Hollywood Reporter– Dec. 3 may not feel like an important day in the annals of science fiction, but leave it to Leonard Nimoy to reveal the hidden truth, via Twitter…
Note that he said “the first” pilot. He’s referring to “The Cage,” written by show creator Gene Roddenberry and directed by Robert Butler, which was presented to — and rejected by — NBC more than a year before the series finally debuted in 1966. Despite being turned down by the network, and featuring a cast almost entirely different from the show fans would come to love later, “The Cage” actually made it to air as part of the first season of Star Trek, with scenes edited into a two-part story titled “The Menagerie” that aired Nov. 17 and 24, 1966.
Although “The Cage” was rejected on grounds of being “too slow” and “too intellectual [with] not enough action,” NBC wasn’t ready to say no to the series just yet, asking Roddenberry to rework the concept and create a second pilot. In the process of reworking, he dropped the entire cast with the exception of Nimoy and brought in William Shatner as the new captain of the Starship Enterprise. A legend was about to be born.
Captain Pike was cast as Kirk? More trivia. cool
Didn’t his future wife also star in the original?
Jeffery Hunter also played Jesus in King of Kings and gave the best performance I’ve seen of all the Jesuses.
Though he would have made a fantastic Cpt. Kirk, Shatner had a broader range of facial expressions and of course his inimitable overacting that made Kirk larger than the galaxy itself.
I remember seeing the episodes a few years later with Spock barking out commands and positions like he was on a WWII sub.
Pike ended up a paraplegic, living in a matrix world created by advanced aliens, with a hot gal that in reality, was a crash survivor who the aliens, never seeing a human, didn’t quite know how to put back together.
I was reading about the film process called Technicolor which shot In black and white and used prisms and colored filters to “color” the projected image.
Color film was not used until the 50’s, as the industry standard.
The technical side of the film industry is really interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor
Interesting read
Useless trivia:
Majel Barret,Roddenberry’s future wife and who was “Number One” on the pilot and later Nurse Chappel on the series ,played Fred Rutherford’s (Richard Deacon) wife ,Gwen ,on “Leave It To Beaver”.
I think I’m going to go lie down now.
FUNNY! Slow Jam The News: Immigration (w/ Brian Williams) on Jimmy Fallon…
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2014/12/slow-jam-news-immigration-w-brian.html
I always thought it was bizarrely amusing that in the 23rd and a half century or whatever it was supposed to be,that technology had not come up with a better way for a paraplegic to communicate other than a “yes” and “no” light.
Birdie NN: I had to read that several times, it needs a flow chart.
But it was interesting.
Hands Up!
Don’t Teleport!
As yes. The burning question in the Star Trek universe: Why do people need to GO to the transporter room?
As a side note…I was watching an episode of The Man From UNCLE that had Shatner and Nimoy as co-stars! It’s called The Project Strigas Affair. Shatner plays a guy that has to help UNCLE and Nimoy plays a junior embassy official from a foreign, and not so friendly, government. It is episode 9 from the first season in 1964. Black and white.
Oh, and the foreign diplomat they are targeting? That part is played by Werner Klemperer.
Anybody that calls themselves a trekkie or for that matter grew up with Star Trek knew that. Didn’t know about the date of filming though.
@StrandedinSonoma; They’re about in the middle of filming a Man From Uncle movie. Being directed by Guy Ritchie so it should be pretty good although I’m a little concerned at it’s being described as an Action/Comedy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_U.N.C.L.E._(film)
Captain Pike was hotter than Captain Kirk.