It’s been a long time coming, but the definitive cut of the first Star Trek feature film is finally being brought into the 21st century.
TMP in 4K HD
The 1979 film Star Trek: The Motion Picture is beloved by many fans, with some considering it the most cinematic of the original series movies. However, it was famously rushed to theaters, leaving director Robert Wise with a list of things he wanted to do left undone. But in 2001, he had the chance to create the “Director’s Edition” on DVD, which Wise considered his “final cut” and included new visual effects.
The original theatrical cut has been remastered in HD and that is the version available on Blu-ray and for streaming on Paramount+ and other services. Today, Paramount announced they will be remastering Wise’s Director’s Edition in 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision™ high dynamic range (HDR), along with a new Dolby Atmos® soundtrack. This restored version will debut first on Paramount+. It will likely be released at a later date on Blu-ray and possibly other streaming services following the exclusive window on Paramount+.
The restoration is expected to take six to eight months and is being done by the same team that worked on the DVD with Wise, who passed away in 2005. The team includes producer David C. Fein, restoration supervisor Mike Matessino, and visual effects supervisor Daren R. Dochterman.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition DVD released in 2001
UPDATE: Star Trek TOS 4-Movie 4K/HDR Collection
The original version of this article also reported on expectations that Paramount was developing a newly remastered set of the first four Star Trek movies for a new release. That has now been officially confirmed and announced. See our follow-up article for more details.
Find more news and Star Trek home media and streaming at TrekMovie.com.
Releasing 4 out of 6 original cast movies in a box set is weird. Will 5 and 6 come in another, smaller box later?
Rumors have V and IV coming later in a three-movie box with Generations. That might (okay, does) sound odd, but Generations does at least involve a few TOS characters along with the TNG ones, and all three movies do deal with the transition between the eras in one way and to one extent or another. Most importantly, I think they just didn’t want to split the II – III – IV trilogy between its second and third parts.
Packaging V-VII together creates a Kirk’s last hurrah trilogy that starts and ends with him falling off mountains. And finally VIII-X form an Enterprise-E trilogy.
True – I never thought of it that way!
Paramount always milks things along to test how much more we’ll pay, hence UPN and CBS All Access. Remember how the TOS films were released on DVD for the first time as vanilla discs well into when everyone was putting out discs with special features. Then they came out with the Director’s and Collector’s Editions. And TWOK’s Director’s Edition blu ray was released separately from the main set as well.
But if it means we get proper rescans of III-X this time, I can’t say I wouldn’t give in and refresh my collection when the old TV conks out.
Bill Shatner should be allowed every chance to make a Director’s Edition of The Final Frontier. The addition of the Rock Creatures alone would be a vast improvement of the film.
I already mentioned that in the other thread. Maybe he is going with that movie on tour. ;-)
But once started, they could correct a lot of things in that movie, for example fixing Syboks Hair cut. Or better: replace him with Sean Connery. No problem nowadays thanks to deep fake.
When that is done, they could start fixing Nemesis, replacing Tom Hardy with Patrick Stewart.
Huzzah! I am overjoyed. I adore Star Trek – The Motion Picture, and have wanted to see the DE in high definition since it was released in SD two decades ago (!).
YESSSSSSSSS!! It’s about time.
I recently saw this movie again in my grand rewatch and it bored me just as much as it did the 20 years or so ago when I last watched it. You couldn’t pay me to watch it again! Maybe in another 20 years. ;)
BUT that said, this is actually great news for both the film and fans of the film. AND maybe it’s finally a sign that Paramount+ is going to actually treat Star Trek the same way Disney+ is treating Star Wars beyond just making a dozen new shows. They are finally seeing the potential they can draw in fans for things like this and make it feel more exclusive in the process. So its great news and yes hopefully more of this will happen with more of the films down the line.
About. [Expletive Deleted]. Time.
The Kirk I saw in TOS would never have let them promote him off of the bridge of his ship and make him fly a desk. The Spock I saw in TOS did not think so little of his relationships with Kirk, McCoy, or Amanda as to want to purge every last bit of his feelings about them. So I’m afraid I think both Kirk and Spock are wildly out of character in TMP.
