TMP - Did You Know the Movie Started?

[gottacook]

I have defended TMP here a lot and this post made me smile. The movie is Trek's epic and I would take it over the shallow Abrahms nonsense we get now any day of the week. It is a grand, sprawling, intelligent adventure that is shot beautifully.

My only possible reply to that - unfortunately - is to quote the last line of dialogue in the TV series: "If only... If only... "

As a theatrical experience, however, it was still enough for me to want to see it twice. I recall the overture, as well as the entirely black background of both the overture and the opening credits.

Someone mentioned the use of an overture in 2001. I don't recall this from theatrical showings in the 1960s. However, I've seen it with the overture - a few minutes of Ligeti's "Atmospheres" - twice: during the national tour of a restored 70mm print in 2001, and a few years ago at AFI. If it's a latter-day addition, it's not a bad one. (Somewhere I have The Making of Kubrick's 2001 - a mass market 1970 paperback that's apparently rare these days - and that book probably has the answer.)

 

[Firebird]

Someone mentioned the use of an overture in 2001. I don't recall this from theatrical showings in the 1960s. However, I've seen it with the overture - a few minutes of Ligeti's "Atmospheres" - twice: during the national tour of a restored 70mm print in 2001, and a few years ago at AFI. If it's a latter-day addition, it's not a bad one.

On a Kubrick picture? Not a chance. Once his final cut was locked, that was the movie - meaning that the overture was always there from the beginning.

 

[gottacook]

But Kubrick DID make changes just after 2001's premiere; the most important were the trims (totaling about 19 minutes) and addition of the superimposed titles of the last two sections. So in that case, he changed his mind after his "final cut." I saw the movie three times in 1968-69 and don't recall an overture, although obviously some time has passed. I think perhaps only the "roadshow" (70mm or sometimes Cinerama) versions of the original release added the overture and the intermission, and that this is the version shown in theaters today.

 

[Maurice]

I should be noted that the edits were made during the very limited earliest "roadshow" screenings, not after any kind of general release.

 

[drt]

Someone mentioned the use of an overture in 2001. I don't recall this from theatrical showings in the 1960s. However, I've seen it with the overture - a few minutes of Ligeti's "Atmospheres" - twice: during the national tour of a restored 70mm print in 2001, and a few years ago at AFI. If it's a latter-day addition, it's not a bad one.

On a Kubrick picture? Not a chance. Once his final cut was locked, that was the movie - meaning that the overture was always there from the beginning.

A local projectionist could have always trimmed it off, there was no overture on TMP when I originally saw it.

 

[Kor]

Except that TMP was all of that. It's in many wasy the best of the Trek movies - elegant, considered, intelligent and beautiful.

I just had to quote this. I have defended TMP here a lot and this post made me smile. The movie is Trek's epic .... It is a grand, sprawling, intelligent adventure that is shot beautifully.

Agree.

I also concur with these sentiments.

Kor

 

[A beaker full of death]

As others have pointed out, lots of older (epic) movies have overtures. Often they actually will show on-screen the word "overture", assuming that audiences are too stupid to get it. Maybe TMP overestimated its audience. It may have been a throwback, and perhaps pretentious, but I wouldn't call it "dumb."

I for one like overtures (at least, back in the days when trained musicians like Goldmith were doing movie music, not hacks like Elfman and Zimmer). They help set the mood and introduce the musical themes (which should match the movie's themes and characters), just as they do in operas. Music used to be an integral part of a film.

Of course, no reason not to have the credits run during the overture...

 

[Firebird]

Of course, no reason not to have the credits run during the overture...

Well, since the overture was played with the curtains still closed over the theater screen, there would be no purpose to show credits then.

 

[Indysolo]

As others have pointed out, lots of older (epic) movies have overtures. Often they actually will show on-screen the word "overture", assuming that audiences are too stupid to get it. Maybe TMP overestimated its audience. It may have been a throwback, and perhaps pretentious, but I wouldn't call it "dumb."

Actually most films did not say "Overture" on screen. That's a bit added to home video releases.

Neil

 

[Therin of Andor]

As others have pointed out, lots of older (epic) movies have overtures.

Lots of traditional cinemas still play piped music through their corridors, and before the ads and trailers come on (although tightened copyright laws in recent decades mean that whatever gets played is documented somewhere. I guess that's what made Muzak popular for elevators.)

