TGT, why do you hate the TMP Director's cut?

[GalaxyX]

I finally got a chance to see this movie, and I think it did great! It certainly made the film watchable, and the new FX shots don't overpower the rest of the movie, which is great.

While I liked that they actually showed V'Ger at the end, that CGI model needed a heck of a lot more detail to look the size it was supposed to be.

So why do you not like it?

 

[Shatmandu]

Three posibilities:

1: His shoes are too tight.
2: His head isn't screwed on quite right.
3: His heart is two sizes too small.

Joe, not more than two

 

[GalaxyX]

LMAO!!!

 

[trevanian]

Three posibilities:

1: His shoes are too tight.
2: His head isn't screwed on quite right.
3: His heart is two sizes too small.

Joe, not more than two

Best possibility:

he has a brain, decent taste and a pair of eyes (probably ears as well, considering the mix.)

 

[Data Holmes]

This should be fun...

 

[GalaxyX]

^^^ LMAO well I meant the thread as a serious question, but if it goes the funny route, I won't say no to laughs

 

[M'Sharak]

Three posibilities:

1: His shoes are too tight.
2: His head isn't screwed on quite right.
3: His heart is two sizes too small.

Joe, not more than two

Best possibility:

he has a brain, decent taste and a pair of eyes (probably ears as well, considering the mix.)

Very likely, but still, that misses out on the potential of the whole "How The Grinch Thing Stole The Motion Picture" tie-in. It's too bad Chuck Jones isn't around any more (not to mention Karloff and Ravenscroft); I think it would have been a hit.


M', animated

 

[trevanian]

Three posibilities:

1: His shoes are too tight.
2: His head isn't screwed on quite right.
3: His heart is two sizes too small.

Joe, not more than two

Best possibility:

he has a brain, decent taste and a pair of eyes (probably ears as well, considering the mix.)

Very likely, but still, that misses out on the potential of the whole "How The Grinch Thing Stole The Motion Picture" tie-in. It's too bad Chuck Jones isn't around any more (not to mention Karloff and Ravenscroft); I think it would have been a hit.


M', animated

If it is a matter of playing the classics, maybe OZ is where we should be going, as in:

"you too would also hate the DE ... if you only had a brain."

 

[M'Sharak]

Let's try it and see:

"You, too, would also hate the DE ... if you only had a brain."

 

[David cgc]

I finally got a chance to see this movie, and I think it did great! It certainly made the film watchable, and the new FX shots don't overpower the rest of the movie, which is great.

While I liked that they actually showed V'Ger at the end, that CGI model needed a heck of a lot more detail to look the size it was supposed to be.

So why do you not like it?

Did you ever have a friend who had crush on a girl? I mean, an extreme crush. Completely obsessed with her, totally devoted to her wonderfulness, willing to ignore any possible flaw because she was just... so... perfect. Of course, then, one day, the unthinkable happens, and he actually gets to go on a date with her. Now, after some twenty-odd years of wishing and wanting to see how perfect she is, do you think she'll actually meet those expectations? Can she possibly be that perfect? Or is she going to chew too loud, or laugh too high, or have a fucking lame red-alert klaxon?

Well, yes. Of course she'll have some flaws big, small, or middling. So now, we enter the wonderful realm of cognitive dissonance, wherein she is supposed to be perfect, but she is not actually perfect. So, it is entirely possible your friend might've pulled hard over into the other direction to resolve the conflict. Now, instead of ignoring every flaw, he seizes upon any possible flaw to explain what is, in all honesty, a disproportionate level of disappointment. Whereas before their date, he would've ignored that, too pick an example at random, her Officer's Lounge scene clearly hadn't been color corrected in stills he himself admitted were from the final master, now, he'll flip out because her ocean in the Starfleet Command establishing shots didn't have moving ripples, a detail nearly impossible to see even when you know to look for it.

Before November of '01, practically the only thing TGT would talk about was Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition, and how totally fucking awesome it was going to be, and showing he knew every possible detail about it, including stuff that hadn't come close to being publicly revealed. After, he was showing off photoshopped pictures of the effects team with their heads hung from pikes. This sort of response goes just a little past "having a pair of eyes and good taste."

 

[GalaxyX]

^^ Which is why I want to know what it is exactly that he hates about the DE??

Is it the fact that they cut down the psychedelic screen saver from 30 mins to about 15 mins? 'cause if I want to see a psychedelic show, I'll blast my favorite visualization in Winamp, or Media Player lol

Other than that the changes were minor and greatly enhanced the movie IMO, in fact, I'm gonna pop it into the DVD player again right now

 

[trevanian]

Before November of '01, practically the only thing TGT would talk about was Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition, and how totally fucking awesome it was going to be, and showing he knew every possible detail about it, including stuff that hadn't come close to being publicly revealed. After, he was showing off photoshopped pictures of the effects team with their heads hung from pikes. This sort of response goes just a little past "having a pair of eyes and good taste."

