New ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Director’s Edition’ Images Hint At Potential Changes

With the exception of a brief clip released on Star Trek Day 2021, details about the 4K UHD upgrade of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition have been scarce. The project, which will premiere exclusively on Paramount+, reunites the original DE production team of producer David C. Fein, restoration supervisor Mike Matessino, and visual effects supervisor Daren R. Dochterman. 

At work on Director’s Edition

This week, producer Fein, via StarTrek.com, posted several photos and a short video as the team, joined by legendary audio engineer Bruce Botnick and Atmos mixer Michael Babcock, worked on the film’s brand new Dolby Atmos mix. Some of the images seem to indicate that this version of the film may differ somewhat from the previous one.

Fein looks at “something new” on the mixing stage.

The above image, which occurs during Spock’s journey through V’Ger, appears to be an unfinished effect. In the caption accompanying the image Fein indicates it’s “not something changed, (and a little unfinished), and NEW.” Our guess is that this sequence is a transition of sorts from the chamber where the Enterprise is to V’Ger’s inner memory core.

Mixer Michael Babcock with the new opening titles on the screen.

And here we can see the main titles, which were white in the original film and tinted to gold for the original DE, appear to have an even stronger gold color for the new release.

The rest of the images depict more of the mixing session. Since the team is already on the mixing stage, it would seem to indicate that the production is pretty far along.

Fein sits in on the mixing session.

Daren Dochterman sits in on the mixing session.

There is also a video, which gives a brief glimpse of the original music mixer, Bruce Botnick, reviewing the new Dolby Atmos mix. Click the image to play the video on startrek.com.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture  – The Director’s Edition will debut on Paramount+ in 2022.

Check back with TrekMovie for more updates about this very cool project.


Find more news about TMP:DE and other Star Trek home media and streaming at TrekMovie.com.

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That refit is a beautiful ship and the future never did ever look as epic again as it did in TMP.
I remember this being my favorite movie as a kid .
It was only when older that I switched to Star Trek II being the best of the Treks.

Amen.

So looking forward to this. Can’t believe how long it’s been since the DE DVD.

I’ll give it a look. I’ll never consider it a good movie (stop yelling at me) but it’s part of the history and I’m curious to see what they do with it. I revisit it every few years.

Oh I think the script is absolute trash, but it is a gorgeous looking movie.

but the main plot regarding v’ger is classic ‘trek’

I would be curious to see this just to see if it could redeem the film for me.

I was so disappointed when I saw it in theatre the first time in its original run and I realized that they were reusing the Nomad plot from TOS.

Between that and what seemed to be an endless approach through dimness (and we had intentionally made the trip to the theatre with best projection and sound quality in our region), it was boring and really squelched my hopes for the franchise that I had so very much wanted to be revived.

I actually enjoyed it somewhat more when visiting a friend a few years later who had a copy of the original video release.

The original video is the same as the theatrical version. ABC Television in the U.S. broadcast an extended version in 1983, which added a lot of deleted snippets of dialogue, such as Uhura dressing down an ensign who disapproves of Kirk taking over for Decker (“Ensign, our chances of surviving this mission may have just doubled.”), Spock shedding a tear once he understands what V’Ger needs, and Kirk telling Scotty to self-destruct the Enterprise if they’re not back in 10 minutes. (Scotty: “He thinks, he hopes, that when we go, we’ll take the intruder with us.” Engineer: “Will we?” Scotty: “When that much matter and antimatter come together… aye, lass. We will.”)

The fan reaction to the ABC version was extremely positive and Paramount soon thereafter released it on videotape as the “Special Longer Version”. But it was only available in 4:3 pan-and-scan and wasn’t suitable for DVD. So Paramount made the Director’s Edition for the DVD/Widescreen era.

It has a rare digital audio release as well from Japan in 1989 on Laserdisc. The Special Longer Version continued to be released on VHS for a long time in the US, in fact i remember it was still available up til 1996.

I hope they keep these scenes, they add some badly needed dialogue and character moments. I can’t picture the movie without them.

“ uch as Uhura dressing down an ensign who disapproves of Kirk taking over for Decker (“Ensign, our chances of surviving this mission may have just doubled.”), Spock shedding a tear once he understands what V’Ger needs, and Kirk telling Scotty to self-destruct the Enterprise if they’re not back in 10 minutes. (Scotty: “He thinks, he hopes, that when we go, we’ll take the intruder with us.” Engineer: “Will we?” Scotty: “When that much matter and antimatter come together… aye, lass. We will.”)

Cmd. Bremmon, All those scenes you mentioned are already part of the Director’s Edition for the very reason you said, they add character.

I don’t mean to be snarky, but how could it change your opinion of the film unless you were put off by it’s visuals and sound? The Director’s Edition is the same story with just a few extra establishing shots and improved visual/audio quality. Maybe a third viewing is the trick though. It definitely has grown on me over time, but that might just be nostalgia.

The visuals and sound were a lot of the problem. But the plot dragged.

I felt as though I’d spent at least 45 minutes of the run time being subjected to a dull trip in a dark cave.

That was also the experience of the group of enthusiastic teens and university student that I’d gone to see TMP with.

The story wasn’t original enough to hold our attention through the sensation of dreariness through a long stretch that should have been building suspense. The reveal that it was V’Ger, yet another 20th century unmanned space probe gone awry, landed with a thud in our group.

