I’ve toyed with doing a down and dirty fan edit of Star Trek V. Keeping in mind that I can’t create new effects, I can just edit video and sound. What I’d end up with is a shorter version of the same movie and maybe a few new “Enterprise / Bird of Prey” shots substituted from other films. When making a fan edit like this, certain things are givens:
1) Kirk is gonna climb that mountain no matter what. The opening credits run over that footage. Even though it really started the film off on a ridiculous note, that beautifully shot climb is a lot more interesting than the usual star field.
2) The movie is gonna end on “row row row your boat” because the credit crawl runs over the end of that. And I’m not into rebuilding the entire end credit stream.
3) The plot holes will mostly remain.
However, it would be tighter and with fewer obvious jokes. What I would cut are the awful shots of Shatner flailing in front of the back projected mountain (and maybe the whole fall itself if I can tweak the later dialog). I’d cut out a little of the camping because as much as fans may like it, it goes on forever. It shouldn’t take 40+ minutes for this film to get going. So, the “goodnight” scene would get trimmed.
“But it’s funny!” Sometimes you gotta kill your darlings.
If I could replace the subtitles, I’d give Klaa a better excuse for hunting Kirk – tying it in with Star Trek IV and “there will be no peace as long as Kirk lives!”
Replaces one of the moving starfield transitions with an “Enterprise at warp” shot.
Remove the fan dance. Just jump from “look…perfect!” to the guys on horseback.
During the shuttle crash, pair it down to remove the shots of the people inside so it’s a breakneck sequence with the models and the net without the weird changes in pace.
I would try to recreate the BoP firing on the Enterprise just as she goes to warp using other films. Mostly because that is the single worst shot in this film.
The hardest edit: trimming the Sybok/Spock relationship reveal to its bare essence. Tricky, but doable to remove the totally out of character banter that sounds like an 8 year old arguing with his pal, leaving it with “Captain you do not understand…I have a half-brother.” “I gotta sit down.”
Lose the Scotty pratfall. That’s easy. Cut from “Mr. Scott, you’re amazing” to the running followers, to the trio entering the conference room. With this you lose the pratfall and the turboshaft scene which is a continuity nightmare (mis-edited deck numbers and Spock coming to them from ABOVE).
Remove the Scotty/Uhura subplot as much as possible. Mostly the sickbay scene since – easy since the pratfall would eliminate the needs for it.
Finally, the really awkward “Kirk going in for a hug” at the finale. It’s a weird moment for a cute line. “You were never alone” cut to the Enterprise/BoP shot.
That’s pretty much it. Maybe you lose about 5-7 minutes, but it’s a more serious – but still flawed – film.