ST:TMP - Lost Footage from the Trench

[Jeyl]

Gentlemen, gentlemen. I think we should arrogantly get back on subject.

Alchemist, how's the progress coming?

Doh! You asked QUESTION FORBIDDEN!!!!

Jealous?

 

[QuasarVM]

What hell kind of damned question is that?!

Of course I am!

 

[Meredith]

ncc-1017-e, let me tell you a story.

When The Wizard of Oz first came out on LaserDisc, I went, "MGM cut this version!" After Dorthy kills the Wicked Witch of the West, missing was the reprise of "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead" sung by the witch's guards. The guards, Dorthy, the Tin Woodsman, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto, too, were all marching around the castle walls, singing the song. That scene was absent from the LaserDisc.

I called up MGM and, amazingly, got through to the appropriate office. I talked to a nice lady and said, "Remember that scene, the reprise of "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead" and everyone dancing around? She said yes. Well, it's gone, I told her. We ended up talking a couple of times on the phone. Everyone in her office at MGM also remembered that scene but they also couldn't believe that they would actually cut an official release of The Wizard of Oz. Knowing Hollywood, I wasn't as confident of the studio's integrity, but the woman said she'd do some research and get back to me.

A few weeks later I received a letter in the mail. She had two comments. One, in the movie, after the witch was killed, it is a dissolve from the witch's castle back to the wizard's throne room. It isn't a cut. While a dissolve could be done in a later print, it would be tougher to do and indicated that maybe there was no reprise of the song (remember, this was still back in the days of analog film editing). Secondly, her best evidence was that she'd gone back to the sheet music for the original musical score, still on file, and pulled it out. There was no reprise of the song. It was never played by the studio musicians.

In other words, all of our memories were wrong. Mine, hers and everyone at MGM's. Actually, I bet the truth was my memory was wrong and through the power of suggestion, I'd convinced them there was a song missing, too. There was no reprise of Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead after the Wicked Witch of the West was killed.

I'm ten years older than you, ncc-1017-e, but I'm sure we both grew up watching The Wizard of Oz on TV every Christmas season. I KNOW that movie. To this day, I would swear there was a reprise of the song. But I also know that my memory is faulty and there never was one. Such are the tricks of the mind.

But, of course, YMMV.

Last time I watched the wizard of Oz I though they left out that song too!

 

[QuasarVM]

Bump.

 

[Jeyl]

Bump.

Honestly, the opening to Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the best Star Trek opening ever. We needs more Behind the Scenes material covering it!

 

[Joker]

Bump.

Honestly, the opening to Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the best Star Trek opening ever. We needs more Behind the Scenes material covering it!

Would have been better had the space been black, and the cruisers not had ugly matte lines around them.

Bump.

This was possibly what biggles was really requesting that we not do.

 

[Jeyl]

Bump.

Honestly, the opening to Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the best Star Trek opening ever. We needs more Behind the Scenes material covering it!

Would have been better had the space been black, and the cruisers not had ugly matte lines around them.

How about you go back in time and fix it. For what it is, it's epic.

 

[Joker]

For the opening scene of the first big-screen outing, pretty inexcusable.

Shoulda been fixed in the DE, though.

 

[QuasarVM]

Bump.

This was possibly what biggles was really requesting that we not do.

I don't care. I don't want this thread to die or get burried in the flotsam and jetsam. It's a good thread!

As for the Klingon ship mattes...I thought they DID fix those in the director's cut.

Then again, maybe I need to get me peepers checked.

 

[trevanian]

For the opening scene of the first big-screen outing, pretty inexcusable.

Shoulda been fixed in the DE, though.

Even while loving the music opening day, I was thinking, 'this HAS to be Dykstra's work, Trumbull wouldn't ever have a space background this grayed-out (or matte lines this obvious.)

If you turn the brightness down on your tv by about 35 percent, the shot looks really good (which is what I have to do to get the Nemesis ship stuff to look okay for ALL the space and neb shots.)

 

[QuasarVM]

Yeah, I immediately recognized the Dykstra stuff too...

And if you go and watch Lifeforce, you'll see FX work that looks very similar to that of the opening Klingon sequence in ST:TMP -- with regard to the "grayed out space" you refer to. Even the compositing seems similar...

 

[CoveTom]

If you turn the brightness down on your tv by about 35 percent, the shot looks really good (which is what I have to do to get the Nemesis ship stuff to look okay for ALL the space and neb shots.)

I find that if you turn the TV off, Nemesis really looks its best...

 

[Jeyl]

If you turn the brightness down on your tv by about 35 percent, the shot looks really good (which is what I have to do to get the Nemesis ship stuff to look okay for ALL the space and neb shots.)

