Live Long And Syndicate
March 15, 2024 12:15 PM Subscribe
Rare Footage Of Leonard Nimoy Hosting 1975 Special Presentation Of Star Trek’s “The Menagerie” In 1975, Paramount produced a special movie presentation for syndication of the two-part Star Trek episode “The Menagerie,” hosted by TOS star Leonard Nimoy. The original Spock recorded introductions for each part of the episode as well as closing remarks for the special presentation. In the special, Nimoy explains how “The Menagerie” uses footage from the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage” and more. Originally recorded February 6, 1983 from KAUT in Oklahoma City.
neat, just watched The Menagerie " may your way be as pleasant" Meg Wyllie steals the show as the head keeper and Majel Barrett-Roddenberry was good and I'm glad the new series brought the character back.
posted by clavdivs at 2:26 PM on March 15
posted by clavdivs at 2:26 PM on March 15
I think a lot about The Cage. It's unbelievably good for 1965 TV science fiction—unique really—and stands as a testament to the people involved. It's pure quality. The production design alone is astounding. That beautiful dark-toned bridge! That gorgeous opening shot of the 11' model. I remembering watching The Menagerie in the 1970s, knowing nothing about the central story being a failed first pilot, and being entranced.
And I love how you can see society progressing in the mirror of scifi. We went from Forbidden Planet in the 1950s, with NO female crew, to a strong female character in The Cage who's second in command, and definitely not there for the usual cheesecake. People now forget what a statement it was simply to have women wearing trousers instead of a dress! (That got reversed when Star Trek was picked up as a series.)
Somewhat contemporaneously, in the UK show UFO, we have a woman in charge of the Moonbase, Lt. Ellis, and there's also high-ranking Col. Lake on Earth. In the German show Raumpatrouille, the superior officer of the Starship Orion's captain is female (General van Dyke). He's even outranked on his own ship by another woman, his security officer!
posted by jabah at 3:51 PM on March 15 [5 favorites]
And I love how you can see society progressing in the mirror of scifi. We went from Forbidden Planet in the 1950s, with NO female crew, to a strong female character in The Cage who's second in command, and definitely not there for the usual cheesecake. People now forget what a statement it was simply to have women wearing trousers instead of a dress! (That got reversed when Star Trek was picked up as a series.)
Somewhat contemporaneously, in the UK show UFO, we have a woman in charge of the Moonbase, Lt. Ellis, and there's also high-ranking Col. Lake on Earth. In the German show Raumpatrouille, the superior officer of the Starship Orion's captain is female (General van Dyke). He's even outranked on his own ship by another woman, his security officer!
posted by jabah at 3:51 PM on March 15 [5 favorites]
neat, just watched The Menagerie " may your way be as pleasant" Meg Wyllie steals the show as the head keeper
It was kind of cool the way they made the veins on those giant butt-heads throb.
And I love how you can see society progressing in the mirror of scifi. We went from Forbidden Planet in the 1950s, with NO female crew, to a strong female character in The Cage who's second in command, and definitely not there for the usual cheesecake. People now forget what a statement it was simply to have women wearing trousers instead of a dress! (That got reversed when Star Trek was picked up as a series.)
It was some progress, though there are still some elements that are embarrassing today. Pike is kept for breeding purposes, and the Talosians procure two more potential mates, one that'll make smart babies, and one that'll be eager to hump the capitan. That's a 1940s era pulp magazine trope. Which, ok, I guess, but at the end, Vina can't leave Talos IV because everyone will see how ugly she looks. Pike makes sure the Talosians will giver back the illusion of beauty. They can make her feel pretty, but apparently can't actually fix her body to function like a non deformed human. Of course, she'd rather live the rest of her years without real human companionship than let people see her all hunched over.
I guess Starfleet's medical technology was pretty shitty. Not only would Vina not be able to get suitable reconstructive surgery, but they couldn't even figure out how to give Pike a communication device that was as functional as Stephen Hawking's.
