The Menagerie

[Captain Robert April]

^ BINGO!!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

"The Menagerie" may be the only good clip show in history.

I think one of the reasons that some fans of TOS are put off by the aesthetics of Enterprise and the current film is because they've seen how The Menagerie did it right, giving us a past for Star Trek that was immediately believable.

Eh...they did what was necessary with too little time and too little money. It worked.

 

[J.T.B.]

I don't think so, unless Hunter really, really allowed himself to loosen up. While Pike (the one time we saw him) was an interesting character, Hunter's portrayal was far too steely-eyed and granite-jawed...compared to Shatner/Kirk's easy-going attitude, which was much more inviting as far as episodic TV goes.

OTOH, look how long "Hawaii Five-O" was on. Hunter was a good actor and, from what we've been able to see, the cast had decent chemistry. It would have been a different show than the one we know, but I wouldn't write a Pike Trek series off completely.

--Justin

 

[RobertScorpio]

Menagerie has been my favorite episode for years, for most of the reasons already noted in the thread. I always loved Hunter as Pike and often wonder what TOS would have been like w/ him as the captain. I suspect the show would have had less humor as it went along. Throughout the years, I have come to the conclusion that Shatner really gave the show that extra something that it needed. While Shatner's speaking style and mannerisms are now frequently parodied and mocked, they were just what the show needed. Hunter didn't have that sense of charging in where angels dare not tred like Shatner did. There wouldn't have been as much of a contrasting dynamic between Kirk and Spock or even the Dr. and Spock with Hunter.

Perfecty stated...and pretty much how Nimoy saw the change as well...

Rob
Scorpio

 

[milo bloom]

"The Menagerie" may be the only good clip show in history.

I think one of the reasons that some fans of TOS are put off by the aesthetics of Enterprise and the current film is because they've seen how The Menagerie did it right, giving us a past for Star Trek that was immediately believable.

Eh...they did what was necessary with too little time and too little money. It worked.

I'm reminded of something I read about Disney's Bambi years ago, basically mid-production they started getting their budget slashed to heck and back so they started trimming scenes and dialogue down to their bare minimums. The results is a film that doesn't waste a frame on anything not absolutely necessary and every cel is a masterpiece.

Sometimes restrictions breed creativity because they force you to think a littler harder or just in a different way than you usually would.

In this particular case, it was pure serendipity that it worked back in 1966, but the point remains that we've seen a concept of what the Trek-verse looked like pre-Shatner era, and both ENT and Trek XI don't match up to that. I think that's the cause of some of the discontent. The ideas were already out there, all they had to do was expand on them a bit.

 

[Maurice]

OTOH, look how long "Hawaii Five-O" was on. Hunter was a good actor and, from what we've been able to see, the cast had decent chemistry. It would have been a different show than the one we know, but I wouldn't write a Pike Trek series off completely.

What does Hawaii Five-0 have to do with it? Jack Lord sure as heck wasn't Jeff Hunter.

 

[J.T.B.]

OTOH, look how long "Hawaii Five-O" was on. Hunter was a good actor and, from what we've been able to see, the cast had decent chemistry. It would have been a different show than the one we know, but I wouldn't write a Pike Trek series off completely.

What does Hawaii Five-0 have to do with it? Jack Lord sure as heck wasn't Jeff Hunter.

Of course not. Read the quote before, it said Hunter's "steely-eyed and granite-jawed" performance was not inviting for episodic TV. Steve McGarrett is an example of such a character who was very successful in episodic TV.

--Justin

 

[Basil]

"The Menagerie" may be the only good clip show in history.

I think one of the reasons that some fans of TOS are put off by the aesthetics of Enterprise and the current film is because they've seen how The Menagerie did it right, giving us a past for Star Trek that was immediately believable.

Eh...they did what was necessary with too little time and too little money. It worked.

No, it worked beautifully, seamlessly. It may have been serendipity or it may have been the result of conscious decisions to find a way to make all of the pieces fit, but I know one thing for certain: When I see The Menagerie, I am utterly convinced of the Pike scenes taking place in the series' past; when I (unfortunately) watched Enterprise, and when I see clips from the latest film, I have to keep trying to convince my brain that it really is a prequel to TOS . . . even though aesthetically at the very least it doesn't seem likely. We may be a minority, but I don't think I'm alone in this.

 

[Neopeius]

"The Menagerie" may be the only good clip show in history.

I think one of the reasons that some fans of TOS are put off by the aesthetics of Enterprise and the current film is because they've seen how The Menagerie did it right, giving us a past for Star Trek that was immediately believable.

Eh...they did what was necessary with too little time and too little money. It worked.

No, it worked beautifully, seamlessly. It may have been serendipity or it may have been the result of conscious decisions to find a way to make all of the pieces fit, but I know one thing for certain: When I see The Menagerie, I am utterly convinced of the Pike scenes taking place in the series' past; when I (unfortunately) watched Enterprise, and when I see clips from the latest film, I have to keep trying to convince my brain that it really is a prequel to TOS . . . even though aesthetically at the very least it doesn't seem likely. We may be a minority, but I don't think I'm alone in this.

