TMP- Which "version" and why?

[Qonundrum]

I was really hoping that they would release the existing footage even if without the sound because I would love to have a go at stitching together a version.

The DE has always been my favourite version, because it flows so much better right up until the final scene at V'Ger's brain, which still drags for me. That said, I always lamented the missing character scenes from the SLV so my dream was to do a fan edit, stitching the key SLV outtakes into the DE for a hybrid cut. I also lamented the fact that Grace Lee Whitney returned to the franchise but only appeared in the first third of the movie and then only in 3 scenes with almost no lines, so I fancied giving her a slack-jawed cameo during the V'Ger cloud scene.

That's a cool idea.

Then lockdown happened and I jumped down a rabbit hole. Stitching in the key SLV scenes and extra lines (like the second 'viewer off') was fairly easy and took only about a week, just adding some background hum and adjusting lighting levels. I struggled finding an appropriate way to add Rand to the bridge scene so I started to look for alternatives. I learned how to use Deepfake tech, scraped around other episodes, movies, and even appearances in other shows for useable dialogue and managed to generate a scene with Kirk, McCoy, and Rand when they are watching Decker and Ilia.

"Viewer off." (nobody does anything as they're still in shock) "Viewer off!!!!" is rather an important moment to help sell Kirk's emotional instability from not knowing the new ship, and not being in control, building up the reason for McCoy telling Kirk not to obsess over people, as well as - despite how revered everyone treats Kirk as being earlier on, not responding to a command in time no matter what big scary thing is out there might otherwise be the death of them all in a critical situation -- granted, here comes the obvious silly quip on how the movie is so slow that there's almost no danger big enough to do that. It's not a big moment, clipping it to shorten the film by two seconds does not help if the resultant clip cut deprives a nuanced character moment that's directly relevant to the story. It's actually a very big moment despite being 2 seconds long.

Then I wondered if Kirk's airlock scene had any merit. It's soooooo slow, so I figured it might still work if he has someone else to talk to. So I took the existing footage, and added some extra dialogue. Spock has a different spacesuit but I figured that if I put someone else in his original suit, I could cover off quite a few discrepancies. So I stuck a CGI avatar of Rand in the suit, added a layer of Deepfake, located appropriate dialogue, vocoded some technobabble dialogue based on the early script, and manually created a (slightly shoddy) edit so that Spock passes through two apertures and tumbles back through the second one, to be met by Kirk and Rand. I even rotoscoped Kirk's original spacesuit over Kirk's two close ups from the DE.

In the end Rand had her own mini arc of about 8 extra minutes, created using dialogue from various TV appearances and a few vocoded lines. She reminisces about the old times when McCoy boards, suddenly remembers that the old times were terrifying when Kirk drags her inside V'ger, and ends up providing moral support to Kirk when he starts to doubt himself (as intended to be her original conceived role in TOS that was never realised).

Nice!

I'm working on my final version, slightly delayed as I have no way to work with the 4k SLV yet. I might also see if it is possible to paste the TC versions of Kirk and McCoy in the officer's lounge but that looks like a LOT of work.

So, ultimately, my favourite version will be my version ;-P

 

[Grant]

Nope. There are several crewman who are actually looking at Uhura like -- "Why isn't she turning off the viewer?"
She is far more stunned than half the people there and she is supposed to part of the command crew who has seen all kinds of sh!t happen for at least 15 years. The stuff she saw on the bridge just in the 70+ episodes of TOS could fill volumes. And sure, back in the 60s they had her scream and emote when stuff happened but that was the 60s.
By the time of TMP they should have known better than to have her freeze when -- a cloud destroyed a space station?? Really?
She saw an Amoeba destroy a star system, the Doomsday Machine destroy a star system. Nomad destroyed a star system. It might be a good dramatic moment for him to snap at a rookie crewperson but not Uhura.
Glad they cut it.

