The Shape of the V'Ger Cloud

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.
 
I gotta agree with Trevanian on this one. Despite Sharpline's claims, there's too much about the DE that clearly was NOT the original intent of Wise and the crew to believe that it represents anything like what Wise actually intended. For instance, changing the air tram station to add that extra level and a TOS shuttlecraft...a pointless exercise that violates the original shot and changes the design of the tram station (as made clear by the deleted shot of its exterior).

3248864036_e7ebf11b1c_o.jpg


Likewise, replace actual plate photography of Spock on Vulcan and the actor actors on the "wing-walk" with CGI smacks of it being easier to built it all in CG than to have to create mattes to match with the live action plates. I read several interviews with Wise in the time shortly after TMPs release, and the things he said he wanted to do with the film if given more time are not the same things we got in the DE.

As to the V'ger cloud, I seriously doubt that it was Wise's idea to shrink it. It's one of those changes that means nothing since most of the audience doesn't have an idea what an A.U. is. My guess is someone at Sharpline felt it was too big and suggested it to Wise.
 
Last edited:
I read several interviews with Wise in the time shortly after TMPs release, and the things he said he wanted to do with the film if given more time are not the same things we got in the DE.

Ya. How dare Robert Wise actually change his mind over a 20 year period.

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.
Why not just download the track and listen to it for yourself? It's free.

Considering that the people who did work on the original didn't get a lot of things right, like Vulcan being a volcanic planet with no skies and at least four moons when there shouldn't be any at all, the overly intrusive red-alert klaxon, the male computer that won't shut up about the obvious, I think the new team did a fairly good job for accomplishing what would have been possible had there been more time.

Robert Wise is not George Lucas dangit!
 
Considering that the people who did work on the original didn't get a lot of things right, like Vulcan being a volcanic planet with no skies and at least four moons when there shouldn't be any at all, the overly intrusive red-alert klaxon, the male computer that won't shut up about the obvious, I think the new team did a fairly good job for accomplishing what would have been possible had there been more time.

Robert Wise is not George Lucas dangit!

How you define original team? The excellent matte artists originally assigned to do Vulcan had their work discarded in favor of some other hacks (there is plenty of photographic proof to support this, if you'd care to research the issue at all) for the theatrical release, so original intent is again being smeared or confused with expediency. There is a ton of 78/79 artwork for San Francisco that was not for used any version of the film which is miles better than the DVD's amateurish looking city.

Did you ever see Willie Mays during his last world series? It was really painful, he was misjudging fly balls, which just shouldn't have happened. I don't have any information to suggest the same sort of painful fallibility didn't happen to Wise, yet the revisionism certainly points to the possibility that it did, or that SharpLine just conned him.

If you've got a point of view on this fine, but go do some homework on the subject so we're all on the same page and the rest of us don't have to try to bring you up to speed on ancient history. Read the old CFQs and FANTASTIC FILMS and CINEFEXs and especially the unauthorized pioneer press trek books, try to get a sense of what sounds like BS and what sounds like honest regret (or honest rage), then come back and reopen this discussion. And read the Mike Minor interview from ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS, too, that is a great perspective, since he was on Phase II, yet also worked on TMP and saw firsthand how things got screwed up or forgotten about.
 
The excellent matte artists originally assigned to do Vulcan had their work discarded in favor of some other hacks (there is plenty of photographic proof to support this, if you'd care to research the issue at all) for the theatrical release, so original intent is again being smeared or confused with expediency.

Plate photography at Yellowstone and Mike Minor's concept art (all of which had to be approved by Robert Wise):

GolPlateau_MMinor.jpg


Matthew Yuricich in his MGM office putting the finishing touches on one of the Vulcan matte paintings:

VulcanPlateau_MYuricich.jpg


TGT
 
I think it is shaped like a pillow, because it sure as shit puts me to sleep.

Joe, driving by
 
How you define original team?

Uh, the people who made Vulcan into a volcanic planet with no sky and four moons?

There is a ton of 78/79 artwork for San Francisco that was not for used any version of the film which is miles better than the DVD's amateurish looking city.

