Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wise)

[Maurice]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

... also during the worm-hole scene that was also CG, DUH!

I was under the impression that the laser effect was done with the help of a computer, and was thus a computer generated effect, didn't they use a computer for the laser effect?

Which is like saying a motion control miniature shot is a "computer generated effect" just because a computer is involved somewhere. It's not. Or can't you cop to the fact that you were incorrect?

...Roddenberry would have remembered that film too and was probably looking to it for inspiration, which was why he obviously chose Robert Wise.

I suspect Roddenberry didn't have much to do with the decision to get Wise. I think Paramount approached Wise because they wanted a big name director. I may be incorrect, but I'm under the impression that it was Wise who introduced the whole Decker-Kirk conflict, which wasn't in the Phase II script. But there are other more knowledgeable about the various script drafts than I on this board.

Roddenberry was under a lot of pressure from the Paramount execs however and probably felt like he could take a stand and ask for a later release date. The execs would have been happier with TMP if it came out later

Impossible. It was contractually "locked in", and Paramount would have had to pay out millions in compensation to cinema chains if TMP missed its premiere date.

Exactly.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Roddenberry was under a lot of pressure from the Paramount execs however and probably felt like he could take a stand and ask for a later release date. The execs would have been happier with TMP if it came out later

Impossible. It was contractually "locked in", and Paramount would have had to pay out millions in compensation to cinema chains if TMP missed its premiere date.

Contracts can be renegotiated with, it happens all the time, but it is up to both parties to decide if they want to negotiate changes to a contract. I don't know what the mentality of the cinema company was at the time but Paramount could have tried to renegotiate their contract with the other party.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Roddenberry was under a lot of pressure from the Paramount execs however and probably felt like he could take a stand and ask for a later release date. The execs would have been happier with TMP if it came out later

Impossible. It was contractually "locked in", and Paramount would have had to pay out millions in compensation to cinema chains if TMP missed its premiere date.

Contracts can be renegotiated with, it happens all the time, but it is up to both parties to decide if they want to negotiate changes to a contract. I don't know what the mentality of the cinema company was at the time but Paramount could have tried to renegotiate their contract with the other party.

But the point is taken. Gene was stuck with the release date he already had. I wonder if a more experienced movie producer could have done any better at all making the first film with that large budget and the time constraints. Would another producer have hired the right special effects company to do the film instead of doing what poor Gene ended up doing which was to fire the first company he had working for him and hire a new one. This was all new stuff back then and only George Lucas was successful with his own company later called ILM. It is hard to say if even Lucas could have done any better.

 

[Maurice]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Still ducking admitting you were wrong about going off about CGI in TMP, eh GFS?

Anyone who knows anything about the labyrinthine production of TMP ought to realize it wasn't as simple as you make it out. There were lots of politics involved, and lot of people pushing their own interests (Roddenberry included, but Trumbull and others as well) that resulted in things like the FX company turnover (even the people who worked on it can't agree on the whys and hows of that...and I know several personally), the hiring of Wise, how much control Roddenberry actually had, etc. It's easy to say Roddenberry was too inexperienced to make this decision or Paramount should have done that. Easy to say, but not necessarily factually correct.

Given the conflicting stories by the people who worked on the film and tall tales that have risen up around the production, it's very hard to definitively say who's to blame for what. To do so without consideration of all those aforementioned different points of view is to trundle out opinion as fact.

But this is the Internet after all, so perhaps I expect too much...

 

[Hober Mallow]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Trek would be far better off if it went back to using real SF writers again. There was a scope to TMP that was never again attempted afterward. A shame. WoK was a fantastic film, to be sure, but it also spelled the end of legitimate attempts at SF in favor of action-based skiffy. Star Trek has never been the same.

Robert Wise has got to be one of the most underrated directors in film history. He certainly has range. You wouldn't know the same director helmed "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "The Sound of Music," The Sand Pebbles," and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

 

[plynch]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Trek would be far better off if it went back to using real SF writers again.

Amen. Barring that, not relying on the same stable of writers. Scripts became very "same" sounding.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Amen. Barring that, not relying on the same stable of writers. Scripts became very "same" sounding.

I think you mean "staple." These aren't the Trek writers:

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Still ducking admitting you were wrong about going off about CGI in TMP, eh GFS?

Anyone who knows anything about the labyrinthine production of TMP ought to realize it wasn't as simple as you make it out. There were lots of politics involved, and lot of people pushing their own interests (Roddenberry included, but Trumbull and others as well) that resulted in things like the FX company turnover (even the people who worked on it can't agree on the whys and hows of that...and I know several personally), the hiring of Wise, how much control Roddenberry actually had, etc. It's easy to say Roddenberry was too inexperienced to make this decision or Paramount should have done that. Easy to say, but not necessarily factually correct.

Given the conflicting stories by the people who worked on the film and tall tales that have risen up around the production, it's very hard to definitively say who's to blame for what. To do so without consideration of all those aforementioned different points of view is to trundle out opinion as fact.

But this is the Internet after all, so perhaps I expect too much...

If I say yes will you drop the issue because its not the topic of the thread and has become a huge distraction, yes I was wrong on that point everyone pointed that out to me and now you too why do you want to keep going on about it? There is a word for that kind of thing: smug, and it isn't a compliment.