Maybe you were only looking at the posts he made relating to TOS and movies, since I recall plenty of posts he made in other categories, and about more trekstuff than TMP, certainly. But then again, I do NOT recall any of those photoshop bits you mention him creating. Was that on a different trek board?

I do know he was in contact with certain people who worked on the DE. My contact was limited to Foundation Imaging, which wanted to cooperate on an article, but SharpLineArts, technically their employer, was complaining to my publisher about my contacting them (this was during the period when their dvd release mysteriously slipped back several months, presumably to accomodate all the editing/purging of comments that seemed vaguely antiParamount.) SharpLine behaved in a way I'd associate with 90s era major studio publicists (as far as their degree of assholeishness) for Paramount or Warner, which was pretty out-there 'tude for such a little outfit.

RE: TGT/TMP ... I kinda don't get why you felt the need to go on such a longwinded parable (though it does kinda justify my going off right back.)
Being passionate about what you like usually isn't a bad thing, btw, as long as it doesn't involve kids or critters. For example, I'm sure that if the Kubrick estate can't keep Warner from messing with his 2001, then at some point you're going to see a much more extreme example of displeasure with tampering, and not just from me, but from a whole lot of seriously unhappy people.

 

[trevanian]

^^ Which is why I want to know what it is exactly that he hates about the DE??

Is it the fact that they cut down the psychedelic screen saver from 30 mins to about 15 mins? 'cause if I want to see a psychedelic show, I'll blast my favorite visualization in Winamp, or Media Player lol

Other than that the changes were minor and greatly enhanced the movie IMO, in fact, I'm gonna pop it into the DVD player again right now

SEARCH function on board would presumably let you find any number of old TMP posts, with various viewpoints represented. If the bbs is smart, then we can hope they archived his more lengthy scientific ones, as well as a lot of his more historically significant posts about TMP.

 

[David cgc]

RE: TGT/TMP ... I kinda don't get why you felt the need to go on such a longwinded parable (though it does kinda justify my going off right back.)
Being passionate about what you like usually isn't a bad thing, btw, as long as it doesn't involve kids or critters. For example, I'm sure that if the Kubrick estate can't keep Warner from messing with his 2001, then at some point you're going to see a much more extreme example of displeasure with tampering, and not just from me, but from a whole lot of seriously unhappy people.

I'll doubtless be one of them. But how many of us are going to say that whatever is being done to 2001 is the greatest thing since Shakespeare picked up a pen up until it comes out (to the degree that, in advance of its release, we advocate burning all copies of the original), and then suddenly become hard-core preservationists the second we actually see it, as if all that laudatory speech had never happened?

As for why I posted it, GalaxyX asked why The God Thing hates the DE, not what he thought was wrong with it, so that's the question I answered. I don't think the degree of contempt comes just from the quality of the job itself.

Also, are you referring to something specific with your 2001 example?

 

[Indysolo]

Anyone who was around then will have to admit that TGT (formerly, The Great Mambo Chicken, formerly, Mr. Stinky Pants) had a very abrupt about face with the release of The Director's Edition. For months he was the cheerleader and then he immediately put it down wherever and whenever possible (and still does to this day). People are certainly entitled to their opinions, but it seems like there is something more, something personal, in his tantrums against this movie.

Neil

 

[Tomalak]

I think his main complaint was that it was edited by cgi artists rather than by Bob Wise.

 

[GalaxyX]

^^^ But wasn't he surpervising it??? I mean, I don't think Robert Wise is a Computer Graphics Design expert.

 

[Joker]

Funny, everytime I go to post a topic, someone else beats me to it.

Yes, I rewatched ST:TMP Theatrical Cut a few times lately, not having seen it for years.

Verdict? The DE has a few nice additions... but I simply do not understand the majority of the changes. A list, in no particular order:

1) The computer voice. For the most part, it was fine. The only bit that bothered me, was that fucking temperature read-out when Ilia-probe arrived. Not only was it pointless, serving to tell us what we already heard seconds before ("It's white hot"), but it actually talks over the top of the Ilia-probe, rendering her inaudible, so it can tell us that she's 37.5 degrees or some such. Fine, aside from that.

2) The long effects. Bollocks. There is one instance of an overlong effects shot, which I'm pretty sure everyone who saw the film was scarred by, resulting in them saying all of the shots were too long. The scene in question is at roughly 1h05m, and has some of the best music in the film. Too bad the scene was just slightly too long at 2 minutes or so, and too slow moving.

