The elusive lost “memory wall” scene from The Motion Picture

[Maab]

I think everybody here is more or less familiar with the famous lost “memory wall” scene from The Motion Picture (more info here and here).

I wanted to express my disappointment with the Complete Adventure 4K TMP edition released a couple of years ago. The fact is that new footage from the “memory wall” scene had been found, but it has NOT been included among the extra contents. A brief glimpse of the new found footage can be seen in the documentary “The Human Adventure”
Only the test footage already released was included among the extra contents.
Here are a couple of screengrabs from the newly found footage.

http://marcellorossi.info/TMPMemory1.jpg

http://marcellorossi.info/TMPMemory2.jpg

All of this has been confirmed by David C. Fein.

So my question is: why? Why not include the new retrieved footage?
To keep it for another - more definitive - release? For some obscure pleasure in keeping secrets?
This is beyond my comprehension.

By the way other extras which have NOT been included (and should have) are:
- The behind the scene making of which has been circulating on YouTube for several years and which was extensively used in the documentary
- The NATO promotional reel
- The complete original EPK (this is incomplete)
- The Apogee demo reel with unused special effects
- The unaltered deleted scenes where the probe kills one of the security guard
…

By the way also the "memory wall" test footage announced here more than 10 years ago has never been released.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The answer is simple: budget.
Even the 4K DE had to comply with its estimated budget. To prepare even more footage for 4K takes money.

IIRC, no clean copy of the “Making of” film was ever located. The serialized one on YouTube is in extremely poor shape.

We were very lucky to get what we did.

 

[Maab]

The answer is simple: budget.
Even the 4K DE had to comply with its estimated budget. To prepare even more footage for 4K takes money.

Maybe, but I'm not convinced: the footage was already there, and it was already in 4K. They used it in the documentary "The Human Adventure". It wouldn't have costed anything to add one more clip among the extra contents.
They spended money for a lot of (relatively interesting) screen animations and NOT for the memory wall footage?

IIRC, no clean copy of the “Making of” film was ever located. The serialized one on YouTube is in extremely poor shape.

They do have a clean copy of the making of. A lot of clips from it can be seen in the documentary "The Human Adventure".

We were very lucky to get what we did.

As I said, it doesn't seem a good job to me.

 

[Therin of Andor]

If you already have the clip of the Memory Wall, why do you need it elsewhere?

 

[Maab]

If you already have the clip of the Memory Wall, why do you need it elsewhere?

Unfortunately I don't have it. Only few seconds can be seen during the documentary "The Human Adventure".

 

[Firebird]

I seem to recall an interview with the DE team on an episode of Inglorious Treksperts where they decided that the footage "wasn't very good" and made the call to not include it. This is a change from the narrative they pushed prior to 2022 where they said only tests had been completed before Wise killed the sequence, which isn't supported by the camera reports. I don't think it was necessarily an issue of budget in this case.

Personally, I'm not in favor of the team making that judgment call when there's few people left around from the production to even care anymore. I think they're trying to protect Robert Wise's legacy/memory, but lack objectivity at this point because they've been attached to this project for nearly 30 years.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think they're trying to protect Robert Wise's legacy/memory, but lack objectivity at this point because they've been attached to this project for nearly 30 years.

Balderdash.

 

[JamesRye]

I don't know....sources from 30 years ago like David Gerrolds World of Star Trek said the footage was "embarrassing" and in Enterprise Incidents, Trumbull described the sequence as "unfilmable".

Robert Wise certainly wasn't happy with it.
https://forgottentrek.com/the-motion-picture/producing-the-memory-wall-sequence/

 

[Maab]

Robert Wise certainly wasn't happy with it.
https://forgottentrek.com/the-motion-picture/producing-the-memory-wall-sequence/

Well, this is certain, but the equally ridiculous test footage WAS released (with empty suits flying and a man hanging by threads). So why not to include also the new retrieved footage?

 

[Pauln6]

I think everybody here is more or less familiar with the famous lost “memory wall” scene from The Motion Picture (more info here and here).

I wanted to express my disappointment with the Complete Adventure 4K TMP edition released a couple of years ago. The fact is that new footage from the “memory wall” scene had been found, but it has NOT been included among the extra contents. A brief glimpse of the new found footage can be seen in the documentary “The Human Adventure”
Only the test footage already released was included among the extra contents.
Here are a couple of screengrabs from the newly found footage.

http://marcellorossi.info/TMPMemory1.jpg

http://marcellorossi.info/TMPMemory2.jpg

All of this has been confirmed by David C. Fein.

So my question is: why? Why not include the new retrieved footage?
To keep it for another - more definitive - release? For some obscure pleasure in keeping secrets?
This is beyond my comprehension.

