TMP - from hater to avid fan…

[CoveTom]

It doesn't help that the DE doesn't cut the film as sharply as Wise indicated in a 1980 interview, where he said the film could be shortened by at least 6½ minutes. He wanted to trim the precious drydock scenes that some hardcore TMP enthusiasts think is untouchable because of the music. It's not. It shoulda been whacked by over a minute as Wise said in that same interview.

Honestly, the entire sequence of the Enterprise passing through the cloud and then the interminable flight over V'Ger could have been excised (at least in retrospect; I am in no way denigrating the work of Syd Mead) to shorten the pace even further. Because there was really no need for such an elaborate and time-consuming shot just to say 'wow, that's a really big ship.' It's not like Star Wars spent 15 minutes camera panning through the Death Star.

I think the changes being discussed here would be the ruination of the film.

 

[Maurice]

Tightening scenes is not the same thing as chucking them. If Wise had had the time to make the edits he wanted before the film was released, we'd be used to them and no one would question their wisdom.

 

[Firebird]

Just a shame Paramount never gave Wise an opportunity to do a re-edit of the film sooner after release in 1980 or 1981. Some of the memos I've seen post-release from Roddenberry, Wise, and Todd Ramsay seem to indicate there was a possibility of it happening.

I'd have been interested to see what his fine cut of the film would've been when things were still fresh in his mind... and weren't influenced by some of the fannish intentions of the DE team who introduced things that had no business being there (I still hate that TOS shuttle in the SF Tram sequence).

 

[Iamnotspock]

The music exists in full form even were it edited for use in the film. Lots of amazing cues were edited to service changes in the picture. The tail oughtn't wag the dog.

It'd hurt the dog to cut off its tail. Lines can be trimmed here and there but, (and I stress) for me, some aspects - like music and picture - are just inextricably linked once the film is out there.

 

[CoveTom]

Tightening scenes is not the same thing as chucking them. If Wise had had the time to make the edits he wanted before the film was released, we'd be used to them and no one would question their wisdom.

Would you trim the stargate sequence in 2001?

 

[Maurice]

Just a shame Paramount never gave Wise an opportunity to do a re-edit of the film sooner after release in 1980 or 1981. Some of the memos I've seen post-release from Roddenberry, Wise, and Todd Ramsay seem to indicate there was a possibility of it happening.

I'd have been interested to see what his fine cut of the film would've been when things were still fresh in his mind... and weren't influenced by some of the fannish intentions of the DE team who introduced things that had no business being there (I still hate that TOS shuttle in the SF Tram sequence).

Yep. This is what I'm referring to.

It'd hurt the dog to cut off its tail. Lines can be trimmed here and there but, (and I stress) for me, some aspects - like music and picture - are just inextricably linked once the film is out there.

But then why does that only apply to the drydock? The DE edited the cloud and V'ger flyovers and made music edits to do so. It's the same thing.

Would you trim the stargate sequence in 2001?

That's a disingenuous question. I'm discussing what Wise himself said he wanted to do to his film just after its release, not what an outsider would do to someone else's film. I defer to his contemporary judgment about the film edit he wanted (not what he consented to 20 years later).

EDITED TO ADD: And Kubrick himself cut 2001 by something like 19 minutes after gauging the audience reaction to the first road shows of the film.