Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Director's Edition
Often hailed as love-it-or-hate-it fare among Star Trek fans, Star Trek: The Motion
Picture remains possibly my favorite movie of the entire
franchise to date. Seriously. I'm not joking.
What do I like about ST:TMP? Maybe that it's as brainy
and as close to hard science fiction as the original Trek franchise ever
got. Granted, that probably didn't gain this movie the widest possible
audience, but in 1979, Star Trek was thought of more fondly than it is by
the public in 2002, and also in 1979, the most likely audience for a Star
Trek flick was Trekkers themselves - so it was safe to throw a bit of
real SF at them. Future movies made much more obvious attempts to appeal
to a broad action-adventure audience.
And contrary to all the complaints about an antiseptic, emotionless
feel, I thought ST:TMP did a great job of taking the
characters where we left off at the end of the original series and
building on them, with some hints as to what they'd been doing in the
interim, and some expansion on the characters, bringing them from the
stereotypes that they occasionally were in the original TV series to
more fully-rounded characters.
The double-disc DVD edition of ST:TMP revamps only a
handful of special effects shots, but does a great deal more in the
cutting room. Entire sequences with which fans are well-acquainted are
dropped, the editing is generally tightened up, and the picture is
digitally remastered overall, providing a very crisp visual. The effects
replacements are very minor indeed, with only a few even standing out -
the formation of the bridge leading from the Enterprise saucer to V'Ger's
central complex, an exterior shot of V'Ger (based on original 1978
production sketches) approaching Earth, and a shot of the Enterprise
blasting the asteroid which throws it into a wormhole.
There's just one problem with reworking and re-editing the visuals -
the sound mix has to match. And this is one of my most glaring
complaints with this otherwise nifty update to one of my favorite movies.
In a small number of places, the legendary Jerry Goldsmith music score is
butchered in the editing process, and there's something else which
pervades the entire film in this new version which I find even
more intensely annoying: they seem to have lost the original
sound effects source material and had to start from scratch. In
some cases, sound effects hearkening back to those from the original series are
used, which makes some sense, but in other cases completely different
sounds are used, including one of the most annoying red alert sirens I've
heard since the animated series.
As many times as I'd seen ST:TMP, I found that this new
sound mix was more than just a little bit distracting. Granted, those
charged with remixed the soundtrack into Dolby 5.1 Surround probably had
to start from scratch for their surround sound mix, but the techology
exists to lift some of the effects from the original audio track of the
movie - it's not asking too much, really.
I was stunned that some oddities of the original film weren't fixed.
In several scenes on the Enterprise bridge, you probably noticed
instances where a blurry area seemed to smudge the background scenery
between two characters, in some cases even seeming to warp the background
set in a funhouse-mirror way. According to the audio commentary (of
which more in a moment), this was an unavoidable side-effect of a special
multi-focus lens called a diopter, which Robert Wise was forced to use to
compensate for the sets' low lighting. Now, all of the diopter shots are
locked-off, steady shots, for that aforementioned blur would've been much
more noticable otherwise. Why not fix that blur? Granted, it
might necessitate painting in set details in the background that may not
match up, but frankly, I find that blur far more distracting then whether
there should be two or three little round monitors on the panel behind Kirk and
Decker. I suppose it might drive others crazy, but the diopter blur makes my
teeth itch, to say nothing of my eyes.
The 2-disc set is rounded out by the most elaborate package of Trek
extras Paramount has yet assembled, including no fewer than three special
documentaries, an audio commentary from several key members of the
behind-the-scenes crew and actor Stephen Collins, a full slate of TV
and theatrical promo trailers, and an on-screen "text commentary"
by Trek expert Michael Okuda. The documentaries are the real prize here,
particularly the too-short-by-far piece on the aborted Star Trek Phase II television
series which eventually mutated into the first Star Trek feature film.
For the first time ever, the legendary screen test footage of the
engineering sets, Persis Khambatta trying on one of the original series
miniskirt uniforms, and David Gautreaux's screen test for the part of
new Vulcan science officer Xon are seen. Numerous new interviews help
tell the story, though truth be told, one would be better off having
read Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens' book on the series that wasn't
before seeing this. Still, it's a real treat finally getting to see that
stuff, and it makes one wonder if we might wind up seeing the existing
footage of Genevieve Bujold as Star
Trek: Voyager's Captain Janeway someday in a Voyager DVD box set.
The other two documentaries cover the making of the movie in general,
with some annoying self-back-patting from Shatner and Nimoy, and a look
at the restoration and re-working of the film. Some of the stuff in the
documentaries makes me cringe with the cloying, pro-Paramount Studios spin
that has been put on them - it's common knowledge that ST:TMP was,
behind the scenes, an excessively troubled movie - and if Paramount itself
thought so highly of it, why did future movies only put Gene Roddenberry on the
payroll as a consultant whose advice didn't have to be heeded? I would've been
happier with some more frank discussion in these interview segments.
The TV ads and teaser trailers are also highlights of the bonus
features, with their very 70s and very cheesy ad copy and
stand-in effects. Hindsight being 20/20, and being a promo writer myself,
I can think of about a dozen ways this movie could have been teased
better. But the tight filming schedule and availability of any footage,
either special effects shots or from the set, probably made it challenge
to come up with any kind of a pitch that would sell this movie. And hey,
they're better than the original theatrical trailers for Star Wars by
far.
A little bit more mystifying is a sales-pitch-esque preview/promo for
Enterprise, the latest ship off the old
Star Trek block. Why this was included, I'm not sure, when there were
other things much more closely related to ST:TMP that
aren't on here, including the original 1978 press conference announcing
the movie's production - footage of this event, which happened the same
day as NASA rolling out the space shuttle test orbiter Enterprise, does
still exist.
Mike Okuda's text commentary is informative, sure to please
triviaholics, and most of all funny. When Kirk notes for the umpteenth
time that the Enterprise is the only Starfleet ship standing between
Earth and V'Ger, Okuda's subtitle pops up: "This seems to happen a
lot."
Though my qualms with some aspects of the presentation - most notably
the sound effects and the hack-'n'-slash music editing - keep me from, in
all good conscience, giving this title a four-star rating, I do still
recommend Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition
to Trek fans out there. However it sounds, the movie has never looked
better.
Reviewed by Earl
Green theLogBook.com editor/webmaster
