TMP Director's Edition Coming To Blu-ray

[Kamdan]

From The Digital Bits:

"In announcement news today, Paramount and CBS have officially set Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Three and Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Best of Both Worlds for Blu-ray release here in the U.S. on 4/30. That same day, Paramount will also re-release Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis on Blu-ray as singles (Star Trek II and IV aren’t yet listed on the site). Here’s the kicker though – Paramount’s press site claims that Star Trek: The Motion Picture will be the “newly restored Director’s Cut.” Frankly, this seem way too good to be true so we’d suggest you not get too excited. Rest assured, we’re trying to confirm this one way or another. We’ve asked if any of the other films will feature newly-remastered transfers as well."

If this is true, it certainly came out of nowhere. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this release. Hopefully the others are just re-releases so that we don't have to rebuy the films again. Something else that would be nice for TMP is all of the deleted material in HD.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

This has NOT been confirmed yet. It could simply be a typo. Even Thedigitalbits doesn't believe it yet.

 

[ScottDS]

It's most likely the single discs from the set - originally only II, IV, VI, and FC were released on their own and now it looks like we're getting the rest.

I will happily eat my words if I'm wrong!

 

[OneBuckFilms]

My feeling is that this was a mistake on the part of the Paramount press release people, and we'll get a clarification that this is the case.

I certainly hope to see the Director's Edition re-rendered and assembled for Blu-Ray, with some significant cleanup of the original film elements.

As an addendum, perhaps recompositing some of the effects shots digitally to clean up the matte lines, and get more clarity out of the model elements (compositing elements in 1979 produced some generational degredation whenever a layer was composited in to produce the effects).

If I were them, I'd get Darren Dochterman to work with his team, and bring in CBS Digital for the restoration work for the effects shots, and maybe to revamp the sound mix, using the Director's Edition DVD as a guide.

 

[RAMA]

This would be fantastic!!!

 

[JarodRussell]

I wonder if these singles will be freshly remastered, or if it's the same blurry ones they already released.

If I were them, I'd get Darren Dochterman to work with his team, and bring in CBS Digital for the restoration work for the effects shots, and maybe to revamp the sound mix, using the Director's Edition DVD as a guide.

ILM guys in their spare time during weekends could do a better work than CBS digital on a full project.

 

[Christopher]

As an addendum, perhaps recompositing some of the effects shots digitally to clean up the matte lines, and get more clarity out of the model elements (compositing elements in 1979 produced some generational degredation whenever a layer was composited in to produce the effects).

I think that would go against the spirit of the DE. That project was treated as an act of film restoration; the goal was to make the new shots look the way they would've looked if they'd been done in 1979 using the techniques available at the time. So the CG was "downgraded" in certain ways -- animation elements were done 2-dimensionally at 12 fps, film grain from the authentic period stock was scanned and superimposed on the digital shots, etc. They were trying to preserve and replicate the imperfections of 1979 film technology, not erase them.

 

[JarodRussell]

That's what they should have done for the TOS-R blurays.

 

[trevanian]

As an addendum, perhaps recompositing some of the effects shots digitally to clean up the matte lines, and get more clarity out of the model elements (compositing elements in 1979 produced some generational degredation whenever a layer was composited in to produce the effects).

I think that would go against the spirit of the DE. That project was treated as an act of film restoration; the goal was to make the new shots look the way they would've looked if they'd been done in 1979 using the techniques available at the time. So the CG was "downgraded" in certain ways -- animation elements were done 2-dimensionally at 12 fps, film grain from the authentic period stock was scanned and superimposed on the digital shots, etc. They were trying to preserve and replicate the imperfections of 1979 film technology, not erase them.

I've heard this again and again, but nobody I've ever talked with who worked on feature fx in the 70s was shooting animation on 2s ... for TV, yeah, but not high-budget features. I've interviewed more than 30 vfx guys from TMP in the last 20 years, some still in the industry, a few long gone from it, and even if their recollections differ on details, nobody has ever even implied that a shooting-on-2s situation ever arose on TMP. Plus if they were trying to match the look of late 70s ship footage, they'd've been better off animating high-quality stills of the model, which would have had more detail than the CG ship (that is how the still cutout work in 2001 worked so well -- it was done with Hasseblad cameras that produced quality far above what could be detected even with 65mm film cameras ... I used to own a 16x20 still of the TMP ship that must have been shot using a 4x5 or 8x10 camera, because detail wise it was like looking through a window at the model.)

REGARDING THE DIGITAL RECOMPOSITING IDEA ...
Also, although digital recomping would be ideal (and was suggested on this board a couple years before the TMP DE even came out), it is almost certainly impossible because Paramount doesn't have many (or any) of the pre-comp elements. They were pretty much abandoned at Apogee and EEG after the film was done, and while i haven't heard about what happened at Apogee, am pretty sure EEG threw them out in 1982 when they had storage issues and were tired of waiting for Paramount to come get them. Then again, this is in keeping with Brick Price seeing one of the newer spacesuits (one actually used in the release cut of TMP) in a dumpster before the film even came out.

Contrast that with Ridley Scott paying to have all the BR VFX elements stored in ideal conditions in 1982 and for the next quarter-century, and it gives you an idea of how Paramount has kept their eye on the future with respect to Trek ... mostly with the eye that has a patch nailed over it.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I wonder how bad would it look to upscale the 2001 FX sequences/changes/additions and put them into the film, together with certain of the extended scenes, found among the extras on the 2009 Blu ray? Has anybody attempted it yet for their own fan-edit? Did turn into a terrible mess? A very noticable dip in quality?