No insult intended to the actors or the director or any of the other creative team; as usual, when I have a problem, it’s with the writing. Nor is any insult intended to those who love this movie; I’m just not among them. :-) Glad a good version is coming for those who want it. But not me. :-)
@ Corylea – ‘alternate universe’ TOS crew and klingons? ;)
Very alternate. :-)
Another reason why I never cared for this movie. They just feel so off-key to what we saw on TOS. Of course its been years in passing so you can’t expect some changes, but these weren’t for the better IMO.
Yeah. I just wish TMP hadn’t been the FIRST movie, since that meant that the stupid admiral thing carried on until Leonard Nimoy fixed it in TVH. At least they fixed kolinahr by the end of the TMP. :-)
…so you CAN expect some changes….
It works because it would be odd if the characters were all in the exact same places as when the show ended.
Of course Kirk and Spock could change over time. You get older, your interests and priorities can change. And you can drift away from friends and family. It happens.
What we didn’t see is what led them to those places. (No, Paramount, that doesn’t mean I want a prequel to explain these things. Stop it right now.)
I find Kirk and Spock further out of character in TUC than TMP, but the TMP issues are more about bad growth in their characters.
The starting conditions of TMP made a lot more sense to me as a reunion between a Kirk and a Spock that had been estranged by Something Personal between them that spurred them to go in different directions. Spock’s decision to pursue Kolinahr especially seems like he found emotion too much of a burden, and I could see Kirk’s promotion being involved in that too. There are few things I can think of that could separate Kirk from the Enterprise more effectively than, say, memories of Spock becoming too painful for some reason.
The, uh, the entire point of the movie is that Kirk knows he’s made a horrible mistake and is anxious to undo it. Same goes for Spock. The writing is great.
I wouldn’t go that far. It is perfunctory, occasionally witty, but rarely anything like great. If you had great writing, they’d’ve set up Decker’s viability to evolve, which is a glaring omission. Given that nearly all the scenes are about Kirk and Spock (and somewhat about McCoy though not nearly enough), it would make more sense for them to be the ones to merge with vger and evolve at the end (as Kirk suggests in the novelization), but alas, then no sequels.
The film is largely about identity. Kirk, Spock, and V’Ger are all struggling with the same existential problem. “Why am I here? What was I meant to be?”
I 2nd that assessment.
I never had a real issue with either of those things. It’s only natural to want to move up in your career. That’s probably how Kirk took the promotion. Not realizing until taking it that he preferred the Captain’s chair to the Admiral’s desk chair. This is not unusual to me. Spock always struggled with his Vulcan vs Human issue. It also made sense to me that he might opt for the Kholinar thing. However after his V’Ger encounter he realized it made more sense to him to embrace his human side. He seemed to be more comfortable with himself than ever after that. It was a tremendous learning experience for him.
My main issue with TMP was McCoy. He really had nothing to do. They said Chapel was an MD and presumably one of the higher ranked ones on the Medical Team if not the CMO herself. Yet McCoy just pops back in only because Kirk wanted his friend back. That always felt a little forced to me.
bones get more to do later when decker is trying to communicate with the illia probe and when kirk starts to play poker with it in the last half of the film.
‘what are we supposed to do, spank it?’
They did give him a couple of good lines that would have been awkward coming for Dr. Chapel. But I still think he was underused in that feature.
Always found it odd that spanking survived such that McCoy knew about. Especially given what he says about 1930s medicine in COTEOF, and later in IV when he complains about the 80s state of it too.
