TMP Re-Edit & Restoration Project - Ideas, Feedback, Advise

I wonder if the station (Ken Adam?) from MOONRAKER was going to be a station in PLANET OF THE TITANS

If you will recall, there were tubes in the Drax station--and also in some of the Enterprise drawings--so in a way, we see a little of Planet- in the 1979 Bond film.

 

While I love TMP, I fantasize about how I'd recut it on occasion. One thing I would definitely do is cut down on the number of establishing shots. Epsilon 9 has numerous establishing shots, so does the space complex orbiting earth. The sequences could easily drop some of the effects shots and get to the "action" much quicker.

 

I have those thoughts on occasion myself, but one thing I'd never sacrifice is the establishing shot of the orbiting space station. Maybe it's just the wonderful music that accompanies it, but that shot has lost not one bit of its luster since I first saw it!

 

I think that is a pretty accurate guess, but I've also thought that if you look at the project he did before TITANS, which was THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, there are aspects of Stromberg's submersible facility, especially a couple of corridors, that looked starship-ish. (In fact, the exterior almost looks like something with warp pontoons.)

If you look at images of a particular French airport (it features in AIRPORT 79 THE CONCORDE, not that I recommend anybody looking at that unless they enjoy really awful vfx), it has tons of these tubes as well, even the ones that go up at angles (I think the escalators are enclosed in them.)

That really ties into the look for the inside of the TITANS Enterprise, based on that one really bizarre drawing that makes it look like the entire primary hull is one big open space (and silly as it sounds, that DOES tie in with Kaufman's own statement about wanting to be able to look down from the bridge at decks far below.)

 

The tube design is not dissimilar to the tube escalators in Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle Airport, which predates Adam's design (and appears on The Alan Parson's Project "I Robot" cover).

 

I had totally forgotten about the cover, but yeah, that is a great representation. MOONRAKER actually uses another at-the-time-controversial location, the Centre Pompidou, with its exposed structure styling, in a quick scene that is supposedly set at Drax's SoCal facility. http://www.paperspace.com/archives/669

 

Sorry to ask at this late date but any new scenes should be done in which aspect ratio? In other words, if I were to setup a photoshop document or composite sequence, what would the pixel resolution be? 1440 x 1080 at 72 dpi? I just want to be certain that what I provide is going to be useful to you.

 

Should be 1920x1080 though it will be framed as 2.35.1. Document should be Rec709 gamut, 16 bits, 300PPI (though if you specify a resolution I don't think the PPI seetting does anything).

 

I don't have any friends. But if I may further belabor the Cranham TMP artwork - thank you to the OP for posting them! - the San Francisco cityscape thus depicted is an ideal example of what (then) ILM matte photographer Craig Barron noted when designing with (then) ILM matte artist Chris Evans the Starfleet Command establishing shot for the utterly forgettable ST:TVH, namely:

"It's hard to make a real city look futuristic, because if you add taller buildings to it, it just alters the scale of the city and you feel like you're closer to it." - American Cinematographer (December, 1986).

This doesn't apply to the SF depicted in the J.J. Abrams movies because they are, of course, cinematic perfection.

 

You don't think there could be just a LITTLE more sun glare coming off the buildings?

 

What you dismiss as "glare" I call a thoughtful attempt to give residents of those apartment towers healthy year-round tans sans the hassle of stepping out onto their balconies.

 

I haven't yet read the whole thread, so perhaps this has been discussed further...

Personally, I wouldn't remove the transporter accident. But I think that scene should've come after McCoy arrives on the ship. McCoy's scene feels far too light in tone, considering the awful accident that happened only a few hours (film-time) before.

But placing the scene later doesn't work because of the costume changes, so...

 

As you don't seem against restructuring the film... What do you think about tightening the cloud-travel sequence, combining the attack with Ilia being taken by V'Ger into one larger section of the film?

I'm not quite sure this could/would work, as it would require to move some dialogue-scenes forward to keep Spock's storyline and his contact to V'Ger intact. But it would also give some time to digest Ilia's "death" and V'Ger would be given time to create her robot-clone.

