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The Cage final cut?

Well, yes and no.

Roddenberry was writing to Hunter, and anyone who's ever written that kind of business letter knows that you never admit you cannot do the job without the person you are trying to persuade, because that gives them extra negotiating muscle and power.

IMHO, I think it's more yes than no. Ignoring Roddenberry's memo, and looking only at the film records, there was enough extra material to put together a longer cut. It likely would not have been a great longer cut, but it would have been "acceptable."

BTW, don't forget that there were at least two versions of the pilot that were initially assembled -- one long version and one short. FWIW, I strongly suspect that the home video version is the short one.

Fact is, they did settle on terms with Hunter but nothing ever came of the idea.
I don't think there was a reason for Roddenberry to continue. At about the same time (on March 26, 1965), NBC ordered the second pilot and Roddenberry needed to change focus.

^^^My thoughts as well. I also seem to recall an earlier scripted scene where Pike kicks a crewman off the Enterprise for murdering a peaceful alien, simply because it appeared ugly to his prejudiced eyes, or something of that nature.

Sir Rhosis

Yes. If Roddenberry reverted to his earlier script draft, the opening scene would have showed Pike (April) introducing, exchanging and greeting crew as the Enterprise docked with the Antares shuttle. And one of exchanged crewman was being shipped off because he opened fire on a friendly, insect-like alien that didn't look intelligent. April was pretty dismayed at that.
 
Do you have the runtimes of the long and the short cuts? I recall 63 minutes being the length of one of the cuts.

And what do the film records show? I could be incorrect in my recollections, but I don't recall many unused scenes in the shooting script. Trims yes.

To have done the opening with Pike kicking the crewman off the ship would require changing other dialog, since Pike is at first dismissive of investigating the distress signal because he wants to get his casualties to port. Not impossible, certainly.
 
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Do you have the runtimes of the long and the short cuts? I recall 63 minutes being the length of one of the cuts.

I wish to point out here that I know of no other version other than the 63 minute version. I don't think a longer version actually exists or ever existed, at least to my knowledge...
 
I wish to point out here that I know of no other version other than the 63 minute version. I don't think a longer version actually exists or ever existed, at least to my knowledge...

It is referenced in memos. It definitely existed.
 
Do you have the runtimes of the long and the short cuts? I recall 63 minutes being the length of one of the cuts.
Unfortunately, I don't.
And what do the film records show? I could be incorrect in my recollections, but I don't recall many unused scenes in the shooting script. Trims yes.
Approximately 12 scenes were trimmed -- some heavily and some lightly -- and four scenes were deleted entirely. As an FYI, we've recreated one of the deleted scenes in our book using film frames and a script extract.
 
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Basic on typical runtimes they probably would have needed 75+ minutes for a feature. Unless there's basically 15–20 pages of unseen material (45 second per page), they'd likely have needed to shoot something to get it up to snuff.
 
Basic on typical runtimes they probably would have needed 75+ minutes for a feature. Unless there's basically 15–20 pages of unseen material (45 second per page), they'd likely have needed to shoot something to get it up to snuff.

Roddenberry was going to show the "Star Trek Created by Gene Roddenberry" card -- superimposed over a shot of the Enterprise skewing through space -- for at least 10 minutes...;)
 
It is referenced in memos. It definitely existed.
I thought that I had read at one point that Roddenberry's workprint, that was used to create the color/black & white version contained additional scenes that had not been included in the color master that was shown to NBC (and considering that workprint hasn't been touched since the 80's, are probably still on there), and were not part of the trims that had been lost in the 60's when The Menagerie was edited. It's to bad that CBS had not rescanned and presented the workprint in its original B&W on the Blu-Rays.
 
I just scrubbed through the Nov. 20, 1964 draft of the pilot and at a glance there seems to be only about 3 pages of unused material. That'd be, in TV terms, about 2.3 minutes. I suppose there could have been more footage of action sans dialog. Those extra few pages aside, the only other way it could be longer would have been for the edit to to be looser, the beats longer, more footage of the action, etc.
 
I thought that I had read at one point that Roddenberry's workprint, that was used to create the color/black & white version contained additional scenes that had not been included in the color master that was shown to NBC (and considering that workprint hasn't been touched since the 80's, are probably still on there), and were not part of the trims that had been lost in the 60's when The Menagerie was edited. It's to bad that CBS had not rescanned and presented the workprint in its original B&W on the Blu-Rays.

