Star Trek: The Cage

Star Trek: The Cage (1965)

Led by Captain Christopher Pike, the crew of the starship Enterprise investigates of a far-off planet which was the site of a shipwreck eighteen years earlier. They encounter telepathic aliens who seek a human male specimen for their menagerie.

Date of release
1965-02-01
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (12)
Runtime
1h 13m
Genres
Science Fiction, TV Movie
Director
Robert Butler

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $630K
  • Based on: Star Trek is…
  • Filmed in: Desilu Culver Stage 15, Arab Village, 40 Acres, and Desilu Culver Stage 16

"The Cage" is the first pilot episode of the American television series Star Trek. It was completed on January 22, 1965. The episode was written by Gene Roddenberry and directed by Robert Butler. In February 1965, NBC rejected it, and the network ordered another pilot episode, which became "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Much of the original footage from "The Cage" was later incorporated into the season 1 two-part episode "The Menagerie" (1966); "The Cage" was first released to the public on VHS in 1986, with a special introduction by Gene Roddenberry, as a hybrid of the color footage that was used in "The Menagerie" and black and white footage which was not used in "The Menagerie." It was f…

Production

"The Cage" was filmed at Desilu Productions' studio (now known as Culver Studios) in Culver City, California, from November 27 to December 18, 1964. Post-production work (pick-up shots, editing, scoring, special photographic and sound effects) continued to January 18, 1965.

Gene Roddenberry paid much attention to what The Outer Limits team was doing then and was often present in their studios. He hired several Outer Limits alumni, including Robert Justman and Wah Chang, to produce Star Trek. One of the creatures in the cages was reused from the episode "The Duplicate Man" of The Outer Limits, where it was called a megasoid.

The Talosians were designed with an androgynous look and were portrayed by females with male actors providing dubbing audio. This was done to give the impression that the Talosians had focused their efforts on mental development to the detriment of their physical strength and size, making them suitably alien to viewers.

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