 

In a "read-along" audio cassette book of the film I have, the story goes straight from the probe's attack on Ilia to her (re)appearance, scrapping everything in between. That certainly helps to move the action along!

 

But, don't you understand that we need 45 minutes of special effects, first?

 

I already completed a rough edit of the cloud and v'ger flyover sequences (Actually I believe my cloud edit was too short!).

Are you talking moving Ilia's digitization to right after they send the friendship message? That's a nice thought, but Decker's "It's an unwarranted gamble" wouldn't have any payoff when he says "this is how I define unwarranted", plus I wouldn't want to spend the time to edit her out of all those reaction shots.

I'm honestly not sure how this project will progress for a while as my Trinitron finally died, and I do not have roughly $1k to spare on a replacement monitor that I could calibrate for color (for grading and effects work) due to employment instability. I assume I could create a Kickstarter or fund raising drive for the project however that only works if you're Adywan doing the Star Wars Revisited edits ; ).

Feel free to keep discussion going in the thread, contribute ideas, assets, art, etc. I'll post updates whenever they are noteworthy.

 

True (about Decker's comment) but he could still say it, have the reactions, then bring Ilia back in the shower. It is admittedly a short grieving period, but no worse than how long Spock spent being "blind" in Operation-Annihilate! Whether a TV-show feel at this point in TMP is a good or bad thing I'll leave up for debate.

 

For Decker's "unwarranted" to have any effect and payoff, the dialogue-sequence from after the attack where Kirk asks Spock's and Decker's advice on how to proceed would have to be moved forward.


Here is how I see these events unfold:

- after they first arrive at the cloud, and notice they are being scanned, discuss about shields, not being provocative, and Kirk gives his commands to Ilia to "bring us parallel", there needs to be a cut to an exterior- or viewscreen-shot and then a sequence of cloud-travel-shots (removing Kirk's command to Sulu to put a tactical plot on the viewer), (this would also explain why V'Ger looks like a cloud on the viewer and like a trench in the exterior shots: they've flown in)
- then cut to interior bridge: the after-battle scenes: the over-the-shoulder shot of Kirk ordering the tactical view on screen, followed by the Kirk, Spock and Decker conversation on how to proceed, and the Decker/Kirk bit about the "unwarranted gamble" (excising the references to the attack), scene ends with Kirk in his chair
- cut to exterior of the Entprise proceeding towards the V'Ger cloud-trench
- cut to Decker's "This measures 12th power..." with the first attack playing out as-is
- then Spock's discovery of V'Ger's attempted comm-contact and what to do next
- as-is cut to the lightning inside the V'Ger cloud-trench, and Spock sending the reply (the urgency needs to be somewhat reduced, the shots of the second V'Ger torpedo need to be removed, maybe lingering a bit longer on the insert shot of the transmission-screen)
- cut to a calm V'Ger cloud-trench
- cut to interior of the brigde, talk about the friendship messages being received, and Spock's "pure logic" comment
- cut to exterior, lightning the the trench, the second V'Ger torpedo approaching, hitting the shields.
- interior bridge, the V'Ger probe-scene playing out as-is, including the whole tractor-beam catching the Enterprise bits (moving that whole sequence forward gives Decker's "this is how I define unwarranted" more punch, I think)
- cut to cloud-travel-shots in sequence with Uhura confirming the readiness of the log-buoy, Defalco and McCoy arriving on the bridge, Decker and Spock disagreeing about the phaser-blast towards the tractor-beam, and a few reaction-shots (Ilia isn't that often in the frame)
- the travel over V'Ger itself - though beautiful - could be omitted entirely, with the Enterprise being pulled straight into the ship after having passed through the cloud (the topography of those scenes isn't quite clear anyway)

Does this make sense? Could this work dramatically?

 

I've come to realize the topography of the flyover perhaps isn't clear because the movie doesn't explain that their "conic section flight path" involves flying around V'ger in a non-treatening manner and approaching it from the rear (instead of interecpting it head on like the Klingons), so the first view of V'ger is the rear of the ship, and the "maw" is actually the front. This is explained in the novel, and obviously properly communicated to the FX team, since the flyover is from back to front.