My experience of the video, in a friend’s living room with supper on trays, was partly better because I knew what to expect, but also because the theatrical experience was a negative.

By the way, I’ve seen it at least twice since. Once as part of an marathon where I attended grad school, and again with our kids when we borrowed the DVD set from our public library. I’m willing to sit through it, and I rate it higher than the Final Frontier, but really only watch it for completeness. This would compare to most of the rest of the TOS movies ( again excluding V) that I saw several times in theatre in there original runs and many times subsequently on video or DVD.

So, I’m open to see if a higher quality sound mix and visuals can add anything to TMP.

I know that I’m coming across as a contrarian here, but it needs to be said that many there were original fans of TOS were not thrilled or blown away by TMP.

As another original TOS fan, I am right there with you. This movie is sooooo dull and passionless for me I can not even pretend to muster any enthusiasm for it.

And that was affirmed to me recently. As you know, I did a grand rewatch of the entire franchise this year and a very big reason I did it was to watch stuff I haven’t watched before (like TAS ;)) or episodes and films I haven’t watched in ages, which includes TMP. I’ve only seen it twice and the last time was probably 20 years ago. So I was actually a bit excited about it because I thought maybe with enough time away I would see it with new eyes and enjoy it more; which happened with Enterprise for me back in 2013 when I gave that show another chance.

But nope, I was just as bored and couldn’t wait for it to be over just like the last time I watched it. Just brutally dull. It’s just mostly monotone characters looking through the view screen for 45 minutes and the rest of the time just talking (endlessly) in rooms and on the bridge. The only time the movie is a little interesting is the few times they leave the Enterprise including the ending. I never cared about the reveal either. A probe we sent out came back after it was tinkered with by machines. Don’t care. In fact it sound like they would’ve had a much more interesting movie if the story was about Enterprise encountering the machine planet on its own.

Maybe they found the probe like in the movie but instead sent a message back to Earth they have it and the Enterprise goes to investigates. Only that message was now sent centuries ago and the machines have evolved even more since then. Now THAT actually sounds fun and unique with actual exploration; especially since to this day we still haven’t gotten a basic story like that.

If I watch it again in another 20 years it will be too soon for me.

Sorry man, gotta disagree with you for once ;) TMP is my favourite Trek movie along with TWOK. Both of them are very different, of course, but I think they still give the most realistic futuristic “vibe” about what it would be like for humans to live in an interstellar civilisation, albeit depicting it in different ways. You’ll also remember my recent remarks about TWOK excessively influencing subsequent Trek films and how it might be better for the movies to now go in a more “hard sci-fi” direction like TMP — which would be a great fit for potential directors like Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan too. But I understand that people have different tastes; TMP is probably more for people who like reading Arthur C Clarke stories, or (as someone else on this thread mentioned) enjoy films like 2001, Blade Runner etc.
 
I also think TMP probably has the most realistic portrayal of what some real-life alien civilisations may actually be like. Not in terms of literally V’Ger, “machine planets” etc, but just the incredible scale of it all, especially if they’re tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of years more technologically advanced than us. We could be massively outclassed. Not to mention the possible incomprehension of some aspects of their psychology and perspectives; TMP did a great job of portraying the sheer “alienness” of what the Enterprise was encountering too.
 
Speaking of aliens — Thank you very much for your reply about UFOs/Elizondo etc again on the other thread. I know what you mean about Ancient Aliens and similar shows, but “Unidentified” is completely different and it’s all legit. The key people are all from the Pentagon, US intelligence and the military; not only are their activities now being supported by reputable academics like Harvard’s Avi Loeb, but it’s also triggered a bipartisan push to establish a formal “UFO investigation office” as part of next year’s National Defense Authorization Act, with significantly increased responsibilities and reporting requirements. US intelligence head Avril Haines is now involved too and she’s begun publicly saying it really could be extraterrestrials. So yes, do check out both seasons of “Unidentified” if you can (I think there was a one-off follow-up episode too, after the initial official UFO report for Congress back in June), and it’s also worth reading Elizondo’s various interviews along with those Twitter accounts I listed.
 
Bottom line is that the main folks involved in all this are saying the evidence does potentially point to extraterrestrials, although Elizondo has repeatedly indicated that some of the “aliens” are actually species originally from Earth that “have been here for a very long time” and were once “the dominant predators on this planet” (as he put it). You can read between the lines to figure out what he’s hinting. If he’s right, a certain VOY episode may not have been entirely fictional after all ;) The idea of that kind of Earth-origin non-human spacefaring civilisation being *tens of millions of years* more technologically advanced than us is pretty startling too — and it would be another reason that Elizondo thinks the general reaction to the full truth would be “sober” rather than celebrations or riots. It will be a humbling experience for the human ego, apparently.
 
Regarding the alleged alien footage in the Showtime documentary you mentioned — I did see that too a few weeks ago; I think it may have been a hoax, especially as JJ’s show repeatedly kept combining CGI “reconstructions” of supposed UFO incidents with genuine video footage, without distinguishing between the two. It’s also highly unlikely that it was the same as the alleged video footage of UFO occupants that was recently shown to Congress, because that stuff is still classified and it hasn’t yet been released to the public.

