TMP was the best Star Trek picture
- Thread starter Valenti
- Start date
I wish they'd done something like Bob McCall's paintings portraying the Enterprise cruising through the "dimensional image"s like Spock saw, including the Klingon ships. [LINK TO PIC OF SAME]
The physical miniature had been modified to be Kronos One long before that.
Agree, that would have been wonderful on screen.
I'd have to sit through 2001 again. I recall the scene with the slitscan visual effects... TMP's f/x makers did use slitscan for those (rather amazing) inside-cloud shots that still look great to this day.
The machine planet of the future being Earth would be too much associated with "Planet of the Apes", made a decade earlier.
TMP does meander at times, but considering how movies like 'The Empire Strikes Back' were lambasted when they originally came out, it's impossible to please everybody. Movies and TV, glorified stageplays, are still art. Mind control the people and then you can get 100% appreciation of whatever garbage gets conjured up and spit out. Not sure anybody would want that, however. Not even those not in support of mind control...
Then again, we have news media going gaga over disjointed imagery came up by AI, which isn't anything more than algorithms and subroutines used in unintended ways because a human told it to do something (so there's no AI...) Sorry to digress, these streams of consciousness and all...
I don’t think I’ve seen this since 1990, and I mostly remember not an awful lot going on for most of it.
I can see the similarities with 2001 and why some fans would love it. I love 2001, but entertainment it isn’t, and I’ve seen 2001 far more times than TMP, and I read the novel at least twice.
I don’t know how I’d improve it, without it being a different movie altogether, Wounded Sky or something.
I can see the similarities with 2001 and why some fans would love it. I love 2001, but entertainment it isn’t, and I’ve seen 2001 far more times than TMP, and I read the novel at least twice.
I don’t know how I’d improve it, without it being a different movie altogether, Wounded Sky or something.
I've managed to pinpoint when I start to lose interest...the E flyby is a bit of a stretch, but I do enjoy my starship porn. No, it's the Vger flythrough with everyone just starting at the viewscreen in awe that makes me restless.
I would speculate that showing incomprehensible things is all well and good, but maybe this should have been the time to show the digitzed Klingon ships and Epsilon station. Maybe even have someone ask whether there's any chance of saving them.
Additionally, IIRC there's a point where V'ger basically traps the E in a room and the ship just...well...sits there, for a decent chunk of the picture (leading up to Spock's spacewalk). I think it must have disappointed some fans that they were seeing the ship for the first time, and then it's basically rendered powerless. This might at least have been a good time for an old-fashioned Kirk-Spock-McCoy meeting, perhaps even one that leads to Spock's decision to go outside.
I would speculate that showing incomprehensible things is all well and good, but maybe this should have been the time to show the digitzed Klingon ships and Epsilon station. Maybe even have someone ask whether there's any chance of saving them.
Additionally, IIRC there's a point where V'ger basically traps the E in a room and the ship just...well...sits there, for a decent chunk of the picture (leading up to Spock's spacewalk). I think it must have disappointed some fans that they were seeing the ship for the first time, and then it's basically rendered powerless. This might at least have been a good time for an old-fashioned Kirk-Spock-McCoy meeting, perhaps even one that leads to Spock's decision to go outside.
Last edited:
Yeah it would have been nice if the ship or even a boarding party in a shuttle could have played a more active role in the exploration section.
Having 'Liked' this, yes, I would like a 'changed' version. A fully remastered revised and completed version with all of the scenes from the various cuts and any unused scenes put in with any incomplete or substandard effects shots fixed.
Doing it as a branching version or as an additional disc would allow the standard version to be retained too.
To make TMP a "better" movie, I would've included any deleted scenes involving dialogue / cast interactions and trimmed down the Enterprise's first flyby into the V'GER cloud. They just shouldn't have made such a meal of it. Otherwise, the original version is fine. Just fine ...
I could live with a shortened V'Ger flyover but yeah, the SLV with fixed effects would be cool. Somebody has produced Kirk's exit from the ship with digital effects overlaying the ship on top of the scaffolding. It's on YouTube.
First Contact was the best Trek movie. Back to the question at hand: faster pacing.
TMP is the second-slowest movie I've ever seen, after 2001: A Space Odyssey. In both cases, you could easily cut parts away and lose nothing. Not a single line of dialogue or action, just removing parts of establishing shots (and most of the 2001 psychedelic trip part - that thing should last 5 seconds, not 10 minutes or so).
TMP is the second-slowest movie I've ever seen, after 2001: A Space Odyssey. In both cases, you could easily cut parts away and lose nothing. Not a single line of dialogue or action, just removing parts of establishing shots (and most of the 2001 psychedelic trip part - that thing should last 5 seconds, not 10 minutes or so).
I agree for the most part (just rewatched it after not having seen since its original release in '79). I had forgotten how good this one actually is and the visuals are bang-on excellent. My only real criticism is its length; if TPTB had sheared off around 15-20 minutes it would be near perfection imho.
Check Enter the Void by Gaspar Noe and TMP will seem truncated by comparison...
I have to admit that any time someone says in a general sense "just make it shorter", I flashback to the part in "Amadeus" where the Emperor claims that one of Mozart's operas has "too many notes", and Mozart asks which ones the Emperor would like him to remove.
Put another way, I find such requests a lot more credible when they include specific suggestions as to what should be shortened.
I'm not saying that this thread is full of posts making such generalized arguments, just that it never fails to amuse me when it occurs.
I'm also not claiming TMP is in the same caliber as a Mozart opera.
Put another way, I find such requests a lot more credible when they include specific suggestions as to what should be shortened.
I'm not saying that this thread is full of posts making such generalized arguments, just that it never fails to amuse me when it occurs.
I'm also not claiming TMP is in the same caliber as a Mozart opera.
Speaking for myself I'll give a couple of examples of where time could have been shaved off to tighten the activities therein:I have to admit that any time someone says in a general sense "just make it shorter", I flashback to the part in "Amadeus" where the Emperor claims that one of Mozart's operas has "too many notes", and Mozart asks which ones the Emperor would like him to remove.
Put another way, I find such requests a lot more credible when they include specific suggestions as to what should be shortened.
I'm not saying that this thread is full of posts making such generalized arguments, just that it never fails to amuse me when it occurs.
I'm also not claiming TMP is in the same caliber as a Mozart opera.
1. when the Klingons are getting enveloped by the cloud at the beginning there is s scene where a couple of crew members are observing via view screen/monitor. This lasts for several seconds from memory and imo really adds nothing since the viewer has already seen what happens from a different vantage point
2. multiple pan shots of the bridge that involve no dialogue or action pertinent to the plot (I can recall a few specifically, esp in the first 30 minutes or so of the film)
3. slightly shortening the briefing scene...
...and other similar shots. I don't think I'd be in favor if removing any one scene in its entirety, but shortening some of the shots with little or no dialogue or plot-advancing activity would have cinched things up a bit. All except for the slower shots once the crew enters the cloud around V'ger. Those were excellent, imo, for the visuals, etc.
Similar threads
