Here is my first rendering of my version of the missing Memory Wall scenes. If anybody has a functional vocoder program that could train Grace Lee Whitney's voice and is willing to have a go, please get in touch! I could only get mine to work in pre-trained models. Edit: Removed to avoid duplication - see updated version below.
What really doesn't work here is 5 solid minutes between Spock engaging the truster pack and then picking up the action with him again. It also makes Kirk look dumb. He's not chasing after Spock...he's just puttering around with Rand. Why? I get this is just for fun, but you probably need to rethink the order of the events here because it just has no rhythm or pace. Calling this the "missing memory wall scenes" isn't what you're doing. This is wholly new stuff you've used building from some scrapped footage, not the "missing" scenes as scripted.
Lol yes I didn't mean to claim that I recreated the entire scene as scripted! That would have been a feat! Apologies if you were disappointed. You are not the first person to note the big gap. I had to consider the various possible interpretations and what was possible with the existing dialogue and the pre-existing script elements from In Thy Image and the TMP comic adaptation. I also took inspiration from Dallas, Cain, and Lambert's exploration in Alien. My decision-making went thusly: 1. Ilia's dialogue talks about detecting two carbon units but clearly there is so much footage of Spock on his own, there is no way I can shoehorn Kirk in there. Spock's journey works on its own and if I want to make use of footage of Nimoy in a different spacesuit, V'Ger needs to detect two other characters. 2. Equally, if, at the other end, Kirk is also alone then the scenes are REALLY boring. He needs someone to interact with. 3. I can only use characters who are not seen elsewhere later on so Rand seemed like a decent choice. I was influenced by the fact that it would be easier to colour correct the suit from science orange to engineering red and the fact that I had already trained Deepfake of Grace to give her an extra scene earlier in the edit. 4. Spock requires less oxygen than the humans and he has blasted off at high speed. Efforts to follow him need to be more cautious. No point firing at high speed in the wrong direction, especially if he's already dead. So exploring more cautiously and setting up some kind of emergency transport relay inside seemed like something sensible for the characters to try. This is something in Rand's skill set so I cribbed Simon Pegg's dialogue from Star Trek Beyond to produce some genuine Trek technobabble. 5. One criticism of the movie is a lack of warmth so I tried to inject a bit of camaraderie. Scotty's line reinforces his comfortable relationship with Kirk. Rand is babbling (inspired by Ensign Tilly and Lambert) trying to use humour to disguise the fact that she is terrified. 6. I think existing preconceptions about Spock's jet pack might be colouring people's interpretation as well. Since the DE does not establish Spock's jet pack as a one off burst (a really questionable piece of equipment) he does not need to keep blasting continuously until his fuel runs out but more likely in shorter bursts just to ensure enough speed to get through each aperture. So we are not viewing a continuation of him blasting inside V'Ger from 5 minutes earlier, we rejoin after he has passed through the Memory Wall and has blasted through a second aperture leading to the imaging chamber. 7. So, when he says he has penetrated the next chamber this is the chamber AFTER the Memory wall and we are rejoining him after his off camera memory wall commentary. I could see no reason why the same chamber should look so different and he needs to drift back through an aperture. Hence Kirk and Rand track him to the entrance to the imaging chamber and I tried to imply that Kirk was passing out of the Memory Wall area (being the blue glow in the background). Without full on CGI it is harder to establish their journey more definitively. 8. In some respects Kirk is acting dumb. McCoy, Scotty, and Rand tried to warn him. He pretty much confesses to Rand that he's doing it for his friend just before Spock returns. I was trying to evoke a Marshall Dillon and Kitty moment as an homage to the way the development of their relationship was pitched in TOS. 9. V'ger detects Rand's tricorder rather than Spock drifting largely on momentum making visual observations. Hence V'ger only detects two life forms and it's another example of Kirk pushing for a result that has bad consequences. 10. Rand's exclamation, 'somebody's out there', is a placeholder for the attack on Kirk should rough footage ever become available. 11. This version of Kirk is puttering around with Rand but he's still doing more than DE Kirk who just sits outside the ship passively waiting while Spock travels all the way in AND all the way back at a much slower speed. At least this Kirk meets him half way. :-) Obviously, your mileage may vary but I did think quite carefully about what I was trying to achieve!
