I was Executive Producer of this original Paramount Home Video programming of "The Cage". The late Rick Hauser was the Producer/Director. Rick worked tirelessly to gather lost footage and reconstruct this pilot. Gene came out off of the golf course and out of retirement to do the intro and tag. He was reluctant until he met us and felt confident in our work and respectful of Rick to shepherd him through this production. He was extremely nervous but so pleased to be making "The Cage" available to the StarTrek fans. He sent me an autographed picture of himself surrounded by life masks of the lead characters, thanking me for "leading him safely through the cage." The reconstruction of this pilot could not have happened without the vision, talent, and dedication of Rick Hauser. 11/18/1939 - 04/07/2022
I'll assume everything you said is true, but during the 70s and early 80s when the two part episode with Spock on trial aired, it was all in color. So I always wondered what the big deal was about this being in color.
@@captainharris8980 Roddenberry hints at this in the video. The Menagerie was always in colour, but it didn't use the entire footage of The Cage. The colour film of the parts it didn't use were thrown away, and not yet rediscovered by the time this special aired. So for this reconstruction, those had to be taken from what they thought was the only surviving copy of The Cage, which was a black-and-white print.
Thank goodness you and Rick did so!!! I don't remember where I've seen this footage before (I'm assuming the DVD from the early 2000s?) but it definitely stuck with me as, wow, I'm with Gene Roddenberry himself on the Enterprise - how cool. So as an impressionable young boy, this sequence was memorable enough for me to remember it 20 years since I've last seen it and made me want to look it up on YT to find it, and of course here it is in all its glory. Very appreciative of your work, as I'm sure generations of fans will be forever!
2024 and Star Trek is still telling great adventures for all generations... Thank You GENE! I was a child in the 60s when Star Trek came on TV, in two days I turn 62 & still believe that one day, just maybe...
I love The Cage. I think Jeffrey Hunter made a fine captain. I'm glad when Shatner came they made him a different captain so Pike could remain and have his story.
Star trek is not just good and smart television. Star trek is a vision. The vision of a bright future, the one we hope for : a future with women leading a crew, a future with all kind of people living together in peace, a future of respect, of kindness, of technology used to do good things... Thank you Gene.
Indeed. Infact I couldent agree more. All these years and Star trek is still going strong :D. All I can say is Long live Star trek. Past, Present AND Future.
The fact that Gene Roddenberry pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable to the networks. it is what made the original series so successful. a glimpse into the future was something that people were going to have to accept. with all the changes in society and they ultimately did. thanks to Gene Roddenberry he was a true visionary. Mr Spock's eyebrows were definitely different, I'm glad that they toned them down some, it's amazing I can still remember the opening monologue perfectly.
I was so glad that Paramount CBS actually released that on the DVD seasons of TOS. I've heard he showed it on fan conventions back then, as 16mm copy, a few times. It's so sweet thinking about that and having such a great relationship with the fans.
I just love that Roddenberry still snuck the pilot in as part of the Menagerie 2 part story in TOS. Even now, Pike's adventures are on Strange New Worlds. Cerebral my @$$.
My favorite part of this was that we get to see bits and pieces of the ST movie sets that we never saw in the films. (He filmed this shortly before they remodeled the sets for TNG.)
Hate that cheesy next generation stuff, stupid and childish show. The Original Star Trek series is the ONLY BEST STAR TREK OUT THERE, NOTHING ELSE MADE AFTER IT WAS ANY GOOD.
The movie sets for Star Trek 1-4 looked so realistic like Shatner & Company were on a real Star Ship & unfortunately when the sets were remolded to the TNG Sets they looked to much like TV Sets & didn’t feel like they were on a Starship as much as I liked TNG. The sets could have been made better. It is what it is.
I met Gene Roddenberry and gave him a five-second pitch of a story that was stuck in my head. He stuck his big finger in my chest and said, "Write it!" So I have.
Not many people realize that Gene Roddenberry also created "Earth: Final Conflict" And "Andromeda". Both were co-produced by his wife Majel Barret. She was Number One, Nurse Christine Chappel, Doctor Chappel, Lwaxana Troi and more in several series and movies and the computer voice in practicaly all of Star Trek, including computergames. Note that Spock was still allowed tot smile on the first pilot "The Cage".
I had this as part of the VHS tape of The Cage in 1986. Now I have it again as part of the blu-ray box set featuring all 3 seasons plus different versions of The Cage pilot.
Stationed in Mayport, Fla, when in the Navy, I got to see the Original pilot of Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry had come to Jacksonville and was talking about his creation. He brought the original pilot, “The Cage” and showed it to the audience that attended. Like in this video, he said this pilot had never been shone. It was a great show and “ The Menagerie “ episode , a two parter... later came out. He also talked about how the powers that be talked about the Spock character and nobody would by him. Also no one would by the woman as second in command. So, he changed and gave Spock her logic, intelligence that were part of her character... then he married her, Majel Barret. Later she would become Nurse Chappel.
There was also "you have to wait an hour after eating before going into the swimming pool, or you'll get the cramps". I had an aunt who enforced that for a while.
Roddenberry had a lot of help in making Trek what it was. It's nice to see him as a messianic figure who single handledly did something wonderful, and indeed it was his initial idea that sparked it all, but let's not forget the dozens and dozens of people on the original series that made so many important contributions to making Trek as entertaining and enduring as it was. Writers, directors, craftsmen, set designers, conceptual artists, visual effects artists, and actors all together.
He was not messianic. Trek is a police show for a smarter audience to expose them to some health care and police strategies, and inspire younger viewers to go into law enforcement, military or the sciences, notably health care.
