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
