Star Trek: TMP questions and observations

It's easy: The universe in which V'ger measures "82 AUs in diameter" is the same universe in which Kirk's statement in "Court Martial" that the heartbeats on the Enterprise are amplified "on the order of one to the fourth power" is somehow meaningful.

 

Is that the same universe as the DC comic where a captain ordered his ship to reverse course by making a 360-degree turn?

 

Wow, I see the Memory Wall still generates a lot of interest!

I just wanted to add that, after I put on my Picture Collction page, I contacted Alchemist to learn about the retrieved footage and he confirmed that they still have it (it's 2 and half minutes) but they are not going to release it anytime soon, mainly because of the incident with "These Are The Voyages".

About the existence of the footage (which was absolutely shot, in the trench set, in the memory wall set and on blu screen), when they were making the DE, they said that they had access to all the footage available for The Motion Picture. Honestly I think Paramount simply does not have anything else beyond what was included in the extras of the two discs set. If they had it, why not to add it to the extras? It wouldn't make any sense to include five tests footage and the deleted scene and to withhold the rest. They simply don't have it. This does not mean it doesn't exist or it's destroyed (which might very well be), it could be lost somewhere (maybe even incorrectly archived/labeled in Paramount archives, we know such things happen). Also I don't think Roddenberry sold any of it, as we have seen that sold frames from Roddenberry's company are now re-emerging thanks to Internet and no one (at least that I know of) has ever come out with Memory Wall frames.

Best,
Maab

 

That would be great! Thanks!

 

I just can't excuse the inclusion of an incomplete setpiece, showing the rafters and scaffolding holding it up. It's not done. That "they" got away with using this footage is neither here, nor there, it should've never seen the light of day. Certainly not without some minimal effort to mask, or crop out, the offending imperfection of the scene. Unfortunately, the networks seem to have been swayed by the negative reviews and quite simply did not care, at that point. For a TV broadcast, that's one thing, I suppose. But that this print made its way into the Home Entertainment market ... that staggers me ...

 

Dear Sir, this is the most exhausting and passionate reconstruction attempt / compilation of a deleted scene and all its materials I've ever seen in my life! Kudos!

Just one question continues to bug me: They created this early version of the EVA spacesuit and knowing Paramount's weakness to recycle existing props endlessly, I can't help but wonder why we never saw this EVA spacesuit used again somewhere.

Bob

 

Thanks

By the way recently I was able to get one of the magazine where many of the pictures coming from forgottentrek site were taken (thank God for ebay), and I'm re-scanning everything for better resolution.



I also found a couple of new pictures (well, same pictures from different angles), so I hope to do an update soon.

Best,
Maab

 

As I said, it had nothing to do with reviews or caring, it was a logistical decision. Given their decision to expand the film to fill a 3-hour slot with a fixed number of commercials, they had to add a specific amount of runtime to the film using the footage they had available -- while still maintaining a coherent and consistent plot, so that the Memory Wall footage that contradicted the Spock Walk sequence was off-limits. They had footage of Kirk leaving the airlock, they needed to include it to pad the film out to the necessary length, so they used it.

As for cropping, the sides of the image would have been cropped by the pan-and-scan process on the TV airings. So it would only be on the widescreen home-video version that you'd see the visible scaffolding off to the sides. There would still have been some scaffolding visible, but not as much. And the shot was brief enough and dark enough that it wasn't immediately obvious to the viewer what those shapes actually were, especially with the eye naturally tending to focus on Kirk's movement.

I suppose it would've been easy enough to do an optical zoom and crop the image, given that they were pan-and-scanning it anyway, but evidently they decided the problem wasn't severe enough. We tend to forget today that our TV screens reveal far more detail than they did in the '70s or '80s, making visual flaws and errors far more visible to our eyes than they were in the original runs.

 

Oh, I saw the scaffolding plain as day on the network broadcast.

 

^^ There could be a simple reason for that, if I can assume that my 4:3 LaserDisc version reflects the original source: What's on the LaserDisc is actually a 16:9 pan & scan extract of the 21:9 footage, which had been horizontally squeezed into the 4:3 frame (everybody looks a lot thinner, it's easy to tell once you go to the scene where the circular travel pod docks to the torpedo bay. On my 4:3 TV it looks like a standing egg).

Had they really panned and scanned from the 21:9 footage with correct picture geometry, the scaffolding probably would have been barely noticable.

This LaserDisc qualifies as one of the first anamorphic video programs ever.

Bob

 

That's interesting... I thought the LaserDisc and the VHS came from the same master. I have the VHS and it's simply 4:3 pan & scan (which in fact make the scaffolding less evident).

A guy here did a lot of work to recreate a 16:9 edition of the Special Longer Version sourcing from the LaserDisc and the DVD, he could have simply un-squeezed the LaserDisc.

Best,
Maab

 

Probably because Paramount wasn't going to remake SEAHUNT, and these things are just wetsuits with weird appliques. You should read Brick Price's interview about TMP and the amazingly awful helmet Paramount originally wanted for that spacewalk.

 

The "Sparklets" helmets, as I recall.

 

The drawing that had the helmet fitting right over the Admiral uniform without any pressurization type whoozits was a hoot.

 

Got a link for that? Is it this?
http://ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/designing-the-motion-pictures-spacesuits/

 

That's a tiny slice of it, the full interview appeared in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS, I think in their all-interview issue and in one earlier issue. There' some stuff at memory alpha about Price's later company that has a bit too: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/WonderWorks_Inc.

There's a STARLOG interview with Price as well. Might be on that archived STARLOG site mentioned here months back.