So here’s a potential argument for these character changes. Not saying this is canon nor is it anything that I source from anywhere, it’s just my conjecture. So these characters have just finished this historic 5 year mission, living with each other day in and day out (think about life on an aircraft carrier or submarine) – things have happened…they’ve suffered, they’ve died (and come back!) crew people under their command have died (and not come back!). Yes, they’ve explored strange new worlds and they’ve accomplished much – but you don’t come back from a voyage like that and not be impacted by it. Also, they were bound together by a set of intense circumstances that no longer existed. It was some movie (maybe “St. Elmo’s Fire”?) where one of the characters says that it was the circumstances that bound them together, and once those circumstances ceased to exist, it was hard for them to remain the people they were when they were together. So…they come back from this mission, and Kirk has had enough (he thinks) of command, of deciding who lives and who dies. Spock has seen too much of human emotion and what it can cause. McCoy is fed up with the rules and regulations of Starfleet (he is a humanist, after all). So, yes, I can see them departing from their characters as we’ve known them, in profound ways – so that they seem wildly out of character.
But I’ll give you a much more practical reason they were “out of character” from a writer’s standpoint. They NEEDED to be out of character at the start of the movie so that the circumstances of the movie could bring them BACK into character. The plot of the film required character arcs and and stakes. If they were the same as they were before, it’s just another episode of the series. But from a writer’s standpoint, it’s the question the audience is asking – will these characters I love BE the characters I love again?
Anyway, just some thoughts. I agree the movie has a lot of flaws, but there is something I still love about it.
Agreed. I call TMP the “bad vibes movie’. Kirk had a bad toupee. Spock had a frog in his throat. and McCoy didn’t want to be there. Decker made me cringe and Ilia wasn’t the irresistible sex siren that she and everyone else in the film professed her to be. The effects were great but ultimately ponderous. Plot is a TOS episode rehash. Transporter scene was pointless and just plain bad: “What we got back didn’t live long…fortunately”. Red alert klaxon was wrong. Wormhole effect asteroid looked hokey and the actors bouncing in their seats on the bridge looked ridiculous. Shatner’s accent when asking Kelly if the “new sickbay meets with (his) approval” sounds like something you’d hear in a Brooklyn deli. The graphics on the Klingon bridge scenes resemble old and b-list video games. The exterior ‘tour’ of the Enterprise went on for far too long and was sometimes out of scale. Why didn’t they land in the shuttle bay? When kirk enters the bridge, it was a mass of noise and confusion rather than the stirring moment it should have been. Etc, etc.
Kirk in the movies doesn’t get a non-ridiculous toup until TUC, when he suddenly starts looking like Lee Majors instead of a guy with a pubic hair transplant.
Fabulous news. So pleased that the late great Robert Wise’s final version will get to look it’s best now.
Just hope they don’t mess about with too much awful color ‘regrading’ on this particular title.
Awesome! Can’t wait to see the 4K “Director’s Edition” of Star Trek: The Motion Picture when it streams on Paramount+!
Love the art.
Hopefully they will say what extras and cuts are included soon, and they will have some new extras as well.
Also hope they include the longer VHS version and TV version.
There’s a new article about that four movie set on startrek.com and it only lists one new feature – isolated score tracks for the theatrical and director’s editions of TMP.
I saw that , thanks.
It would definitively have been nice if they included an isolated score for each movie and brand new interviews with the cast.
So long as I can get the theatrical version of TMP in 4K UHD and it is a decent job, I will be happy for life. You can stuff the director’s version sound mix up your shafts.
The theatrical will be released much sooner, probably because it’s already pretty much done, while they have to remake the VFX for the Wise cut.
My concern is not when but how well.
Misuse of HDR can create distracting faux highlights, so that your eye goes to an out of focus window across the bay instead of to your hero in the foreground.
Am also wondering how the split diopter stuff will resolve, as it becomes more obnoxious at higher resolutions. Really hope that both versions work from the same source, and that the source is cleaned up as much as possible, unlike the 2002 DVD, which seemed to get only a token going-over. In a perfect world, or a Ridley Scott production, you’d get vfx shots recomposited to make them look even more glorious, but that isn’t going to happen here.
Sorry, I happen to like to sound mix on the director’s cut better than the theatrical version (that awful red alert klaxon in particular). But I’ll be happy to pass on your suggestion when I meet-up with Robert Wise in the afterlife.
Could take it up with Fein and Mattesino a lot sooner, I think it is more their creative call anyway.