Don't forget Star Trek's "Godmother", Lucile Ball, whom convinced NBC (and sponsored/funded) to allow Gene Roddenberry to make a second pilot after NBC rejected The Cage. The second pilot was "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
@@captainharris8980 Too reductive. Did you base that on Harlan Ellison's comments? It was a glimpse into a post-scarcity utopia to try to inspire us to transcend our fixation with petty differences to our fellow man.
@@rsmith02 No, I did not. All shows are education in relations or law-enforcement. Star Trek then is no different, only it focuses on dilemmas and criminals that are more difficult to tackle than by your average PD and detectives. A lot of bad guys in old school Trek were psychopathic. Others were just smarter than average people, and so it took the Enterprise to tackle them.
Actually, this is the intro included on the early-80s VHS version (before DVDs) and before they found a full-length color version in the late 80s. Something else I noticed, it says MCMLXIV (1964) on the Desilu title card, not 1965.
I remember seeing a full color version of "The Cage" at least twice on TV (in Germany & The Netherlands), so either it wasn't lost or it was restored after this video was made.
The full-color 35mm network presentation was found 2-3 years later AFTER the 1986 VHS release of the partial B & W reconstruction of "The Cage" if I remember correctly. The presentation version of the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," was located in a German fan's film archive some years ago. This is the edit of the second pilot (NOT what aired on network TV) that won the series production contract for Star Trek. That was released for the first time, OFFICIALLY, a few years ago as an extra on the third season Blu ray set of Star Trek: TOS... Before that, crummy quality copies transferred from a 16mm dupe were sold on VHS -- without authorization from Paramount. So, technically, both pilot's original, full-color 35mm edits were "lost" for quite a while. The saga of those film reels had a happy ending... Unlike another long-running sci-fi series I could mention which is missing large portions of the serials from the First and Second Doctors.
The Doctor's missing parts are entirely the fault of BBC to wipe out and reuse tapes, they should have been written into Guinness World Records book for "most stupid idea ever".
@@SFtheGreat The BBC also recorded over The Beatles Top of the Pops appearance which is now lost as well, along with a bunch of top bands at the time. Tragic.
As a pilot, I preferred the Menagerie/Cage over the Second Pilot Where No man has gone before. I thought the former was little more thought provoking. However, I think the show was better Shatner than it would have been with Jeffery Hunter.
Oh course Gene cast Majel as Number One, Chapel, and the Computer, she was his mistress at the time! He was still married to someone until the end of TOS. The whole time he was cheating on his wife with Majel, he was also cheating on her with Nichelle Nicols and then on TNG with Susan Sacket
One rub of his nose, plus awareness of the well-documented fact that for the last 20 years of his life, Roddenberry had a massive coke problem. THAT'S why he struggled to find employment after Star Trek, it had nothing to do with the reception of the original series, he was just seen as a massive liability by every studio due to his growing drug dependency.
I remember when this first pilot came out as its own entity for the first time in the fandom. I distinctly recall thinking that it really was shockingly good ...
Hello every one, I watched "The Cage" and posted my reaction video. This is, in fact, my first video on my channel. I have to say I loved this episode and had many great surprises while watching it! I specially loved the subject, even tho it was called "too cerebral". It would have been well accepted nowadays in my opinion. :)
Roddenberry tells it the way is! That’s how TV shows get made. Even though Gene Roddenberry started out with the idea, I think the NBC guidelines of that time, together with the unique overall production shaped the show into what audiences saw and thats why Star Trek became so popular. The newer shows lacked a lot of what the original Star Trek was. Even Roddenberry was DENIED creative control over the new series “ Star Trek the Next Generation “ by Paramount ( the copy write owner). I felt if Roddenberry were given control over Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show could have and would have been much better, like the original 1966 NBC TV show.
He was given control, though. He ran the first and second seasons of TNG before his health failed, and had a final veto over creative decisions right up until he died at the beginning of the fifth season.
He wanted the show to have minimal conflict which wouldn't make for compelling stories and wanted his characters to be all-to-perfect archetypes. The mid seasons of TNG outside his control and DS9 show what the series could do in storytelling.
i was born just a few years ago compared to star wars, so i haven't watched any of it bcz the story became hard to follow from the beginning, but this guy definetely sounds a genius.
Those corridor sets were perfect. I hated the way they added seafoam green carpet & painted the doors peach for TNG. Looked like the god damn Golden Girls living room set
#orsen12 www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=10702591&postcount=40 Gene's coke habit in the 80s is mentioned several times in Susan Sackett's memoir, but I haven't read anything about such habits happening during the original series.
I have "The Cage" as a Colour edition on VHS, but it does not contain this intro. But is in far better quality than this, it's seriously from the DVD? Nevertheless, I think everybody would agree that the pilot was indeed very good, but as usual, decisive heads of companies were too much rooted in what had been to see the potential, similar to the story of The Beatles and Decca.
I miss this Engine Room along with the ideals behind Trek that seem to have been lost. Anthough the space behind the intermix chamber doesn't look right. Was this filmed on a modified movie set with original set pieces or a mockup?
So much for the old wive's tale of itchy feet, you'll walk on strange ground, itchy palms, you'll either come into money or spend it. (Dependant on which palm gets the itch.) Itchy nose and you're either going to get angry or disappointed.
Could it also be that Star Trek was his Frampton Moment too? How could he possibly top that? I don't know about Roddenberry's vices, but I do know the end result of Berman.
There 's a little similarities betweens star trek and lost in space and i've always wondered which one was the firt. I know though star wars came after.
