Who else read it all while imagining Gene's voice?
Klingon Battle. Very exciting but I think our film would be greatly helped by anything that improves the clarity of the situation, i.e. the Klingons are attacking something dangerous and huge which is passing through their territory. Todd Ramsay and I have discussed whether the Klingon tactical grid really sells the fact that the Klingon photon torpedoes are being neutralized by the mysterious invader. If we cannot do it here then we should at least consider the possibility of further clarification on our foreign language prints by taking advantage of the fact that our translators can have our people saying almost anything we want them to say.
Interesting. I wish they would have a text overlay also reading "In Klingon space" or whatever, but it worked on its own too.
Planet Vulcan. I am not unhappy about the Vulcan scene. If you should decide you want some slight trimming of the Vulcan sequence, I see two lines by the Female Master which might trim out: "Now receive from us this symbol of total logic." Also, "Our minds, one and together." These things are shown in the action and may not need words. I leave it to you whether the trimming of a couple of lines could help the sequence enough to be worth the trouble.
The words as revealed in the movie helped, as had the on-screen translation from Vulcan to English. Just wordlessly palming his face would have jam-packed movies theaters resonating "Huh?" so loudly that all the windows would break.
Travel Pod trip around Enterprise. Agree that a trim here is clearly needed. I agree with the direction Todd is taking. I do think there is one of the Travel Pod on its outside dry dock approach which interrupts the Kirk-Enterprise emotions and have suggested to Todd that he point it out to you for possible elimination. If there is any way he can handle it smoothly, I feel that his shortened version very much needs to include the last part of the wide quartering angle on the ship in which the Pod stops and begins to back up toward the airlock.
It was a little long, but I'd rather have the whole thing than chopping it down or eliminating it. The visuals sell the point that
Enterprise is a character and is sold more tangibly than any Star Wars ship was in 1977.
Secondary Characters. Wherever possible, we should further strengthen our secondary regular characters. In light of what seems a good audience reaction in their favor, it might pay to re-examine those dialogue lines of theirs which have been trimmed from the film and possibly replace some of them. Also, wherever practical, we might re-examine whether we have sufficient reaction shots on them. An example of this would be where Kirk first arrives at the bridge and the hubbub there dies away as his old crew members become aware that their former captain is standing there at the elevator. You, of course, know best whether we have the film to give these characters their short cut moment of introduction this way. It also seems to me that our optical effects trims should much more than cover any footage added in these ways.
Roddenberry knew the non-BigThree needed more screen time. Heck, some of those scenes inside VGer cloud with the light show could have been supplanted with character stuff. One or two of the original scenes to show real-time over elapsed-time would be good, but I recall they did go on too long... But I'm a fan of the 1983 TV cut, so what do I know on this movie...
Optical footage. I really can't compliment Trumbull, Dykstra and the others enough for the opticals created in such a short time. On the other hand, I think it is time now (as we would have done in preview showings) to look at them critically and make some hard decisions when they come off (1) unclear, or (2) too slow. I certainly wouldn't want to see us panic-trim them as they are generally good and merely need some calm analysis now from the perspective of the dominant audience reactions which we have now seen.
He's not wrong, some do drag on for far too long and didn't excite the crew (or the audience) either.
Ilia on Bridge. Suggest we re-examine the possibility of staying on the Bridge for a while after Kirk has left to beam up Dr. McCoy. Ilia's line "I would never take advantage of a sexually immature species. You can assure him that's true, can't you?" is really very key to suggesting why a chastity oath was necessary to her and why Decker aro she had problems on Delta in their past. Is there some way to use some of this in a way that doesn't slow our pace? I'm concerned because these are the only lines in the film which suggest anything about why Deltans are unusual and interesting.
Gotta agree with this; what was left in the film comes off badly, laughably so (but I'd love to be in the theater in 1979 to observe how audiences of the time reacted to that initial line), and those lines of sexual immaturity do add badly needed context. (I also wonder what Gene would think of the superbug/drug-resistant diseases, which were inconceivable in the 70s as almost everything was easily treatable back then.)
Decker's computations. If we can do the above, suggest we lose Decker's line which opens Scene 122 and Ilia's following line: "Science officer's computations confirmed, sir," plus the look which passes between her and Decker at that moment. Both are a repeat of things we already know. Of course, if we cannot find a way to use the Deltan sex explanations in Scene 100, then we probably do need these lines and that look.
It's a small but interesting reminder of Ilia's origins.
Decker and Ilia in corridor. The "sexually immature species" material would help clarify and hype this scene too.
Dang, Ilia having to keep pushing Decker around. It was bad enough when Kirk was doing that!
Wormhole. Is it clear now that something (an asteroid) has been pulled into the wormhole directly ahead of us? Also, is it clear that destroying the asteroid is not the thing which got us out of the wormhole? Or maybe neither or these really matters since our pace and action are working so well for us here.