The key people are all from the Pentagon, US intelligence and the military; not only are their activities now being supported by reputable academics like Harvard’s Avi Loeb, but it’s also triggered a bipartisan push to establish a formal “UFO investigation office” as part of next year’s National Defense Authorization Act, with significantly increased responsibilities and reporting requirements. US intelligence head Avril Haines is now involved too and she’s begun publicly saying it really could be extraterrestrials.

 
For any of you interested in this stuff, here are a couple of articles summarising the latest developments:
 
https://thedebrief.org/former-defense-officials-weigh-in-on-proposed-uap-legislation/
 
https://thedebrief.org/we-dont-understand-everything-that-were-seeing-group-convenes-in-washington-to-discuss-space-the-future-and-extraterrestrials/
 
The first article mainly focuses on former Pentagon official Christopher Mellon, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and fighter pilots Ryan Graves and Alex Dietrich. The second article focuses on DNI head Avril Haines and Harvard professor Avi Loeb, although NASA head Bill Nelson is also quoted.
 
Here’s Lue Elizondo’s recent lengthy interview with British GQ, where he went into a surprising amount of detail:
 
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/luis-elizondo-interview-2021

If you want to read even more details of Elizondo’s claims about the identity of some of the “aliens”, the potential “sober” human reactions to it, and the fact that apparently we really have already retrieved “biological samples” and “occupants”, google “On the Trail of the Saucers Lue Elizondo Goes There” and “On the Trail of the Saucers Lue Elizondo talks ‘Biological Samples’ ” for the relevant articles.

(With apologies to Trekmovie’s moderators for the off-topic diversion).

No worries about disagreeing over TMP Jai! Clearly this is a very divisive movie. Just looking at this board tells you that lol. You have people like yourself who truly love it and others like me who can barely just stay awake watching it.

I won’t go into a long essay about it because it’s all been said here at this point, but I have always personally described TMP in this way: It’s an OK Star Trek movie, but a very BAD TOS movie which is what the real issue always been for me. The story itself is very much a Star Trek story of course (and based on a TOS episode), but just told in the most blandest way possible with a lot (and I mean a lot) of FX. But how it treats the TOS characters is just bad in nearly every way because they almost feel like completely different characters. Almost static compared to the colorful ones from the show itself.

In fact by coincidence the new Star Trek documentary, The Center Seat aired it’s latest episode just a few days after this article was made and it was based all around TMP. And I’ll quote what Leonard Nimoy himself said about the film in it (from an interview in 2014):

“It was cold, it was distant. It had very little to do with Star Trek. The characters were not in shape. In place playing off of each other.”

And this guy was IN it. ;)

This is exactly how I felt. How many felt. It just didn’t ring true to the original show beyond the basic concept and didn’t leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling the way TWOK did and they killed Spock in that one lol.

“It was cold, it was distant. It had very little to do with Star Trek. The characters were not in shape. In place playing off of each other.”

I think this stuff in the film was to deliberately show how far the main characters had drifted away from their camaraderie and shared sense of purpose while they’d been apart from each other (and from the Enterprise). They were back to their usual selves by the end of the movie. But Leonard Nimoy obviously had a different perspective on this, and who am I to argue with Mr Spock himself? ;)

As far as the Elizondo/UFO subject, I’ll keep it brief here since its soooo far off topic lol and me and you are the ones talking about it. But yes, I started watching the Unidentified documentary and man, its VERY good! I’ve only watched the first three episodes of season one so far but will finish it by the weekend and will watch season 2 next.

I was originally a little confused because I thought it was going to be different stories but instead it’s mostly one long investigation into a UFO incident between the Navy off the coast of California; which I find utterly fascinating. I never heard of this story and yet there is so much of it to explore. It’s so interesting because so many people are involved, there is so much collaboration around it and the fact the government was trying to keep it as secret as possible makes it more credible. And the more details that come out, the crazier it sounds. It makes you wonder just how MANY of these types of stories are there worldwide? I can’t wait to finish it now.

And by some bizarre coincidence, I was looking up the History channel for the new Star Trek documentary and came across the follow up episode to the documentary you mentioned. While the documentary is only on their website, the follow up is still being played on TV and it aired yesterday. So I recorded that on my DVR and will watch that after I finish both seasons.

And I will look up those other links you posted too and let you know my thoughts when I read them. I don’t want to take up too much space about this here but thank you so much! This is really great stuff! :)

I’d better keep things brief here too ;)

No problem about all this stuff. The publicity about the Nimitz incident seems to have been one of the main things that’s caused influential people to take this far more seriously. But it turns out there’s far more: The initial report sent to Congress during the summer confirmed that there have been 143 officially reported UFO incidents involving the US military between 2004 and 2021, with 80 incidents caught on multiple sensors etc. So there’s actually much more recorded evidence than just the handful of videos that have been declassified so far. The current investigation has also confirmed that incidents have been happening all over the world, so the actual numbers really are a lot higher. This includes UFOs tampering with nuclear missile sites — and the worrying twist here is that while nukes in the US were temporarily “switched off”, apparently the opposite happened in Russia, ie. the nuke launch sequences were temporarily *activated*. Make of that what you will.

(By the way, Alex Dietrich is the Navy pilot who chased one of the “tic-tac” UFOs during the Nimitz incident).

There’s a lot of information about all this, so I hope you find the rest of “Unidentified” along with those articles and Twitter accounts interesting too. There have been some X-Files-style complications this week about publicly releasing the full truth (internal power struggles between various higher-ups, it seems), but you’ll see what I mean if you read Lue Elizondo and Chris Mellon’s tweets during the past few days.