 

[Pauln6]

Nope. There are several crewman who are actually looking at Uhura like -- "Why isn't she turning off the viewer?"
She is far more stunned than half the people there and she is supposed to part of the command crew who has seen all kinds of sh!t happen for at least 15 years. The stuff she saw on the bridge just in the 70+ episodes of TOS could fill volumes. And sure, back in the 60s they had her scream and emote when stuff happened but that was the 60s.
By the time of TMP they should have known better than to have her freeze when -- a cloud destroyed a space station?? Really?
She saw an Amoeba destroy a star system, the Doomsday Machine destroy a star system. Nomad destroyed a star system. It might be a good dramatic moment for him to snap at a rookie crewperson but not Uhura.
Glad they cut it.

She probably knew people on that listening post. I can't believe you would not have cared that people you know had just died right in front of your eyes. What kind of monster are you? Kirk fell over when his son died when he was even more experienced than Uhura when other less experienced crewmen on the bridge were less affected. Same thing.

The scene highlights Kirk losing his cool. I never felt that it reflected badly on Uhura. She hesitates for barely a second.

It was FAR more insulting to Uhura's character that Spock and Decker solved the V'Ger communications problem with no help from Uhura at all. She literally has one job on the bridge and the two dudes did it for her.

 

[Therin of Andor]

She probably knew people on that listening post. I can't believe you would not have cared that people you know had just died right in front of your eyes.

Nichelle Nichols herself agreed that the scene had not aged well, when the second "Viewer off!" was trimmed out in 2001. Unfortunately, Kirk snapping at the dark-skinned female professional was a scene that took on more layered meanings over time. In 1979, such matters were not even a blip on most people's radars.

 

[Grant]

She probably knew people on that listening post. I can't believe you would not have cared that people you know had just died right in front of your eyes. What kind of monster are you? Kirk fell over when his son died when he was even more experienced than Uhura when other less experienced crewmen on the bridge were less affected. Same thing.

The scene highlights Kirk losing his cool. I never felt that it reflected badly on Uhura. She hesitates for barely a second.

It was FAR more insulting to Uhura's character that Spock and Decker solved the V'Ger communications problem with no help from Uhura at all. She literally has one job on the bridge and the two dudes did it for her.

LOL. Yeah, make up your own backstory so it makes more sense. Adios.

 

[publiusr]

Communications was her forte’
That explanation actually makes a lot of sense. As Phlox said—it’s different when the dead are someone you know.

 

[Pauln6]

Nichelle Nichols herself agreed that the scene had not aged well, when the second "Viewer off!" was trimmed out in 2001. Unfortunately, Kirk snapping at the dark-skinned female professional was a scene that took on more layered meanings over time. In 1979, such matters were not even a blip on most people's radars.

Yeah, maybe if you look at the scene in isolation, it might have unpleasant undertones. It might be that it never occurred to me because I have never ever thought of Uhura as 'the black character' (I credit Star Trek for that in part and also Blake's 7, the Space Sentinels, Captain Caveman, Dungeons and Dragons, Mission Impossible etc) but rather as the female character and the fact that Kirk snaps at a lot of other people in this movie and throughout TOS as well. For me, it's about HIM, not her. He snaps at her in Naked Time because he's under pressure and she snaps right back.

IMO It's Kirk finding his space legs and he can tell he's losing the room. The motivation behind the change is not because it makes Uhura look bad, it's because it makes Kirk look bad, along with everything else that makes him look bad early on. Bones calls him out on exactly this.

LOL. Yeah, make up your own backstory so it makes more sense. Adios.

Technically, assuming she hesitates because she's being unprofessional is also making up a backstory. Lots of experienced white men completely lose their cool in TOS while on duty. Now THAT'S unprofessional. I'm not going to criticise her based on a much lesser fractional hesitation. De nada.

