Shatner told Wesley that Spock\u2019s unusual appearance represented the freedom science fiction gave the programme\u2019s creators.<\/p>\n
William Shatner recalls fight to keep Spock\u2019s pointed ears. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIn that pilot, I was attracted to the magic, the imagination behind that pilot with the swollen heads and the pulsing. It was such wonderful makeup. It was intriguing from many points of view.\u201d<\/p>\n
The programme had an unusual journey before Shatner joined the series.<\/p>\n
NBC rejected the original pilot, The Cage, which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, but took the unusual step of commissioning a second pilot with a new script and an almost entirely different cast.<\/p>\n
Nimoy was retained as Spock, while Shatner was brought in to play Kirk.<\/p>\n
The resulting second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, helped convince NBC to order the series.<\/p>\n
Shatner said: \u201cThere was a magic about the pilot, and that became the magic of Star Trek that caught the imagination of the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have weird people coming out of a rock and saying, \u2018These are the people who live on this planet\u2019, and accept it because you don\u2019t know who\u2019s living on that planet in the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat science-fiction magic was a big propellant in the popularity of Star Trek.\u201d<\/p>\n
His recollections come as Star Trek celebrates its 60th anniversary, with the original programme premiering on NBC on September 8, 1966.<\/p>\n
The series initially lasted three seasons, ending in 1969, but subsequently developed an enormous following through repeats and expanded into television spin-offs and feature films.<\/p>\n
Shatner reprised Kirk for the big screen, beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture and continuing through films including Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.<\/p>\n
Shatner has also been working on William Shatner \u2026 And You, a new book examining the effect Star Trek has had on viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shatner told Wesley that Spock\u2019s unusual appearance represented the freedom science fiction gave the programme\u2019s creators. William Shatner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[9218,430,51293,156,4377,1444,1044,111,139,69,31842,20488,34600,5196,12860,1517,5419,265444,418,296745,2737,417,115741,5828,10744],"class_list":["post-602040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-before","tag-celebrities","tag-ears","tag-entertainment","tag-executives","tag-famous","tag-management","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pointed","tag-reached","tag-refused","tag-removed","tag-revealed","tag-reveals","tag-screen","tag-shatner","tag-shows","tag-spocks","tag-star","tag-television","tag-trek","tag-wanted","tag-william"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}