Great observation. The movie, as made, does tell it adequately.
McCoy and Spock. McCoy has come off so well in the film that we should at least consider using his line: "Never look a gift Vulcan in the ears, Jim." It might be at least worth your having a look at it to see if it plays now.
That's an interesting line. And its origin (about gift horses) was not even one made by Shakespeare!
Officer's Lounge. Do we need the final exchange between Kirk and McCoy in which they talk about whether or not Spock might betray them? It seems to me a slow end to the scene, although I prefer to go entirely on your judgment in this.
IMHO: That was a good scene and it's part of exploration of the human condition.
Entering Cloud. It seems to me that the slow pace of examining V'ger is set up and exaggerated by the fact that we begin with an even slower trip through the cloud. The inside cloud optical effects are our weakest. Our emphasis should be on our people as they wait tensely to discover what fearsome thing might be found at the heart of the cloud and the actual inside cloud shots can be trimmed drastically. Doing this also helps our characters to stand out much more strongly.
Bingo.
The cloud portion was empty padding with excessive f/x. And I adore the f/x, which try to be as surreal as claustrophobic, but something doesn't quite work. The people gawking in amazement along didn't seem to come across as tense, regardless of how many/few/any f/x shots were used. The f/x had to sell the awe and fear...
Seeing and examining V'ger. Todd and I have discussed this and I agree thoroughly with his points of view. Suggest we stay aware, however, that trimming the journey through the cloud may do more than we expect in preventing the examination of V'ger from seeming tedious and it may well be that we do not have to trim the V'ger examination as drastically as it may first have appeared. Also, I have suggested to Todd that you consider losing Sulu and Kirk's line about reducing magnification. It slows us and really does not sell the size of V'ger as we hoped it would.
Bingo.
The visuals already sell the fact that this gas cloud came from the biggest fart in history. It's redundant to bring up the magnification scene, which doesn't do much to remind if the terrifying situation they're supposed to be in.
...But I still adore the extended 1983 cut the most of them all...
V’ger's "Crew". Should we now consider using Uhura's line about "alien crew of tens of thousands" and McCoy's reply? It certainly helps make V'ger seem huge and helps keep alive the very dramatic possibility that our crew may find themselves dealing with an incredible vessel which may be filled with equally incredible aliens.
Bingo. I don't recall anything like that in the movie; a shame it wasn't used. While it turns out VGER is Nomad's bigger buddy, prior to the crew's knowing that, the speculation would have helped put a context on "can that be one of their crew?" - as well as the audience now getting to chew on the idea that tens of thousands of aliens are poised to attack Earth. Now there's some tension - none that's seen but implied, which is the best sort and it's inexpensive to do.
Enterprise entering V'ger. We need to clarify the fact that the Intruder's tractor beam is pulling us into their ship. A fairly common complaint has been the failure of the geography of what is happening. Are there some clarification lines from secondary characters which we have not used? Also, as discussed with Todd, there is dialogue from Decker which does clarify that V'ger is pulling us inside but the present cut has Decker saying this after they are inside. Suggest we strongly consider the possibility of pulling Decker's lines forward so that he says them as we are being pulled inside. My suggestion to Todd was that this line from Decker be used soon after Spock's line which says that we have been seized by a tractor beam.
Another bingo bit.
Not even a visible tractor beam is used to convey and it'd be easy to forget about after the second nap.
I recall Spock made the line and then Decker calls for DiFalco, at which point the computer, short-circuited from that last plasma bolt blast, brings up a good interlude/intermission, especially for those who didn't need snacks or to go pee:
Oh, wait, I was vacationing in the other parallel dimension where that happened...
Inside V'ger. Suggest we eliminate the business of Kirk using maneuvering thrusters once they are inside V'ger. We've already had enough maneuvering thruster business and it tends to seem slow and repetitive here. It really isn't clear that they are trying to get to a second compartment within V'ger, and so I think our action will play better and faster if we just assume our starship is trapped and we move our story briskly along to where they turn immediately to try to use their sensors to analyze this giant ship which has "swallowed" them.
That's rather a good point!
Also, his incessant use of "our" is fascinating.
General. It seems to me that any editorial revising we do should emphasize pace and character and de-emphasize opticals. Again, I suggest this not because our optical specialists have not done a fine job in the time allotted but rather because we may have been so worried about our opticals that we tended to be relieved when we did receive good optical footage and because of this we tended to use too much optical footage, and sometimes at the expense of small things which helped our characters and pace. I think this is the main thing a preview audience might have told us if we had had the opportunity to test our film in that manner.
A good point. Great f/x or not, and they are, they do eclipse the character focus and intrigue a little much.
Suggestion: Would it work if we cut the drydock sequence down and, instead of 'Ilia's Theme,' make the full version of 'The Enterprise' the overture instead?
