Some folks have commented on this after seeing TWOK in the cinema this weekend. When we see the Klingon cruisers on the viewscreen during the Kobayashi Maru there is a screen-like effect over the image. To indicate that this is a simulation, to make up for it being stock footage from TMP, I don't know. You can see it on the blu ray. When it's projected on the big screen you can REALLY see it. Thing is, I would SWEAR that this was never there before. I don't remember it from the theaters in 1982 and you can't see it on the VHS or DVD editions. Can anyone confirm of deny if this was added after the fact?
I'll try to look at the non-DE TWOK blu-ray some time this week and double check. I would do it tonight, but -ahem- I''ll be too busy seeing the TWOK DE in the theater! EDIT: Maybe this will be useful. Here are screencaps of the scene from TrekCore. The non-DE blu-ray: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=303 The DE blu-ray: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=676&page=2 Kor
The only If that is from the pre-DE blu ray (and the date of the file says 2009, so I'm guessing yes) then by gum it's there too.
I will have to even look back to my VHS from 1982 (yes I still have it!) and see if it exists on there. I could swear that the screen-like mesh was not visible on the viewscreen originally. It always looked like a matted in shot of the ships from TMP and nothing else. EDIT: here is a screencap from the original DVD release. No mesh effect. Looks like it was added for the Blu-Ray. http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=30&pid=850#top_display_media
TrekCore's screencaps of the TWOK DVD are actually from the DE, not the original: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/index.php?cat=3 If you go through them, they definitely include the stuff added for the DE, such as Preston looking at Kirk and telling him he's as blind as a Tiberian bat: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=33&page=2 So I think the mesh just isn't discernible at the lower resolution. Kor
But when I saw it in the theatre (1982, 1991, 1994 and one other time), it looked like it did on the VHS and original DVD. I always looked at it, thinking of how it was just the matted in footage from TMP. I could see the Klingon ships clearly and don't remember that mesh at all.
It completely threw me out of the movie when I watched it the other night. I spent the next two hours focusing on picture quality because I thought something was wrong with my player.
The mesh had to have been in the original 35mm print. No visual effects were created or changed for the director's edition DVD or the director's cut blu-ray, and definitely not for the 2009 theatrical edition blu-ray. Kor
I have other things that have been remastered for Blu Ray or overall digitally remastered, and little things were fiddled with from the original prints. Like BillJ, I've seen the movie quite a bit, and it wasn't until the Blu Ray releases that the mesh showed up. It isn't resolution, as seeing original prints in the theatre doesn't really have any better resolution than that.
I'm starting to lean to "always been there". The 2009 blu rays were notoriously slap dash, the 2016 was not. And the mesh is there in both. My last recourse will be to check my non-DE DVD. But I suspect the mesh isn't visible on SD which is how we've been watching this film for the better part of 35 years. So really all we have to go on is memory from 1982 with maybe the occasional screening in between. If it's always been there I don't think we can seriously complain "It took me out of the movie" can we?
Hell, I'm gonna complain! Damn mesh! Took me right out of the whole thing. All I did the rest of the movie last night was sit there, perplexed at that damn mesh! I went to the manager to see if he could run the movie back, but I left when he called the police...
See, I knew there was a reason to have access to an international group of nerds. Unless someone can say otherwise, I'll call that answer definitive. Thank you!
However, the original 35mm prints did not say "Star Trek II / The Wrath of Khan" in the main credits, just "Star Trek / The Wrath of Khan"
Are tiy sure - I saw it first run in Theatres about 5 times in 1982 (three different theaters) and I honestly recall seeing: STAR TREK II THE WRATH OF KHAN in Blue outline on a moving star field for the opening credits.