I respectfully disagree. They are changes for no reason other than to stick in that damned shuttlecraft. The original wall matches the planned exterior (above). They should have spent that money and time on fixing something that mattered. Hell, even just animating the painted people in that shot would have been a more sensible improvement.
The one thing that appears to have been forgotten, is that they WERE respecting the original intent of the movie. Robert Wise was in charge of the project, and he had things in mind he wanted to fix. They ALSO had the task of staying true to the movie, and what would work without changing it too much from what it actually ended up being. That concept painting was likely proposed, the general idea accepted, but the angles changed for those we saw in the DE. When we think of simply rendering everything out in HD, we also have to remember that the CG elements used in those shots for the DE were done at Standard Definition, and would likely need to be updated and rebuilt. I also think the DE in HD for Blu-Ray should be as close as possible to the SD version, as THAT is what Robert Wise intended as the final version of the film. There are other minor tweaks I think they might do, budget and time permitting, like inserting the shuttle pod into the earlier establishing shots of the floating office complex, and possibly cleaning up the matte lines around the Klingon ships and the Enterprise. The movie really needs a more thorough restoration than what was afforded for the DE or the Blu-Ray.
^^^They paid lip service to the original intent. I think it's fair to say Wise had little to do with many of the fanwanky VFX changes other than saying "okay". I cannot see him coming up with the "stardate" chiron on the San Francisco scene, or putting in an original series shuttlecraft or changing the San Francisco skyline to be more consistent with the later productions.
TOS Shuttle - fanwanky. Shot in general - what he wanted. Stardate: fanwanky. San Francisco "idealization" - what he wanted, as it reflected Roddenberry's idea tha the Earth was perfect and a paradise in the 23rd Century. These changes were done to reflect things they did not have time/money to do back in 1979, and in the case of Vulcan, to be more consistent wit hte Original Series (where Vulcan was established as not having a moon).
The fact that Vulcan supposedly has no moon was well known in 1979, as The Man Trap had aired a number of years before. The makers of TMP had all the information they needed to avoid the depiction of Vulcan in the original matte painting/FX, if it had been their intent to do so. Original intent is crystal clear in that case. The claim that the changes for the DE only bring about original intent more fully is therefore spurious.
Actually, the original intent is in the storyboards that can be seen on the DE DVD. They came up with the masses of planets with a starfield background because they were running out of time and money, and couldn't figure out how to do everything they wanted to do. All of this is in the special features, if you care to look.
Excuse me? A Manhattanized San Francisco is not consistent with what Roddenberry wanted. They did San Francisco the way they wanted in 1979. It was a completed matte painting by Matt Yuricich, so budget wasn't an issue. The design of the city is consistent between the shot that is in the film and the unused one I posted:a smaller, lower profile city with only a few recognizable landmarks (the Transmerica Pyramid and the Golden Gate Bridge) so it's fair to say that was the original intent. The skyscraper-filled monstrosity in the DE isn't what was designed/intended in 1979, even if Wise approved it in 2000. Heck, even the shooting script contradicts the city seen in the DE. But the DE features the numerous other structures in contemporary SF, including the BofA building and the Bay Bridge. Sadly, the DE is akin to many of those well-intentioned but flawed attempts to "restore" artwork without having done sufficient homework. I probably still have the email I got back from Andy Probert after the first saw the DE about all the things they got wrong...and he oughta know.
I was kinda disappointed with San Francisco in the DE. I liked the original matte paintings better.* BUT I never saw a "The skyscraper-filled monstrosity" in the DE. *edit. Forget what I said. Just had a look at the screen caps at trekcore.com. It's a long time since I've seen TMP. I like the matte paintings in the DE better. But still I don't see a monstrosity. It's the city as it is today, with some new buildings added.
Maurice, Script changes happen all the time through pre-production, and it was Robert Wise who approved what they did. That painting you posted was, in fact, a concept painting. The film has been out since then, and the city changed also. The script's visual description often serves as a guide, but what the DIRECTOR wanted, and it was HIS film, was fundamentally what we saw. As for Vulcan, that sky was NOT what they originally wanted by a long shot. Are you now calling the filmmakers liars?
If we're talking original intent, what you saw for SF in 1979 is the original intent. The Wise of 2000 who approved the DE was 20 years older and probably didn't care about the fanwanky changes proposed to him, and that was his prerogative, but that doesn't make the DE the original intent, which is my point, demonstrably so. If we got "original intent" we'd have gotten a film that was at least 6 minutes shorter, which is what Wise flatly stated he wanted in a 1980 interview. As to the shot I posted: I've heard that it was a concept, but the particulars of the image make that suspect. What kind of "concept painting" has an airtram model obviously composited into it, complete with matte lines? Maybe it was a test shot, but it wasn't a mere concept painting. (I suspect is it was the shot intended to go where the big starfleet logo shot was, but dropped probably because the composite was bad. That's just an educated guess.)
Perhaps, re: the tram. But we have insufficient data to know. Also, Robert Wise was always bothered by the unfinished state of the final film, and all of the shots in the DE were based on ORIGINAL storyboards, which SHOW much of the original intent. We may both be right in terms of our thoughts on what was the original intent, simply due to the fact that the original intent likely changed often, and sometimes drastically (Memory Wall to Spock Walk for a well known example). Everyone likely had their own ideas. There were some "fanwanky" things done, but on the whole, TMP DE was closer to what Robert Wise wanted to achieve than what we got in 1979.
I am still absolutely flummoxed by how Gene could have possibly imagined that everyone on future Earth would willingly live in underground cities. That has got to be the most appalling part (well apart from the New Humans of course) of Gene's "vision" that I have ever heard. I mean, who the hell would want to live in what is basically a hole in the ground? (Underground cities with a programmable view are still...you know, underground.) You'd go crazy from claustrophobia in a week!
Actually, this is what I'm doing: I'm saying that the storyboards that you referred me to, and which you said were in line with original intent, clearly show planets/moons in the sky. If you'd like to refer me to some evidence this time that actually supports your basic contention, I'm all ears, as they say.
Well said! And if we wait another 20 years, the "original intent" would probably change even more. I'm sure thousands of artists practice this kind of revisionism. Ask any one of them, and they ALL have ideas on how to improve their different works, or that the "original intent" hasn't been met a 100 %. Does that mean they should all tinker with their works some 20+ years later?
In general on this matter, I defer to people who actually worked on this film. Andy Probert flat out critiqued some of the DE shots as being wrong and not what was planned, so I'll take his statements over the people who worked on the DVD and who weren't on the original film. Sadly, Bob Wise isn't around to ask about this. As to everyone living underground, that's not in the movie, which clearly shows a city on the surface, just a smaller city...which wouldn't be surprising if people could easily move to other habitable planets.
Whether they should or not is something of a case-by-case basis. As long as the unaltered work is also preserved, then another version with revisions is fine. The theatrical version of TMP is still there. However, Robert Wise was never satisfied with the movie in it's theatrical form. This is simply fact. I have great love for both versions, and a little retroactive fan-wankiness, if it actually fits the film and it's universe, is fine with me. If they produce a HD version of the DE, I believe the team responsible should not stray far from the DE as presented on DVD. Perhaps very slight, subtle tweaks and upgrades to the new VFX shots, and cleaning up of compositing issues in a few places (the beginning shots of the Klingon ships being patterned by V'ger for example). I personally like the Blade Runner Final Cut approach, where the original is restored and cleaned up, and distributed in disc along with the restored DE.