I get why they thought there was enough other stuff making Kirk look bad so this line isn't strictly necessary but I like that it makes him look bad. It's turning it around onto Uhura that I don't like. His outburst isn't really necessary. If he'd said her name, it would have snapped her out of it. In quite a few scenes in TOS she has to check herself to swallow her fear. It's entirely in keeping with her character and in no way detracts from the fact that she is one of the most competent characters in the franchise. Getting Spock to deal with all the technical aspects of her job on the other hand winds me up no end. It would have worked better if it had been Spock and Uhura working on it rather than Spock and Decker, I suppose.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The motivation behind the change is not because it makes Uhura look bad, it's because it makes Kirk look bad, along with everything else that makes him look bad early on.

My recollection is that the DE Team (with Robert Wise) made the change in 2001 with both Uhura and Kirk in mind.

 

[Grant]

If you want to have a relationship between Uhura and the Epsilon 9 staff then it's up to the filmmakers the director or writer to make That explicit not have the audience take an awkward moment and then have to rationalize it out afterwards. Earlier in the movie when Kirk said monitor Epsilon 9 they could have had Uhura say, "yes sir I've been in close contact with Commander Branch since this Crisis began." or some such line of dialogue. Then maybe they've earned the stunned reaction from Uhura but as it was presented to the audience in 1979. It just made her look inefficient and easily rattled. Especially when there's people standing right next to her looking at her like why is she Frozen and why isn't she turning off the monitor. It makes her look more rattled and Frozen then half the other people there and she's supposed to be one of the best. And I agree that she should have been the one to decipher the message from feature but that's kind of way they treated Uhura throughout the entire movie series. Unfortunate.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My definitive version of TMP is the 4K director's edition.

Because of both of those reasons.

 

[Relayer1]

I'd still prefer a version with absolutely everything in. Maybe as a branching format so you can pick which version to watch.

 

[Pauln6]

If you want to have a relationship between Uhura and the Epsilon 9 staff then it's up to the filmmakers the director or writer to make That explicit not have the audience take an awkward moment and then have to rationalize it out afterwards. Earlier in the movie when Kirk said monitor Epsilon 9 they could have had Uhura say, "yes sir I've been in close contact with Commander Branch since this Crisis began." or some such line of dialogue. Then maybe they've earned the stunned reaction from Uhura but as it was presented to the audience in 1979. It just made her look inefficient and easily rattled. Especially when there's people standing right next to her looking at her like why is she Frozen and why isn't she turning off the monitor. It makes her look more rattled and Frozen then half the other people there and she's supposed to be one of the best. And I agree that she should have been the one to decipher the message from feature but that's kind of way they treated Uhura throughout the entire movie series. Unfortunate.

For sure, it would have been nice if the support characters had another scene together to establish this sort of background and then shorten the final sequence at V'Ger's brain, which is far too long IMO.

I still think TMP is one of Uhura's better movie outings. She's background decoration in II and IV, sliding into caricature in V and VI, and not in III nearly enough.

But as I say, her reaction is true to her established character in TOS. I don't think it made her look inefficient; it made her look empathetic, which is exactly how she is portrayed in TOS. She's very efficient for much of the rest of the movie although she also has a similar stunned reaction to first seeing V'Ger and it's her line, "It could hold a crew of tens of thousands," that pulls her more analytical mind to the fore - a line also from the SLV - so your mileage may vary as to the pros and cons of the different versions and how they make her look.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I've said this a hundred times, but it bears repeating: I really wish the DE had restored the full, unedited argument between McCoy and Kirk regarding Kirk countermanding Decker's phaser order.

"As ship's doctor, I am now discussing the subject...of command fitness."

 

[Pauln6]

I've said this a hundred times, but it bears repeating: I really wish the DE had restored the full, unedited argument between McCoy and Kirk regarding Kirk countermanding Decker's phaser order.

"As ship's doctor, I am now discussing the subject...of command fitness."

