Hey, I never noticed that before....

Aren't the two almost identical? What are the differences?

 

That is the problem. You have to make an individual decision as to what you like more: the uncut pilot or the injured Pike framing story. I can't entirely part with either one, but most often I would choose "The Menagerie" despite its flaws, because:
• The first shot of Pike in that chair is as stunning and eerie as anything The Twilight Zone ever did.
• I grew up with "The Menagerie," and I like staying connected to my past.
• You really do get most of "The Cage" anyway.

 

What's the explanation as to how they acquired the footage of the incident on Talos IV.

 

Who did?

Talosians don't need no stinking footage. They recreated the Rigel incident out of the mind of Pike, but apparently projected it to the mind of Vina as well (assuming, that is, that Vina was real in the first place). They could again siphon the story off Pike to show it to the rest of the circus here.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Sorry, now that I think back on it, it was Spock who presented that, not Kirk. Its been a while since I saw it, and I had forgotten.

 

Pike likes to daydream about flying with the Enterprise at (time) warp, then peering into the bridge through the dome?

 

Talosians are masters of the third person POV in all of their illusions... We never see anything through Pike's eyes, at any rate.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Would they be based only on Pike’s memories, though, as opposed to memories of everyone they had access to in 2254 for a more complete and accurate picture?

 

...And who is seeing them? Is the very sight of these folks sitting in this room watching this footage an illusion for our benefit, or are there only two pieces of illusion there - the material on the viewscreen, and the Mendez-like apparition on one of the chairs?

Most of a typical Trek adventure goes unseen by the heroes, and only exists visually for the benefit of the audience. Perhaps much of what is on that viewscreen also goes unseen by the heroes, who in any case are in some sort of Talosian stupor and not firing on all thrusters.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The funny thing is that much of the stuff cut from the unaired pilot was mostly, well, pretty awkward and cringey.
1. The version of the Star Trek theme is very "game show."
2. Pike's comment about not being used to a woman on the bridge and Number One wasn't even the only woman even without Colt there.
3. The really loud Star Trek theme playing over the hyperdrive sequence, so loud that Tyler has to resort to using hand signals to tell Pike they reached time warp factor seven.
4. The "who would've been Eve" was awful and well sliced.

The two scenes on the Enterprise late in the story are actually pretty great, but I can see why they cut them (other than for time). Spock comes off panicky and lacking the "extreme loyalty to his captain" that Miss Piper mentioned in part one of The Menagerie. The scene of the computers being ransacked, though, was chilling and a sad cut.

While I always loved having the "complete" unaired pilot, The Menagerie two parter is what I grew up with and it's just fine being seen that way, at least for me

 

Oh yeah! That one was really stupid!!

 

I think most of the "footage" is for our benefit, and what Kirk and Spock and Pike (and "Mendez") see is not what we see, in its entirety. They might see more, they might see less, but it's like in a movie where a guy starts narrating about something, and his voice fades away and we watch the story. We don't have to imagine questions about Talosian cinematography, because most of the cinematography isn't happening, and the likely "real thing" is probably much more static and fixed.

 

You know the question about footage is a recurrent one throughout the series (all of them). When Kirk blows up the enterprise and then in the next movie they have an external view of the Enterprise exploding, you'd have to ask yourself: "where did they get that from?"

 

This is another of those things where futurism no longer appears particularly stunning. If there's a recording device on the scene, it's very 20th century to think that the recordings should be from the physical viewpoint of that device. Or that the device ought to have a lens.

OTOH, seeing visuals shouldn't convince anybody today that what is seen is a "recording". As long as the Klingons generate their pretty graphics in such a fashion that nobody can credibly yell "It didn't happen that way!" at specific points therein, there's no real point arguing authenticity.

Indeed, perhaps this is why nobody trusts CCTV as a means of solving a whodunnit in Star Trek. Except for Starfleet courts martial, that is, and we can easily accept that this would be one of the last institutions to yield to a changing world...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I missed that one.

 

Except where did the Klingons get the visuals from inside the Enterprise, showing them entering the bridge?

 

As Timo seems to suggest, from something like integrated WarriorCams scanning each wearer and their surroundings, resulting in data which was used to construct a lifelike 3D simulation edited into dramatic 2D footage using virtual cameras in 3D space. I would add that if the Federation Council had any doubts about the final presentation, they could always ask for raw data to help verify its authenticity.