By the way other extras which have NOT been included (and should have) are:
- The behind the scene making of which has been circulating on YouTube for several years and which was extensively used in the documentary
- The NATO promotional reel
- The complete original EPK (this is incomplete)
- The Apogee demo reel with unused special effects
- The unaltered deleted scenes where the probe kills one of the security guard
…

By the way also the "memory wall" test footage announced here more than 10 years ago has never been released.

I was disappointed that they didn't release the Memory Wall with the latest update but that was my only disappointment.

I started a lockdown project to create a hybrid version of the SLV and the DE using Adobe Premier Pro but I thought it might be nice to give Janice Rand a cameo in the second half of the movie. What started as a desire just to giver her a brief open-mouthed cameo in the cloud scene spiralled a bit when I decided to include the Memory Wall.

When I eventually decided to have a go at re-incorporating the available parts of the Airlock scene and Memory Wall sequence, it became apparent that they would be dull without some dialogue. Inspired by the landing party of Dallas, Cain, and Lambert from Alien, I decided to place Rand inside Spock's original spacesuit to see what I could do. Using a mixture of Realillusion Character Creator and Iclone, Wav2Lip, Deepfake, Spleeter, Deepvoice, Gimp, Adobe After Effects, and snippets of dialogue from Star Trek episodes, movies, and other shows (such as the Outer Limits, the Rifleman, Death Valley Tales, and the Wonderful World of Disney), I tried to stitch together a coherent narrative using what little footage was available. I used rotoscoping, vocoding for both Kirk and Rand, and my first attempts at pasting Rand inside Spock's spacesuit. Rand's close up used a CGI avatar with a layer of Deepfake. Changing the colour of Kirk's spacesuit to red was a problematic issue.

I tried to pick dialogue that implied more cameradierie between Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Rand. I wanted to capture some of the, originally intended, vibe of her being Miss Kitty to his Marshall Dillon, so they try to keep each other's spirits up with a bit of banter.

It was a bit of a nutty project and I had never done any of this before but it was fun to do overall. I would have loved to see what people with actual artistic ability, skill with CGI and proper sound editing experience could have done.

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I did wonder if perhaps they might be saving it for a project in the future, where they can do a proper job on the CGI but I expect I will be long gone by then!


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[valkyrie013]

I just want a copy of the old ABC For TV version. It can be in non HD for all aIl I care, It always feels like i'm missing scenes when i watch the movie now.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I just want a copy of the old ABC For TV version. It can be in non HD for all aIl I care, It always feels like i'm missing scenes when i watch the movie now.

The "Special Longer Version", the one that premiered on the US ABC TV, is on the 4K disc of the theatrical version in the "Complete Adventure" set, using seamless branching.

"This must-have, limited collector’s edition — THE COMPLETE ADVENTURE — exclusively contains the 'Special Longer Version' of STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, alongside the original 1979 theatrical cut, in 4K UHD in deluxe packaging with unique collectibles. Additionally, a disc has been included with hours of new and legacy special features, including extensive behind the scenes footage, never-before-scenes deleted scenes, and more."
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Directors-Complete-Adventure/dp/B0B45BZZCH

 

[Pauln6]

The "Special Longer Version", the one that premiered on the US ABC TV, is on the 4K disc of the theatrical version in the "Complete Adventure" set, using seamless branching.

"This must-have, limited collector’s edition — THE COMPLETE ADVENTURE — exclusively contains the 'Special Longer Version' of STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, alongside the original 1979 theatrical cut, in 4K UHD in deluxe packaging with unique collectibles. Additionally, a disc has been included with hours of new and legacy special features, including extensive behind the scenes footage, never-before-scenes deleted scenes, and more."
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Directors-Complete-Adventure/dp/B0B45BZZCH

Yeah, if that's your preferred version, the 4k SLV looks and sounds really good.

 

[Maab]

The "Special Longer Version", the one that premiered on the US ABC TV, is on the 4K disc of the theatrical version in the "Complete Adventure" set, using seamless branching.

Right, but only in the English editions: in the Italian/French/German/Spanish editions the "Special Longer Version" is not included and there is no seamless branching, since they didn't have the dubbing for the added scenes (despite the fact that the Special Longer Version had been completely dubbed in German for the VHS release, and the fact that they could have used subtitles for the extra scenes - another reason of disappointment for me).

Aside from this, the Special Longer Version has been released in VHS and Laser Disc, so it can be easily found on Ebay.

 

[drt]

Balderdash.

Yeah, if they cared about Wise’s legacy, they would have used his notes from 1979/1980 about what he could have changed after the fact.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yeah, if they cared about Wise’s legacy, they would have used his notes from 1979/1980 about what he could have changed after the fact.

Which items were not used, considering that Robert Wise worked with the team for the first version of the DE, and that he narrated a commentary for it, pointing out things he wanted to, and was able to change, after all that time. AFAIK, everything that was changed was fully discussed with Wise.