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An interesting thread about TMP - DC

RColtrane

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
I don't know if you guys already know this but after searching for news regarding ST - TMP DC, I've come across a forum (see the link below) and saw a very interesting post from a guy named David C. Fein about why TMP-DC is still not on Bluray, which you can read here:

"Hi Guys... I just stumbled onto your thread and I appreciate the conversation, so I thought I'd offer a few thoughts.

There is only one reason that Star Trek: The Motion Picture–The Director's Edition is not out on Blu-Ray yet. Paramount has yet to green light the project. We've had some discussions, and it'll happen, the only question is when are we going to go ahead with it.

"One member at the Home Theater Forum claims to have checked with a Paramount person and said that the individual film elements that were used for all the effects shots are missing." - This is completely false. We have all that we need. Would I like a few more pieces... sure. But we have everything we need.

"I mastered the "director's cut" for Paramount in 1980, and it was never commercially released. Wise cut the film down to 110 minutes, and the assistant editor on the picture told me he was livid when the studio overruled him and cut 12 minutes of the V'Ger VFX sequence back into the film. Wise was smart enough to know it dragged the film down, and he was right. But because the film had gone so grossly over budget, the studio was determined to see "all their money up on the screen," so it went out at 132 minutes." I've had many discussions with Bob about the film and the final days of Post, and I can not see how any of this statement could have happened under those extreme circumstances.

"Most of the issues revolve around redoing the new visual effects for the director's cut--they were rendered in SD not HD and it would be fairly expensive to do from scratch. They could upscale them but they wouldn't look great at 4K much less 2K. It's certainly possible that the film elements for the DC were mislabeled." All of the shots in the film were created with HD in mind so the quality of the models and elements were much higher than the SD renderings. We have everything, and when the time is right, we'll use them. Again, there is no truth that anything is missing.

"You are very much correct about the low lighting on the bridge set to accommodate the CRT displays used on the bridge." This is almost correct, there were projectors, projecting film onto the displays on the bridge, not CRTs. The low lighting was to accommodate the projector displays, but also to set a far more intimate mood. The color timing for the Director's Edition is exactly right, whereas the Blu-ray of the theatrical is very inaccurate.

"As I understand it, the TMP bridge console displays at one point were animations displayed by rear projection via 16mm projectors. One article I read several years ago regarding TMP's production seemed to suggest that the ambient noise on the bridge set from the 16mm projectors was so loud as a result that recording the crew lines on the bridge set ranged from difficult to impossible." Yep, I didn't see this was stated. Good job!

"Vidiot's thinking that Sumner Redstone is part of the issue is new to me and I had to read up on him to understand what the issue is. The Viacom CEO is trying to sell a minority stake of Paramount Studios and Sumner Redstone is blocking that. Sounds like lots of lawyers now are fighting it out with the Redstone family. This must be part of the turmoil. Though I can only guess why executives at Paramount are under pressure or getting fired. So the whole video department at Paramount is likely only concentrating on new releases and not worrying about the legacy films they have in their library. Shame given it's the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek and you'd think they'd treasure one of their golden gooses. And years earlier they were investing in the legacy films such as the Godfather and The 10 Commandments and so forth to give them proper restorations and preserving them." Immmm..... well put.

"Karl Urban likes Star Trek The Motion Picture a lot" - I like Karl Urban as McCoy!

Thanks, and I hope this helps and I really appreciate your support of the film and the project.

David C. Fein
Producer
Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director's Edition"

And here's the full thread:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...directors-cut-is-not-on-blu-ray.542907/page-2

This puts some more light on why TMP-DC is not on bluray yet, since we had the 50th anniversary ST collection and everybody wanted to see the DC on bluray for the 1st time, which didn't happen.
 
The DC isn't very good, so I couldn't care less if it ever came out.

Those V'Ger shots that were cut didn't help show the scope of the ship. There's no way, they're ever going to fix that. In the novel, it took *an hour* just to get to V'Ger's ship.
 
The DC isn't very good, so I couldn't care less if it ever came out.

Those V'Ger shots that were cut didn't help show the scope of the ship. There's no way, they're ever going to fix that. In the novel, it took *an hour* just to get to V'Ger's ship.

Yeah, I prefer the theatrical cut as well. And I always thought the DC ship they did later could be a lot bigger. It's too small when it is next to earth and you can see both on screen.
 
I'd happily sit through a hybrid of the SLV to be honest. The Hobbit trilogy is an example of a bloated and unnecessarily long tale just to shoe-horn in more CGI but I rather enjoy the longer version of TMP. I love the atmosphere and scope.
 
