Monday, June 22, 2009

Spock gestures

A few weeks before the newest "reboot" Star Trek movie was released, I watch the oldest one again. The original series pilot, The Cage, was made in 1964 but not shown on TV until 1986, though most of it was embedded in the regular season two-parter called The Menagerie. Early in the episode, Spock makes a hand gesture to change the image on the computer screen. I don't know of an earlier example of a gesture computer command on film, and he isn't even wear silly glovelets like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.
According to what I've read, this first pilot was rejected by studio executives because it was too erotic, Spock looked like the devil, and the first officer was a woman (played by Majel Barrett). I believe Barrett and Nimoy were the only actors in this first pilot to have regular parts in the series. Luckily, they were given the chance to make another pilot.
Whatever the case, The Cage still good sci-fi!