There are things that could be improved. I notice the correct red alert sirens and computer voice elements heard in Engineering must've been found since, in order to create the Blu ray's 7.1 sound mix.

 

[Maurice]

Yeah, the old "shot on twos" thing... ugh. Did no one do their homework on that?

I remember talking to Greg Jein many years ago and he said they had so much stuff left over from TMP that when people would visit his studio he'd hand them a planet or whatever and say, "take it!"

 

[RAMA]

UPDATE:

TrekMovie has confirmed with Paramount Home Entertainment that the Star Trek: The Motion Picture release on April 30th will be the same theatrical cut that was in the 2009 Original Motion Picture collection. The "newly restored, Director’s edition" blurb text on the press site was an error.

Well that sucks, not buying it.

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

Wouldn't all the new effects need to be reshot in HD?
It was my understanding the reason they didn't release it on blu in the first place was that the new effects were not done in HD?
God I hope this is true and I hope they redo the officers lounge scene with the proper ginourmous windows

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wouldn't all the new effects need to be reshot in HD?

Not re-shot, re-RENDERED. Not the same thing at all.

They wouldn't have to do the effects all over again from scratch. They'd just have to render the ones they have (that were created for the D.E.) in high definition. It's a bit like recompiling a computer program.

 

[trevanian]

Trouble is that time marches on in the world of digital, and there MIGHT even be trouble finding machines that can read the old data. This matter of almost instantaneous obsolescence with respect to file formats sounds ridiculous, but has become an enormous issue in recent years.

Pretty much everything originated on digital or stored on digital begins to degrade (like a decaying orbit) unless the data is migrated regularly. The only way around this is to create copies on MOVIE FILM, specifically YCM separation masters, and if you're really that interested you can look all that up, that when properly stored are good for a century w/o decay. A whole lot of stuff that was originated on digital this century -- mainly TV stuff, plus low-budget features -- couldn't afford a film backup, so there are a lot of projects that may or may not have already experienced problems in this area. (see, and all you folks kept hearing 'film is dead.' Until there is a genuine longterm digital solution, not just storing in thin 'cloud' air, you'd better all pray Kodak stays solvent.)

The TMP DE vfx company was Foundation Imagining. When I tried looking them up just now, I found a company with the same name, but their website can't even spell 'aerial' properly. Turns out FI went out of business early in the run of Paramount's Lil ENTERPRISE series, its assets sold off more than a decade back. So the equipment to re-render the DE animation is ... where? Do you need a render farm to re-output the animation and do so in HD, or can anybody with an old Macintosh handle it? (I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm actually asking does anybody know?)

IF there really is an issue with being able to output the files, which must be about 13 years old at this point, it might be a blessing in disguise, since any 'upgrade' to TMP would require a new effort.

 

[Gepard]

The TMP DE vfx company was Foundation Imagining. When I tried looking them up just now, I found a company with the same name, but their website can't even spell 'aerial' properly. Turns out FI went out of business early in the run of Paramount's Lil ENTERPRISE series, its assets sold off more than a decade back. So the equipment to re-render the DE animation is ... where? Do you need a render farm to re-output the animation and do so in HD, or can anybody with an old Macintosh handle it? (I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm actually asking does anybody know?)

Foundation used LightWave for their 3D, so all their stuff was off-the-shelf. It'll run on pretty much anything (a friend and I taught ourselves LightWave back in high school on a crappy 300mHz first-generation iMac). LightWave is a dying program in the VFX industry, but there are still companies here and there that use it. I have a few industry buddies who recently started up a LightWave house and have a small render farm for it. And seeing as the file format hasn't changed in a good couple decades, opening and rendering old scenes is doable; current editions of the software can still open files created umpteen versions ago. So it would "merely" be a matter of finding all the objects, scenes and textures and making sure they're up to snuff for HD rendering.

If Doug Drexler's blog is anything to go by, the artists seem to have made off with personal copies of almost all the Foundation Imaging/Eden FX models. It would be hard, but I suspect it's possible – the LightWave community is small and pretty much everyone knows everyone else, so if the files exist, I imagine they could be located and spruced up.

That assumes that Paramount would want to dredge the old work out of mothballs and not just toss it to CBS-D or something to do anew. Like I said, LightWave is becoming passé these days, and even though it can still turn out stellar hard-body work, there's a strong prejudice against it in most of the VFX community now. Everybody is Maya with Mental Ray/Vray/Renderman and the suits may want it done that way so they can rest easy knowing it's being handled "right."

Gep, grumpy former LightWaver.

 

[Oso Blanco]

I hope this is an error and they will release the SLV instead.

 

[Grant]

I hope this is an error and they will release the SLV instead.

Not a chance in a million.

They are just putting the already pressed dics from 2009 in separate packaging for the first time in the case of movies I, III and V.

This is just a quick cash grab to sell old discs and tie it to the new movies' opening.

 

[MacLeod]

^Last I checked you can buy individual ST films on BR already. Unless it's because I'm in Region B and in Region A those films have not yet been released as single discs.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: TMP Director's Edition IS NOT Coming To Blu-ray

It's confirmed: the Director's Edition is NOT coming to BR. Linky

Pretty much everything originated on digital or stored on digital begins to degrade (like a decaying orbit) unless the data is migrated regularly.

Excuse me?

Digital is digital. 1 or 0. On or off. Unless the storage medium itself fails (i.e. a hard drive crash), digital media cannot, by definition, degrade.