Beloved Star Trek Actor Wanted To Change His Most Famous Feature

Why would the actor want to get rid of what is undoubtedly his most iconic feature? The short answer (and one that LeVar Burton has frequently mentioned) is that the VISOR made it almost impossible for him to see much of anything. In a previous interview, the actor said that wearing this prop cut his vision down by up to 90 percent.

Because of that, he was something of an unintentional menace on the set in the early days of the show. In another interview, LeVar Burton revealed that because of having to wear the VISOR, “I bumped into everything the first season — light stands, overhead microphones, cables at my feet — I tripped over it all.” He also ended up damaging more than just the equipment around him, saying “I walked and sometimes ran into walls and pieces of set. It was really, really hard.”

As these on-set injuries kept adding up, LeVar Burton frequently brought up a desire to cure Geordi so that the actor would no longer have to wear that pesky VISOR. This made sense, really…in a fictional 24th century where ships can travel faster than light and crew members can instantly beam from one place to another, it makes sense that a blind man could surgically have his sight restored.

That topic comes up in the episode “Loud As a Whisper” when Dr. Pulaski discusses trying to regenerate Geordi’s optic nerve. The chief engineer replies that he thought this was impossible, prompting the doctor to reply that she has done it twice for patients with a similar condition. Geordi hesitates because he’d “be giving up a lot,” and the topic never comes up again in the series.

In-universe, the implication is that Geordi liked the advantages of the visual tool enough to put up with the disadvantages. In real life, it seems like LeVar Burton simply lost his campaign to get rid of his character’s VISOR despite the fact that the Pulaski dialogue laid the groundwork for such a change. He later made peace with having to wear the prop, acknowledging that it “is iconic” and was proud that “young people…put headbands over their eyes and play Geordi La Forge.”

Notably, while LeVar Burton didn’t get to ditch the VISOR in The Next Generation, the series finale showed two alternate realities (one in the far future and one in an alternative present) where Geordi was able to grow organic eyes. By the time First Contact came out, he had eye-like visual implants that he rocked for three of the four TNG films. He even briefly grew back natural eyes in Insurrection, allowing him to naturally see a sunrise for the first time.

After hearing LeVar Burton’s negative experiences with the VISOR, we can certainly understand his desire to ditch the prop so that he could, like his colleagues, use his eyes to act. However, his character eventually became an icon to handicapped audiences around the world, most of whom were profoundly grateful for having such a prominent onscreen representation. The VISOR is even iconic in-universe, showing up in the time-traveling Agent Daniels’ 32nd-century office in the Discovery finale.

While wearing the prop, Burton lost 90 percent of his eyesight. With the VISOR long gone, we can only hope he never lost sight of the most important thing: how much of an inspiration he is to entire generations of fans.