News Captain Pike Has Been Cast

[fireproof78]

Flawed is one thing. He was actually kind of whiney in The Cage. Complaining about the drag of being in charge of hundreds of people, deciding who lives and who dies, etc, etc., like this was some kind of new revelation about the burdens of command that he never knew existed until recently. Just how long had he been Captain by that point? He seemed a joyless character without any of the wonder and amazement we saw from Kirk. He never demonstrated what a privilege it was to do what he was doing, just grousing about having to do it and grumbling through the entire episode.

Joyless? I mean, if strangling aliens is joyless then I won't know what is

Ok, he definitely had an interesting manner about him. Which is why i would like to see more, and what Mount can do with it.

It's not as if people were cool with slavery in 1964, either. The context of that conversation is important; Pike was merely ruminating about going into business in the colonies, and Boyce rebuked him with a sarcastic remark about dealing in green slave women, to drive home the point that Pike shouldn't be considering other options, he should be facing his challenges as captain. It's not as if either one of them took that specific option seriously.

I don't know. Pike is pretty serious in the conversation. Not a lot of levity to the scene. It's a great scene, don't mistake me, and both Boyce and Pike are pretty passionate about their opinions:

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[Kane_Steel]

The Pike/Boyce conversation reminds me of some of the best conversations between Bruce Wayne and Alfred.

Ah... thinking about a Pike series is depressing. So much potential, wasted.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Ah... thinking about a Pike series is depressing. So much potential, wasted.

We got that. It's called TOS and he was called Kirk.

 

[Kane_Steel]

We got that. It's called TOS and he was called Kirk.

Pike and Kirk were so opposite, even Nimoy commented on it multiple times.

Going back to the DC analogies, Pike was very much like Bruce Wayne... Kirk was very much like classic free-spirited Oliver Queen

 

[fireproof78]

The Pike/Boyce conversation reminds me of some of the best conversations between Bruce Wayne and Alfred.

Ah... thinking about a Pike series is depressing. So much potential, wasted.

Comics

 

[Nerys Myk]

Pike and Kirk were so opposite, even Nimoy commented on it multiple times.

Hunter and Shatner might be opposites. Kirk and Pike, not so much.
Early season one Kirk is Pike. There really isn't enough Pike to really know much about him beyond what was on the page in the Cage. Hunter never had a chance to develop the character beyond that the way Shatner did.

 

[Kane_Steel]

Oh I disagree. Early season one Kirk was never as tortured as Pike was. Pike had more baggage and history behind him.

S1 Kirk was still the flirtatious and jovial leading man. Even in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" he was making funny banter with his crew and was a lot more laid back than Pike.

Basically Kirk is the answer to what the studio execs wanted as the lead to the second pilot. Less cerebral and serious, more space cowboy.

I like them both, and Kirk is awesome. But I wish Pike got his due, in a modern produced series about the Pike adventures, or even Robert April.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Oh I disagree. Early season one Kirk was never as tortured as Pike was. Pike had more baggage and history behind him.

S1 Kirk was still the flirtatious and jovial leading man. Even in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" he was making funny banter with his crew and was a lot more laid back than Pike.

Basically Kirk is the answer to what the studio execs wanted as the lead to the second pilot. Less cerebral and serious, more space cowboy.

He was every bit as serious and tortured as Pike in season one. The difference is we got to see Kirk in other episodes. Some of which were plotted when the character was called April or Pike.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Don't bet on it. And if they show the bridge of the Enterprise, don't bet that it will look like TOS either.

I disagree. They spent a lot of effort to make the Enterprise look "almost" right. They will do the same with the bridge and uniforms, updated for modern aesthetics. It'll be close enough to be passable (at least to the casual viewer).

 

[fireproof78]

He was every bit as serious and tortured as Pike in season one. The difference is we got to see Kirk in other episodes. Some of which were plotted when the character was called April or Pike.

Well, he was almost executed.

 

[Mr. Nova]

Not just modern Western actors. DeForest Kelley mostly did Westerns prior to STAR TREK. And Jeffrey Hunter co-starred with John Wayne in THE SEARCHERS . ...

William Shatner in White Comanche

Leonard Nimoy in Tate

James Doohan in Last of the Mohicans

DeForest Kelley in The Lone Ranger

"Wagon Train to the Stars"?

 

[Refuge]

Good news on the casting. He was great in Hell on Wheels.

But if they couldn't have cast Mount, another good choice might have been Jim Caviezel.

Jim Caviezel

This Anson person looks okay though.

 

[Kane_Steel]

He was every bit as serious and tortured as Pike in season one. The difference is we got to see Kirk in other episodes. Some of which were plotted when the character was called April or Pike.