But there was no city in the Director's Edition, only a temple and an open field. Maybe you're thinking of the city that CBS added into the remastered version of Amok Time?
 
How you define original team?

Uh, the people who made Vulcan into a volcanic planet with no sky and four moons?

There is a ton of 78/79 artwork for San Francisco that was not for used any version of the film which is miles better than the DVD's amateurish looking city.

But there was no city in the Director's Edition, only a temple and an open field. Maybe you're thinking of the city that CBS added into the remastered version of Amok Time?
:rolleyes:
 
How you define original team?

Uh, the people who made Vulcan into a volcanic planet with no sky and four moons?

There is a ton of 78/79 artwork for San Francisco that was not for used any version of the film which is miles better than the DVD's amateurish looking city.

But there was no city in the Director's Edition, only a temple and an open field. Maybe you're thinking of the city that CBS added into the remastered version of Amok Time?

What about the words 'San Francisco' make you think I'm talking about Vulcan in that sentence? And based on the few minutes and several screen caps I've seen of Tos-Retarded, I'm not about to watch any of those episodes, so no, I wouldn't be referencing the paramount digital effort.

As for your other remark about Vuclan further up, as I indicated in my previous post, the original team that produced a viable looking Vulcan for TMP was Trumbull's EEG, led by M Yuricich. His work (which is referenced in this thread already) was discarded by Paramount in favor of the confusing POS in the theatrical. As for the volcanic-looking aspect, that was always in there, as soon as they started live-action, before any of the credited VFX people were working the show. In fact, that Yellowstone stuff was the first live-action shot for the film.

I've been listening to the commentary you mentioned in the last hour (not sure how much longer I can last) and have already noticed a few factual errors, such as crediting Dykstra with the wormhole laser effect and miscrediting Yuricich with one of the terrible Vulcan matte shots. About the only new info was about tests of Spock dressed as a savage when boarding the ship, but that tidbit doesn't outweigh the erroneous stuff. This kind of stuff crops up on most Okuda text tracks I've read, but there it is more excuseable given he has next to no time to put those together and other people edit them. With this, you'd figure these folks could have done a bit of factchecking and that they certainly would have had the time to do so, if they were so inclined.
 
Ya. How dare Robert Wise actually change his mind over a 20 year period.
And herein lies the problem. Even if the accusations of Sharpline's people really running the show rather than Wise are not true, this was never an attempt to complete the film according to Wise's original vision as he would have done it in 1979. Rather, it was an attempt to complete the film according to how Wise would have done it in 2001. And that's what I can't stand about it, or about the Star Wars revisions, or about generally anything that a filmmaker goes back and revisits years later.

It is my firm belief that filmmakers should leave the films alone once they complete them. Trying to go back and 'improve' or 'complete' the film 15 or 20 years later never works well, as there is always a different perception of how things should be done than there was in the beginning.

The one film I give an exception to is Superman II, because that circumstance was pretty well totally unique in the history of filmmaking, and the original director's film was never even completed nor released.

However, even in this case, Richard Donner himself acknowledged that he needed to maintain a respectable distance from the work on the Richard Donner Cut because, as he himself admitted, he makes films differently today than he did back then, and that would make it impossible for him to restore the film to how it should have originally been released. So he was consulted throughout the project, but the project itself was essentially done by editor Michael Thau.

And that's the only way I think it can be done well (regardless of whether or not you think Thau did a good job).
 
Ya. How dare Robert Wise actually change his mind over a 20 year period.
And herein lies the problem. Even if the accusations of Sharpline's people really running the show rather than Wise are not true, this was never an attempt to complete the film according to Wise's original vision as he would have done it in 1979. Rather, it was an attempt to complete the film according to how Wise would have done it in 2001. And that's what I can't stand about it, or about the Star Wars revisions, or about generally anything that a filmmaker goes back and revisits years later.

It is my firm belief that filmmakers should leave the films alone once they complete them. Trying to go back and 'improve' or 'complete' the film 15 or 20 years later never works well, as there is always a different perception of how things should be done than there was in the beginning.

The one film I give an exception to is Superman II, because that circumstance was pretty well totally unique in the history of filmmaking, and the original director's film was never even completed nor released.