I find that if you turn the TV off, Nemesis really looks its best...

 

[Jeyl]

Sigh.

Alchemist, I suggest you start using Macs to prevent future hacks and malware disasters. It's the only way to be sure.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll get this out of the way.......
.....
.....
UPDATE!

 

[trevanian]

I'm just gonna throw this out there, and anybody who has seen much of the trench/wall stuff can answer or speculate. I took a look at the little bits on the TMP disk yesterday, along with reviewing all the old still pics I had from magazines. I'm wondering ... and this thought extends not just to the memory wall, but also to the transporter ... whether the guys who provided the kinetic lighting for the engine room and for the vger 6 crater could have pumped greater life into these setups?

I know that there was some RP going on with the memory wall, you can see some light activity in the tests (either that or just reflections.) But it seems to me you'd need a variety of ranges of activity in the RP, intensity as well as flicker, to give the qualities of being both machine and alive. The kinetic units used on vger crater and the engine really seem to fit that bill nicely, and also could have given some interactive dimension to the beaming stuff too.

The production designer DID say that architecture wouldn't be enough, that they needed a quality of light to convey what was called for in TREK. Now I think he screwed it up by making so much of it come from the wrong direction, but that idea of a unique quality of light does still seem to be valid.

 

[ncc-1017-e]

I'm just gonna throw this out there, and anybody who has seen much of the trench/wall stuff can answer or speculate. I took a look at the little bits on the TMP disk yesterday, along with reviewing all the old still pics I had from magazines. I'm wondering ... and this thought extends not just to the memory wall, but also to the transporter ... whether the guys who provided the kinetic lighting for the engine room and for the vger 6 crater could have pumped greater life into these setups?

I know that there was some RP going on with the memory wall, you can see some light activity in the tests (either that or just reflections.) But it seems to me you'd need a variety of ranges of activity in the RP, intensity as well as flicker, to give the qualities of being both machine and alive. The kinetic units used on vger crater and the engine really seem to fit that bill nicely, and also could have given some interactive dimension to the beaming stuff too.

The production designer DID say that architecture wouldn't be enough, that they needed a quality of light to convey what was called for in TREK. Now I think he screwed it up by making so much of it come from the wrong direction, but that idea of a unique quality of light does still seem to be valid.

I agree with you on this, and I have to say that the kinitic light in engineering and in vger was great! They should have used that lighting effected on the back wall of the transporter chamber! Like in TWOK but a little better I think!

 

[Maurice]

Maybe we just haven't seen any spacewalk footage yet that might've incorporated more interesting lighting. We know the trench is where they start, then they go through an opening into another chamber. But maybe it's all simple and they were counting on ASTRA's effects to fill in.

 

[trevanian]

Maybe we just haven't seen any spacewalk footage yet that might've incorporated more interesting lighting. We know the trench is where they start, then they go through an opening into another chamber. But maybe it's all simple and they were counting on ASTRA's effects to fill in.

Well, that's the thing. I've read in ST THE MAG that Abel's people built the sets or had them built, not the main unit production (be nice to get confirmation on that though, since it would seem to violate union rules), hence their not being made 'wild.' Based on that, plus the amount of other stuff that was done live on the set (the pyramids, supposedly the sensor bee), it sounds like the idea going in was to minimize postproduction opticals (except of course for the stuff that wasn't on set,like, I suppose, the thing he melds with.)

 

[alchemist]

Maybe we just haven't seen any spacewalk footage yet that might've incorporated more interesting lighting. We know the trench is where they start, then they go through an opening into another chamber. But maybe it's all simple and they were counting on ASTRA's effects to fill in.

Well, that's the thing. I've read in ST THE MAG that Abel's people built the sets or had them built, not the main unit production (be nice to get confirmation on that though, since it would seem to violate union rules), hence their not being made 'wild.' Based on that, plus the amount of other stuff that was done live on the set (the pyramids, supposedly the sensor bee), it sounds like the idea going in was to minimize postproduction opticals (except of course for the stuff that wasn't on set,like, I suppose, the thing he melds with.)

First, the site update is coming along nicely. I hope everyone understands that Curt is doing more than just fixing the malware problem. Everything is getting an "extreme makeover."

Secondly, with regards to the lighting (and this is hard to describe), the "rocker switches" on the walls of the trench pulsate/cascade/shimmer. Does the trench look "alive?" You'll have to be the judge. BTW, I haven't watched the extras on the TMP DVD in ages so I don't remember what they show with regards to the trench - this may be old news.

And finally, the pyramids sort of flash/blink on and off. IMHO, it's unimpressive on the raw footage.

 

[JDF]

Just wondering...

Any more status updates that can be shared?