To each his own, but what Nimoy said was true. Jeff's portrayal of Pike and Shat's portrayal of Kirk were so vastly different that if Pike had gone to series, it would have been a very, very different chemistry than what we got.

Kirk was very much a young JFK-ish Captain. Even in the early episodes, he was the ladies man and didn't play that down, he was jovial with his crew and made jokes on the bridge, etc. Pike was very closed off. A lot stiffer.

A lot of Kirk's early insecurities stemmed from his 'green-ness' to being Captain. He was new to it and wondered about the weight of making the right decisions. Pike's insecurities stemmed from the experiences and baggage of making the wrong decisions and people dying as a result. He was a lot more experienced and weary.

A Pike series now definitely wouldn't feel like a retread of Captain Kirk, if they stay true to the portrayal in The Cage. Pike and Kirk are vast opposites.

 

[Nerys Myk]

To each his own, but what Nimoy said was true. Jeff's portrayal of Pike and Shat's portrayal of Kirk were so vastly different that if Pike had gone to series, it would have been a very, very different chemistry than what we got.

That's about the actors not the characters. On paper the characters were the same. They didn't reinvent the Captain character for the second pilot, they just recast.

Kirk was very much a young JFK-ish Captain. Even in the early episodes, he was the ladies man and didn't play that down, he was jovial with his crew and made jokes on the bridge, etc. Pike was very closed off. A lot stiffer.

Pike was the same JFK type. We've no idea what "Pike" would be like. We only saw him in one episode. Though, I think there was some humor in him. You yourself mentioned a humorous exchange. We've no idea how "closed off" he was. Again, we only saw him in one episode. If they had retained Hunter and kept the name "Pike", Pike would be spouting Kirk's lines in subsequent episodes, humor included.

A lot of Kirk's early insecurities stemmed from his 'green-ness' to being Captain. He was new to it and wondered about the weight of making the right decisions. Pike's insecurities stemmed from the experiences and baggage of making the wrong decisions and people dying as a result. He was a lot more experienced and weary.

Pike in the Cage is the same age as Kirk and just as "green". Kirk is often plagued by wrong decisions and the weight of command. It's part of the character of the Captain role, be it named April, Pike or Kirk. Defining Pike by the Cage is foolish. I suggest you read the description of the captain character in TMOST on page 28. If you read the bio for Kirk on page 215 you'll find it's pretty much the same.

A Pike series now definitely wouldn't feel like a retread of Captain Kirk, if they stay true to the portrayal in The Cage. Pike and Kirk are vast opposites.

Nope.

 

[XCV330]

Trying to base all this character development about an actor who was in one pilot, and later blinking light bulb is spreading it thin. I guess you could take Greenwood's Pike for character development comparisons since he might have more camera time than Prime Pike right now, not sure.

Whatever happens, Anson Mount and the production staff have a nearly a clean slate to recreate Pike.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Had no idea who that is, after a google still none the wiser. I would've thought that Matt Bomer was a far better likeness for Pike.

 

[Visitor1982]

Firstly, second season is unlikely.
Secondly, it wouldn't interfere anyway, since his role is probably going to be somewhere between a single scene to couple episodes at most.

I wouldn't be surprised if his role is bigger than you think. I even think he could be part of the 2nd Star Trek TV series CBS is working on...

 

[Jayson1]

Let's not forget Pike will be in a different place than he was in "The Cage." For starters the events of "The Cage" will already have happened and lots of his bad mood can be connected to the landing party that got his yeomen killed. Who knows what has happened to him and his ship and crew since then or really what he was like even before the yeomen being killed. I suspect he might even have a different crew other than Spock but a few still around from the pilot. Maybe Tobin Dax is crewmember for all we know. I think that was the host who was a Starfleet pilot during this time period and it would explain Jadzia's love and interest in "Trials and Tribblations" It's because she has already served on the Enterprise.

Jason

 

[cooleddie74]

Pike was what Kirk would have been had he remained the "stack of books with legs" that Gary Mitchell described him as being when he was a student instructor at the Academy. Kirk himself also told McCoy in "Shore Leave(TOS)" that he was positively grim as a cadet and I could imagine the disaster at Tycho IV involving the Farragut along with having a child with Carol Marcus could have convinced him to not take things for granted and to embrace the joys and pleasures in everyday life more than he did when he was in his early twenties.

Pike is a great character, but hardly the shoulder-slapping grown frat boy with a constant smile and glint in his eye that Kirk was during his five-year mission on TOS. He was a man with a darker and more serious emotional edge that came through very well in Jeffrey Hunter's one solitary appearance as the character. Pike had regrets and a stony, steely-eyed intensity that Kirk didn't.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Bruce Greenwood's Pike didn't have much in common with Jeffrey Hunter's, and I don't expect this version to either.

Unless he's gonna resent Michael for being on the bridge