With all due respect to Mr. Wise, who was a fantastic director, he is wrong. The sequence is perfect as it is. And by the time they did the Director's Edition, in 2001, he had changed his mind and chose not to shorten it.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
Nah, he was right. To some fans it's perfect. To most audiences, it's tediously long. You could whack most of the shots from outside the dock because they add nothing and give away too much of the ship before the big reveal. Also, that stupid hexagonal light didn't merit its closeup.
I also think some of the DE decisions were things he was talked into by the enthusiastic fans who worked on it.
Wise is right about the drydock scene. (I KNOW!) But by the time he could have re-cut (certainly by 2000) it had been scored with one of the most gorgeous pieces of film music OF ALL TIME! (<-- Echo effect, please.) Even in the DE (2001 overseen by Wise and 2022 following his edit) they didn't touch it.
Unlike the score for the cloud sequences where Goldsmith intentionally scored with looping figures and breakpoints because he assumed that it was going to get edited down. And in 2001 they did edit it down. And in 2022 they did a better job with the music edits.
Heck, you can grab quite a few seconds back by cutting the shot of the travel pod flying away from the Enterprise while the music builds up steam for The Big Reveal. Gorgeous score. Stupid shot.
Unlike the score for the cloud sequences where Goldsmith intentionally scored with looping figures and breakpoints because he assumed that it was going to get edited down. And in 2001 they did edit it down. And in 2022 they did a better job with the music edits.
Heck, you can grab quite a few seconds back by cutting the shot of the travel pod flying away from the Enterprise while the music builds up steam for The Big Reveal. Gorgeous score. Stupid shot.
Since the travel pod, was designed as a free space turbolift... it most likely accelerated, best acceleration, so thirty seconds would be the typical travel time. All under typical computer control as are the turbolifts. But! Free space having slightly different rules.
Before I stopped listening to the Inglorious Treksperts podcast, I really started getting this impression as well whenever they did an episode covering the DE with Fein, Matessino, and Dochterman. Somewhere along the way, they lost objectivity and listened to their fannish temptations (like the unnecessary TOS shuttle in the SF tram sequence).
I still love the hell out of the Director’s Edition, but to some degree, that moniker is a misnomer.
he wasn't wrong. Time may have been kind to the movie now, but reception of the first film wasn't universally great, and production was expensive. TWOK had to be done on a quarter of the budget, and without the "help" of Roddenberry. Gene got his "Where Nomad Has Gone Before" and someone else had to save the franchise, slow majestic Goldsmith scored space taxi rides, and all.
I don't think it's exactly wrong to have TMP be set just 18 months/2 years, rather than 10 years, after the end of the original show, it's maybe a slightly weird decision but not a bad one, I do agree it's nice that TWoK then allowed significant, roughly real amount of time to have passed but despite that don't think the initial decision was real big mistake, both fine decisions.
I hear what you're saying and I have areas where I certainly agree. But in most of the places where it matters (i.e. the edit) I think it's as much Wise's final statement on the film as any directorial effort can be.
Much of the effort and the press around it does somewhat erase any influence or credit that Roddenberry may have contributed. I have issues with some of his involvement but I don't think him not being on the picture would have been all upside.
I HATE that shuttlecraft. And that was there when Wise was alive. I don't know if "No TOS in TMP" came from Paramount or Wise himself back in 1979, but clearly either he had softened on it or it never came from him in the first place.
While the DE team has admitted that they felt that their mission statement had changed between 2001 and 2022 ("Nothing that couldn't have been done in 1979" to "Future-proof the movie") I think the bedrock of 2001 was solid enough that they didn't really do anything too subversive in the 2022 version. It's still not a Star Wars SE situation.
One day I will do the Tallguy Edit and the original Golden Gate painting (still seen in Voyager), the original tram station, and the original Officer's Lounge (with Wise's edit) are all going back in.
I suspect that had a lot more to do with not wanting to edit down Jerry Goldsmith's score than Wise changing his mind about the drydock scene being too long.