In 1979, Sydney's Paramount Theatre had "Ilia's Theme" on an endless loop. You could hear that tune in the restrooms, the foyer and the candy bar. Having an overture on blank leaderstrip in front of movies was a way to provide consistency for cinemas showing that movie, for building the mood.

 

[A beaker full of death]

As others have pointed out, lots of older (epic) movies have overtures. Often they actually will show on-screen the word "overture", assuming that audiences are too stupid to get it. Maybe TMP overestimated its audience. It may have been a throwback, and perhaps pretentious, but I wouldn't call it "dumb."

Actually most films did not say "Overture" on screen. That's a bit added to home video releases.

Hmm... perhaps I am thinking of the musical intermission interludes.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I haven't seen many movies that have overtures in the theaters ... but I go to a lot of opera. There's something magical about the overture. It's when the rest of the world fades away and you start to be transported to a different world.

 

[golddragon71]

It's funny. sometime after my last comment I changed the order of My Star Wars (A New Hope) Tracks so that Princess Leia's Theme was the track that immediately preceded The Main Title instead of the 20thy Century Fox Fanfare. I have to say it fits very well as an overture in it's own right the way Ilia's Theme does for TMP

 

[Elder Knight]

I seem to recall that the LP and cassette soundtrack albums for STTMP began with the Enterprise theme and arranged Ilia's Theme for later. That would contribute to people forgetting about the audio-only overture. Can anybody check this?

 

[Maurice]

I seem to recall that the LP and cassette soundtrack albums for STTMP began with the Enterprise theme and arranged Ilia's Theme for later. That would contribute to people forgetting about the audio-only overture. Can anybody check this?

The version of Ilia's theme used as the overture is a shortemed version. The original soundtrack album had the full version as the fist track on side 2.

 

[Elder Knight]

Thanks.
So, if you'd seen the film once (okay, five times) and played the album every day, you'd probably misremember the overture.

 

[HGN2001]

I recall vaguely being aware that music was playing at the opening weekend showing of STTMP that I attended. The lights were about half-dimmed and the curtains over the screen were closed. But at that first showing, I was unfamiliar with "Ilia's Theme" and thought it was just pleasant Muzak-type music to begin to quiet down the audience and get them in their seats. Turns out that's exactly what the music was designed to do, but I just hadn't at first realized that it was music from the film.

During our showing at that Sunday matinee, the film broke at the climax of the movie. The management invited anyone who wanted to to stay and watch the later matinee as well. We did, so the second time through, the music was now familiar to me, and I realized that it was an overture. Our theater did it the proper way, playing the music as the lights dimmed to about half, with the curtains closed. Just before the Paramount logo, the curtains opened and the main part of the movie started.

 

[Star Trekker 1701]

I think it was really dumb for ST TMP to open on a blank screen, and stay blank throughout the overture. When I first saw it in December 1979, my companions and I had no idea the film had started. We were talking, didn't notice the coming attractions had ended, and then gradually noticed that some easy-listening instrumental was playing. But there was no sense that this was STAR TREK music, to say nothing of the film itself starting up.

I thought the projector was off and the theater was playing Muzak for some reason. Like they were having technical difficulties, and the ten year wait for this movie was about to get a little longer.

Was your theatrical experience anything like that, if you're that old?

WEST SIDE STORY opens with an overture, but there's a visual to go with it. It's a colored silhouette of the NYC skyline that very gradually resolves into a full photo. It works. TMP didn't work.

I don't know if the blank screen was an artistic decision, or a case of having no time and money left to do anything visual. I would assume it was the latter, as the blank screen seems like an insane decision-- except that the state of Gene Roddenberry's artistic judgement (and his over-the-top desire to make STAR TREK understated, high-brow, and classy) by 1979 was pretty bad.

I just put this one for the first time in years and for the first time on Paramount+. The start really through me and thought something was broken lol

 

[FredH]

No, even at age ten I knew what an overture was, and was perfectly fine with it. The Black Hole had one too.

 

[publiusr]

We can look back seeing there was more Trek scripts after TMP than before—but I think some may have looked at TMP the way we saw TUC or whatever the finale of SNW is—a way to cap off Star Trek at large.

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At the end of TMP, things were open-ended…good for novels…the crew was back together…and that would be a good note to end things on.

But if you found it boring

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