I actually prefer the DE plus all the major outtakes with character moments. I am not fussed about Kirk's, "Oh my God" in the transporter scene either way and I know the Sulu/Ilia scene is a bit divisive, although you can edit out the cheesy bit and just leave in the exchange between Decker and Ilia and it still adds a bit more characterisation and back story.

I would also say that I think it is great we have this choice at all.

 

[Grant]

Thoe only sutff from the SLV that I'd want added to the DE is the longer McCoy/Kirk discussion, the "in our image" line and the McCoy/Uhura "tens of thousands" exchange. Boggles my mind that they, as a group or Wise didn't think those 3 short bits improved the movie. They are all solid character lines that take about 45 seconds total in additional run-time.

 

[Pauln6]

Thoe only sutff from the SLV that I'd want added to the DE is the longer McCoy/Kirk discussion, the "in our image" line and the McCoy/Uhura "tens of thousands" exchange. Boggles my mind that they, as a group or Wise didn't think those 3 short bits improved the movie. They are all solid character lines that take about 45 seconds total in additional run-time.

If I had to prioritise and choose, I agree that those three would be at the top of the list. They are brief and add nice character moments. There are slight issues with the musical cues in the DE but it isn't that hard to add them back in actually. You can plop Decker's line directly in losing only a couple of frames of Kirk staring at Ilia but the lighting quality is very poor, which is why I really want to see what the new 4k version has done to improve that.

I have always liked Kirk's extended speech about aliens that reason the way we do because it's a nod to the existence of life forms that don't reason the way we do and expressly expands the possibilities of what V'Ger could actually be. It made the threat feel that little bit more unknown to me.

 

[Pauln6]

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This is one of my attempts at a hybrid scene. DE as the base with SD outtakes upscaled and inserted. The alarm from the new DE was just clipped and then pasted across all the SLV scenes at varying levels based on which characters are speaking. I kept the volume fairly high as the scene drags more if the alarm is too quiet. It seems to suck the urgency out of it.

I bled Uhura's dialogue into the following scene to try and improve pacing.

In keeping with the additional dialogue from Chekov in the new DE, I added some of Rand's dialogue from Flashback as background chatter.

Ilia's impact in 30 seconds is still good as it is their evasive manoeuvres that buy them the extra time.

I just need the higher definition footage from the latest SLV to finalise it I think. The upscaled footage looks dodgy in places.

 

[Pauln6]

This is incredibly laborious and I think it is still only 90% there with lots of layers and rotoscoping but I think there is hope that it might end up being an improvement for the lounge scene.

 

[Ensign Dunsel]

The theatrical release came out when I just turned five years old and I got to see it several times while still in the theaters since a bunch of my family members were fans of the original series. It left a huge impression on me and to date has remained my favorite movie featuring the original cast (and possibly my favorite movie, period, although Alien would like a word here). I acknowledge its flaws but the grandiose vision of it, it's cinematic qualities, the production values, set design, etc. just blew my mind away and in many ways still does. While I appreciate the goals of the DE and I own several versions of the DE in various formats, the original theatrical release is so burned into my memory from hundreds of viewings that I can't help but pick the theatrical release as my favorite (I'm definitely not an objective party on this subject). What distracts me in the DE are not the edits and quicker pacing but it's the sound effects edits and additions such as the klaxon, the console bleeps and bloops, robot voice, etc. While some (many?) view the original robot voice as one of the most egregious/obnoxious aspects of the movie, five year old me (and even the four decades older version of myself) was enamored with it and thought the vocoded voice-over was so much cooler than Majel Barrett's 50's robot voice from the original series. That removal combined with the changed klaxon left me gutted in the DE. Regardless I also respect the DE's goals and as I said, have purchased it in various formats over the years nonetheless. For my part, the theatrical release is still the 'real deal.'

 

[publiusr]

I agree…it made Enterprise seem alien…and Spock was at his most alien as well.
TOS effects for the -A now that everyone was back together at the end of The Voyage Home—that’s the proper time to return everything.