I have this print, courtesy of a Portugese VHS release. I'll copy across my observations from a previous post, but in short, no, the print is largely the same as the restored colour version we have:

Apart from the original Throne voice, there are two additional lines of dialogue. Vina's "probing, looking for weakness", in the picnic scene, prior to "tricking and punishing you", and Pike's "dya wanna gamble we won't?" just after the Keeper says "do you intend to destroy yourselves?" on the surface.

Also, there were some interesting differences/additions. I believe there were one or two slightly quicker cuts from one shot/scene to another (although you'd have to know your material inside out), and you get a real sense of scenes/dialogue finshing before moving on to the next. The "prefer...To starve" was noticably not abruptly interupted by the Keeper here, and in the Picnic Scene there are at least two instances of longer holds on Pike's reaction.

The most significantly longer scene was the final surface scene where some additional reaction shots were evidently removed for The Menagerie to quicken the pace and the dialogue between Pike and the Keeper. For example, a brief shot of the two Talosian advisors exiting the elevator; in the Menagerie they presumably exit when we focus on the characters/dialogue below, as Number One deactivates the laser explosion. One unseen reaction shot in particular by Vina, emphasises her sadness that Pike/the Enterprise was the Talosians' "last hope", it kinda makes the point that the Talosians are not evil, just misguided in their methods. We sadly lose this shot and a follow-up shot, in the Menagerie and subsequent colour reconstruction, and jump ahead to the next reaction shot to quicken the pace.

I think Vina's transformation and some reaction shots are slightly differently put together. I think it's all one shot of her here, but the last transition isn't as smooth, so I believe for The Menagerie, and later the colour restoration, they cut to the Keeper looking concerned at Pike, to eliminate that transition, before cutting straight back to Vina.

Music-wise, yep The Man Trap "soon begin the experiment" cue is not present, but I think we hold on Pike's reaction longer. The music cue for Vina's punishment begins earlier during Pike's "Which means they had to have more than one of each animal" to Vina, and the Going Up cue is edited differently and more basic, than the later restoration's smoother attempt.

Hope that helps!
 
I just scrubbed through the Nov. 20, 1964 draft of the pilot and at a glance there seems to be only about 3 pages of unused material. That'd be, in TV terms, about 2.3 minutes. I suppose there could have been more footage of action sans dialog. Those extra few pages aside, the only other way it could be longer would have been for the edit to to be looser, the beats longer, more footage of the action, etc.

It's probably closer to 5 pages but there is more action without dialogue. For example, there's more footage of the landing party exploring Talos IV, Boyce examining the survivors, Pike trying to escape from his cage, the Orion illusion/Vina dancing/Vina being whipped sequence, Pike glancing at Colt and Number One at the end of the pilot trying to decide who he might have picked, and on and on.

All the above being said, a 75-minute-ish cut probably would have been a bit loose. I think this is what Roddenberry meant when he said an "acceptable" motion picture.

Of course, I think 2001: A Space Odyssey is also a bit loose and could be tightened...
 
Had CBS really wanted to do right by the 50th anniversary. the work print would have been dug up, dusted off and presented on a new blue ray release of the series (with the original sound mix, with logos and other awesome network stuff thrown in like other shows). But there ya go....
 
Intriguingly, although the original 'contingency plan' for The Cage to shoot 10 minutes extra material to pad it out to feature length for screening in theatres, *has* become reality: 'The Menagerie' is effectively exactly that, and IIRC a few old stories from this very forum, has even been screened in movie theatres, via digital projection. ;)

Was any thought ever given to compiling The Menagerie into 90 minutes and releasing it theatrically back in the day? I seem to remember reading somewhere someone, maybe Roddenberry or Justman, suggesting the idea.
 
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Was any thought ever given to compiling The Menagerie into 90 minutes and releasing it theatrically back in the day? I seem to remember reading somewhere someone, maybe Roddenberry or Justman, suggesting the idea.

Are you sure they weren't talking about the pilot? Keep in mind that it was actually called "The Menagerie" at the time it was filmed. The practice of referring to it by its early working title "The Cage" to differentiate it from the 2-parter didn't begin to take hold until it was used in various nonfiction books in the '70s and '80s, and wasn't made official until the home video release of the pilot film in the mid-'80s. So if Roddenberry or Justman was talking about "The Menagerie" earlier than that, they may have been talking about the pilot film rather than the 2-parter.
 
"The Menagerie" works well enough as an episode but it would be kinda a bonkers story for a feature for people who've never seen the show.
 
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