trevanian
Rear Admiral
I was not referring to the commentary track on the DVD, but the one you can download off of the official website that was done by the crew who worked on the Director's Edition.
And since I'm having a little difficulty understanding your motives behind this mess, what exactly do you think happened to Star Trek: The Motion Picture? The Director's Edition isn't something I would generalize as a "Revision". That would only occur if they put the NX Enterprise in the Recreation Deck or changed the Enterprise's torpedoes red. They actually left quite a bit alone. They even said they didn't want to stride off too far from how the original movie was presented, because it's still the same movie. So what is your problem with the Director's Edition?
I don't know about the track you refer to ... is there a summary available? As it is the people who worked on the DVD and not the people who worked on the original, I gotta point out that this is probably a perfect example of the revisionism I spoke of above.
As for the rest, i've posted at length over the problems with the DC, as have others. I don't for a minute think it reflects any genuine attempt to create a lasting director's cut, because any such attempt would have required a lot more money and at least a higher level of talent.
You're going to tell me that any director who still has eyesight would leave in a shot like the little guy fleeing epsilon 9, something that triggered more laughs in the theater than Kirk's 'omigod' line reading, but worry about fixing tiny continuity bits that don't really enhance the narrative, but only just dot the Is and cross (or cross out) the Ts?
If Wise had wanted to put fireballs in the vacuum of space (as they do with the DE on the asteroid blast), doncha think he'd've been able to get that from Apogee, which was made up largely with guys who had just blown up nearly everything in STAR WARS and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA?
Given that I don't agree with Wise's tastes on a lot of things, it could well be that the new sound mix is more to his liking. But if so, more's the pity, since the sound remix is maybe the worst thing on the DVD, esp in the wormhole.
I will be very happy to see the theatrical on dvd, so I don't have to hold onto the laserdisc anymore.