The transformation of Vina back to her deformed state was really well done practical effect even by today's standards.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:09 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]
It was kind of cool the way they made the veins on those giant butt-heads throb.
And I love how you can see society progressing in the mirror of scifi. We went from Forbidden Planet in the 1950s, with NO female crew, to a strong female character in The Cage who's second in command, and definitely not there for the usual cheesecake. People now forget what a statement it was simply to have women wearing trousers instead of a dress! (That got reversed when Star Trek was picked up as a series.)
It was some progress, though there are still some elements that are embarrassing today. Pike is kept for breeding purposes, and the Talosians procure two more potential mates, one that'll make smart babies, and one that'll be eager to hump the capitan. That's a 1940s era pulp magazine trope. Which, ok, I guess, but at the end, Vina can't leave Talos IV because everyone will see how ugly she looks. Pike makes sure the Talosians will giver back the illusion of beauty. They can make her feel pretty, but apparently can't actually fix her body to function like a non deformed human. Of course, she'd rather live the rest of her years without real human companionship than let people see her all hunched over.
I guess Starfleet's medical technology was pretty shitty. Not only would Vina not be able to get suitable reconstructive surgery, but they couldn't even figure out how to give Pike a communication device that was as functional as Stephen Hawking's.
The transformation of Vina back to her deformed state was really well done practical effect even by today's standards.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:09 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]
Not sure why, but I went from being a big SF fan in the 1970s to being kind of uninterested now. Maybe I just got tired of waiting for The Last Danerous Visions. But I had forgotten how much the intro to Star Trek always thrilled me; I was surprised to find my heart racing a little while watching this video. I wonder if the entire “movie” is available somewhere.
posted by TedW at 5:36 PM on March 15
posted by TedW at 5:36 PM on March 15
odd, lately Star trek will be on but I'll go ahead and watch have gun, will travel just because Westerns and I found out that Gene Roddenberry wrote 24 of them.
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on March 15 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on March 15 [1 favorite]
When I was a freshman in college (1974-75), Gene Roddenberry was on a college tour, talking about Star Trek and showing a 16mm black and white print of The Cage. I took my future wife to see it. This was a decade or more before a color print of the complete pilot episode was discovered. The color negative had, I believe, been cut up to make The Menagerie.
It was a wonderful time, when memories of TOS were still fresh but The Motion Picture was years in the future, when all we had was reruns and some novels and and isolated groups of nerdy kids talking about it, where conventions were few and far between. There was still a kind of purity to fandom, because it wasn't yet widespread.
Other things have replaced my Star Trek fandom, but I'll never forget that packed auditorium, Gene Roddenberry, and the only girl I knew who was interested in Star Trek.
posted by lhauser at 7:54 PM on March 15 [5 favorites]
It was a wonderful time, when memories of TOS were still fresh but The Motion Picture was years in the future, when all we had was reruns and some novels and and isolated groups of nerdy kids talking about it, where conventions were few and far between. There was still a kind of purity to fandom, because it wasn't yet widespread.
Other things have replaced my Star Trek fandom, but I'll never forget that packed auditorium, Gene Roddenberry, and the only girl I knew who was interested in Star Trek.
posted by lhauser at 7:54 PM on March 15 [5 favorites]
OK, here's the thing about "The Menagerie" that's so wonderful. Well, maybe a few things.
We all know (well, all the Trekkies, anyway) that Star Trek had two pilots; "The Cage", which got turned into this episode, and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", which addressed some of the "problems" that the network suits had with the first one. The second pilot just got shown as a regular episode (Star Trek was hella expensive for the time, and they weren't going to just let an episode go to waste), and "The Cage" got turned into this two-parter, with a framing device about Spock being court-martialed. Again, good use of their money, turning leftover turkey into turkey sandwiches.
