TMP the ABC telecast

[David Brown]

With all the discussion about The Motion Picture getting the recent 4K release and an upcoming director's cut 4K release, I was thinking back to the Special Longer Version. I own a copy of the SLV on both vhs tape and laserdisc, but are there any surviving copies of the ABC telecast? Particularly from the first airing in 1983?

Even though the picture quality would not be great, it seems like this would be a lot of fun to watch.

 

[gottacook]

I actually did see the broadcast, around February 1983, staying at a Red Roof Inn with my then-girlfriend-or-whatever (not a waste of time; 9 years later she introduced me to my wife-to-be). She was not a big fan of the series, whereas I'd gone to a convention (January 1975 NYC) and had seen much of the third season on NBC and the cut-down syndicated reruns since then and even had made audio tapes of several episodes.

I completely understood all the times she said something on the order of "What?!? " Anything that worked to the movie's advantage in the theater was gone. The 21" CRT screen, mono sound, and frequent commercial breaks all made the story even more incoherent, despite what may have been added to the picture.

 

[Bad Robot]

I think this is as close as you get.

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The last two are the 1987 broadcast. I would love to find an intro to the 1989 broadcast I used to have on tape. I wore that thing out, and probably never looked at it again after buying the VHS.

 

[David Brown]

Great replies. I've heard it said some of the special effects are different from the vhs/laserdisc. Such as on the space station monitoring the Klingon attack, on one of the monitors, the display was different than what was on the vhs/laserdisc.

I just figured we have the Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978, somewhere, someone must have recorded The Motion Picture in 1983. Sounds like something worthy of preserving. LLAP.

 

[Bad Robot]

Great replies. I've heard it said some of the special effects are different from the vhs/laserdisc. Such as on the space station monitoring the Klingon attack, on one of the monitors, the display was different than what was on the vhs/laserdisc.

The display would have been different, because opposite sides of the film's original 2.35 aspect ratio, for that particular shot, were favored for the 4x3 TV broadcast and VHS releases. The broadcast showed the Klingon-to-English translation coming up, the VHS showed Mark Lenard's face. On DVD and Blu-Ray (and in theater) you saw both.

It was very common between multiple generations of VHS/laserdics releases of a movie, and multiple network broadcasts of the same film, for shots to be scanned differently from what you saw in a previous VHS or broadcast.

 

[Indysolo]

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Ernie Anderson was the best!

 

[publiusr]

Good days