Quote Originally Posted by Cyke View Post
Hot take -- all respect to Jeffrey Hunter, but his Pike was such a stiff, uncharismatic bore. Shatner, for all his faults, is dynamic, theatrical, and memorable. Both Bruce Greenwood and Anson Mount are the superior Pike, even if we're counting just their first appearances (ST09 and Season 2, Episode 1, respectively).

Hunter's Pike was as if George Lucas wrote and directed him as a Prequel character.

Now, could Hunter gradually improve his Pike the way Stewart chilled Picard over time? Maybe, but he (and his wife) weren't all that keen about being in the show, nor should they be forced to. So I don't think Hunter was all that invested in the role, either.
That's a really good point. We only got one look at Jeffrey Hunter's Captain Pike. In Hunter's defense, the script of "The Cage" called for him to play a guy who was almost completely burned out by the weight and consequences of his responsibilities, and who gets a second wind after his experience on Talos. I watched the episode last night and noticed that, from the time he returns at the end of the show, Captain Pike was already displaying a bit of a lighter mood. What we'll never know, what would Jeffrey Hunter have done with the role?

Just as interesting to me, is what would have happened to Leonard Nimoy's interpretation of Spock? He was quoted in a documentary saying that Jeffrey Hunter was such an internalized actor that Nimoy felt that he had to be more expressive in the first pilot. When William Shatner came on board, he was so boisterously expressive that Nimoy thought the better portrayal of Spock was for him to contrast Shatner (that's in addition to Roddenberry's decision to consolidate some of Number One's characteristics into Spock).