The Truth about Jeffrey Hunter
- Thread starter spockboy
- Start date
Wow. Thanks for posting a link to that documentary. Somehow I had gotten it into my head Hunter died from injuries he got falling from a horse, filming some spaghetti western. Interesting to discover it was effectively from a misjudged practical special effect involving a car and concussion all stemmed from that.
I look at Bruce Greenwood's very good take on Pike, and think, Hunter could have loosened up more. Still a very different and more serious Captain than Kirk, but certainly as compelling. The mistake really was "The Cage" script, introducing your lead character as somebody very despondent and really looking for another career.
I look at Bruce Greenwood's very good take on Pike, and think, Hunter could have loosened up more. Still a very different and more serious Captain than Kirk, but certainly as compelling. The mistake really was "The Cage" script, introducing your lead character as somebody very despondent and really looking for another career.
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No doubt the character would have become more action-oriented and personable if the series had continued with Pike... basically the same character we got with Kirk. A pilot episode served as a proof of concept, not a final product.
Whether Spock and Vulcans (or whatever they might have decided to call his species) would have been focused on logic may have depended on whether or not Number One was kept as the logical, unemotional character. Spock might have been just a secondary character. Maybe the "big three" would have been Pike, Boyce and Number One.
Kor
Whether Spock and Vulcans (or whatever they might have decided to call his species) would have been focused on logic may have depended on whether or not Number One was kept as the logical, unemotional character. Spock might have been just a secondary character. Maybe the "big three" would have been Pike, Boyce and Number One.
Kor
His portrayal of Jesus in King of Kings is also relatively well known.
Geez what a sad end.
Dunno how Hunter as Pike would have fared in the long run.I always considered his performance as very in the mould of those post war tough guys,all snippy and thin-lipped.
"Tired?You bet I'm tired."Could be from any Bogart movie.
Shatner,for all his faults was a more "modern" actor and IMO more credible as a twenty second century human.
Dunno how Hunter as Pike would have fared in the long run.I always considered his performance as very in the mould of those post war tough guys,all snippy and thin-lipped.
"Tired?You bet I'm tired."Could be from any Bogart movie.
Shatner,for all his faults was a more "modern" actor and IMO more credible as a twenty second century human.
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I completely agree that Shatner really brought something special to the role, but if you watch Hunter's work he had a softness and a compassion (King of Kings) that the writer's would have explored I think. He came off a little too tough in the pilot, but Nimoy hadn't really found his character yet either.
Spockboy
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Jeffrey Hunter would of been good in where no has gone before 2nd pilot.
Hunter was cool. He gives that gritty frontier Western vibe whereas Shatner does something else with the role. With Hunter it probably would've sailed closer to that Western sensibility. Might've even earned Trek a cameo from the inestimable John Wayne, haha.
I thought he fell down the stairs at home and died from the injuries he received a few days later...
JB
JB
Sounds weird that someone could also have been involved in his death as well! Guess we'll never know? Wonder if he was ever asked to come back and play the disfigured Pike in The Menagerie? Guess not as it would have been beneath him...
JB
JB
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