- Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song
- While the 1988 restoration has most of the color footage re-inserted, there are still a few pieces missing:
- A few frames of footage in the briefing scene, including Spock switching the monitor off. (Although the monitor is back on in the last shot of the scene)
- The picnic scene is missing some shots. To fit the existing color footage to the uncut soundtrack, some shots are repeated.
- Before Pike's line "Don't help me. . . They can't read through hate", the Keeper exits the menagerie. After that line, a shot from a later scene of the Keeper returning is re-used. This was made to cover up the dissolve to the later scene that was made for "The Menagerie" (1966). Originally, this shot followed a closeup to Veena, a cut to the Enterprise bridge, and a cut to the prisoners asleep in the cage. All of that was ruined (maybe permanently) by the dissolve made in 1966.
- After Pike beams back to the ship, there is a reaction shot of Number One and Spock. The color print of this shot was lost, so what is used instead is a re-photographed shot of the shot played on the view screen (taken from "The Menegerie, part II"). This is evident because the shot begins to pull back and we can see the edge of the monitor screen. All of these shots exist in there entirety, but only on the Black and White print, seen on the 1986 VHS edition.
- All prints of the original version of "The Cage" were destroyed by Paramount sometime in the sixties...or so it was thought. For over two decades, the only surviving copy had been a 16mm black and white proof print personally owned by Gene Roddenberry. Mr. Roddenberry took this proof print with him on the college lecture circuit throughout the 70's and early 80's. As a result of many showings in dilapidated 16mm projectors, it has become badly scratched and damaged. One of the versions available on video is a re-created hybrid of the original, using the B&W proof print as a reference, reconstructed from footage used in the episode "The Menagerie" (transferred from the original color camera negatives) and the deleted footage (as originated from the B&W proof print)...this version was originally released on video in the 1980s (and most recently on DVD) with a special introduction by Gene Roddenberry. Then, a few years later, in 1988, a full-color original print of the episode was discovered in the Paramount archives and then released as a filler episode during the original syndication run of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" due to a Hollywood strike (it was later shown during the Sci-Fi Channel's first run of the original "Star Trek" series). The original soundtrack to the discovered print was missing, but the re-mixed soundtrack used for the previous hybrid B&W/color version (in which the "Menagerie" soundtrack was used wherever possible to avoid using the severely scratched and degraded optical soundtrack from the proof print) was re-synched to this restored full-color version to make it look and sound whole. In any event, the most significant difference in the existing versions of the pilot is the voice of the Keeper. In the numberous restored versions, it switches between that of actor Vic Perrin in the footage taken from "The Menagerie" and that of Malachi Throne in the restored footage. This is because, coincidentally, Malachi Throne was cast as Commodore Mendez in "The Menagerie". The producers, quite rightly, thought that it would be confusing for Commodore Mendez and The Keeper to have the same voice, so The Keeper's lines were re-dubbed. (All Thelosian characters were played by women with dubbed male voices.) Among the other addtional scenes/differences in the original version-- -Pike discovers a monster lurking in the Talosians' chambers during the Captain's imprisonment; an extended version of Pike's first illusion, set on the planet Rigel VII (referred to earlier in the film by the ship's doctor) -Spock and crew suspect that their weapons are an illusion by the Talosians -extended dialogue by the Keeper about "Number One" -an extended illusion scene set in the countryside -an extended version of the Orion Slave Girl sequence -the Enterprise loses power as they are about to escape from Talos, and the computer bank goes out of control (both a result of the Talosians' telepathic powers) -and an extended closing scene aboard the bridge.
- Aside from the alternate versions released on video, the version currently airing on cable TV is edited down to the sixty minute format for the syndication market (47 minutes without commercials).
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