Captain Pike has a strange origin in the Star Trek Universe: in the original pilot for Star Trek in 1965, Jeffrey Hunter was cast as the lead, Christopher Pike. When NBC ordered a new “less cerebral” pilot, Hunter (on the advice of his wife) declined to return. Subsequently, the character of Captain Kirk was created, but creator Gene Roddenberry still wanted to use footage from the pilot to create a prequel type story in the first season of the series, saying that Pike was injured in an accident and used an actor in burn make up and a futuristic wheelchair to stand in for Hunter, and the character was added back into the story. JJ Abrams decides to include the character in his reboot to serve as a kind of father figure and mentor to a young Jim Kirk to great effect. This figure is just a simple headswap and some retooling and was completed in October 2018.