Just tweaking this - I wonder if re-using footage of Spock going through the first aperture alongside the edit of the second aperture might underscore the fact that he has gone through into a second chamber. I am going try and tweak the music so it isn't so obvious that it is re-used footage.
If the footage exists, I don't see why it couldn't be reconstructed. I do know that Kirk's initial pursuit exists, despite unfinished visual effects. I'm not sure about the rest of it, though. I did see an effort from a fan to complete the visual effects on one shot of the exterior of the Enterprise. Here's a link to this fan's effort.
Yeah I gave credit for the completed clip on the YouTube page. It does demonstrate what is possible if you have the skills and the dedication! With more CGI you could add whistles and bells the the Memory Wall (particularly to stress that activating the tricorder is what tips off V'Ger), or animate the long shots of the space suits. I was even tempted to get a hand actor to use a prop tricorder for a close up when Rand first scans for Spock. Unless the rough footage of Kirk and Spock is available and good enough to use though, I don't think a full CGI version of the attack on Kirk would be that doable. The other issue is the musical soundtrack. I just re-used the journey through the cloud as it came with its own thruster sound effects, and it was almost exactly the right length. The more you add, the harder it becomes to reconcile the music.
Finished the edit. Here is the longest hybrid edit using SLV footage: Edit: removed to avoid duplication
I think this is my final version subject to any more recommendations. I looped footage of Spock going through the aperture. It is obviously looped so i have to consider whether that is ok or whether I want to edit his first blast to remove some of the more obvious duplicated footage. I will be guided by critique on that score. The only other thing I tried to fix was Rand's CGI/Deepfake dialogue inside the wall. I've tried (not wholly successfully) to remove some of the image judder and improve lip sync. Edited as content removed
I tried to merge my up to date key changes but they got blocked in a heartbeat so I have split them in two, if anyone is interested. The technology keeps improving but I think I should leave this now until 2022 and see where the tech is when the 4k version of DE comes out. Wav2lip could lead to some fun shenanigans with the Exo6 action figures though... Edited as content removed
Just an FYI, on Navy ships the standard is for a alert klaxon to sound only a certain number of times (like 18) and then shut off. They don't sound continuously, thought flashing lights may.
I'm not surprised it gets very annoying! I split the soundtrack to keep any missing dialogue either side of the DE and keep as much HD footage as possible, which is why it goes on for the whole scene. In the DE it starts when they detect the attack and ends after they're hit so it goes on for aaaaaaaages once you add the SLV bits in. It will probably sound stranger if it stop-starts. An alternative is to use the SLV soundtrack for the whole scene and have no TOS klaxon. I wanted to do a DE hybrid, which is why I opted for keeping it for the whole scene. What's interesting in the SLV is that the powerful magnetic field also seems to be a threat since it clearly puts the ship under strain when it tries to take evasive manoeuvres.
Maybe not mentioned specifically in the script but the ship bucks visibly, Kirk looks around nervously, and an inertial stabiliser almost fails. The only other alternative explanation to what you see on screen is that the ship is struggling because Sulu is taking pretty standard evasive manoeuvres. Admittedly, that is possible but has nowhere near the drama!
Keep in mind that while V'ger may be emitting a magnetic field greater than Earth's sun, so do a lot of stars, thus a lot of places the ships visit. Also, the ship is waaaay out from the center of the cloud when they take evasive maneuvers, so it's unlikely to have any effect on the ship at Neptune-like range from the source. All the strain the ship is going through is to show that they are pushing it to the limit to try to evade the energy bolt (there are storyboards showing the ship turning hard to port and the energy bolt following). That's all.
Ah yes, I suppose ships have considerable mass even in space and they are in a high warp bubble at that point. Another reason why I loathe the hairpin turns of the non-aerodynamic ships in Into Darkness while flying in an atmosphere.
The reason the refit is by far my favourite ship is that it feels real and functional. Even the malfunctions feel functional.
I will be interested to get my hands on the new 4k upscale footage. I've been playing with head tracking and head swapping in Adobe After Effects. All the training videos opt for using green screen, which is not an option I have, so I may find I still cannot effectively transplant Spock, Chapel, or Rand into new backgrounds but the tracking options are much more sophisticated than transposing images one frame at a time so I may be able to reduce image flicker to a less distracting level. Obviously I'm not even sure that it is that easy to rip a 4k UHD movie since I don't have player attached to my laptop...