I’d better wrap this up here. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about everything once you’ve had the chance to go through it; just post a comment to me on another thread under a new Trekmovie article if you see me commenting there.

And yes, this is fascinating stuff :)

PS. Just to let you know, I’ve posted a follow-up reply with links to a few articles that you should find really interesting, but Trekmovie’s filter has swallowed it. Hopefully Trekmovie’s moderators will rescue the comment. Keep an eye out for it anyway.

Yeah I see those as well. I’ll definitely look them up too!

Must disagree here.

No worries!

It needs to be said that there are others who are thrilled and blown away by this movie.

I never realized the NOMAD similarity before (haven’t seen the episode in 10 years at least). I still think the plot twist of v’ger to voyager as the greatest twist in franchise history. It certainly gives a sense of wonder to what’s possible. It glued together the grander themes in the film, like what it’s like to be human, what other lifeforms could be like, the vastness and alienness of the universe. That to me is Star Trek. While many of the other films are great, they feel too domestic in theme.

Many want thick plots with betrayals and action rather than film space to ponder on the mystery, but not me. I enjoy that. Though, I will admit the character chemistry was lacking (they had the film space to develop such – better side plots were needed.)

It is a wonderful movie.

At least the story is somewhat different than the xth version of “angry villain wants to seek revenge with super-weapon”.

Exactly!

LOL, that’s definitely a good point.

I totally agree!
Sadly, “angry villain wants to seek revenge with super-weapon” is what the JJ Abrams movies were about. They sold lots of tickets and made lots of money. Some people feels this means Abrams saved Star Trek. But I think there’s more to Star Trek than blockbuster sales. I wish Star Trek was smaller and smarter, instead of appealing to the lowest common denominator.

It was a polite conversation before you tossed in the lowest common denominator jab.

It’s true what he says about the JJ films though.

Like or don’t like what you want but nobody here is the guardian of good taste. Gatekeepers drag this place down.

?

Well said

“Lowest Common Denomimitor?”

Now you’re just sniffing your own farts.

Mostly I just find the film boring with a weak story, but people get so self righteous about this one.

I just don’t connect with the sad lonely probe on the view screen. I don’t think the film is as heavy as it’s trying so hard to be.

GarySeven was not talking about TMP. He was saying the Abrams movies were for the Lowest Common Denominator. I don’t necessarily agree…but I know many others do.

Yes, I’m fully aware he was insulting fans of the Kelvan movies, many of whom are here. I got that loud and clear. How is that okay? When I said I didn’t care for TMP i didn’t suggest its fans were somehow less than.

I get that this forum tends to present the opinions and older segment of fans who are largely set in their ways. It is what it is, but sometimes folks sit in their own bubble too long and appoint themselves gods of good taste.

Well OK then, but your line of argument was really confusing. You seem to be equating GarySeven was saying anyone who didn’t like TMP was basically people who only liked movies that appealed to the lowest common denominator which he wasn’t saying at all. And since you ONLY referenced that movie, well, that’s where I got confused. ;)

And I feel exactly the same way you do about TMP. I just find it boring, lifeless and even pretentious. And while I have my issues with the Kelvin movies, I prefer all of them over TMP easily! I don’t love any of them but I do consider myself a Kelvin universe fan just as much as I’m a fan of every other aspect of Star Trek (even Discovery ;)). I do have a lot of problems with them for sure, but unlike TMP they are at least, what’s the word, oh yeah, entertaining. ;D

As far as his insult about the Kelvin movies and its fans, I didn’t really take offence I guess because I been hearing people say that about them here since I been on this site for ten years now; so I don’t even think about it anymore lol.

And yes I’m very used to people being set in their ways here sadly.

“Absolute trash” 🤦‍♂️

Script is a lot better than kurtzmantrek.

“Good movie”

It is a great movie.

It’s almost like people can have different opinions or something. I don’t remember telling anyone how to feel.

I get this film appeals to a certain type of person but it’s not for everyone. For some reason saying the film is not for me brings out the self righteousness in some folks.

TMP was my intro to Trek as a child, and I can’t wait to revisit it like this. Hopefully there’ll be some theatrical showings somewhere.

So excited for this, having just watched the 4K of the theatrical version earlier today. Glad the original team from the DE DVD are all back on it.

I have a ‘special extended double secret probation something something’ version from years ago, and sadly they cut the “Bones: …and another thing!; Kirk: Get out of here, Bones.” scene.

I’d be happy to just have that back. :)

Ah really? Why would they cut a Bones moment like that? They’re the best!!

TMP = a true Sci Fi classic like 2001 and Blade Runner

In this instance, you’re a ‘flaming torpedo of fake news’. haha.

all 3 films initally wernt very well received, criticised as too slow/meandering and later became revered ‘classic’ films of the genre

2001 was not criticized for being too slow; it came out in an era of more leisurely-paced films and *before* Star Wars. And, unlike TMP, it had an interesting ending. As for TMP, those who regard it as a “revered classic” would be a very tiny minority.

???

?

4K + proper CG FX enhancements + Atmos = Cinematic Gold! To this day there has not been a single Trek big screen moment to match the thrilling Enterprise Tour with Kirk + Scotty!!!

