News Star Trek: The Original Series: The Roddenberry Vault Review

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Star Trek: The Original Series: The Roddenberry Vault was released today in honor of Star Trek‘s Fiftieth Anniversary. “During the shooting of...

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[CrazyMatt]

I finally broke down and bought this after the holidays. I'll say first that I haven't watched all the contents, but do have some preliminary observations:

1. The vignette on the first discs shows us hundreds upon hundreds of film canisters containing Star Trek film elements. I assume they contain entire, lengthy scenes cut from episodes such as The Omega Glory and Elaan of Troyus. So why aren't they in this set? Are they planning a series of "From the Vault" packages?

2. The cut scenes on the third disc are surprisingly and disappointingly unsatisfying, even the scene from TDM. I came away from that experience simply thinking, 'yeah, I can see why they cut that' instead of 'Wow!'

3. The beauty shots of the 11-foot model (filmed against a blue screen) as well as the shuttlecraft, though brief, may be the best parts of the entire set.

4. Someone please explain to me the purpose of adding full episodes to this set. I assumed that cut scenes would be restored into the episodes, but I've fast forwarded through two episodes and saw no cut scene footage included. Am I missing it somehow?

All in all, my preliminary feeling is that this product is less than I expected and I am not inclined to judge it favorably at this point. I welcome comments to help me see what wonders I am failing to access and/or grasp.

 

[Harvey]

1. The vignette on the first discs shows us hundreds upon hundreds of film canisters containing Star Trek film elements. I assume they contain entire, lengthy scenes cut from episodes such as The Omega Glory and Elaan of Troyus. So why aren't they in this set? Are they planning a series of "From the Vault" packages?

Those scenes are not on the set because that material wasn't found in the vault. The Okudas have been clear -- all the interesting material was used for this set, and there are no plans for a second volume, because they don't have the material for one. Additionally, I believe the Okudas have indicated in several interviews that many of those canisters contained only small trims -- each one did not contains an entire reel.

4. Someone please explain to me the purpose of adding full episodes to this set. I assumed that cut scenes would be restored into the episodes, but I've fast forwarded through two episodes and saw no cut scene footage included. Am I missing it somehow?

Why did you assume this? They found raw dailies that had not been stored under optimal conditions, not edited scenes that could be reintegrated into the episodes. Roddenberry didn't take this footage off the lot with the intentions of preserving it for history; this was the raw material for the film clips sold through his mail order company.

I assume the episodes are on the discs so that the vault documentaries could be presented as "bonus material" and they could get around the question of royalties that would arise around presenting the deleted footage separately.

 

[billsantos]

I received the vault set as a gift. Personally, after viewing it in its entirety, I have mixed feelings about it and I doubt I would have bought this myself. There's a review on Amazon where a guy has taken the liberty to pin down exactly how much raw footage is contained within the vault parts and it comes out to far less than an hour. This would have been a somewhat disappointing, fairly expensive purchase for me if it hadn't of been a gift. I think all could have fit onto just a single disc if you had cut out the episodes and commentary. Just my opinion.

 

[alensatemybuick1]

A lot of it I will never watch again (talking heads). I very much liked the SFX material and interview with Edlund. It was cool to hear from some of the guest stars, especially Leslie Parrish. I have to agree with the O.P. that even in the case of the alternate Decker take, I was like "meh". The Sulu "inscrutable Asian" bit cut from "Corbomite Maneuver" was horrific and would have been best left as lost to history.

Overall, a nice Christmas present, but I'm glad it didn't cost my wife all that much. Probably worth it for the bluescreen FX shots alone, a couple of which resolved some very long-standing mysteries.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I found it to be the same "meh" experience as a number of you. I was even more disappointed that the "restored mono" tracks weren't an attempt to correct the lousy and incorrect "mono" tracks on the blu-ray sets. They were pretty much the same track. Only "The Corbomite Maneuver" was a small correction I could spot, which was the return of the Steiner arrangement of the opening theme.

The clips were kinda interesting. Seeing Edith Keeler's unedited fall when h it by the truck made me chuckle at just awful it was before it was edited for greater impact. Agreed, the "inscrutable Asian" but was terrible, but ever since reading that scene in the Blish adaptation, I always wanted to hear how Takei deliver the term "images on celluloid stuff." Always thought that was a shitty line: you can remember it's on "celluloid" but not the word "film." Or "cinema." That sort of contrived " in the future movies and TV are outdated" was always clumsy.

The music only tracks are good if you want to listen to the episode edits. Otherwise, just haul out the CD set.

