Lost Media Archive

Host of Springville's almost weekly ISMN - "Incredibly Strange Movie Night" since 2003. (Previously known as "Tapioca Night" circa 1993 in Ogden, UT). "ISMN" also takes place every last Tuesday at Brewvies Cinema and Pub in Salt Lake City.

FALL 2012 WAS OUR 10th ANNIVERSARY!!!

We are also founder of the world's first Troll 2 cast reunion (which they didn't want to mention in the documentary for some reason, making it look like it started in New York. I guess karma will catch up with them).

Currently we are showcasing Avant Garde, Experimental and Art Films for each letter of the alphabet. This is in response to those who have given us the stereo type of only showing "low budget bad movie trash" not worth their time. So in response we say, "You want high art? It can be just as bizarre, sometimes even more so, and even just as low budget."

No repeat films from the past allowed! (...unless it's a screening at Brewvies.)

LMA is a Utah-based collection of mondo/ kitsch/ cult/ ephemeral/ experimental/ historical/ obsolete/ forgotten/ unearthed audio-visual and textual documents. LMA is also a resource for those who cling to bygone media formats. The LMA was founded by Blair Sterrett and works together with loaf-i productions, the Free Form Film Festival and Salt Lake City Film Festival to arrange screenings, viewings, and concerts. The LMA also promotes and initiates the creation of new and unusual films, albums, performative projects, and book events. We accept donations of any and all projection, recording, and filming devices. When possible, we maintain these machines for use by recordists and filmmakers. (We now curate over 35,000 films.)

For more info, donations or to join the weekly email list, please contact B.C. Sterrett at bcsterrett@gmail.com. Thank you.

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ISMN: “The Cage”: Star Trek’s unaired pilot (1965) - Friday April 6th @ 7:30 PM

                   

This week’s feature: “The Cage” (Star Trek’s feature length pilot episode that was originally unaired in 1965)

VHS/64 MIns/Not Rated

I’m not a huge Trekkie but I am guilty of growing up watching the campy original series now and then (usually on Sunday evenings on my parent’s giant bed) as well as “Next Generation” when I was in high school. (I’m not saying it was a bad thing).

                           

I’m showing the pilot episode of the original series. 

A: Because it is rarely seen/screened.

B: Most people don’t know that before Captain Kirk, there was “Captain Pike”

C: It could have easily passed as a feature length Sci-Fi B Movie, had it not become a TV series.

D: It’s very well written and well done.

E: I like it.

F: It’s time to dust it off from the archive and pay it a re-visit :)

G: Star Trek may not be usual ISMN fare, but I cannot deny the cultural impact of the series and “The Cage” deserves to be seen and deserves a lot more respect.

                      

Storyline (from IMDB)

This is the pilot to the series that would star William Shatner. Only in this version there is different Captain, Christopher Pike, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew. Now it begins when the Enterprise receives what appears to be a distress message. But when they get to the planet where the message was sent from, they discover that the supposed survivors were nothing more than illusions created by the inhabitants of the planet, for the purpose of capturing a mate for the one genuine surviving human, and Captain Pike is the lucky winner. While Captain Pike tries to cope with the experiments and tests that the aliens are conducting on him, his crew tries to find a way to rescue him. But the aliens’ illusions are too powerful and deceptive (at first). Written by <rcs0411@yahoo.com>  

                              

Facts about “The Cage” from IMDB:

This was the first pilot episode of the cult series Star Trek. In 1965 it was presented to the NBC executives, which rejected the pilot and asked for a second pilot. (Star Trek - Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966) (TV)).