It was way too long; it needs to be cut back. And, worst of all, the shuttle was out of proportion to the Enterprise; it was too big!

Regarding your last point, Trek has always taken huge liberties when it comes to depicting distances and scale. Basically, they have always gone with what look good on screen, not an accurate representation of scale.

True.

It´s not too long. Every second of the scene is pure cinema and pure Star Trek.

I wonder if they are using the original 65mm negative for the special effects like Doug Trumbull wanted. They haven’t mentioned their process if its just the standard 35mm negative.

They’re being very tightlipped about their process, but we certainly hope they are.

I hope they fix how earth looks cause it looks like Neptune rather than actual earth.

Good point.

I’m very excited for this. Of all the upcoming projects and releases and whatnot in the Star Trek universe, this is the thing I’m most looking forward that isn’t more Lower Decks or Prodigy. I know the movie isn’t everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, hot, but I adore it, and it was a huge part of my own late ‘70s / early ‘80s journey into Star Trek fandom. There’s no movie in the franchise I love more (three I love as much, but none more), and I can’t wait to see the DE the way it’s truly meant to be.

ST:TMP was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater so it will always hold a special, sentimental place for me. It remains my favorite Star Trek movie and I just hope we eventually get a BluRay or 4K disc release of this so I can have it as part of my physical collection.

Don’t worry, Paramount won’t pass by a chance to milk more money out of it.

So you don’t like ST:TMP, fine. I got that after your repeated snarky comments.

As for Paramount, I haven’t spent a dime on any of their product in years (their new Trek offerings are garbage in my eyes) so I’ll be more than happy to pony up for a nice physical copy of this down the road.

My favourite Trek film by far. Watching it is like a meditative experience for me. Totally pulls me into its world, and I cannot wait for this.

I was actually gonna say the same thing. This film is a true meditation and in the best kind. It absolutely takes you into this strange world and never lets go until the end. I think why many people have a problem with it is just that most people are unfortunately impatient and can’t really appreciate a good slow-burn.

Same here, and it’s not particularly close.

It’s a meditative experience for me, too; it puts me into a coma. haha.

It’s a hard science fiction movie that actually requires you to pay attention, something that most movies don’t seem interested in these days. Big, noisy, loud events with endless fistfights and loud explosions are a dime a dozen and are quickly forgotten. It’s atestament to ST:TMP’s lasting power that it still continues to have an audience and garner so much interest over 40 years after it’s release.

If it didn’t have the Star Trek name attached it would be completely forgotten today.

A Robert Wise film that got a thumbs up from Roger Ebert and raked in $175 million worldwide? I completely doubt your powers of estimation.

I liked the Newsweek review best: ‘Warp Speed to Nowhere’.

Apparently, you didn’t like it as much as you thought as that appears nowhere in Jack Kroll’s TREK INTO MYSTICISM review for NEWSWEEK.

No

🤦‍♂️

Exactly

Talk to me when they do a 4K version of Star Trek 2… TMP is a snorefest

They have. It’s been available for months.

🤦‍♂️

Anyone know how this will be released on Canada?

Details about this project are sparse. Since this is being touted as a Paramount+ exclusive. It may be that this will also be an exclusive for Paramount+ in Canada.

Eventually we expect it to get a release on disc as well, but from their initial press release about the project there’s an exclusivity window for streaming only for some set period of time.

Seriously? Now I have to buy the +. Love that movie. Despite a sadly missed 2nd and 3rd act opportunity, with Klingons getting on board the Enterprise and an in-ship battle for control. A Star Trek classic!

Cinematically speaking I absolutely think that this is the best Trek movie ever made. Especially if you consider cinema to be mainly a visual medium. Impatient people will have a hard time with it but if you allow the film to take you on this strange journey I think you’ll be able to appreciate it more.

When I much younger, TMP was not on my fav ST list of movies. But now that I’m older, its my all time fav. It really captured the essence of Star Trek and is timeless. From the music to the refit of our beloved Enterprise, to the wonderful banter between Spock, Kirk, and McCoy, it really did encapsulate everything I love about the series. It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

‘stop competing with me, decker!’

No one but Kirk wanted to be on board; it was the ‘bad vibes’ Trek movie.

It really shouldn’t have been. I really wish they had celebrated the relaunch of the refit, the Federation’s flagship, even in an emergency.

I don’t know. I must be on an island by myself. I found the movie cold, long and boring. I will give you an example. The scene where Kirk and some others take the shuttle craft over to the Enterprise near the beginning. That scene just goes on and on needlessly. Just way too long and redundant. I don’t need to see that shuttle slowing moving towards the Enterprise from every angle and slowly pulling in. If you noticed in Star Trek II, there was a similar scene but Nicolas Meyers made it the appropriate length and didn’t drag it out. Out of the 6 originals I might put it at 5. The order of the best in my opinion would be easily 2 then either 4 or 6 then 3 then 1 then 5.

actually it frames the size of the enterprise and then we see it dwarfed later by v’ger

You have to put this in context of the time it was released. At that point, the Enterprise had never been seen in such detail on a big screen, and it was also a reintroduction for the fans as the ship looked considerably different. The length of the scene is appropriate for what was being done in that movie.

