Good points, but what I was driving at was that there weren't ten other filmed versions and four additional live-action shows. Technically, you're right, it had begun to reach franchise-status in '79, just not the behemoth it has now become.
ST:TMP on Blu-Ray - a second look
- Thread starter Procutus
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Good points, but what I was driving at was that there weren't ten other filmed versions and four additional live-action shows. Technically, you're right, it had begun to reach franchise-status in '79, just not the behemoth it has now become.
I doubt that. The only scene that really applies to is Kirk leaving the ship in his spacesuit. You can still see the part of the stage that was supposed to be painted over in the cropped version, and including it in the film proper even with completed effects is problematic, anyway, since Kirk is wearing the old version of the spacesuit from before they shot the simplified spacewalk.
Not to mention all the SLV scenes are included in widescreen in the DVD's special features. Heck, you could stitch together a DVD-quality widescreen version of the SLV fairly easily with what's available publicly right now, between the DVD deleted scenes and the HD theatrical cut. Naturally, Paramount could do an HD version of the SLV right now, since they have the complete digital masters.
I doubt a disclaimer would be necessary, and it'd be strange to redo the effects for one deleted scene when there's an entire Directors Cut that could be up-rezzed (which doesn't include that scene). Any future release of the SLV would certainly be as-is.
Yes, that first theatrical release version of the Beta/VHS was only available as "pan and scan". But also check the running time on the sleeves: the theatrical's running time is 15 mins shorter than the "Special Longer Version" (SLV = three minutes of Ilia Theme overture plus twelves minutes of previously-unseen footage added for the US TV premiere). Note though, that the "pan and scan" on the SLV is a little different than the "pan and scan" of the first theatrical on home video. I recall that the scene where the wormhole opens up on the viewscreen over Kirk's shoulder doesn't work nearly as well in the SLV because of how its cropped for a square monitor.
What also confuses people is that the widescreen boxed set's theatrical version (not pan and scan), released just after "First Contact" premiered in cinemas, accidentally uses the same fine print text as the SLV, and gives the longer (incorrect) running time.
I don't think this is correct. A cumulative total of 50 Star Trek books seems far too high for 1979, even if you throw in the bombastically over-italicized Roddenberry novelization of TMP. Maybe you can approach 50 if you throw in the 10+ Fotonovels, but those wouldn't constitute an expansion of the franchise, any more than the View-master version of "The Omega Glory" (which I once owned!) would. Indeed, the number would be rather small if the Blish and Foster retellings of the live-action and animated scripts were excluded as well (although the various differences from the aired versions are generally interesting). There were no more than 10 or 15 original novels by 1979, plus fan-service books such as Star Trek Lives!, David Gerrold's two 1973 books, and other miscellany.
That number comes from the press conference where Star Trek -- The Motion Picture was first announced. Specifically, it comes from this bit delivered by Michael Eisner at the event...
And all those things you list sound like books to me, regardless of whether or not they were non-fiction or re-tellings of the episodes.
And all those things you list sound like books to me, regardless of whether or not they were non-fiction or re-tellings of the episodes.
This.
I saw it opening day at Grauman's Chinese, and I sat with my mouth hanging open a lot of the time, especially during the "slow" bits everybody makes fun of (the Drydock Tour & V'Ger Fly-over). This was what a trek through the stars should feel like. Of course, in most cases, what other people call "slow" pacing, I call "realistic".
HUG!
Right. What possible motivation could Eisner have for exaggerating?
http://www.well.com/~sjroby/lcars/
There were sixteen ST books in 1979, and 20 in 1978, and 23 in 1977, so 50 (to include everything, or even just everything licensed) is probably pretty close.
Fair enough, though I still don't see any reason to exclude all of the books you've listed that aren't works of original fiction.
EDIT: Which, looking at this list, there are 38 Star Trek works of fiction (many, granted, adaptions of episodes), plus 12 Fotonovels, all published on or before 1978. That's 50 books, without even counting The Making of Star Trek and other nonfiction.
I would love to see "The Director's Edition" on Blu-Ray. I understand why they can't right now, but they should do this soon. No one is going to bat an eye if they redo the newer FX from the Director's cut, so that they look good in HD.
Oh, and while they are at it... isn't it about damn time for a Director's Edition of Star Trek V? I still enjoy Shatner's film, and it is only the bad FX that really bother me on that one.
Oh, and while they are at it... isn't it about damn time for a Director's Edition of Star Trek V? I still enjoy Shatner's film, and it is only the bad FX that really bother me on that one.