My original point was that there were scenes in the original edit of the film where there was no dialog and nothing was happening except special effects, viewers got bored and were taken out of the film, the as to weather or not they were cg effects or something else is really distracting from my point and I think you don't want to acknowledge the fact that those scenes were in need of shortening and indeed were shortened by Robert Wise. Why haven't any of you acknowledged this point, I am big enough to admit when I am wrong about something so why don't you admit that I am right. The whole reason Robert Wise gave us a great directors cut of the film was because he was unhappy not being able to really refine the movie in '79, but Paramount gave him a great chance to do a director's cut before he passed away in '05 and I am glad he did it. You are forgetting forget that The Motion Picture was a disapointment in '79 to most fans, so much so that many fans don't even want to see the directors cut because they don't think that it could have been improved in any way. The point of this thread is to discuss why we have a directors edition not how the movie effects were originally done, so please keep to the topic!

 

[Joker]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Whatever the point of this thread is/was, many changes Wise outlined in '79 weren't applied to the Director's Edition.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Trek would be far better off if it went back to using real SF writers again. There was a scope to TMP that was never again attempted afterward. A shame. WoK was a fantastic film, to be sure, but it also spelled the end of legitimate attempts at SF in favor of action-based skiffy. Star Trek has never been the same.

Robert Wise has got to be one of the most underrated directors in film history. He certainly has range. You wouldn't know the same director helmed "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "The Sound of Music," The Sand Pebbles," and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

Unless you can prove to Paramount that Star Trek can be as popular as Star Wars I doubt we will ever see them match that budget again, and considering this new film is the most seen and biggest success now given inflation and it still isn't close to the last live action Star Wars III film making $850 million dollar domestic gross it won't happen. I would love to see Star Trek on the level with Star Wars success making the big budget films making the big money and honestly I don't get why this last film wasn't on that level , so unless this film is just the beginning of expanding the success of new Trek which I am honestly hoping it is; this is probably as good as it is going to get

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Whatever the point of this thread is/was, many changes Wise outlined in '79 weren't applied to the Director's Edition.

Can you give us some examples?

 

[Joker]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

There's a thread on the subject on page 1.

 

[Maurice]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

...yes I was wrong on that point everyone pointed that out to me and now you too why do you want to keep going on about it? There is a word for that kind of thing: smug, and it isn't a compliment.

I reminded you about it because you rudely implied I was wrong, and then sidestepped admitting it when you were called on it by multiple users. Now that you have, the subject is closed, despite your need to slip insults into even that admission.

Whatever the point of this thread is/was, many changes Wise outlined in '79 weren't applied to the Director's Edition.

That was precisely the topic I tried to raise in this thread, the difference between what we get and what Wise intended back in 1980.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Anyone who knows anything about the labyrinthine production of TMP ought to realize it wasn't as simple as you make it out. There were lots of politics involved, and lot of people pushing their own interests (Roddenberry included, but Trumbull and others as well) that resulted in things like the FX company turnover (even the people who worked on it can't agree on the whys and hows of that...and I know several personally), the hiring of Wise, how much control Roddenberry actually had, etc. It's easy to say Roddenberry was too inexperienced to make this decision or Paramount should have done that. Easy to say, but not necessarily factually correct.

Do we know how much of the final script was Roddenberry's? From what I've read, it seemed that GR was heavilty involved. Was Harrold Livingstone the only other writer involved?

Trek would be far better off if it went back to using real SF writers again.

Where there any SF writers (other than Roddenberry) involved in writing TMP? Asimov was used as a consultant only.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

...yes I was wrong on that point everyone pointed that out to me and now you too why do you want to keep going on about it? There is a word for that kind of thing: smug, and it isn't a compliment.

I reminded you about it because you rudely implied I was wrong, and then sidestepped admitting it when you were called on it by multiple users. Now that you have, the subject is closed, despite your need to slip insults into even that admission.

Ok sorry, I thought you were rubbing it in and really just laughing at me, I apologize for what I said about being smug.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Thats funny the last post should all be in quotes, strange...

 

[Joker]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

You're missing a closing quote tag.

 

[GHS]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

The last time I watched this, I for the first time came to the conclusion that the insurmountable problem on ST:TMP was they had a 1 1/2 hour plot and should have just hacked and hacked until they had it down to 90 minutes.

 

[Maurice]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

There's no denying that the film was overlong...Wise himself said so back in 1980. There's hundreds of possible trims and tightenings that could be done without actually cutting whole scenes out. Some would actually eliminate continuity and story issues as well as making the film zippier.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Star Trek The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition (By Robert Wi

Do we know how much of the final script was Roddenberry's? From what I've read, it seemed that GR was heavilty involved. Was Harrold Livingstone the only other writer involved?

"Robot's Return" was a GR script written when it was hoped "Genesis II" or "Planet Earth" would go to series. It's certainly inspired by "The Changeling" (TOS) and "One of Our Planets is Missing" (TAS).

Alan Dean Foster, fresh from his stint adapting TAS for the "Star Trek Logs" book series, was asked to turn "Robot's Return" into "In Thy Image", a motion picture (or telemovie) story treatment, and then Harold Livingstone turned it into a full script. GR certainly dabbled with the script at various stages. When all versions were sent off to arbitration, the script credit was awarded to Livingstone, and GR had supposedly promised ADF sole story credit no matter how much GR planned to keep tinkering with it.

NASA's Jesco Von Puttkamer provided the research into wormholes, and that segment supposedly owes a lot to him. The scene was added when there was concern there hadn't been much action on the bridge for a while.

And, of course, towards the end of filming, with still no ending written, and GR often at home finishing the novelization, even Shatner and Nimoy were suggesting scene rewrites from their makeup chairs each morning.