However, even in this case, Richard Donner himself acknowledged that he needed to maintain a respectable distance from the work on the Richard Donner Cut because, as he himself admitted, he makes films differently today than he did back then, and that would make it impossible for him to restore the film to how it should have originally been released. So he was consulted throughout the project, but the project itself was essentially done by editor Michael Thau.

And that's the only way I think it can be done well (regardless of whether or not you think Thau did a good job).

That's a good example, and I can think of one other that is kinda similar. One of the real greats of filmmaking in this era is editor/soundguy Walter Murch, and he got to recut TOUCH OF EVIL according to Orson Welles' largely ignored 58 page memo to Universal. This is a case of one genius sublminating his own instincts in some instances, going with them in others, in order to create something nearly half-a-century later that is well and truly a representative vision of what the long-dead director had wanted all along.

We're talking different kinds of filmmaking with Welles and Wise, since in one case you're addressing genuine artistry regardless of the pricepoint of shooting, vs another guy who despite some good and great films (ANDROMEDA and DAY THE EARTH) was more of a skilled craftsman than a genius. But in any case, it isn't like this was Murch recutting TOUCH according to Welles notes from 1980 or some other decades-removed situation.

It'd be interesting to see what a really artistic type could do with TMP editorially, or if anybody would even try. Kinda reminds me of one of the attempt folks made to salvage HEAVEN'S GATE. Studio gave it to a couple really good editors, all the miles of footage, and let them review and play with it for months. At the end of that time, they got all those reels back very neatly, with no ideas from the guys on how to do anything new with what they had in the can. Kind of 'why bother trying?'
 
As for the volcanic-looking aspect, that was always in there, as soon as they started live-action, before any of the credited VFX people were working the show. In fact, that Yellowstone stuff was the first live-action shot for the film.

That much I know and it's depicted as such even in the Director's Edition. But for all it's so-called flaws and apparent lack of logic, I still find the Director's Edition o be superior to the original cuts of the film.

And to be quite honest, I do recall that Wise, even though times do change, didn't want the new effects in the film to look like they couldn't have been done back in the day. The only downside to this is that it had to be done in CGI, which obviously looked very CGI'ish.

Oh, that space man escaping the Epsilon 9, what's funny about it?
 
I read several interviews with Wise in the time shortly after TMPs release, and the things he said he wanted to do with the film if given more time are not the same things we got in the DE.

Offhand, do you recall some of those things?

I saw the Comic-Con preview of the DE, and Wise didn't seem all together "there" during the panel. He read off note cards and didn't seem able to connect with the audience or answer their questions well. Perhaps, it was nerves. I really can't say.
 
Oh, that space man escaping the Epsilon 9, what's funny about it?

Assuming you're not being facetious in asking, I will say that it is perhaps the least credible full-screen spacewalking figure I can remember seeing in an american-made movie, and that includes MAROONED.

We assume it is being animated to indicate the guy is pulverized by vger or tripping over a foreground beam, but the movement strongly suggests a puppet who has a string break, plus the doll does not withstand fullscreen scrutiny here (which is odd, because it is a very well done puppet -- see my avatar or drexfiles.wordpress.com .)

The scoring of the scene and the cut back to rec deck is doubly unfortunate, because it makes it seem like we've seen a trauma that is NOT supposed to be funny or funny-looking.
 
I saw the Comic-Con preview of the DE, and Wise didn't seem all together "there" during the panel. He read off note cards and didn't seem able to connect with the audience or answer their questions well. Perhaps, it was nerves. I really can't say.

Well, he was 88 years old at the time.
 
Am I correct in recalling that the fallen statue head and foreground platforms in front of Spock were a foreground minitature?

As to the Wise comments in the aftermath of TMP: I'll look to see where I have the interviews in question. I have a pretty big morgue of magazine clipping about the film.
 
I read several interviews with Wise in the time shortly after TMPs release, and the things he said he wanted to do with the film if given more time are not the same things we got in the DE.

Ya. How dare Robert Wise actually change his mind over a 20 year period.
When you're touting something as the director's original vision...damn right, then changing your mind makes that claim a lie.
 
Back
Top