What Are the Differences Between TMP's SLV and DE?
- Thread starter RookieBatman
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I'd only buy the SLV if they remastered the film in HD and made all three versions available via seamless branching. Nostalgic fan attachment notwithstanding, it's by far the sloppiest edit of the movie, and the Director's Edition salvaged just about everything of value from it that wasn't in the theatrical cut.
*Runs and hides!*
*Runs and hides!*
I prefer the DE, then the SLV and then the theatrical, but what boggles my mind is that in the DE---a version which is about making the character sections more emphasized---they cut out about 6 or 7 lines that do just that.
Both lines from the Theatrical and from the SLV.
The lines have been mentioned
"Command fitness"
"..in our own image."
"A crew of a thousand 10 miles.."
WHY?---All of those cut lines would have added less than a minutes of run time.
But then they leave the extremely annoying and completely unnecessary repetition of all Kirk's commands by Sulu.....
"Reverse angle on the viewer"--Kirk
"Reverse angle on the viewer"--Sulu
"Thrusters ahead"--Kirk
"Thrusters ahead--Sulu
Really, they thought those repetitive lines were more valuable to keep than the lines where the crew show some personality/insight?
Also there was/is no precedent for the crew repeating back the orders. On the series they used to just say aye or even just nod.
There is an easy 5 minutes that could still have been cut out of repeat lines and long shots where no dialogue or interesting action was going on and then they could have added in the lines left out from the SLV and it would have been both shorter, tighter and more character driven.
I'm not talking about changing the movie to a fast paced movie that it was never menat to be--but just making flow better and leaving in all the interesting bits.
Their fundamental mistake was taking the theatrical and working their way both backward AND forward at the same time.
That is cutting out things and then adding things that were cut.
Movies aren't cut that way. They look at the rough cut or assembly that contains all the footage and trim out what doesn't work and what isn't needed.
The SLV is the closest thing to a rough cut since it contains almost all the footage and lines.
They should have reviewed the SLV and removed the really unneeded stuff and left almost all the dialogue--especially the character parts.
When director's do true director's cuts they don't take the theatrical version and tinker with it---they go back to the version they originally wanted.
Problem is that Wise never had a chance to edit the movie properly in the first place.
At least Meyer on Treks 2 and 4 knew exactly the parts HE wanted back in.
Wise and co. clearly never had a chance in 1979 to really take time to decide what worked and what didn't.
I think they looked with disdain on the SLV as a mess of a version--instead of what it actually is---the true rough cut of the movie.
Sure it's too long and sure it has a lot of unneeded parts, BUT it contains all the elements to make the movie better.
The SLV runs 2 hours 23 minutes, but cutting out 20 minutes is super common for trek movies. TWOK, TSFS and TUC all had about 20 minutes cut. And while most of that stuff is interesting most of the cuts were wise.
20 minutes could be cut (from the 143 minutes version)without making it a rushed movie or taking away it's uniqueness as the only trek movie of it's kind.
The DE is noble failure--but it's the best of the 3 IMO.
Both lines from the Theatrical and from the SLV.
The lines have been mentioned
"Command fitness"
"..in our own image."
"A crew of a thousand 10 miles.."
WHY?---All of those cut lines would have added less than a minutes of run time.
But then they leave the extremely annoying and completely unnecessary repetition of all Kirk's commands by Sulu.....
"Reverse angle on the viewer"--Kirk
"Reverse angle on the viewer"--Sulu
"Thrusters ahead"--Kirk
"Thrusters ahead--Sulu
Really, they thought those repetitive lines were more valuable to keep than the lines where the crew show some personality/insight?
Also there was/is no precedent for the crew repeating back the orders. On the series they used to just say aye or even just nod.
There is an easy 5 minutes that could still have been cut out of repeat lines and long shots where no dialogue or interesting action was going on and then they could have added in the lines left out from the SLV and it would have been both shorter, tighter and more character driven.
I'm not talking about changing the movie to a fast paced movie that it was never menat to be--but just making flow better and leaving in all the interesting bits.
Their fundamental mistake was taking the theatrical and working their way both backward AND forward at the same time.
That is cutting out things and then adding things that were cut.
Movies aren't cut that way. They look at the rough cut or assembly that contains all the footage and trim out what doesn't work and what isn't needed.
The SLV is the closest thing to a rough cut since it contains almost all the footage and lines.
They should have reviewed the SLV and removed the really unneeded stuff and left almost all the dialogue--especially the character parts.
When director's do true director's cuts they don't take the theatrical version and tinker with it---they go back to the version they originally wanted.
Problem is that Wise never had a chance to edit the movie properly in the first place.
At least Meyer on Treks 2 and 4 knew exactly the parts HE wanted back in.
Wise and co. clearly never had a chance in 1979 to really take time to decide what worked and what didn't.
I think they looked with disdain on the SLV as a mess of a version--instead of what it actually is---the true rough cut of the movie.