You're not...

 

[paudemge]

And not.

 

[Warped9]

What's remarkable, too, is how neatly "The Cage" fits in as a "prequel" to the Star Trek we came to know and love -- for instance, the uniforms, the more military feel, the less colorful sets, and the slower and more audible transporter all come across as natural precursors to what becomes TOS. Even Leonard Nimoy's performance gives his Spock a much younger quality than in the rest of the series. Considering that it was only made two years before the show debuted, The Cage does feel like it takes place a decade in the series' past. I think one of the reasons that some fans of TOS are put off by the aesthetics of Enterprise and the current film is because they've seen how The Menagerie did it right, giving us a past for Star Trek that was immediately believable.

Bingo!

We already know what pre TOS looks like and it ain't ENT or Trek XI. But then again they're alternate continuities and/or a reboot so no real harm done.

 

[Timo]

Of course, "pre-TOS" includes everything from the day Pike's dad said "Let there be light, sound, action!", to the day Pike did that stint on the cross, to Kirk's first appearance on screen.

We know what things look like a few decades before Kirk, and "The Cage" is it. STXI treads on those toes, but so far the only element of that pain that doesn't feel like good pain is the silly neo-Enterprise; the rest of the movie visuals seem to be in good agreement with the "The Cage" aesthetic.

In contrast, we don't know what things would have looked like a century before Kirk, and ENT is as good a guesstimate as any. Certainly the ENT aesthetic is closer to "The Cage" or TOS than the aesthetic of, say, ST:TMP is. That's "pre-TOS", and that's perfectly valid pre-TOS.

Today's reality is pre-TOS as well, but that most definitely is from an alternate continuity...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

When I first saw it as a kid I had no idea it was a "clip show". I thought it was Hunter in the chair as well. Read "The Making of Star Trek" a few years later and was surprised to find out it was a pilot ( not that I knew what a pilot was until I read TMOST ). Oh for the illusions of youth.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I had a similar experience until I read TMoST. I was salivating at the thought that there were earlier episodes out there somewhere that I hadn't yet seen.

Bummer. But it all turned out good. Hence my interest in photoshopping unseen Pike era scenes.

 

[guardian]

I like Boyce so much i wish they had at least a brief cameo of the character in the new movie. Heck just a white haired middle-age gentleman (in sickbay or attending to wounded) in the background would work for me.

 

[Neopeius]

^^ I had a similar experience until I read TMoST. I was salivating at the thought that there were earlier episodes out there somewhere that I hadn't yet seen.

Bummer. But it all turned out good. Hence my interest in photoshopping unseen Pike era scenes.

When the hype for TWOK developed, they showed scenes from Space Seed on TV and I thought there'd been another Trek movie starring Khan.

 

[guardian]

??^^ Do you mean that you thought there'd be another movie about Khan AFTER TWOK??

I love TWOK but if the next movie had been the resurection of Khan---I think that would have been just ridiculous.

 

[Wingsley]

I just saw the remastered version of "The Menagerie" recently.

I liked many of the remastered FX, especially the improved Talosian "clip" showing the Enterprise from 13 years "before". The shuttlecraft imagery was the weakest, but still great.

One thought occurred to me: Starfleet was a little to quick to just let Spock off if we assume Spock acted alone from the beginning. Spock was shown sabotaging starbase equipment, falsifying messages, assaulting Starfleet personnel, kidnapping a superior officer, and misappropriating a starship-of-the-line. For Mendez to send out a waiver message so quickly suggested to me that higher-ups knew had been working with Spock from the beginning.

Comments?

 

[ScatmanRescueMe]

One of the old 'survivor' actors from 'The Cage', who had a speaking line, has the dubious distinction of being the ONLY actor from Trek to die before the series ever aired........

a couple others died before their particular episodes aired, but only one before the series had EVER aired.

"He gave his life that Trek might live"-----------well not really

 

[Kryton]

I just saw the remastered version of "The Menagerie" recently.

I liked many of the remastered FX, especially the improved Talosian "clip" showing the Enterprise from 13 years "before". The shuttlecraft imagery was the weakest, but still great.

One thought occurred to me: Starfleet was a little to quick to just let Spock off if we assume Spock acted alone from the beginning. Spock was shown sabotaging starbase equipment, falsifying messages, assaulting Starfleet personnel, kidnapping a superior officer, and misappropriating a starship-of-the-line. For Mendez to send out a waiver message so quickly suggested to me that higher-ups knew had been working with Spock from the beginning.

Comments?

Um...Mendez was never really there. If the Talosians had contacted him or other Starfleet or Federation personnel, it was probably after the ruse had already taken place. If they'd been convinced beforehand, the general order declaring Talos off limits would have been waived without having to go through the charade.