Alternate Star Trek TOS Pilot Found

Raver32 sends news that the lost second pilot for Star Trek has been found, and will be released next month on Blu-ray. "Star Trek fans know there were two pilots for the original series. The first, 'The Cage,' was rejected by NBC for being 'too cerebral' (ah, some things never change). The second, 'Where No Man Has Gone Before,' replaced the actor who played the captain with William Shatner and was more action driven. That pilot had an alternate version which was largely lost and has never aired. Apparently, a film collector in Germany acquired the print and 'recently brought it to the attention' of CBS/Paramount. CBS is now releasing this version on Blu-ray Dec. 15."

Comments

Nice marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

This episode has been available at conventions for years. The only thing they "found" was access to the master copies, giving them better quality.

Re:Nice marketing

[natehoy]

"Where No Man has Gone Before" was in fact aired as Episode 3. You are absolutely correct.

However, the article states there was an alternate version of "Where No Man has Gone Before" which did not air, but was the version used to sell Trek to NBC execs. That version never aired, and is what is now being offered up on the DVD.

Technically, most of "The Cage" also aired as part of "The Menagerie".

Re:Nice marketing

[Inner_Child]

The cage has been out for many years now. Is this the cage or is it something completely different. or a different cut of the cage?

Really? You couldn't even read the summary? Or even comments above yours? It's an alternate version of "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

Good God!!!

[FloydTheDroid]

This is the equivalent of ringing a bell at Pavlov's dogs!

Re:Good God!!!

[Jezza]

Don't you mean Chekov's Dogs?

No wait ... that isn't right.

Re:Good God!!!

[Tumbleweed]

>> Don't you mean Chekov's Dogs?

> No, Pavlov. You know, the researcher who developed an obsession to ring bells whenever he saw a dog salivating.

Chekov did a different experiment with dogs. He'd ring a bell when they failed to get a joke.

zomg it's trek

[florin]

In other less important news, a stone tablet containing 5 alternate commandments was excavated in the Iraqi desert today.

Re:zomg it's trek

[PopeRatzo]

a stone tablet containing 5 alternate commandments

And #11 was "Thous shalt not listen to so-called "religious leaders""

Number 1 was supposed to be "Thou shalt read all instructions before beginning" and #15 was "Thous shalt ignore #2-14"

alternate universe

[rossdee]

do they have goatees?

Its not you its me

[Ada_Rules]

Sure there are some shows that were killed for being 'too cerebral' where it was true, but plenty of shows that received the ax with that phrase had a slightly different underlying problem. They were too f*ing boring.

'Too cerebral' allows the network to break it off without hurting the feelings of the fans or the producers. It will be interesting to see which category this pilot falls into...Maybe if it does not turn out well the pilot and I can just be friends.

Re:Mad rush on Blu-ray predicted

[Enderandrew]

If you have old, grainy, low-quality footage, there is no other way to release it other than Blu-Ray!

Re:WOW

[aplusjimages]

Man I just hope this original story keeps with the canon of the Star Trek Universe.

Star Trek Act I...Warp II...

[rirugrat]

Star Trek...In Color!

Starring Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln.

Replace William Shatner? REPLACE William Shatner??

[Provocateur]

What are you going to do? Get a bald headed guy with a British accent to play him? I got news for you
pal, baldness will be cured in the 23rd century!

It's a plot Jim, but not as we know it

[syousef]

Stardate 5191.5.

While googling frantically for pornographic footage of green three breasted alien women, have come across a place called "the pirate bay". Apparently this is an exchange post for all kinds of illicit material, but based on an analysis of the comments, quite inexplicably, it is only frequented by pre-pubescent teenage boys and social misfits who lack a fundamental part of the anatomy: a sense of humour.

Recommend we study these life forms to learn what we can from them. They seem to have formed a lawless society loosely based on an earlier society that advocated rape and pilleage on the high seas . Furthermore they have technology that allows them to store an infinite number of files on a loose connection of inter-0networked machines, but strangely none of these files are complete, which often results in cursing and requests to perform a strange ritual invoked with the words "please seed".

To guard against their natural enemies - a group who have become rich and successful by making entertainment audio and video recordings for a completely different group of pre-pubescent teenagers - they use a new kind of anti-mater which they call "peer guardian".

Mr Spock believes they are "fascinating" and I am hopeful we will soon encounter green alien dancing girls with 3 breasts. I have therefore committed all resources of the Enterprise to cataloging and studing this group.

Re:It's a plot Jim, but not as we know it

[Kjella]

Stardate 5191.5. While googling frantically for pornographic footage of green three breasted alien women

Clearly this is TOS, in TNG you'd just say "Computer, list all pornographic footage of green three breasted alien women." Not surprising that it's Google delivering that amazingly context-sensitive half mind-reading search assistant though, the way they're going it's either that or Skynet.

They leave the galaxy?

[brunes69]

From the clips on youtube linked in the article, it says they leave the milky way - that would be a huge departure from the current canon, in which they have never left he galazy under their own power, in any series or movie.

My favorite part of the clip:

[Bob Hearn]

"George Takei as Chief Physicist"

Helmsman, swordsman, physicist... the guy can do everything!

Re:My favorite part of the clip:

[hyades1]

"Helmsman, swordsman, physicist... the guy can do everything!"

Except girls.

Don't care...just sayin'.

Re:I hereby tag this:

[pthisis]

you can bet your butts that this single episode will first be sold for the price of a full movie.

According to TFA, the episode will be included as part of the bonus material for the season 3 release on blu-ray:

"The restored pilot will be included in the "Star Trek: Original Series - Season 3" Blu-ray release.."

Blu-Ray you say?

[future assassin]

What about DVD? Oh those of us who don't own or wanna waste money on the next "best" in spinning disk technology gonna have to wait? I guess I'll just have to download it the day it comes out.

Sigh

[Foobar of Borg]

If you're going to do a first post on an article like this, you could at least do it right and say something like

I'm Captain Kirk! I'M CAPTAIN KIIIRRK!

Re:What's the point of releasing old TV on Blu Ray

[Dogtanian]

the film that they used is higher resolution than HD.

That's true, but people forget that the production values will have been made with television in mind- and 1960s televisions at that. In other words, at high enough resolution you might (for example) be able to see the obvious limitations and crudeness of props that would have been less apparent at ordinary TV resolution.

Just because the source material was recorded at a high enough resolution, doesn't mean it was filmed with that in mind. Given the budgets of TV shows, they wouldn't have wasted money on extra detail that wouldn't have shown up on televisions of the time; but the lack of it will show if scanned at high enough resolution and shown on modern HD sets.