Star Trek TMP Director's Cut on 4/30 (retracted by Paramount)*

According to the digital bits, Star Trek The Motion Picture has been confirmed by CBS/Paramount to be released on its Director's Cut incarnation on 4/30, 'though as I am the digital bits seems to be a a bit exceptical about it.
If you look it one way, it's like the remastering on HD of two episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation, they're already on it, they have the people working on it, it's just a bit more work as it is a movie which is longer. If they can make a TV series look that good, so good, they can also do it with Star Trek TMP just taking more time (as it lasts longer), but chances are the Original Camera Negatives are in good condition as in The Next generation. They already have a model to look into, the SD DVD from 2001, they just have to do the same job in HD.
On the other hand, doesn't it sound too good to be true? So many and so cool Star Trek releases on the same day, The Next Generation season 3, the Separate release for The Best Of Both Worlds and now the announcement of Star Trek TMP on it's Director's Cut on BD.

 

I hope so. I enjoyed Robert Wise's director's Cut more than the original theatrical version. There was no buzz that they were workings this before (hence the skepticism of the bits) and they would have to render the visual effects again or upscale them (which wouldn't look so hot). Be interesting to see if this is true.

 

I wonder why don't they go back to the original FX files and re-render them at 1080p, put the new cut together and there they go. They know it would sale, we, fans have been asking for it since the box with the 6 original films were out.

 

From TrekMovie (http://trekmovie.com/2013/02/04/sta...-april-30th-tng-theater-screening-april-25th/):

UPDATE: TrekMovie has confirmed with Paramount Home Entertainment that the Star Trek: The Motion Picture release on April 30th will be the same theatrical cut that was in the 2009 Original Motion Picture collection. The “newly restored, Director’s edition” blurb text on the press site was an error.

 

Changed the title to reflect apparent situation at this time as per above post. Unfortunate; IMH, they should do the Director's Cut in HD (as they should have done in 2001; it's a movie, heavy on big-screen spectacle and HD was rolling out) and have it the default version.

 

So, too good to be true.

 

The scene where Spock cries for V'ger is one of the greatest cut scenes ever.

 

I have said before that I personally transferred Robert Wise's director's cut for Paramount in 1980, and it was barely 2 hours long. Wise cut a ton out of the movie because he felt it was way too long and dragged. He was overruled by the Paramount execs, who basically said, "we spent over $10 million on those goddamned effects, and we want to see every bit of them in this movie!" Mr. Wise was not happy about it.

I have pointed out before that it takes six minutes from the time the Enterprise is first aware of V'Ger, and then another 6 minutes when they first enter V'Ger to the time they get to the center of the alien creature/robot. Wise cut these down to about 1 minute each (tops), as I recall. I suspect whatever they're calling "the director's cut" is not what he did in 1979.

Original files? Star Trek TMP was old-school analog film, baby, all the way. No digital files. In fact, I think 7 or 8 different optical houses all over LA scrambled to get those effects done by December '79. The first prints shipped wet, right out of the developer, and were not completely color-timed for the first premiere.

The 35mm camera negative is in great shape, and I've handled pieces of it myself (at least, I did a couple of decades ago). Some of the shots look great, but some look real shaky because Doug Trumbull and his crew didn't have the time to do reshoots on the schedule they had. There's an interesting story about how commercial genius Bob Abel was the original guy who was supposed to do all the effects for TMP, only none of what he did worked, and they had to scrap it all and hire Trumbull in at an enormous fee to get a crew to work about 100 hours a week for 10 months in order to get the movie done on time. Awful, awful situation.

 

The effects for the 'Directors Cut' were either original, original analog with CGI enhanced aspects or totally new ones done in CGI. Several Enterprise shots were new CGI ones, plus some final V'GER shots too.

 

There's been some discussion on The Trek BBS that you are absolutely correct.

Don't forget about the 1983 "Special Longer Version", as well.

EVH is referring to the original FX files for the Director's Cut, which were rendered in SD, but supposedly are still in the possession of the DC's effects team, just waiting to be re-rendered for a HD release.

 

This is the edition being referred to as "Directors' Cut" (aka, "The Director's Edition"):
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/2959/star-trek-the-motion-picture/
It is not a contemporary cut.

 

That's incorrect to my knowledge. All Paramount did was go back and cut back in the previously-discarded visual effects scenes and fix the blue-screen outer space effects, which were done around 1984 or 1985 at Modern Videofilm in Hollywood (and later in Burbank). They were done in analog standard def and can't be re-rendered, because they were analog. You'd have to scan the negative and recomposite everything from scratch, probably in 2K.

The good news is: they could do it in 1/10th the time and for 1/10th the money it cost 25 years ago. But first, Paramount would have to want to do it. My observation of Paramount and Viacom in general these days is that they're very, very thrifty and are unwilling to spend much money restoring anything they don't have to. (The fact that they laid off the head VP of their restoration department a year ago tells me that preserving their library is not high on their priority list.)