This entire story just didn’t feel like Star Trek to me. It seemed more mean spirited. The actress who portrayed Lucero was quite good, but the character was so un likable. But…that’s just me. So I like your suggestion about where she ends up
Why do you say that TMP was set just 18 months/2years after the end of the original show?
And don't go to the Star Trek Chronology and look it up there. That is the official chronlogy used by writers since it was published. It is not the accurate chronology unless the Okudas did an absolutely perfect job as historians working out the chronology from evidence in the episodes and movies.
According to the dialog written in the script for TMP, TMP must be at least 18 months since the end of the 5 year mission, since the Enterprise has been being rebuilt for that long.
According to dialog, TMP is at least 2.5 years since the end of the 5-year-mission, since Kirk has been chief of starfleet operations for that long.
According to dialog, it is at least 2.5 years since the end of the 5-year-mission, since Kirk has not "logged a single star hour" for that long. I guess that means that Kirk has not been the commander of an interstellar space vehicle, or maybe a duty officer on an intersteallar space vehicle, for 2.5 years. It might possibly mean that Kirk has not traveled as a passenger in any interstellar space vehicle for 2.5 years.
And presumably TMP should probably be before WOK and so presumably less than 15 years after
"Space Seed".
Thus it would be possible for Kirk to be a commodore in command of a starbase for several years after the end of the five year mission, before returning to Earth 2.5 years before TMP.
Pike thought she was ready, and he had a pretty good record with future captains under his supervision, in any universe. A captain doesn't have to be liked. Not every ship is run by a TNG clique in love with their skipper. NX-01 never felt like a love fest. Archer wasn't really that likeable, but he was respected, and he made some astoundingly bad decisions. Picard lost his first command, also. Kirk could be a jerk, but again respected.
Except GR said otherwise. It's 2 1/2 years since the five year mission as seen in Star Trek. No need to overthink it.
The five-year mission ended in 2270. TMP takes place in 2273.
It's really no more complicated than that.
It's really no more complicated than that.
just enough time for Chapel to get her MD. I much prefer the long gap between TMP And TWOK to a long gap between TOS and TMP. In TMP Kirk hasn't really come to terms with the regret he feels at having left the captain's chair. If he wants a captain's chair he'll just use a crisis to demote the very person he recommended for his old job. But by TWOK his life is not where it needs to be.
One interpretation of TMP and the movies which I think is interesting is to look at Kirk as an unpopular figure with the brass at Starfleet, and his promotion to admiral was basically putting him into a desk job that he's constantly trying to escape from.
That Kirk is popular with the public (e.g., the media excitement of his tour of the Enterprise-B in Generations) and his officers, but he may have stepped on too many toes among those who are in charge.
That Kirk is popular with the public (e.g., the media excitement of his tour of the Enterprise-B in Generations) and his officers, but he may have stepped on too many toes among those who are in charge.
- He has to pull strings to get the Enterprise back in TMP.
- Kirk is despondent on his birthday about what his career and life has become in Wrath of Khan (i.e., McCoy: "I'm your doctor and I'm also your friend. Get back your command! Get it back before you turn into part of this collection, before you really do grow old.")
- Even as an admiral, Kirk doesn't have the political power to stop the Enterprise's decommissioning or to get the head of Starfleet to consider sending help to Genesis in Search for Spock.
- And, even beyond the conspiracy within Starfleet, the brass don't even consult or consider his opinion before pushing the mission onto him in The Undiscovered Country. The conspirators think so little of him as to frame him as a patsy.
It is also possible that he was a Rockette for a period of time between TOS and TMP. Though, much like your scenario, nothing in the film supports it.
Starships like all ships are female.
The ancient definition of 'porn' is any picture of a woman. In particular "drawn ".
Note in Russia, my understanding is that a ship is called 'he'.
*Sadly puts away cork board, red string, push pins, and abacus*
I would’ve been interested!
Similar threads
- Locked