What it meant for the show, however, was pretty big in terms of world-building. By establishing that the Enterprise had had an earlier crew, with almost 100% turnover of the bridge crew except for Spock (who was acting a lot differently), you add a lot of depth to the show, including that there was a planet that was so dangerous that Starfleet would execute anyone who tried to visit it. (And there was effectively a flashback in a flashback, with one of the illusions that Pike faces being the planet that he'd been to previously, Rigel VII, which is also not a lot of fun.) There are also significant differences; the uniforms are different, the bridge railing is black instead of red, they have those funny station monitors on gooseneck lamp sort of things, slightly different weapons, and so on. I don't know if MASH ever showed a flashback to WWII, but I would think that it would be something like that.
Plus, of course, that Spock not only would steal the Enterprise, but would make it look kind of easy. Now, it's almost a cliché in the franchise, but then it was startling to see this extremely orderly and logical guy pull off a one-man mutiny... and then when it looked like he might endanger Kirk and the commodore, he just gives up and turns himself in. Also, too, the difference between the very good-looking Jeffrey Hunter and what the delta radiation did to Pike. (Also, WRT the damage to Pike not being able to be repaired--or at least being given a better form of communication--as well as Vina's injuries, they're already establishing that the whole thing about going out into space is that you get new diseases to replace the ones that you've cured. Probably the same thing is true for weird types of injuries.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:22 PM on March 15 [1 favorite]
We all know (well, all the Trekkies, anyway) that Star Trek had two pilots; "The Cage", which got turned into this episode, and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", which addressed some of the "problems" that the network suits had with the first one. The second pilot just got shown as a regular episode (Star Trek was hella expensive for the time, and they weren't going to just let an episode go to waste), and "The Cage" got turned into this two-parter, with a framing device about Spock being court-martialed. Again, good use of their money, turning leftover turkey into turkey sandwiches.
What it meant for the show, however, was pretty big in terms of world-building. By establishing that the Enterprise had had an earlier crew, with almost 100% turnover of the bridge crew except for Spock (who was acting a lot differently), you add a lot of depth to the show, including that there was a planet that was so dangerous that Starfleet would execute anyone who tried to visit it. (And there was effectively a flashback in a flashback, with one of the illusions that Pike faces being the planet that he'd been to previously, Rigel VII, which is also not a lot of fun.) There are also significant differences; the uniforms are different, the bridge railing is black instead of red, they have those funny station monitors on gooseneck lamp sort of things, slightly different weapons, and so on. I don't know if MASH ever showed a flashback to WWII, but I would think that it would be something like that.
Plus, of course, that Spock not only would steal the Enterprise, but would make it look kind of easy. Now, it's almost a cliché in the franchise, but then it was startling to see this extremely orderly and logical guy pull off a one-man mutiny... and then when it looked like he might endanger Kirk and the commodore, he just gives up and turns himself in. Also, too, the difference between the very good-looking Jeffrey Hunter and what the delta radiation did to Pike. (Also, WRT the damage to Pike not being able to be repaired--or at least being given a better form of communication--as well as Vina's injuries, they're already establishing that the whole thing about going out into space is that you get new diseases to replace the ones that you've cured. Probably the same thing is true for weird types of injuries.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:22 PM on March 15 [1 favorite]
… all we had was reruns and some novels…
Don’t forget TAS!
posted by TedW at 3:42 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Don’t forget TAS!
posted by TedW at 3:42 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
I wonder if the entire “movie” is available somewhere.
“The Menagerie”? It’s on Paramount Plus. All the Star Trek shows (except for Prodigy, booooooo) are.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:11 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
“The Menagerie”? It’s on Paramount Plus. All the Star Trek shows (except for Prodigy, booooooo) are.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:11 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
The Cage was also contextualized in this 1988 special where it was broadcast to help fill in the gap in the 2nd season of TNG after the writer's strike, hosted by Patrick Stewart. There's also this intro by Gene Roddenberry which I think is from the VHS release of the story originally.
posted by StarkRoads at 9:06 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by StarkRoads at 9:06 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
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posted by briank at 1:10 PM on March 15