The first pilot was not aired on TV until 1988, when it was used as a filler episode for Star Trek: The Next Generation due to a writers strike.
Footage of this pilot has been used to create the two-part Star Trek episode “The Menagerie”. Because of a production delay, they had only one week to produce two episodes and so they edited this pilot into two new episodes.
Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock was the only character from the first pilot to survive into the series. The ship’s first officer character, Number One, was rejected for the series by the network because she was female (according to Gene Roddenberry), or because of her lack of acting ability (according to Desilu production chief Herbert F. Solow). Actress Majel Barrett (Roddenberry’s girlfriend at the time and later wife) was recast as Nurse Chapel. When the pilot was recycled as the two-part series episode “The Menagerie”, it was established the events in this episode take place 13 years prior to the events of the Star Trek series.
During pre-production make-up tests, the Orion Slave Girl footage (with Majel Barrett acting as a stand-in for the not-yet-cast Susan Oliver) kept returning from processing with the character’s green skin changed to Caucasian. Initially believing that the green makeup was somehow failing to show up on film, the producers learned that the developers at the processing lab hand-corrected the color, believing it to be a processing error.
The officer rank insignia in this episode (single gold braid for everyone) was intended to be generic so as to imply that the space service of the future had no need for ranks and titles, and was not intended to be a military organization. This concept did not carry over into other Star Trek series, as a classic rank insignia structure was developed and Star Fleet was clearly indicated to be based on the military.
After the pilot aired, the studio told Gene Roddenberry to get rid of the guy with the ears, Mr. Spock. But Roddenberry wanted an alien presence on the bridge and had to fight to keep the character on the show.
Majel Barrett’s character, Number One, was rejected by the studio executives. They considered a female authority figure unrealistic.

The original script called for the aliens to be crab-like arthropods.

                                
A favorite review:

history in the making
9 July 2005 | by blanche-2 (United States) – See all my reviews

Just think…if Jeffrey Hunter had wound up playing the Captain in Star Trek, he might be alive today. Hunter died in 1969 from a subarachnoid hemorrhage, probably caused by an explosion that imploded instead during a film he was working on in Europe. Interesting thought.

The Cage was the most expensive pilot in NBC history to that point. Though the Star Trek idea had its supporters, the network couldn’t see past its nose to pick up the series. They did, however, agree to a second pilot with some changed elements - like a woman who was second in command. The reasons why Hunter did not do the next pilot have been debated. A friend of Hunter’s stated that Hunter’s wife, Dusty, thought science fiction was low class and didn’t want him involved in the show. And, according to Shatner’s book, she also made unreasonable demands of the producers.

It’s worth remembering that back in the ’60s, science fiction, space movies, etc., did not have the “A” status that they do today. B movies only became A movies after Star Wars.

The Cage is a not only very good but touching, and of course, it’s fascinating to see “Star Trek” before it became a cult classic. The story concerns a planet that exists basically on Mind Control, and the inhabitants in charge capture Pike in the hope that he can help replenish their race with an earth woman who is there as a result of a ship crashing. Susan Oliver is the woman.

During the run of the series, in order to recoup some of the costs of this fabulously expensive pilot, it was incorporated into a two-part episode, with another actor playing the now near-vegetative Captain Pike.

I love seeing films such as this that were done before all the special effect technology became available, because they were done in such innovative and imaginative ways. The Cage is worth a look to see the genesis of a show that became part of our culture.

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Bonus Film:

Turkish Star Trek (aka “Turist Ömer Uzay Yolu’nda” - 1973)

DVD/Turkish/No Subtitles/Not Rated

                     

By now, most people have heard of this and the other re-makes of American pop culture film that took place in Turkey.

Many years ago we also shared clips from this during one of our Out/Ex shows in Salt Lake City.

           

Unlike “Turkish Star Wars”, “Turk Trek” is harder to watch without subtitles.  One of the reasons being that way too much talking goes on.  And unlike the other Turkish ripoffs, this one is an intentional comedy.  But for those willing to bask in the absurdity, the special effects, the robots, and the alternate plain of Trek reality is a sight to behold.

Somethings that have unintentionally caused laughter in the past is that one of the skirts on deck is just WAY too short, and the actor who plays Kirk is so dang creepy!

For your sanity, we will only be playing the first 10 to 15 mins of this.

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Time: Friday April 6th @ 7:30 PM (7 if you want to see an episode of the animated Star Trek series from the 70’s)

Place: “The Art City Mansion” 365 W 300 S, Springville UT

Free as usual.

See you there!

BC

              

                                      (Above: “The Cage” on Laser Disc!)

Posted in Star Trek The Cage sci-fi Turkish Star Trek Turk Trek Out/Ex