Sure it's too long and sure it has a lot of unneeded parts, BUT it contains all the elements to make the movie better.
The SLV runs 2 hours 23 minutes, but cutting out 20 minutes is super common for trek movies. TWOK, TSFS and TUC all had about 20 minutes cut. And while most of that stuff is interesting most of the cuts were wise.
20 minutes could be cut (from the 143 minutes version)without making it a rushed movie or taking away it's uniqueness as the only trek movie of it's kind.
The DE is noble failure--but it's the best of the 3 IMO.
I agree with you about taking important character lines out of the DE, but not necessarily about these repetitive lines. The idea of a helmsman (or other crewman) repeating an order is that it allows the captain to confirm that the crewman heard his order correctly. Like, imagine if a captain said, "Helmsman, change course, 90 degree heading," and the helmsman just said "Aye, Sir" and turned to a 19 degree heading. If nobody notices the mistake for a few minutes, they could be wildly off-course (especially if they're going fast).
That's the way things are done in the modern navy, and so even if it wasn't in the original show, it was presumably added to the movie for the sake of verisimilitude, to make Starfleet seem like a more realistic, believable paramilitary organization.
But they took stuff that was interesting out and left uninteresting stuff in. The point of a movie is to entertain. If I want a lecture on how the military works, there are hundreds of books and videos out there.
We're talking about a movie not real life--there's a dozen things they could do to make the ship more like a real navy---I'm talking about making it a better movie not making it more REAL. The movie is too slow and those repetitive lines don't make it a better movie. They slow it down and the character lines are far more important. The other movies had lots of little lines that made sense in logical way but slowed the movie down too much and they were cut.
the audience assumes that Sulu/Ilia/Chekov are following the right commands without it having to be spelled out at the expense of the pacing.
Edit: So BillJ said it more effectively in fewer words!
Which ironically was exactly our point--efficiently getting the point across in less time. LOL
I don't see how the two are related, though. Unlike the theatrical cut, the DE had no predefined run-time, so there was no reason they couldn't have kept the interesting character moments and the repetitive orders. One in no way precludes the other.
Some would argue that making it more REAL does make it a better movie. I think one of those people would be Robert Wise.
??? The point of the DE was to try to make a better movie than either the Theatrical or SLV--leaving IN uninteresting things simply because there is no predetermined run time is certainly NOT a method of making a better version.
The flaw of both the theatrical and the SLV is that the pace was too slow because the director didn't have the time to test it, ponder it over, do various versions etc.
The studio wanted spectacle and so he "dropped in" the long un-edited FX sequences without editing them down and deleted lots of nice character stuff.
The FX scenes needed trims and the extraneous diadogue taken out, then add in the good character stuff from the SL and voila' a better movie than either of the first two.
But they didn't exactly do the that.
They trimmed the FX sequences but then STILL left out some of the interesting dialogue and left in Uninteresting dialogue.
And it was Roddenberry who wanted the movie to be more "real" and sterile as he had already started on his long path away from engaging drama of TOS to "humanity is perfect" which ruined the first two seasons of TNG.
And Star Trek is Star Trek. The fans of the series know what they liked.
They weren't going to the movie to see "REAL" science future but their beloved ship and heroes in a big budget, high quality entertaing way they had never seen it before.
Nobody was waiting in line saying, "I hope the sci-fi is real and the ship is run in a more realistic fashion than in the tv version."
Better sets, better FX, better costumes, sure--more "realistic" nomenclature --not a major concern.
The point of a director's edition is to make a movie that the director feels is better. Robert Wise was clearly interested in a greater atmosphere of realism and verisimilitude, so it's to be expected that he'd maintain that artistic philosophy when recutting the DE. If you don't agree with the director's artistic philosophy, it seems like not watching the Director's Edition would be your best bet.
LOL. Wise was interested in verisimilitude because he followed the script (which he had little input with and was being written and re-written as shooting was going on) in regards to having the crew endlessly repeat commands--thus slowing down the movie?
That's laughable. STTMP was not 2001 where there was one grand sci-fi element and everything else regarding space travel was made to be as realistic as possible in 1968.
It's pop sci-fi, made to entertain and inspire it's audience. Everybody knows that except Roddenberry circa 1979 till his death.
Anything that wasn't rigid and dull with STTMP and the first two seasons of TNG was in spite of Roddenberry.
Wise was a great director, but in the case of STTMP--he was a hired gun. it wasn't by any stretch his vision we were seeing. Had they delayed the movie till summer of 1980, we would have gotten a tighter, better paced, more character driven movie because he was a born editor.
The DE was not what we would have got in 1979/80. He was constrained by the score already have being written and it would have been tough to alter/delete the iconic music. And he was very old and tired.
The DE is my favorite version and IMO the best version, but is ISN"T perfect or definitive.
What's your source that he had little input on the script?