 

That's part (and most, I think) of what they did, yes. Doug Drexler talks about the CG Enterprise here:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/1701-tmp-directors-cut/

Just going off memory here: The new shot towards the end of the director's cut where you see the V'Ger craft in its entirety is also CGI, I believe, as well as the digital alterations of the spacewalk inside the V'Ger chamber, which allowed the "tiles" to form in between the solid surface and the Enterprise, instead of the ship just pulling up to an already-made platform, as in the theatrical version.

I don't think it was a large amount, but there were definitely a couple new CGI VFX shots done.

 

So there was another pass done in the 1990s? I'd be curious to see how much of this Robert Wise actually approved. It sounds to me like Paramount is almost "pulling a Lucas" in terms of revising this film. I mean... how far do you go? There's a ton of kinda loose, weird stuff in the movie. Hell, Shatner's toupee changes style a couple of times, the shoot went on for so long.

 

^ Also the Vulcan surface scenes. Probably some others.

 

That was the basis for the 2001 Director's Cut referenced by the thread. I share your curiosity, though, especially knowing that there was the other (apparently unreleased) DC you mentioned.

 

In any case, I remember feeling the "Director's Edition" was a more enjoyable presentation overall, unlike the Star Wars tinkering, which I feel messed with the original vibe and didn't add enough of value. Of course, in both cases the versions I feel preferable are unavailable and not in HD.

Nah it wasn't a change of toupee, it was just the mysterious effects of the trip through the wormhole on Kirk's 'do.

 

That's what I was talking about, the new "by 2001" digital effects, go back to the original files and re-render them in 1080p oor even higher, tweak them a little bit if necessary and make the new cut. The work they are doing with Star Trek The Next Generation is harder than that, and if there's demand for Star Trek TMP Director's Cut (and believe me, there is, it would sell well), why not do it?
The icing of the cake (this will never happen) would be that on the audio remixing, they removed the existing Goldsmith soundtrack tracks and substitute them with the same Goldsmith soundtrack, but on it's 2.012 remixed by Bruce Botnick (from the original analog master tapes, and exactely as they appear on the film) incarnation. That would be sonic bliss.

 

And of course, in both cases, the true ideal version is somewhere between the original and the director's cut/special edition, and thus is in the hands of the faneditors.

 

I have the 2002 Directors cut on DVD and there is a full bit with the 'Making of' with Wise giving a full overview of it. He goes through all the bits changed, improved and fixed. Plus full commentary by him and loads of other stuff. One of the best DVD sets I've bought.

He pretty much states that this version is the version he is satisfied with. The main problem was they just ran out of time.

 

Is this, um, "available" anywhere? I would assume there's a fan edit of this on the interwebs, no?

 

Robert Wise went back to Paramount in 2000 and asked to do a Director's Cut of the film. This included getting a $1 million dollar budget to do some FX shots that were never completed originally (the full exterior of the V'ger ship, extra footage of traveling inside V'ger, etc) and also to replace some of the mattes that Wise felt were inadequate (Vulcan planet, crew exiting the Enterprise during the end sequence, etc). There were scenes that Wise had initially wanted to use in the film (like Spock weeping for V'ger) that he left out because the corresponding FX for those sequences weren't completed initially. He also did some other trims here and there. He did cut down some of the V'ger cloud sequences but not nearly as much as the 1980 cut you describe. This Director's Edition was released on DVD in November 2001.

I think you would find this version interesting and there are some very good interviews with Wise and the new FX team on the bonus DVD.

 

I just spent a while over on TrekMovie and couldn't find the appropriate articles but when the Blu-Ray of TMP came out, it was definitively said by both CBS and the people who did the computer remastering of TMP-Director's Cut that there is no way the work they did could be used for an HD version. The renders were definitely at a DVD level. I realize you are saying more work would be needed than reusing the Director's Cut renders and that they would have to go back to the original files but this was completely discounted at the time. Other than starting from scratch, it was stated specifically that the only version of TMP in HD would be the original theatrical cut.

Take heart in that the audio for the Blu-ray of TMP is much better that the audio used in the DVD of the Director's Cut. I like the flow of the Director's Cut but the sound of the Blu-ray. Overall, I'll take the Blu-ray.

 

The movie is definitely too slow and long.

I have not seen the director's cut.

 

Undoubtably but I good friend and I have a running joke about the movie's "suck" factor. Not that it does but that it sucks you in. We were laughing one day when we both realized that whenever it is on TV and we happen to channel change to it - boom! - we're sucked in. We can't change channels. If we are lucky we'll find a point where we can escape its clutches but more often than not, we're stuck watching it to the end.

TMP sucks in a good way.