Versions of ST:TMP on DVD and/or Blu-ray

[Flake]

Well I started a thread on this subject last week and after careful consideration of the comments I have decided that the best thing for paramount to do is to release all versions of The Motion Picture onto bluray

A special super edition with 3 discs, one containing the theatrical cut the others the DE and the ELV. A 4th disc will contain bonus features. In addition the movie will be fully recut from original camera negative and the visual effects rebuilt from the original VFX Elements. The DE will have its new visual effects remade in HD by ILM.

[RyanKCR]

Oso Blanco wrote:

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Agreed, except for the fx part. I'd rather have that airlock scene removed than new fx for it. And if it was just left the way it was, that would also be fine with me. I just want the original, unaltered SLV in widescreen and possibly HD.

This is what I want as well. But I wouldn't mind two Enterprise FX shots fixed.

[trevanian]

I really think it needs a 'make your own cut' option out of all available footage, and the further option of putting your own material in. Wouldn't happen in a million years, but it would really put some brains to work overtime, especially how to solve the recutting of soundfx and music issues.

[Pauln6]

trevanian wrote:

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I really think it needs a 'make your own cut' option out of all available footage, and the further option of putting your own material in. Wouldn't happen in a million years, but it would really put some brains to work overtime, especially how to solve the recutting of soundfx and music issues.

Yeah, I want an ELV with the updated effects and shortened reaction shots from the DE.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I like the DE most of all, except I'm still not sure why they didn't include the extended version of the McCoy/Kirk argument ("As ship's doctor, I am now discussing the subject of command fitness"), since it is obviously a better version of the scene and requires absolutely no special effects.

[Lance]

^ Director's privilege? Bob Wise evidently had his reasons for excluding it, and as the director, it's ultimately his decision what ends up into the "Director's Edition". Maybe he just prefered the version we see in the DE, for whatever reason.

[trevanian]

It's been covered to death in other threads over the past decade or more, but the DE seems to reflect the SharpLineArts people's idea of what the movie should be more than Wise's. They addressed some very specific shots Wise wanted added, but most of the DE stuff doesn't really reflect Wise's STATED problems with the theatrical cut (drydock scene too long, vger flyover too long by MINUTES) ...

There is a ton of concept art for San Francisco done in 78-79 that doesn't look anything like what they did in the DE.

The DE Vulcan merely represents one set of boards and art from 78-79, not any particular favored one (why they didn't go back to the Yuricich stuff that had been started and probably near-finished before it was pulled and taken to some other vendor I can't imagine ... you can see the approved concept and him painting it in a lot of mags of the time.)

I've never seen any concept art for the officer's lounge with one nacelle out there; the art always had a symmetrical view of the nacelles, consistent with the lounge beneath the bridge, not the one that (apparently) is a cloaked lounge hovering in space above the recreation deck.

And why you go to the trouble of putting that eyesore nacelle out there but DON'T bother color-correcting the whole scene -- a scene with people in blue costumes shot against bluescreen, why Why WHY wasn't anybody on the show even recognizing this in 1978! -- I just can't imagine.

Wise trusted the SharpLine people, who also did his SOUND OF MUSIC restoration for DVD, so presumably he also deferred to them on various aspects (his commentary absolutely just sounds like something he is reading, and only some of the time seems to represent his actual stated views about certain scenes.)

The whole DE was supposedly done for half-mil or less, that includes the new and godawful sound mix, what passes for restoration when you have no money to do it right, and the VFX additions. I think you'd've needed to double that to get anywhere near what the DE actually needed to have done to it.

[Maurice]

^^^Amen.

I've ripped the footage from TMP and play-edited a few times and it's actually easy to pick up the pace of a lot of sections without resorting to amputation (as most fan edits try), but you have to have some reasonable understanding of cinematography and how things cut together to understand how to do it. I easily shorted the drydock flyaround by something like 30 seconds, and if it wasn't for the fact that so many have memorized every note of the music, most people wouldn't be able to spot the trims.

Wise was correct that that film could easily have been shortened, mostly via "letting the air out" as I like to say. Sharpline's edit only lowered the pressure from 44 to 42 PSI. It should have been 37.

[gottacook]

Pauln6 wrote:

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Yeah, I want an ELV with the updated effects and shortened reaction shots from the DE.

What would be the running time, I wonder, of a TMP edit that consisted only of reaction shots?

[gottacook]

As for the overlength of the gosh-wow images that they're reacting to, whether the Enterprise in drydock or the V'ger interiors: To me the most spectacular image in Close Encounters of the Third Kind was when the mother ship rotated/inverted, just before descending (hemisphere side down) to the landing strip that our government has prepared. The scene lasts no more than 7 or 8 seconds. It wouldn't have had half the impact if they'd let the camera linger TMP-style.

[trevanian]

gottacook wrote:

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As for the overlength of the gosh-wow images that they're reacting to, whether the Enterprise in drydock or the V'ger interiors: To me the most spectacular image in Close Encounters of the Third Kind was when the mother ship rotated/inverted, just before descending (hemisphere side down) to the landing strip that our government has prepared. The scene lasts no more than 7 or 8 seconds. It wouldn't have had half the impact if they'd let the camera linger TMP-style.

Actually that spit-rotation shot was something they had to cut away from early, because the rig wouldn't sustain the weight of the model through the full amount of rotation. I've always thought it looked like a bit of an awkward cut coming out of that shot, though the music is grand enough to let it skate by.

But you're right in bringing CE3K up; there are easily a dozen visual moments that are utterly breathtaking. If they'd gotten Trumbull on TMP early, I think you'd have seen a drydock sequence so epic in scale that my jaw would still be on the floor 33+ years later ... if he'd gotten to build the E at 28 or 30 ft long (about the same as the EVENT HORIZON miniature), the gorgeousness that is TMP would be modest by comparison.

[Therin of Andor]

trevanian wrote:

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a scene with people in blue costumes shot against bluescreen, why Why WHY wasn't anybody on the show even recognizing this in 1978! -- I just can't imagine.

Well, that's precisely why Science's and Medical's division colour of blue (in TOS) went to orange for Science and mint green for Medical in TMP. Avoiding blue.

[gottacook]

trevanian wrote:

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Actually that spit-rotation shot was something they had to cut away from early, because the rig wouldn't sustain the weight of the model through the full amount of rotation.

That's fascinating. I'd always thought it was an artistic decision.

During its theatrical run I was lucky enough to see it in a theater where the volume was turned up high (on premiere night) as well as a few weeks later at normal volume in a different theater. Some dialogue was obscured the first time around, but the orchestral WHAM at the end of the opening-credits crescendo was much more thrilling, as were other moments later on.

[trevanian]

I saw CE3K opening night at the best theater I've ever been in (except the Cinerama Dome), the late great Cinema 150 in Santa Clara, CA. Even with all the special installations they did soundwise before getting the movie, the saucers coming in overhead from the side still blew one of the theater speakers pretty badly (almost anticipating the glass shattering from the next reel, I guess!)

Dennis Muren shot the mothership stuff, having gone over to CE3K direct from STAR WARS' night shift crew. I'm pretty sure he's heavily quoted in the CINEFANTASTIQUE double issue on CE3K, which is probably where that info came from. Either that or maybe a Greg Jein interview in CINEFEX #2.

[Warped9]

A 28ft. Enterprise filming miniature. Now THAT I'd love to see.