I tihnk the DE sound mix is sooo much better. There’s no life to the original. Cold as heck.
The DE sound in the wormhole scene manages to affect a piece of action that was actually engaging and make it seem boring. That’s a mighty accomplishment — in the wrong direction.
Did I miss something along the way in the various home video releases? To my knowledge, none included the original discrete 6 channel mix. Are you waxing nostalgic about the Dolby matrix fakey 4 channel mix? Or is it you found the previous 5.1 remix superior to what Wise came up with for the DC?
Anyway, I suppose you’ve given me an excuse to dig out that theatrical release blu-ray I picked up for a song.
I don’t know anything about the sound except what it sounds like. And the boring sound fx in the DE wormhole (as I mentioned just above) wipe out all sense of danger. I find a lot more wrong with the DE than just sound
Ah, so it’s the sfx choices and NOT the multichannel sound editing and mix that irks you?
Although, I suppose the sound editor could suppress various sfx and “enhance” others based on their tastes. Have to dig up the various 5.1 sound editors to see what they tried to accomplish.
This is how you restore DS9 and VOY as well. Restore them and release them week by week on Paramount+ and other services internationally. Then after a certain period drop them on Bluray for the home video completionists
Exactly!
And maybe it will happen some day. But yeah, its way cheaper to do a 2 hour movie as opposed to 300+ hours of TV shows. But maybe this could be a sign of things to come down the road, especially if they keep them exclusive to Paramount+ (but can still buy on blu ray).
Maybe they are doing this precisely to “test the waters” and see how many additional subs a remaster of something old can bring to Paramount+.
If it’s doing really well we might get closer to a DS9/VOY remaster. If it’s not doing much for Paramount+ numbers then it’s not going to help the case for DS9/VOY in HD.
And this kind off poses a problem: CBS has 5 current shows in production and should have enough material to release a new Trek episode basically every week of the year. As such, many fans should be subscribed to the service anyway. Is there really a big enough chunk of fans who can’t be bothered by the new productions but would jump at the chance to see an improved version of some of the old stuff?
I’m sure some here will emphatically state “I will” ;-)
I guess CBS-Viacom might be trying to find out.
If they really want to test waters, they could start with a double-episode of DS9 and/or VOY and remaster it in 16:9.
Ugh, not 16×9 for stuff that wasn’t composed for it. That’s as bad as panning and scanning widescreen movies for old standard-definition TV was back in the day – the exact same thing, just in a different direction.
Just giving DS9 and Voyager essentially the same treatment they did TNG would do nicely, thanks.
True. But I was also under the impression that the new CG space shots for TOS were done in 16X9. And I had thought that they would just swap from one ratio to the next when incorporating the shots. Needless to say was disappointed when I got my nice new set and didn’t see it.
They might run into the same problem for 16:9 as TNG. Pieces of camera equipment present in the shot among other things.
Exactly. When a scene is shot framed for 4:3, it should stay that way, because that’s what the director and cinematographer intended to be seen. Original aspect ratios should be preserved. That applies just as much to not adding to a 4:3 frame as it does to cropping or pan-and-scanning a widescreen frame.
I’ve always said that if DS9 comes out on BD I would be among the first to buy.
It’s about time.
I need to see this on a big screen
The Atmos mix for this upcoming release was executed almost 2 years ago as was discussed in an online forum for Hollywood sound mixers, in preparation for this upcoming release. So lots of people knew this was coming in some form eventually.
While the scope of the project is entirely different, here’s hoping that Paramount+ also gives them the kick in the pants they need to do that HD or better remaster of DS9 and Voyager.
I’m afraid that even with a director’s edition and a 4K restoration, TMP will still be a terrible film. No modern special effects or new sound mixing can fix a 2 hour snore fest.
Cosign! Snorefest is RIGHT! Better looking effects won’t improve slow monstrous dialogue or people just standing around for most of the movie.
I think it was Nimoy or Harve Bennett who called it a beached whale… they were right of course.
“I think it was Nimoy…who called it a beached whale”. Probably what gave him the idea for The Voyage Home!
