display, or JORDY, that is presumably named for Geordi La Forge.
On August 14, 2012, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published an article stating the encoding of image information by the retina into patterns of action potentials has been replicated successfully by a prosthetic device and scientists have successfully restored full vision to blind mice. Scientists were able to mimic this ocular response using glasses, and speculate that a similar pair of glasses may be available for human use within two years.
LeVar Burton, who played the character of Geordi La Forge, disliked the VISOR prop because it restricted his peripheral vision – albeit less than its prototypes – and the constant pressure of the prop's arms on his temples caused headaches. In commentary for Star Trek Generations, film writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga noted Burton also felt the prop limited him as an actor, as it denied him the use of his eyes in conveying emotion. The original prop was inspired by a one-piece women's hair clip brought to production by Michael Okuda during the initial conceptual development of the VISOR prop.