I vehemently disagree. The “Enterprise Flyaround” is the stand-out scene in the movie to me. TMP is the only movie to remember than many fans consider the Enterprise as much of a character as Kirk, Spock, and Bones. That flyaround was her big close-up, and the Enterprise has never looked better, before or since, with Goldsmith’s glorious score matching the scene perfectly. For those of us who’d waited ten years for the return of Star Trek, that scene was worth the price of admission.

The first half of the movie, with the Klingon Battle, the transporter accident, launching the Enterprise, the wormhole, and Spock’s arrival actually moves along at a pretty good pace. It is the over-long V’ger flyover, where the movie’s pacing screeches to a halt.

I really loved how Lower Decks parodied that scene in Crisis Point lol. And I do like the scene in general, but I’m sure people who watch it today are like ‘um, hurry up!’

Agree about the movie in general, boring and lifeless.

“People who watch it today are like ‘um, hurry up!’”

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Right, because adhd/social media attention span is what things should be based on.

Snarkiness aside, there is probably a reason why they never did it again in any movie, right?

JJ Abrams said for the first Kelvin film, they wanted to honor what TMP did in introducing the Enterprise. But he also acknowledged he knew it couldn’t be that long today and why their introduction to the Enterprise was under a minute long.

Meyer. And sorry, disagree.

This is only US star trek content. World star trek community won`t be able to watch it. Maybe in 2023.

I can’t wait for this. Visually this movie is a feast for the eyes. The Enterprise never looked this good again, they made it look enormous, and beautifully detailed. The sets were massive and so detailed and well thought I out.
There’s some lovely little moments that shows the detail they went to, like when Kirk and Scotty arrive and you hear an announcement in the background that a travel pod is now available, or when the headrest on Kirk’s chair automatically adjusts. There are hundreds of these little details in the film that make the Enterprise seem almost real.
I love the other films, especially Khan which is my absolute favourite, but they do feel cheap compared to TMP and I really appreciate the work that went into it.

TMP is still my secret champion behind the “big four” (TWOK, TVH, TUC, FC). But it is more than that: it is a slightly outdated templet of what any future Trek movie should look and feel like.

The problem back then was that it was so ill-received by the fans. They expected something more like Star Wars. Which is absurd: because that’s exactly what we got in most of the following 12 outings…

In retrospect, that may have been a huge mistake. Don’t get me wrong: on its own, TWOK is still my second-favourite movie (after FC), but its success has cast a very long shadow over the Trek film franchise because every other follow-up tried to be the next TWOK with villains either craving for revenge, eternal youth or war-mongering.

TWOK has become a tiresome formula whereas the TMP disaster-meets-exploration plot has never ever been revisited… no actual villain, truly epic visuals and scoring, a threat from beyond good and evil patters… THIS is what makes TMP so much more than any of the pew-pew-pew-ridden franchise outings…

I truly hope DSC S4 will give us that sort of alternate Trek beyond empty villainy and Khan-shipping…

The only films that don’t fit that template are TMP, TVH, and TFF. That is like 3 out of 13. and the last 5 films have all been Space Revenge movies starting with insurrection.

In the TWOK’s defence… it wasn’t a formula when done the first time.
And the Genesis device did inject some science and exploration that could have been explored more post IV.

Fun fact: the remastering looks like it actually takes place ON the Enterprise! Almost… If they would use white consoles… :-)

Wonderful observation. Love this meta-level stuff. Apart from beaming and warp drive, there isn’t much we haven’t achieved in the last 60 years. Especially in computing…

And while there is no warp drive or spore drive, there is crypto currencies. They do the same insane speeds on value performance charts :-)

Now I can fall asleep in 4k! :D Sorry, this is the one movie I always skip when I re-watch them because I always fall asleep shortly into it.

I know this is PR-language in order to sell the movie one more time. And in real life you know that the studio is meddling a lot within the original movie creation process. So Robert Wise was probably not solely responsible for the released product in 1979. But wouldn’t you think that the initial release was the actual ‘director’s edition’? Who’s edition was it back then? And clearly this new release is mislabeled considering that the original director can’t be involved in this one.

It was under a massive time-crunch. Wise just didn’t have enough time to finish the movie the way he wanted it, they had to make the Dec 6, 1979 premiere date and they were badly behind schedule almost from the beginning due to choosing a Special Effects company that just wasn’t up to the task and thinking they could use the Phase II models and sets (which were TV quality, not movie quality) which ruined their schedule and budget when they found out they couldn’t. In the meantime, they started filming before the final third of the movie had even been written. Some scenes, such as the Memory Wall had to be abandoned. Wise wanted more of those small character moments in the movie, but Paramount wanted more special effects (especially since they’d been so expensive and time-consuming) which resulted in the overlong V’ger Flyover sequence and dropping Spock’s tears, etc. The movie was barely completed in time. Wise carried a still-wet print to the world premiere.

The Director’s Edition let Wise fix the movie as best he could. It is a much better version of TMP, although it still is not a great movie. At least he was able to put the moving starfield behind the overture, instead of everyone staring at a blank screen for 2 1/2 minutes.

Great insight, Thorny! Appreciate your response. Labeling this the “Director’s Edition’ makes much more sense to me now.

Say what you will about the film, the DE is a significant improvement in my opinion. Especially the crying-Spock scene is both somewhat shocking and also an indication of the journey that character takes throughout the movie.

