That's for sure. Having the ambient sounds of the TOS bridge helped TMP feel a lot more comfortable and familiar. It was a subtle thing, but it really helped the Director's Cut.
What Is the Definitive Version of TMP?
- Thread starter Joanna McCoy-Kirk
- Start date
That's for sure. Having the ambient sounds of the TOS bridge helped TMP feel a lot more comfortable and familiar. It was a subtle thing, but it really helped the Director's Cut.
I feel the same way.
Matter of opinion. To me, it feels more right because it's a better, richer audio mix (and doesn't have annoying problems like the sound of V'Ger's last plasma bolt continuing for, like, 20 seconds after it disappears, which always bugged the hell out of me and really damaged the scene). And because it's pretty close to the audio mix the film was supposed to have in the first place, the one it would've had if Paramount had let Wise finish editing the film. And I don't understand why a complete and actually good audio mix is incompatible with seriousness.
What's onscreen is canonical. What's in books, even novelizations, is apocryphal. As a tie-in novelist, I'm required to stay consistent with canon; I don't have the luxury or the inclination to do otherwise. I drew on a few elements from the Roddenberry novelization of TMP where it was useful to flesh out the story and where it was feasible without contradicting canonical information, just as I drew on elements from a lot of other non-canonical sources such as other tie-in works and behind-the-scenes production notes. But there's a lot about that novelization that is irreconcilable with subsequent Trek canon.
Ex Machina, like all tie-in novels, was written to be consistent with onscreen canon as it existed at the time. Since the DE was essentially the long-delayed final cut of TMP, I assumed that it represented, yes, the definitive canonical version of the story, superseding the unfinished cut released to theaters in December 1979. Moreover, to an extent I was using ExM as a celebration of the fact that the film was finally finished after 22 years.
I know it is only opinion. 
A richer soundmix isn't really my problem. It was the choice of the specific sounds that put me off. That was why I feel the TWOK bridge sounds would have been better. The TOS sounds did not fit with the newer more advanced technology shown in TMP. At least they didn't for me.
A richer soundmix isn't really my problem. It was the choice of the specific sounds that put me off. That was why I feel the TWOK bridge sounds would have been better. The TOS sounds did not fit with the newer more advanced technology shown in TMP. At least they didn't for me.
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I didn't "think" Ex Machina was based on the DE; it's right there on Christopher's annotations page for the novel.[/QUOTE]
Ack! Sorry...You are correct.
When I first read Ex Machina years ago I first re-read the TMP novel, which I hadn't read in decades. There was a familiar vibe between the two. They very easily fit together as a 2-volume set on the bookshelf.
I didn't "think" Ex Machina was based on the DE; it's right there on Christopher's annotations page for the novel.[/QUOTE]
Ack! Sorry...You are correct.
When I first read Ex Machina years ago I first re-read the TMP novel, which I hadn't read in decades. There was a familiar vibe between the two. They very easily fit together as a 2-volume set on the bookshelf.
I'm waiting for the Special Longer Version to come out on Blu-ray.
If they cut the soundstage footage and the scenes where Kirk wears the wrong space suit, this would be by far my personal favorite.
Second would be the Theatrical Cut.
Third and by all means last would be the DE, I only watched it once and will never do so ever again!
I'm waiting for the Special Longer Version to come out on Blu-ray.
If they cut the soundstage footage and the scenes where Kirk wears the wrong space suit, this would be by far my personal favorite.
You like the Sulu-Ilia scenes?
I believe that only happened in the Special Longer Version.
I'm waiting for the Special Longer Version to come out on Blu-ray.
If they cut the soundstage footage and the scenes where Kirk wears the wrong space suit, this would be by far my personal favorite.
You like the Sulu-Ilia scenes?
That scene is important to establish just how powerful Ilia's pheromones really are. She can even turn Sulu on!
The spacesuit scene is ok. Either a kindly nerd can CGI the suit or we just assume that Kirk decided on yet another costume change (the movie is full of them). Maybe he thought his thighs looked big in the first suit. "Are you sure this is a medium? Why can't Alpha Centauri use the same size measurements as the rest of the Galaxy?"
CGI can fix that.
The ABC version is the best simply because includes the most scenes with the characters actually talking to each other. Yeah, the last hour of the movie with the ENDLESS ride through V'Ger where it's NOTHING but special effects is still there (and should be cut out, or at least trimmed to 30 seconds long), but at least the exposition is there.
Definitive?
I dunno, but they went back to the original theatrical release for the Blu-ray and that makes some fundamental sense: the original is frozen in a convertible format; that is, it's all on film. Every tweak and "improvement" to it has been made in various video formats at different resolutions - hence the effects for the Director's Edition aren't suitable for Blu-ray, nor are the video-inserted sequences of the original space walk, etc from the Special Longer Edition.
One of these things is a theatrical film, the others are video collages.
I dunno, but they went back to the original theatrical release for the Blu-ray and that makes some fundamental sense: the original is frozen in a convertible format; that is, it's all on film. Every tweak and "improvement" to it has been made in various video formats at different resolutions - hence the effects for the Director's Edition aren't suitable for Blu-ray, nor are the video-inserted sequences of the original space walk, etc from the Special Longer Edition.
One of these things is a theatrical film, the others are video collages.
Please no! Cut it or leave it alone, but don't CGI anything!
The debates over the different versions of the DE remind me of the debates over the restoration of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. When it was cleaned, it was discovered that the original colors were actually far more vivid than anyone had known, having been covered up by grime or faded by the elements over the centuries. But there were a lot of art critics who insisted that the dimmer colors they were accustomed to seeing had to be the "real" ones and that the restoration to its original appearance had "ruined" it. By the same token, the DE of TMP is far closer to the film Robert Wise intended to make than the theatrical cut was, but there are still people who prefer the theatrical cut because it's what they've always known and anything different feels wrong to them.
I just think it's wrong to mess up a twenty year old movie with new fx, that's all.
Of some interest, but hardly crucial. And, more accurately, it's closer to the film that in hindsight Wise wished he had made. At best the editors could only work with the film that actually was released as a basis for the revisions, and so much was attempted and abandoned during the production process that by the end of it whatever Wise's "intentions" were was murky at best.
As I've mentioned in the past, I have a 1980 interview with Wise where he contradicts a number of things that were later supposedly his "intent" with the DE. Notably, he says the film could have been easily cut by over [EDIT] 6 minutes, but the DE ends up longer than the original cut.
I think Terry Gilliam had it right: 20 years on you're not the same person who made that movie and you won't make the same decisions that person would have made.
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It makes sense for Paramount Pictures for their 'first Blu-ray'.
There will be the inevitable double-dip on Blu-ray for the original motion picture collection including ST:TMP probably around 2015.
see ST:TMP BluRay and Blu-ray 'Star Trek Motion Picture Collection' for all the complaining about the first issue's picture quality from telecine and DNR & compression artifacts and the DE not being available in HD since the Visual FX were mastered in standard definition.
Pheromones? That's from the novelization. I don't remember anything in the movie about pheromones. The film creates the impression that everybody goes gaga over Deltans because of their reputation rather than Elaan-of-Troyius style chemical manipulation of other people's minds. Admittedly, it's been about twenty years since I've seen the SLV. Maybe there's something there I don't remember.
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