Why we shouldn't compare Jeffrey Hunter's Captain Pike to Anson Mount's

In the 1960s, in the first pilot for Star Trek: The Original Series, then known only as Star Trek, Jeffrey Hunter played the role of the Captain Christopher Pike. A product of the current time, Hunter's Pike was unaccumstomed to seeing women on his bridge, was clearly a commander whose authority wasn't questioned, and he didn't seem to take much input from his crew. But that was how he was written and, unfortunately, how things were in the 1960s even though the series was set way in the future.

A recent Screenrant post discusses Pike's biggest change from Star Trek, calling it "his best." And that is his attitude toward women. But Pike's way of leadership and his acceptance in today's society is understandably different than it was in the 1960s because of the time period we're in now. On top of that, Hunter didn't have much time to embody the role of Captain Pike. So we really didn't get a chance to get to know him beyond a cancelled pilot that we saw parts of in "The Menagarie."

Taking one thing The Original Series' Captain Pike said and using it to explain how Strange New Worlds' Pike is better or the changes were for the best doesn't seem quite equitable to Hunter, who passed away in 1969 at the age of 42. The sixties worked against him as much as they did against William Shatner's Captain Kirk.

Had The Original Series' original pilot been greenlit for series, we might have seen a different Captain Pike evolve over the seasons. We may have been able to see the growth of the character as he accepted how things were different in Starfleet now. We certainly don't regret having had Captain Kirk at the helm of the Enterprise in the 1960s any more than we do having Captain Pike in this decade. But we didn't get the opportunity to see any changes in Hunter's Pike nor how he would have commanded the Enterprise altogether. I'd like to think that he would have done a good job had he been given the time and room to grow.