I disagree. It’s got even worse pacing problems than before. It’s true the scene with Spock crying is strong but it’s redundant when we have the one with Spock in sickbay which is more effective. The DE adds too many extraneous stuff in the finale when the plot demands that it been a lot quicker. It’s just goes on and on and on. When I chose to watch TMP(which is rare) I always go for the theatrical version, it’s better paced.

Agree to disagree. I think the DE pacing is better ( a little faster actually), and the Spock sickbay and the crying Spock scenes don’t detract from each other. Also the DE reduces/eliminates/fixes a few scenes that are cringe worthy in the original (no more stupid Spock jet pack instructions!). PLUS we get to actually SEE V’Ger in total!

🤦‍♂️ Please stick with kurtzmantrek?

All versions are great.

I sincerely hope this will also be released on disc not long after it appears on Paramount +. I have no desire to sign up for Paramount +, regardless of the content. I prefer to own a physical copy.

May I be the 40th person on here to say: squee!!!!!!!

Adding the memory wall stuff and the security guards on the bridge fighting the probe would make a nice extra. There were many other filmed scenes not seen before, also. Whatever they add, I hope it fits the existing plans/storyboards, though. Will take a look at this for sure.

They can’t put the Security Guards back in because Kirk later says only two casualties… Decker and Ilia.

Damn you are right. Too bad.

It would be interesting to see just how the surrounds on the Atmos work with the Goldsmith score and if they have the original scoring sessions to play with. I’m also curious on the color timing and how close it will be to the theatrical 4K. Are they working off the same scan of the Original Negative as the theatrical? How much is being used of the outtakes etc. I’m curiously optimistic as long as it doesn’t become Lucasized. That it stays true to what would have been possible in 79.

I wonder if Robert Wise was alive and he went to Paramount and said “I want that actor that plays Decker out of my movie. We will hire a new actor like they did with ‘All the Money in the World’ and green screen someone like Chris Pratt into the scenes with Decker and Lt. llia.” I don’t know if any of you saw the making of Army of the Dead on Netflix. Star Trek’s Tig Notaro was hired late to replace someone they fired. She filmed all her scenes after the other actors by herself from her home. I could not believe how the technology has advanced. They were using some kind of Mandalorian rear screen technology. There were scenes in a helicopter with her flying it and Dave Batista in the back. You would never have known she was home in her house in front of a green screen. It really looked like she is there flying that helicopter and then there is a scene on top of a high-rise with a whole bunch of actors standing around and once again you’d never know she was not there with them. I could see them one day removing actors from movies. Removing OJ Simpson from Naked Gun and replacing him with Kevin Hart. Things like that.

I certainly hope not. All The Money In The World hadn’t been released yet when they replaced Spacey with Plummer, so that’s an entirely different issue than going back and erasing someone from a 40 year old movie. And it just reeks of dishonesty to me, with Hollywood basically saying, “Who, us? we didn’t hire a pedofile or murderer! See! No Stephen Collins or O.J. Simpson in OUR movie!” Better to leave the movies alone and take whatever residuals the actor gets from movie sales and give them to his/her victims.

Also, you run into issues like O.J. actually being found not guilty.

And good luck replacing Collins in the Decker/Ilia merger sequence!

I think you really start to tread on dangerous ground when you do that with established movies that have been around for a long time. Army of the Dead was a special case as it was still in production. But if you do that with established films, where does it end. Do you edit out Johnny Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean because of all his domestic issues? How about Jeffrey Jones in Amadeus? Jeffrey Rush, who was in a lot of memorable movies, has really fallen off the radar after disturbing allegations came to light. Woody Allen has been accused of some pretty serious stuff, what do you do with his movies? Roman Polanski is still wanted for statutory rape, should we throw away all his movies, even the ones he did after he went in exile? How about we burn all of the early James Bond movies because of they way they portrayed women or cancel all of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison’s music because they stupidly died of a drug overdose and threw their lives away. At a certain point you need to separate the artist from the work.

I don’t see it as dangerous ground. We don’t have to watch content and financially reward those who have mistreated others.

As economists put it, my dollar or eyeball view “votes” are my own, and enough of the audience is put off, then it will have an impact on the financial value of the property as a whole.

Removing and replacing a secondary character doesn’t seem so much difficult than issuing a dubbed version.

I can and do choose not to watch any Roman Polanski movies. Especially as his views and disrespect of young women are translated into the screen.

I also have had serious qualms about any Sean Connery movies after his public statements that he thought it was ok to hit his wife. (But admit to still loving the Hunt for Red October and his perfect would be irreplaceable in that.)

And of course, I still love Star Trek while we know that TOS and the Berman era shows were not produced in a way that in which the female talent was treated with respect.

Sounds like Charlie X behavior

Warning to DataLore. There’s no need for rapid fire replies to every single comment thread that you feel you need to “defend” or otherwise comment on. That’s a form of spamming and something you’ve been warned about before.

I think it goes both ways, on the one hand yes we have to be aware that these people have done some horrible things but on the other hand you also have to think about all the other people that have worked on these films as well and ask yourself whether its ok to dismiss the work of all the others as well. It also borderlines on censorship so there is a slippery slope here. I personally think films and any form of entertainment shouldn’t be tampered with but left to the audience whether they want to involve themselves with the product or not. People also shouldn’t judge others just because they enjoyed a film by “Polanski” or “Connery”. I mean I still love Chinatown and almost of all of Connery’s films but I can look at these products separately from the people and this doesn’t make me compliant with their views or ideas.