No, but it was very much existing in the shadow of 2001, a film which was made in a time when sci-fi movies were generally just thought of as alien monsters and B-movie schlock. Even a decade later, it was still considered the gold standard for credible, serious sci-fi, and that's what Paramount was aiming for. They weren't just looking for a schlocky popcorn flick, else why would they have hired an Oscar-winning director (not to mention one whose only previous sci-fi efforts were both set on modern-day Earth), and thrown so much money at it? They wanted it to be a serious critical and commercial success, not mere "pop sci-fi."
What you are pointing out is the thing that some folks think Paramount got wrong with TMP (Too serious, too different from it's roots) and other people actually like about it.
That's a fine debate and I like TMP okay as a one-time experiment into pure epic movie-making.
If epic sci-fi movie making needs to be slow, repetitive and dull is another issue.
Doing a director's cut is presumably to improve the movie from it's rushed into theaters incarnation to something that is better paced and does justice to the characters that inspired it to be made in the first place.
I think it's a general consensus that the SLV and the DE do more justice to the characters. I think most fans just think it's a shame that a fair number of nice lines and character moments were lost in the DE and a lot of stuff that is really not needed was kept in.
If you think it would have been somehow better with the missing lines reinserted AND all the repeat orders left in as well--then we just disagree on that.
I happen to think that the movie can be both epic and serious and intellectual without being slow and poorly paced.
I think all 3 versions are slowly paced and kind of let the audience drift when they should be enamored of the story.
That's a fine debate and I like TMP okay as a one-time experiment into pure epic movie-making.
If epic sci-fi movie making needs to be slow, repetitive and dull is another issue.
Doing a director's cut is presumably to improve the movie from it's rushed into theaters incarnation to something that is better paced and does justice to the characters that inspired it to be made in the first place.
I think it's a general consensus that the SLV and the DE do more justice to the characters. I think most fans just think it's a shame that a fair number of nice lines and character moments were lost in the DE and a lot of stuff that is really not needed was kept in.
If you think it would have been somehow better with the missing lines reinserted AND all the repeat orders left in as well--then we just disagree on that.
I happen to think that the movie can be both epic and serious and intellectual without being slow and poorly paced.
I think all 3 versions are slowly paced and kind of let the audience drift when they should be enamored of the story.
I've been lurking in this thread, but thought I'd give a "+1" to this, especially the first sentence.
The issue is that "better" is subjective, and you can say "the film would be better if X" but if the director thought "X" didn't work or muddled "Y" and "Z" which she thought was the core of the film, who is right? As has been demonstrated in various threads on TMP over the years a lot of what some people consider unforgivable cuts in the theatrical release are considered by others as correct choices. It's always subjective at some level.
My fan edit highlights:
- Cut entire scene with Kirk at Starfleet
- Cut out nearly all Kirk/Decker conflict and removed all references to Decker's demotion
-Edited the Kirk and Scotty Enterprise fly around down to 3 minutes
-Cut transporter accident
-Removed about half of the cruising around the V'ger cloud and continuous rapt staring at the viewscreen.
Once Spock is in sick bay after his V'ger mindmeld, the rest of the film is left as is.
105 minute cut.
- Cut entire scene with Kirk at Starfleet
- Cut out nearly all Kirk/Decker conflict and removed all references to Decker's demotion
-Edited the Kirk and Scotty Enterprise fly around down to 3 minutes
-Cut transporter accident
-Removed about half of the cruising around the V'ger cloud and continuous rapt staring at the viewscreen.
Once Spock is in sick bay after his V'ger mindmeld, the rest of the film is left as is.
105 minute cut.
Right. There are 3 versions of the movie. I don't know if anybody thinks any version is perfect, but everybody has a favorite version that is closest to what they like.
I think the DE is closest by far to my favorite version--just with more trims and the addition back of some lines seen in the SLV.
Of course it's all conjecture and wishful thinking as it's really unlikely there will be a fourth version.
So unless you absolutely love any of the 3---there would always be some differences to ones opinion of what could make any particular version "better"
I think it's pretty clear a decent number of folks miss the above mentioned lines when watching the DE.
Whenever I watch a sci-fi film I tend to compare it back to TMP SLV. The SLV is the closest to the ultimate sci-fi film for me. I would the SLV on DVD or Blue-ray with two changes. The FX shots of the Enterprise when Kirk is going after Spock and you see the soundstage and the FX shots of the Enterprise when they are walking on the hull.
It was a real shame the SLV wasn't included on the TMP Blu-ray as it had no FX problems such as those that prevented the DC from being transferred. Simple seamless branching would have been all that was needed. Heck they probably could have, for minimal bucks, fixed the soundstage shots that last for only a few seconds.
then they would have made two groups of fans happy--those that prefer the theatrical and those that prefer the SLV.
Now even if they release the DC on Blu-ray someday--I'm afraid the SLV will get lost in the mix!
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