Ironically that is how I think of TVH. It’s a beached whale. And somehow the analogy feels better served there.
and yet it was the reveal of the Enterprise in this film that made me a fan of Star Trek in the first place. That model of the refit and camera work and lighting to this day is spellbinding. The movie version of the ship looked like it could be a real spaceship, the tv show looked like a toy on a string by comparison. No Star Trek film since has instilled a larger than life sense of wonder, not to me at least.
I prefer a movie in that style instead of the umptenth movie with the “hurt character wants to seek revenge on the federation and threatens the galaxy with a super-weapon” rehashed plot.
Hear, hear. There was much talk at the time that THE WRATH OF KHAN was better-written, better-acted and all-around much more fun and reminiscent of the original series than TMP. All of which is true. But as a template for all the subsequent films that quickly became a tiresome trope, KHAN has much to answer for.
Speaking for yourself of course. The Motion Picture has actually become my favorite of the original series movies. There are flaws but the depth, scope and maturity of the movie were never seen again. It is a true Sci-fi film.
Yes. A thirty minute story stretched out over two hours.
That sort of stretching worked even better for 2001. And most David Lynch movies. Heavy on mood, not so much on toms of content. I would say you should avoid watching the mesmerizingly brilliant Russian film STALKER. Pace would probably put you in a coma.
This is fantastic!!
My minor quibbles with the new effects:
During the V’Ger vessel reveal, to my eye, the camera move is too “perfect,” like a pan in a video game.
Also, when the crew walks off the saucer, the steps that materialize outside the Enterprise need some fog or smoke a la the V’Ger flyover scenes, perhaps. Something looks a little too animated and not quite enough like a practical effect, or like mix of hand-drawn animation and practical. Something pulls me out of the movie at that moment, basically.
YMMV, of course. Just my opinions.
Glad this version of the film will be upgraded!
You must be looking at the director’s cut version, that has really awful CG animation. They justified it by saying animation back in the 70s was ‘done on twos’ but that was certainly not the case on this film (tho there is some awkward multiple-printing of frames near the end of the spockwalk, probably because the vfx came in a little short.)
The CG FX of the crew stepping-off the Enterprise saucer section are vastly superior in the DC to the theatrical version, sorry. The original profile matte, which made the saucer look like it was all of three stories tall, was laughably inept, a clear casualty of the film’s rushed production schedule.
Not arguing the matte, which is nearly as terrible as the little guy fleeing epsilon 9 (maybe even worse now that I think about it), but I find the animation of the hexs just terrible compared to the spectacular animation of the vger cloud and elsewhere. Truly chalk and cheese.
Yeah, the fleeing astronaut was terrible — it looked like someone had placed a “Major Matt Mason” toy from my youth on a motion control rig and started shooting. Not sure what your referring to by “the hex’s,” but if it’s those hexagonal whatsits that the crew walk on to get to V’Ger, I thought their generation looked okay, and was a nice callback to Roddenberry’s surprisingly offbeat and quirky novelization of the film’s screenplay.
Fantastic news i for one cannot wait
looking forward to finally see the motion picture in my home theatre.
I’ve been hoping for this news a for long time
Finally. I hope it’s not just a “turn the Sharpness knob up to 11” treatment, but something eminently watchable in Hi-Def. Dochterman’s Director’s Cut is also 25% less boring than the theatrical one, so it’s win-win.
It would be a nice extra to recut the movie to the fictional Phase 2 pilot “in thy image”, as it was initially planned and as it was seen in an alternate universe, where Phase 2 became a show. Including the Phase 2-Enterprise. ;-)
Ah, yes, Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture! Being a true Trekkie, I’ve seen it at least 30 times. The pacing is gawdawful slow, and the story is flawed, but over the years I have come to appreciate what they TRIED to accomplish with it.
I like the Directors Edition/ Made it a bit better
Yes, Emperor Mike, I would agree with you on that one.