“Kevin Hart” 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

who wouldn’t want that top picture as wallpaper? not for your puny computer…I mean – on. your. friggin. wall?

That would look great on one of the walls in your model display room.

Disappointed that it’s not on physical media, streaming is not as good, not to mention limiting if something happens. We woke up this morning and half the city had been without internet since 1:30 in the morning.

As for the movie, I love it. Some people think it’s dull, I don’t. When they are all staring at the screen in awe of v’ger I feel it. I think I’d be doing the same. Plus, the introduction to the refit is one of the best moments in all of Star Trek.

It’s probably going to come out on physical media at some point. The question is just how long the exclusive window on Paramount Plus will be. Comparing this to releases of new movies, it seems to me that the time between first (theatrical) release and DVD/Blu-ray release is getting shorter, not longer.

Who decides the release windows on these things because Star Trek II UHD was done for years and wasn’t released until two months ago. That was done in 2016 and its 2021.

I know a lot of people never liked this movie, but to me, it was the only one of the entire movie series that made any attempt to capture that original premise of seeking out new life and boldly going where no one has gone before that Star Trek was based on. None of the others do that, instead presenting themselves as a sequence of star wars lite war movies in which the Enterprise and its crew discovers nothing, explores nothing and invariably gets blown up by some intergalactic bad guy or another. TMP was progressive and cerebral, as good sci fi should be, and for that, it has forever been pilloried.

It was a poorly written and constructed movie. That is why folks don’t like it; not because it’s “progressive and cerebral”. Haha.

I LOVE TMP (and when I was a kid it was my favorite) but quite frankly it gets boring.
There are some scenes that excit… like when Earth is surrounded by the energy weapons (almost frightening).. but you have to go through half an hour of nothing to get there.
They needed something to make travelling through V’ger more exciting – interior planets, trapped ships, a struggle to get in… something!

Yes. Endless SFX shots interspersed with concerned / amazed reaction shots from the folks on the bridge does not an epic movie make. But what bothered me most was that the characters were so antagonistic toward each other; the fans wanted a celebration! They wanted an adventure with a crew who were happy to be back and working together. No Decker, no Ilia, no transporter accidents, etc.

Agreed!!!!
I didn’t mind Decker and Ilia to mix things up but you are right, they didn’t come off in TMP as people happy to see each other after having completed a legendary five year mission together.
Perhaps they could have extended out the time between TOS and TMP to say 10 years with Kirk having really been head of Starfleet, that would have been a more interesting dynamic perhaps? (I.e. it’s great to work with you again Admiral after 10-20 years, but do you really remember how to command with a wink, wink at the audience).
McCoy coming back drafted only to be happy to see it is Kirk again after all these years?

The director’s edition doesn’t just include new effects and sound but Wise was able to re-edit the movie again to improve the pacing a bit. The most significant effects improvement to me were the shots of Spock on Vulcan.

Love TMP, as much as I like the rest of the movies, I wish more of them had that cerebral style instead of trying to copy Khan.

The prime directive for any future Trek movie should be to achieve the epicness / exploration / learning of Star Trek TMP but with a flowing exciting character driven adventure story in a trilogy like Star Trek II and the Genesis Arc. Non Trek franchise that manage to achieve this are LOTR and Master and Commander. Achieve that and you have greatness. Of course if was easy….

NONE of the Trek films have proven to be classics; they are all throw-aways that Paramount would never re-release into theaters as the original Star Wars trilogy was to much success.

Well, I think the Genesis Arc is as close as it came with hints of epicness and a dramatic exciting arc. That being said, what is the Genesis Arc missing – more of the exploration and epicness of TMP.
It has to be possible.
Take Star Trek II action/adventure/character + TMP exploration/epicness and ram it together.
I think it is possible but oh is it tough given the canon of the 24th.

Imagine if the original Star Trek films were suppressed and all you could see were bad redone 2020 Special Editions. With janky 1990s cgi. Or if they released the original in a postage sized letterbox transfer that was standard def and didn’t fit your HDTV screen. And was based on a 13 year old composite video master for laserdisc. That happened to Star Wars in 2006. And its out of print too. The original doesn’t exist anymore thanks to GL. Disney Lucasfilm simply doesn’t care.

I understand you are stating your opinion not fact, however if you Google “Greatest Science Fiction Films of All Time”, you will find Wrath of Khan on some of those lists, so at least some people disagree with your statement about “classics”.

Love it or hate it, and for all its flabby pacing and leaden characterisation, this is the only Trek film that even makes the attempt to have an actual, intriguing science fiction concept at its core – the idea that a machine, having achieved sentience, might then struggle with the same existential questions we do. That’s also what takes it beyond being a mere Nomad retread. However much I enjoyed the subsequent films I was always disappointed that they never again showed the same literate ambition.

Lol Now it’s like AI = life but no big deal. Now V’ger can be totally as imaginative as any organic, no need for humans for innovation. Starships can be fully alive, life forever, breath in space, etc. Learn everything in the galaxy, replicate itself whenever, jump dimensions. Nothing to contemplate there people, move on, we’ve got holodeck games to play.

True. Picard becomes a robot and nobody even blinks. Nobody questions whether it is a robot that thinks it is Picard or if he is. I’m used to the AI being really bad. The bad guy in sci fi stories.

All those bulges… In 4k HD… I don’t think the world is ready for this.