Ok I’m not a fan of the 1st Star trek Movie but I needed to see what Paramount would do with a special edition DVD for the Star Trek Movies. As anyone who has seen the others knows they are sadly lacking in any extras.
I have to say I love the new cut with fixed special effects. I was not crazy about Lucas redoing the Original Star Wars flicks and thought the new effects were neat but mostly unnecessary. On This movie it actually improves the film. The cuts and additions were perfect.
Wise knew exactly what he wanted and actually makes this film more watchable… not great but better.
The extras are incredible!
Anyone else seen this yet? What do you think?
I haven’t seen it but I want to now. What extras are there?
Actually just found this info.
Disk 1
— A group commentary by Wise, special photographic effects director Douglas Trumbull, special photographic effects supervisor John Dykstra, music composer Jerry Goldsmith and actor Stephen Collins.
— A text commentary by Michael Okuda, scenic art supervisor currently working on Enterprise and co-author of The Star Trek Encyclopaedia.
Disk 2
— Three new retrospective documentaries with cast and crew interviews.
— Original teaser and theatrical trailer.
— New Director’s Edition trailer.
— Eight TV commercials from the original theatrical release.
— Five additional scenes (from the 1979 theatrical version) plus trims and outtakes.
— Eleven deleted scenes (from the 1983 TV version).
— Storyboard archive.
— New Star Trek series Enterprise promo spot.
From http://www.startrek.com/news/productnews.asp?ID=120511
Cool.
beat me to it… Ok The best feature on disk one is the text by Michael Okuda. I mean there are some really neat little tidbits of information on it. Such as which bridge set pieces from STMP were later used in other movies and episodes of all of the Star Trek franchise. That was surprising.
I haven’t gone through all of Disk 2 but I suggest watching the Ad campaign with a voice over that may or may not be Orsen Wells. It’s also interesting how they tried to sell the movie (See the TV Ads)
Every scene Trimmed from the original Theatrical version and TV version are on the Disk (Right down to a reaction shot or word) in Anomorphic Letterbox (Woah!)
Meaning (And I do not endorse the following opinion as it risks breaking many copyright laws) if you have the means on your PC you could full restore the entire movie or redit it yourself with only a few bad musical cues or changed sound effects (They dropped the Computer voice buzzing Red Alerts for the familiar Klaxon)
I Caught 1 Documentary on the lost Series Star Trek Phase II which has film of a few test of costumes and proposed sets including the Actor who was to play Spock’s replacement (Nimoy was the only hold out on the series) Xon.
Pretty Well done… Now if we can get the sales up on it Paramount may give trhe rest of teh franchise the proper treatment.
Sorry to go on but to be honest I was impressed with the DVD, concidering what little regard I had for the movie in the first place.
I bought and have so far enjoyed what I have seen. I’ll echo that the effects shots are not distracting in the “Look What I can Do 20 Years Later” Star Wars vein, but do enhance the film. Honestly, except for the Vulcan exterior and the new San Francisco Bay Tram Flyover, nothing really jumps out and says 2001 as opposed to 1979. A few shots I would not have noticed had they not been pointed out in the documentaries.
I have not watched the Okuda thing and now look forward to doing so. My only complaint is the “Crowded Commentaries” – just too many people to keep up with. I would rather they placed, say Wise, Collins and Goldsmith on one track and Trumbull and Dykstra on another. Robert Wise’s commentary has been obviously prepared for him as his cadence clearly indicates he is reading and you can even hear him shuffle the paper, but that’s okay, the man is well into his 80s and to be as intelligent and mentally active at that age as he still is is more than I’ll probably be.
One theory of mine was finally borne out. I have long suspected that the Vulcan elders were speaking computer-garbled English, i .e. you can clearly hear the Pristess say something like “it stirs your huba halve (human half), Spoke,” and the onscreen captions were slightly changed/rearranged so as not to make this too obvious.
I don’t think the trailer narrator is Welles, but the voice does sound damn familiar.
I recommend it. It still takes 15 minutes too long to get through V’ger, but it looks and sounds better. I noticed they mixed in some TOS-style communicator query chirps and a bit of the old transporter whine.
Sir Rhosis