I'd happily sit through a hybrid of the SLV to be honest. The Hobbit trilogy is an example of a bloated and unnecessarily long tale just to shoe-horn in more CGI but I rather enjoy the longer version of TMP. I love the atmosphere and scope.

The 6 JRR Tolkien movies by Peter Jackson are collectively about 18 hours too long, IMHO.
 
The ST-TMP-DE has better pacing than the theatrical version.

A couple of the new effects shots are excellent, such as when the energy ball flies toward the Enterprise and disappears.

Others are bupkis, such as the shots of the whole V'Ger structure and the Enterprise saucer with the people exiting to the exterior. I'm not sure if those would be worth seeing in HD.

Kor
 
The ST-TMP-DE has better pacing than the theatrical version.

A couple of the new effects shots are excellent, such as when the energy ball flies toward the Enterprise and disappears.

Others are bupkis, such as the shots of the whole V'Ger structure and the Enterprise saucer with the people exiting to the exterior. I'm not sure if those would be worth seeing in HD.

Kor

Yeah, the DE has its good points, but it also has some bad points, and some of them makes me to prefer the original theatrical cut. Some examples are the removal of the emergency alert robotic voice which is pretty cool, the second tactical plot can be seen in full screen rather than from Kirk's perspective, the nacelles inserted during the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dialog scene are also out of place, you can clearly see that the angles are incorrect when observing the moving stars. It looks terribly fake.
 
I first saw TMP when I bought the DE DVD. I saw the original version of TMP only a few years ago.

I believe I read somewhere that the CGI effects for the DVD release were only rendered in 720p, and therefore wouldn't hold up to a bluray release. Someone else with more info can attest to that.

My favorite addition from TMP DE DVD was the stairway that forms leading up to the Enterprise-Refit's saucer section. It just looked a lot better than how its cut in the current blu ray release
 
There are only two parts of the DC that I'm really interested in seeing - the energy bolt from V'Ger fizzling out, and the Enterprise "parking" at V'Ger - that whole scene was done very well. The rest is just meh.

EDIT: oh, and the proper changes to Vulcan.
EDIT2: I also forgot about that shot of V'Ger as the cloud dissipates.
 
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I want to see the 143 minute version on bluray not the director's cut. I find it faster paced than the other cuts because it has some funny scenes like Sulu fumbling over Illia and Kirk's "Bones get out of here" line. I also love the scene where Kirk puts on his space suit.
 
Since 720p is still HD, a BluRay release would be just fine.

I agree. I would prefer a bluray release of TMP DE over the current release of the TWOK DE bluray. (720p or 1080p or not) That being said, I'm certainly glad I didn't donate/sell/throw out my old copy of TMP DE on DVD, as it appears that's the only way to see that version of the film now.
 
I don't know the corporate politics that led to the DE. For all I know it could have been greenlit mostly as a gift to Robert Wise while he was still with us rather than something they thought would make back the overhead, but I just think for a film this old and heavily circulated you have to add value otherwise the pack won't sell--cuz it's gonna primarily be sold to those of us who already have it. For uber-fans, remastering the DE in HD would be enough, but maybe not enough to sell in an era where physical media is mounting its last stand. So I don't see why a future blu-ray could not include multiple cuts and then nobody has to pick their favorite. They could even "fix" the ABC extended cut, even though that cut invariably results in inconsistencies. The FX shots that everyone universally agree needed replacing (like the bad matte paintings at the end) could be in all of them. I would also like to see them do some dust removal here and there. The drydock sequence has some bad dust that looks like it was on the lens or the aperture at the time they filmed the model. One of those things you don't notice until you do and then you can't un-notice it. Bottom line is ya gotta spend money to make money.
 
OK, Donner's 1978 Superman is getting a blu ray. While I'm happy about this as I enjoy that film, it makes TMP:DC an even more glaring omission in the blu ray arena.
 
OK, Donner's 1978 Superman is getting a blu ray. While I'm happy about this as I enjoy that film, it makes TMP:DC an even more glaring omission in the blu ray arena.
Yeah, it's the 188-minute extended TV version and the 151-minute director's edition released together. But it was probably a much more economical endeavor since they didn't have to re-make any special effects.

Kor
 
Yeah, it's the 188-minute extended TV version and the 151-minute director's edition released together. But it was probably a much more economical endeavor since they didn't have to re-make any special effects.

Nevertheless it does bolster the case for a combo pack with multiple cuts of TMP to sort of clear the vaults for posterity, as it were. The two films faced a similar track.
 
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