Prefer the theatrical cut to the DC. Just feels more cinematic. whereas DC feels more like TOS if that makes sense. Same with TWOK & TUC – theatrical all the way, the DCs don’t feel right with those extra/alternate scenes
I don’t know recall what is different about TUC’s Director’s Edition besides the insert shots when they reveal the conspirators. That would have been fine if there wasn’t a supremely cheesy sound effect. And then the extra scene with Rene Auberjonois and Scotty’s “Klingon b*tch” line are out, but at least one of those was only ever on home video.
I got used to the performances in the theatrical TWOK and Scotty’s nephew doesn’t have the best lines, but fleshing out that storyline was worth it for Scotty IMO.
As for TMP, isn’t the DE actually shorter?
If there was a version of TMP that cut the transporter accident, that would immediately be my favorite version of the film. I hate that bit so much. It is so weirdly dark and unpleasant.
I recently rewatched TMP on my glorious 75″ TV. Seeing the E in all its glory was just like in 79. I was a kid again.
However, TMP suffers from poor writing and rewriting the script, almost daily. It’s so important to lock down the script before shooting starts. The actors get a feel for the story and their characters. I was 1st AD on a NV episode and we had a complete rewrite, overnight, as we were flying into Ticonderoga. It made for a difficult shoot. The actors had to relearn lines. Actors who had a part in the episode were written out, much to their dismay. Then there was me- the 1st AD (assistant director) who had to reschedule the shoot, ON THE FLY, it was a miracle we got the ep in the can.
I worked on David Gerrold’s NV episode “Origins,” which suffered from many of the same issues. (Which may be why, for twelve years, that episode has never made it out of the can.)
I am happy for Daren Dochterman. He’s VFX supervisor on this project. It’s been a few years of lobbying to get Par to pony up the $$.
Me too. I’ve met Dochterman on a couple of occasions, and while I might not always agree with all of his choices he’s a very talented CG artist, and no one can doubt his love for Trek.
4K resolution won’t do anything to fix the dramatic issues of the film’s first half, where it was always obvious that Robert Wise, a consummate craftsman, had no earthly idea how to handle the cast of a cult TV show who hadn’t acted together for a decade. (And those “reunion” scenes are, for the most part, just dreadful.) But for its sense of awe and wonder I prefer TMP over anything else in the film franchise, and while it’s far from perfect the Director’s Edition is lighter on its feet and of a higher technical polish than the theatrical cut. I’ll gladly take it.
Take my money!
Don’t really care much about 4K as I do not have a 4K TV. But I would love to have a properly upgraded to HD version of the director’s cut of TMP. So if they put this out on BD that would be GREAT!
Put back in the ‘Memory wall sequence’. It can easily be done with today’s technology.
Great news. As one of the few who actually experienced this film several times back in 1979 (and early 1980s) and with many excited and enthusiastic moviegoers, I digress with many of the not so favorable comments. Surely, the movie has its faults like any of the Trek movies, no doubt about it. For all the production value spent and put into this project, you see it on the BIG screen. And it holds up well after many years and being Academy Award nominated for its art direction, VFX and, of course Goldsmith’s score.
Since its a 6-8 mo job. Please consider the following:
I numbered my suggestions but the formatting didn’t come through. Sorry.
They worked with Robert Wise 20 years ago to finish the film as he wanted, including a final mix on the sound. I seriously doubt they’re going to undo anything Robert Wise over saw 20 years ago.
No one knows better than these guys what Wise wanted to do, and they consulted everyone from Trumbull to Goldsmith when they made the DE.
It’s a theatrical film, in the end that’s a director’s domain. Roddenberry got many many things he wanted in TMP, but final say really gets to be Wise.
They really try to milk us out of every dollar. Id prefer to just buy all 6 films at once instead of broken up like this. I’ll wait another 2 years when they release the next edition
The director’s cut of Star Trek TMP is really TMP finished as it should have been in the first place. That it’s finally going to be released in HD is the best Trek news I’ve heard in a long time!
Tim, Paramount should pay you a royalty to use your review as a soundbite quote in all their promotions for this latest iteration. Well said.
I believe the correct response here is: squee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!