ALL SCI-FI

[Pow]

Director Robert Butler who amassed a large number of TV episode credits over his career (and is still with us and in his nineties), was hired by Star Trek creator/producer/writer Gene Roddenberry to helm the very first Star Trek pilot "The Cage."

Butler found the material crazy & nuts and questioned whether he should even tackle it.

Interestingly, Butler never understood what made ST so popular and why it resonated so enormously with fans. But he certainly acknowledged that the show spawned a franchise like no other TV series has.

Butler found the show too wordy for his taste. The square jawed characters were overly heroic and pristine, he thought. He wanted to rough up the Enterprise sets; make 'em look weathered and rusty. However, Gene would have none of that for his "baby."

Principal photography was scheduled to start on Friday, November 27, 1964, and finish exactly eleven days later on Friday, December 11, 1964 and budgeted for $451,503.

The reality was that it took sixteen days to shoot at a final cost of $615,751.

By comparison, the pilot for Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space" (1965~1968) was $395,170. "The Time Tunnel" (1966~1967) was $575,920.

[Bud Brewster]

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I knew nothing at all about Mr. Butler. Thanks for the into, Mike. And the information is very revealing.