Well they succeeded didn't they but Hunter it seems wasn't as big an actor as he thought he was!
JB
JB
Why Jeffrey Hunter didn't continue with Star Trek
- Thread starter tim0122
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Which was actually a lot to begin with. Once I got a good look at Kenney, he struck me as someone who could at least play Hunter's sibling, if not even a younger version of his character in any other production. And I now have to flip a coin for which one looks more like how I envision a live-action Captain Marvel.
Hunter was doing films in the '50s and early '60s, but then he starts doing television. Could be he did that because film roles were drying up for him? And by doing television he might have effectively downgraded himself in the eyes of film producers of the time given in those days there was a definite line between film actors (movie stars) and television actors that wasn't very forgiving. Back then those who appeared on television could be considered either washed up or lacking in talent to be in feature films.
Suffice to say that Hunter basically became a Hollywood nobody after the early '60s.
Suffice to say that Hunter basically became a Hollywood nobody after the early '60s.
Oooh, neat choice! I could definitely see Hunter playing the Big Red Cheese.
Even if his star had faded somewhat, he was still a known quantity and would've been a prestige guest star for Trek. At any rate, I guarantee you that they would've let Hunter be recognizable and written dialogue for him if he'd agreed to appear on the show. That's all I was saying. Kinney was basically an extra.
I may be going against many fans out there, but I have always preferred Hunter as Captain Pike to Shatner as Captain Kirk. It's a shame he didn't continue, I think it would've been interesting to see where he went with the role or if he'd be as big a man-whore a Kirk.
If Hunter had stayed on, we would have been stuck with this version of Spock:
Fred MacMurray...Captain Marvel's appearance was based on him.
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As a kid watching that episode, the thing that really threw me was the color of injured Pike's hair. It almost looked blonde on screen, I suppose it was supposed to be gray, or maybe the radiation affected it. I always thought if the hair was darker it would have been more believable to have actually been Pike. Yeah, kids think of strange details like that.
Well, Hunter's personality probably would have colored the character's personality, but script and story telling wise, there probably would have been little difference, as far as the role of the captain. And considering Star Trek was a series of its time, Pike probably would have been a man whore like Kirk.
I mean really. Pike's one and only appearance was to be put in a cage by aliens, and given 3 women to have sex with, and we were constantly beat over the head about how much of a macho man among men Pike was. I am sure the writers would have written situations for Pike similar to Kirk.
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Hunter was a very 1950's style leading character in appearance and acting style. Shatner was fresher and a more naturalistic style of leading character and acting style.
Hunter was fine in "The Cage" which was similar in many ways to the film Forbidden Planet released about a decade earlier and served as something of a template for GR when first putting Star Trek together. But Shatner in WNMHGB is like night and day compared to Hunter. Shatner is immediately dynamic, magnetic and charismatic. While Pike and Kirk were initially meant to be essentially the same type of character it's Shatner that really brings it to life.
Nimoy has also said that Shatner's performance helped him get a better handle on Spock whereas with Hunter he felt somewhat lost. If Hunter had continued we might never have gotten that awesome Shatner-Nimoy (and later Kelley) chemistry.
Hunter's departure also served another purpose. GR wisely renamed the character along with other changes made for the 2nd pilot and the series later. And by finding a way to utilize the unaired 1st pilot footage during the first season run they managed to create this fascinating glimpse of in-universe prehistory that otherwise we might likely have never gotten to see.
Hunter was fine in "The Cage" which was similar in many ways to the film Forbidden Planet released about a decade earlier and served as something of a template for GR when first putting Star Trek together. But Shatner in WNMHGB is like night and day compared to Hunter. Shatner is immediately dynamic, magnetic and charismatic. While Pike and Kirk were initially meant to be essentially the same type of character it's Shatner that really brings it to life.
Nimoy has also said that Shatner's performance helped him get a better handle on Spock whereas with Hunter he felt somewhat lost. If Hunter had continued we might never have gotten that awesome Shatner-Nimoy (and later Kelley) chemistry.
Hunter's departure also served another purpose. GR wisely renamed the character along with other changes made for the 2nd pilot and the series later. And by finding a way to utilize the unaired 1st pilot footage during the first season run they managed to create this fascinating glimpse of in-universe prehistory that otherwise we might likely have never gotten to see.
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Oh, I'm well aware of that. Have been for around 40 years now. There are comic artists, like Alex Ross, that go out of their way to depict him that way. But I've never seen it in CC Beck's original art, and have spent most of my life coming up with my own interpretation of how Captain Marvel would look in live action. I adored Jackson Bostwick in the first season of the Filmation show in the '70s, and a decade ago I thought Evan Marriott, the original and only "Joe Millionaire", if he could actually act, would be a perfect choice of then available candidates to play the character. I'm just saying that for me, Jeffrey Hunter comes the closest to how I envision his appearance, with Sean Kenney an extremely close second.
A young Mandy Patinkin also had the Captain Marvel look. He would've been a great choice in the 70s or 80s.
Does anyone know if Jeffrey Hunter's hair temples were dyed gray? I recently watched The Cage and noticed this. Also, does anyone know how old was he when he shot the pilot? He looked pretty young.
Which is why I bet they added in that line about Pike being about Kirk's age. They were obviously forgetting that the flashback of "The Cage" footage took place 13 years before. So either Pike was a 25-year-old wunderkind, or else he was in his mid-40s by the time of "The Menagerie."
Or Mendez didn't know either man's actual age, and was making what he considered a fair comparison.
For a long while, I felt the same way. It's very possible Hunter could have grown into the role and had more warmth to his projection of the captain. But when I watch those early Shatner episodes, I change my mind. While some of his acting was over the top, he brought a terrific style to Kirk that really worked. There were plenty of rough edges to TOS acting and directing, because of the intense film schedule at hand (too little time from script to filming), and then the whole debacle as Season 2 came to a close (issues with production staff, Gene being absent for Season 3, etc). Sometimes I cringe at Shatner's performances... but overall, I'm still glad he was cast as Kirk.
But with Hunter or Pike, it would've been a different show. Shatner brought a lot to Star Trek... despite his fair performances in Season 3. It's hard for me to see that crew from The Cage, last too long than Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. It's not really fair because I love those characters so much, but I do admit The Cage had potential. With some axing from some characters like Number One, and maybe replacing her with someone who's black or Hindi or some person of color I could see it moving forward. Maybe even Dr. Boyce who was pretty old, but yeah... with some tweaking I could see it.
I can't help but wonder if Hunter's injury in 1968, and ongoing dizzy spells leading to a fall, fatal injury and death in 1969 all wouldn't have happened if he had stayed on with Star Trek instead of going back to movies.
Kor
Well assuming he wasn't canned during the show's run, and that the latter continued for at least the same number of seasons, it would seem likely that the events would never have happened. He would have been earning a steady and substantial pay check and perhaps more importantly, would have come to realize, at a safe remove, that he was never going to be offered any film roles more prominent than domestic grade B or lower features or el cheapo productions in Spain or Italy. Consequently, he may have reluctantly come to the conclusion that TV was going to his metier going forward, without the seemingly baneful influence of wife # 2 who was dispatched in '67, and not even bothered with the movie crap in the off seasons. I don't know if the original injury he suffered on the Continent during film production, was just an unfortunate accident or indicative of negligence in the explosive effects process, but I don't think he would have ever been in the position to experience it if he had carried on with the role of Pike.
As with my response to Kor on the last page, that's been the predominant theory for many years now. I think I've even put it forward myself, here, at least once.
That movie "Brainstorm" starring Anne Francis and Hunter was an incredible film. Has anyone seen that film?
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