 

[Mr Awe]

I found this to be mostly disappointing. The actual amount of new footage between the talking heads is minimal. There are a few gems or otherwise interesting tidbits. Kind of ridiculous to pad out the meager footage with the episodes. I feel a bit ripped off paying $45 for what might amount to 10 minutes of new footage shot for the TV series. The interviews might be nice for those who aren't familiar with these oft told stories. For most people, you just want to see the new footage and that is few and far between! Not worth buying.

Mr Awe

 

[billsantos]

According to that Amazon reviewer.... ".... However, the actual, unaired, unseen, alternate footage turns out to be approximately 8, 12, and 7.5 minutes for parts I, II, and III, respectively. For this check, I manually timed where ONLY the new material would start and stop and did NOT include anything else..." He was talking about the Vault. He, like me, did like "Snippets" best due to no added dialogue.

Unfortunately, my "gifter" told me that the set cost her $54, a good bit more than I see it going for now as there has been at least a $10 drop with many venders.

Being an audiophile myself, I was also disappointed to see the "isolated music tracks" as dolby digital and not any superior encode. Guess they couldn't fit full spectrum audio for these, even though they did use the best formats for the episodes themselves.

 

[Forbin]

Nichelle singing a love song to Spock with her head under her console, plus the unused effects footage of the ship, made it all worthwhile for me.

However, some of the talking heads just confused me. Why did they pick some of those people who never had a damn thing to do with Trek to give their opinions?

 

[Myko]

Because they're friends of the creators and most people who worked on TOS are dead.

 

[CrazyMatt]

I am gratified that a number of you have the same basic reaction to this set as I have. Good to know I'm not alone on an island here (I thought that after the first reply to my original post).

 

[billsantos]

Don't get me wrong, to me liking technical stuff, the parts where they discussed how the Enterprise went across the screen, or how they went about making and filming certain optical effects, had some value indeed, but I don't think it's worth the price they wanted. I got the entire BD set of TOS like 6 years ago for like $40. They give you the "isolated sound tracks" with this RV 3 disc set, but if using the surround sound channels from the TOS BD's, you can get a crude, isolated music track but of course the sound track released CD's are the better option. If they had put it all on a single disc-- thereby cutting the full episodes and unnecessary dialogue-- and then charging $20, I would have felt this was a far better deal.

 

[Mr Awe]

I agree with the above. There are some real gems in the Vault. However, what they're charging for these small snippets is way too much. Using the episodes to pad out the Blu-rays so they can charge more is ridiculous. A single disc containing this new content would've been great. Plus, even in the special features with the new content, you have to wade through a bunch of talking heads just to see it. Aargh.

This set is really only for a TOS completist. Even then, you might want to wait for a used copy to get a reasonable price.

 

[Kor]

To be fair, the details were revealed in advance... that there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of new footage, and that it wouldn't be integrated into the episodes themselves.
I would like to see the new stuff, but I'll just wait until there are some used copies on ebay for $15 apiece.

Kor

 

[BillJ]

I would like to see the new stuff, but I'll just wait until there are some used copies on ebay for $15 apiece.

Pretty much where I'm at after seeing reviews here and other places of the material.

 

[T'Bonz]

I enjoyed the set. But after seeing canisters and canisters of film in that room, it's hard to believe that there isn't much more than this.

 

[Mr Awe]

I enjoyed the set. But after seeing canisters and canisters of film in that room, it's hard to believe that there isn't much more than this.

After watching the set, I thought for sure there'd be future sets as well. However, I guess the people involved have said publically that there won't be any more sets. This set apparently contains all of the good footage that they've found.

 

[uniderth]

So is the unused footage restored or is it just transferred with no restoration attempt?

 

[erastus25]

4. Someone please explain to me the purpose of adding full episodes to this set. I assumed that cut scenes would be restored into the episodes, but I've fast forwarded through two episodes and saw no cut scene footage included. Am I missing it somehow?

It was a money grab - pure and simple. They know full well that most people buying this set will have already purchased the episodes in some format or other. (Note that I said MOST people - there will be exceptions.) But by adding the episodes they can split the content across three discs and sell a "set" for $50 rather than one disc for $15-$20. I haven't purchased yet for that reason and likely won't until it's dirt cheap on EBay.

 

[Vger23]

I got it as a Christmas gift...finally got around to watching it over the weekend. I think my reaction is largely the same as others. I find the deleted material that IS there to be pretty good. I may even appreciate it more than others have expressed here. It's just a shame that there isn't more, and I certainly didn't need yet another copy of the TOS episodes, which I already own in 2 formats. Also, a lot of the previews that were available contained some of the interesting interviews and such...so even that was disappointing.

I appreciate what they tried to do, but it's hard for me to view this as something other than a money grab.