Fair enough, although it's actually Wise himself (on-camera) who goes into a good amount of detail about the re-editing process in the DVD documentary (as well as on the audio commentary track), and claims that he personally supervised things -- as you mention, it's not really provable either way, but Wise's own words kind of give that theory a tiny bit more heft (as it were).
Haven't seen the DE since it was released, but just off the top of my head: I'm hard-pressed to think how the CGI addition of an original series shuttlecraft as an easter egg is supposed to have contributed to Wise's original vision of the film.
^^^Or changing San Francisco to match the later films, or superimposing the stardate on that scene, or changing the size of the cloud, etc. etc.
But at least they wouldn't look so fake. I loved B5 but thats the one thing I always hated about it.. The CGI was cool. But looked 100% fake. Great for the 90's Not so much today.
It wasn't even good in the 90s, although the FX guys were some of the early TV CGI pioneers and they got better as they went along.
The original special effects for B5 were famously done on 'Video Toaster' technology used on the old Commodore Amiga computers, right? Did they ever get around to updating it to more regular PCs later on? Changing to a completely different computer system might have contributed to those earlier FX shots no longer being available. As well as the fact that the commercial life of the Amiga itself died sometime around 1994. Could the Amiga files have been migrated to a new operating system? EDIT: Wikipedia tells me they stopped using the Amiga after the first season.
Right. Video Toaster eventually became PC software, not tied to the Amiga, and then eventually morphed into software widely used today called Lightwave 3D.
What in the world does Paramount have against these type of releases for Trek????? Actually, I wouldn't go quite that far (see below). My nirvana would be the DE effects with all the footage added back in. Pacing be damned, I want ALL the content. Ditto. Classic Kirk annoyance scene. Can't get enough of that!
I enjoyed the blu-ray version I have. It mentions the 82 AU size of the cloud so I assume it's not the DE...
Well, i guess "great" in the way that there was so much of it.. It did look kinda shitty but in a "cool" kinda way.. But i enjoyed it anyway.
I'm much happier with the theatrical cuts. Never was much of a "DE" man. Usually scenes are cut for a good reason.
I guess it's better for Paramount to only have one version of each on Blu so they don't have to bother with sales from folks who like the Director's cuts or the TMP 'Longer Edition'. I am glad the DVDs of 2 and 6 were pretty good transfers---so I don't mind too much. But the fans of the TMP SLV are screwed because that version isn't even available on regular DVD.