3) Pointless changes. Adding the TOS shuttle to Starfleet Command? Why? Removing Kirk's ohmigod? Removing the EVA voice during Spock's flight? Removing Kirk's second "viewer off"? Removing his grabbing of Spock after his mind meld? So many completely random changes that made no positive impact. The computer voice, aside from the afore mentioned Ilia-probe scene, was fine as well. Why did they redo V'Ger launching the green energy at Earth? The original was fine.

4) The wing walk. With today's technology, that pathetic stuttery-ass dull grey light-blob mess was all they could manage? They weren't smoothly moving or anything, it looked fucking awful. The saucer? Grey. Everything in the scene that wasn't black? Grey. For a film that had such a vibrant blue tint throughout, to suddenly be faced with grey with such poorly rendered light blobs twitching along is pathetic.

5) The pre-wingwalk chamber. Why? Because some assholes couldn't deal with the fact that Spock's little journey didn't add up to the Enterprise finding V'Ger on the other side of the V'Ger orifice? How the hell does adding another chamber that Spock didn't see resolve that? Pointless.

6) The nacelle. For some reason, I remembered the Theatrical Cut as having a solid panel instead of a moving starfield. Until now, I thought the moving starfield was a good improvement added by SharpLine. Now, though, I see that the only thing they added was that fucking stupid looking nacelle. The concept art that they lifted that from had a totally different set, one that actually allowed having a wide impressive view of the nacelles, instead of a pathetic tiny window with one cock-eyed nacelle on it. Worthless.

7) Things they didn't do. Wow. Where to begin? With all the pointless shit they added, redoing things that were fine... why leave the matte lines around the Klingon ships? Why not straighten some of the more dubious effects shots? Why not give us that huge image of V'Ger towering over Earth and casting a shadow across the entire planet?

8) Credits. Why fuck with those at all? Why add that cheap blur effect?

To their credit, they pulled off a few decent shots of the Enterprise with the white energy balls approaching, that really did fit in.

Overall, considering the tools they have at their disposal... a fucking poor effort.

 

[trevanian]

Also, are you referring to something specific with your 2001 example?

No, otherwise I'd have been a lot more specific. Just that Warner has barely obeyed their Kubrick deal since his death (his contract mandated a theatrical reissue of 2001 in 2001, but they just circulated a single print in L.A at year's end, and then dribbled a single 70mm and single 35mm print around the country with the notion that constituted a theatrical reissue), and Warner video is always talking about doing something special with future versions on home video.

I keep thinking about the fact that the only reason Turner didn't release a colorized CITIZEN KANE was because Welles' old contract from decades earlier was written in such a way as to prohibit any such changes/tamperings. I don't know that anybody had such great fine print in a contract, so I always fear for 2001's visual integrity (movie equvalent to virtue, I guess.)

I know a lot about 2001 and have made more of a study of it that I have TMP (which is saying quite a lot), so I really do know it isn't a perfect movie. But it really is what it is, and that's plenty good enough; desaturating the dawn of man or speedramping the pod eva scenes would do nothing good for the picture, except (as they claim for tos-r) to make it more accessible to new audiences. Well, if new audiences need those kind of fixes, they probably don't deserve 2001.

If TGT hasn't responded to this thread by next week, and if I can't find any old links to his best posts on the subject, I'll weigh in with my objections to the tmp dvd as a fill-in.

 

[Therin of Andor]

they just circulated a single print in L.A at year's end, and then dribbled a single 70mm and single 35mm print around the country with the notion that constituted a theatrical reissue)

Were people being turned away from "House Full" cinemas, or was supply and demand satisfied?

desaturating the dawn of man or speedramping the pod eva scenes would do nothing good for the picture, except (as they claim for tos-r) to make it more accessible to new audiences. Well, if new audiences need those kind of fixes, they probably don't deserve 2001.

What of its SPFX makes "2001" inaccessible? Was Kubrick unhappy with the FX? I thought they were still pretty impressive in the 21st century. Grainy ol' TOS SPFX requiring CGI for HD TV, lest syndicators drop the series reruns, is another matter entirely.

If TGT hasn't responded to this thread by next week, and if I can't find any old links to his best posts on the subject, I'll weigh in with my objections to the tmp dvd as a fill-in.

Before his death, Robert Wise got to finish the film he was forced to release unfinished way back in 1979. Sure, it might not have had the right building on the right rock on the shore of San Francisco Bay, but it sure made the movie more accessible to modern-day ST fans who'd always rejected it as an "odd numbered film", overly long and boring.

I'm one of TMP's biggest fans, since December '79. But I was also excited by the VHS release of the "Special Longer Version" (warts, visible pieces of soundstage and all), loved the DVD-DE, and recently downloaded the theatrical version from iTunes. It's possible to love and enjoy all three versions without one's head exploding.