Paramount wouldn't pay for a Director's Edition of TFF when it was re-released on DVD, so I doubt they would pay for one now. That might come down to how much Shatner requested ($5 million, IIRC) to complete the project, but his involvement is obviously key to the investment being worth it for Paramount.
Interesting. I doubt Shatner ever really expected to get that much money for a new edit (he was probably giving an exagerated high sum so that they would give him a better paycheck... lol...) I would be curious to know how much Wise was paid for the DE of ST:TMP.
If Shatner promoted a "Director's Edition" of a new DVD in interviews, and properly supervised the edit, I would say $1 million would be a realistic payday.
Ahh... well, that isn't so bad... lol. Still though, 5 million is a pretty high sum for a re-edit with new FX. I'm sure it could be done today for much less then that.
Y'know, I can't disagree if these are the facts, but it doesn't feel emotionally correct somehow. I clearly remember the post-animated series/pre-TMP drought, having seen most of Star Trek season 3 during its original NBC run (at age 12) and having caught up with the earlier seasons in syndication, and I remember being so excited that the Blish books were continuing to appear in the early 1970s, post-Spock Must Die!, along with other original novels I'd see in long-gone drugstore and supermarket racks - although I stopped buying them after volume 8 or 9, having become sufficiently familiar with the actual episodes. (I actually read his adaptations of many of the early episodes in Star Trek 1 through 3 -generally drawn from early versions of the scripts, and with earlier titles in some cases - before ever seeing the final aired versions.)
I have no trouble counting those and the Foster Star Trek Log adaptations of the animated series - nearly 25 books in all, I think - because although in many respects they are retellings of the aired episodes, they offer much that's different as well. Counting the 12 Bantam Fotonovels as though they're in the same category is a bit much. Sure they are books, but they'd likely not have been published if Trek fans had home video players or recorders at the time.
Isn't that a fair distinction to make in retrospect? Once VCRs became more common, the Fotonovel series stopped, and Pocket Books' equivalent Photostory series only lasted for two books, after switching from very nice color reproductions for TMP to black-and-white for TWOK (what an indignity!).
Of course, the case could be made that if there had been VCRs in the 1960s, we wouldn't have had retellings and/or original novels based on a wide variety of series, not just the Blish and Foster Star Trek books (I once owned a few Get Smart novels and they weren't bad at all, at least when I was a kid). But they actually involved some creative work, whereas the Fotonovels and Photostories were essentially transcriptions with some elements elided or even left out (such as the omission of the transporter accident in the TMP book) - I wouldn't call such editing decisions creative in the same sense.
I was born in the late 80s, so by the time I was really aware of Star Trek, it was at the height of the franchise's popularity, so I can't speak to any personal connection from this earlier period.
Oh, I agree that they wouldn't have been published in the era of home video. The 16mm prints of the original series popular at conventions, as well as audio recordings of the episodes made by fans likely wouldn't have existed either if the episodes had been available on home video in the 1970s.
I've never actually held one of the Fotonovels, but judging from what I've seen of them online, I think you're correct -- the creative work that a Blish or Foster adaptation took was definitely greater. I also doubt many of those episodic novelizations would have existed in the era of home video. Episodic novelizations for later series were few and far between.
Someone has already attempted it and it looks good:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/to...on-Picture-Special-Longer-Version/topic/8148/
He didn't. Variations of this bit:
"It is three hundred and seventy-one Star Trek fan clubs, it is fifty Star Trek books, it is 431 Star Trek fan publications, it is 30 Star Trek conventions a year attracting upwards of 20,000 people per convention. It is millions of Star Trek letters, [and] it is seventy different companies associated with the Star Trek phenomena..."
appeared in the "Handbook of Production Information" which Paramount distributed to all media - even large fan clubs - in press kits before each film premiere. They just upped the figures in each booklet. Our club received on each movie.
In this context, Eisner is meaning fifty books licensed by Paramount, so it would be counting the Whitman original bovel, the Blish/Lawrence adaptations, the hardcover "ST Reader" omnibuses, all the Bantam original novels (a few in train, and "ST Maps", would not actually see release until after TMP was released), the Foster TAS adaptations, the twelve Fotonovels, the ST Technical and Medical Reference Manuals, ST Lives!, The Making of ST, World of ST, Letters to ST, two picture books, two pop up books, two puzzle books, and numerous hardcover UK annuals which reprinted Gold Key comics, and so on. Easily 50 licensed ST titles.
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