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Posted: |
Apr 17, 2013 - 3:22 AM
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By: |
Jeyl
(Member)
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- I've never seen the Dirxtor's Cut so would appreciate soneone talking me through the changes.
While the Director's Edition doesn't change the story, it does feature many alterations that gives the film a sense that it's actually finished. Here are some of the big changes.
Audio
Without a doubt, this is the biggest and most noticeable change in the Director's Edition. Outside of the actors voices and music, almost every scene has had it's sound design changed in some fashion and it's a massive improvement. One example of added sound effects is whenever a character presses buttons on their station. In the original you would barely hear a sound and it certainly wouldn't sound anything like Star Trek. In here we not only get the beeps and chimes, there's also some iconic TOS sounds thrown in that helps sell the fact that this is still the same Enterprise from TOS.
But by far the most important piece of audio editing in the Director's Edition is the removal of the Enterprise's male computer voice. That voice is probably one of the most intrusive, annoying, repetitive and totally un-Star Trek aspect of the whole film. It's not until you watch the Director's Edition that you realize just how much it wasn't needed to begin with. While there are two instances where the computer voice is heard, it's been redone with an actress since the Enterprise should always have a female voice.
Added Footage
The Director's Edition also incorporates some footage from the "Special Longer Edition". The crew's reaction to Kirk taking command of the Enterprise is back in, Bones' introduction is longer, Kirk ordering Scotty to await his command to initiate the Enterprise's Self Destruct, Probe Ilia's reasoning for V'Ger's justified destruction of all life on Earth is back as well as had it's audio properly adjusted and Spock's tearful moment in understanding V'Ger's motivation. Other smaller scenes that make it into the Director's Edition have also been edited differently, such as Bones asking Kirk "How do we know about any of us?" during their conversation about Spock putting his own interest ahead of the ship's.
There's even a brand new, never before seen shot of Ilia leaving her station to assist Chekov after he gets shocked. Also the scene where she uses her ability to ease his pain now has a piece of Jerry Goldsmith's music.
Trims
This is probably the second most noticeable change in the Director's Edition, but they're appropriate ones. For example, any mention of an alien vessel inside the cloud has been removed both from the Klingon transmission (which goes untranslated) and from Kirk's briefing to the crew on the recreation deck. Robert Wise said in his commentary that he wanted Epsilon 9 to be the one to uncover this mystery and have Spock confirm it later.
There are also small cuts here and there like a faster pace Klingon sequence, Kirk's "Oh, my god" reaction to the transporter incident, most of Sulu's dialogue (Though I will always miss "The new screens held!"), and my favorite trim in the whole movie, Kirk's knee jerk reaction to Bones when he's trying to talk to Spock about what he should have known. And yes, the journey through the cloud and over the V'Ger vessel has been trimmed as well.
Effects
This was the most worrisome aspect of the Director's Edition because everyone involved in creating the new effects was no doubt going to be compared to the Star Wars Special Editions. Thankfully everyone working on the Director's Edition agreed that all the new effects shots they created would have to look like it could have been done back in the day. Here's is a list of the most notable changes.
- Vulcan now actually resembles Vulcan from the original series. No more matte paintings showing space and a lot of moons (VULCAN HAS NO MOONS!).
- San Francisco has been redone with added shots and replaced matte paintings to give it a more active and cleaner look than we saw in the original.
- The conclusion to the wormhole sequence has been redone to show the Enterprise almost coming into contact with the Asteroid explosion and successfully leaving the wormhole.
- The second V'Ger attack now shows an exterior shot of the Enterprise where you can see just how close the plasma bolt came to actually making contact with the ship before it disappears.
- A new exterior shot of the Enterprise showing a plasma bolt approaching the bridge section, stopping and shocking it which leads to the bridge probe sequence.
- The shot of V'Ger approaching Earth has been completely redone to actually showcase the entire vessel emerging from the cloud. This is probably the most helpful addition in terms of new effects because being able to actually see all of the V'Ger vessel really helps sell how huge this vessel is since we spent a good chunk of time seeing the Enterprise fly over it.
- V'Ger's attack on Earth has been redone slightly. The footage showing V'Ger firing it's plasma bolts has been flipped upside down and we get to see the vessel fire more consecutive bolts.
- The journey through the V'Ger orifice has been significantly altered to accommodate the "Special Longer Edition" footage. Instead of seeing where V'Ger resides right away, the Enterprise enters a long dark chamber where you can barely make out the V'Ger island in the distance.
- The walk toward's V'Ger has been altered. Remember how the crew walked across a field of weirdly placed blocks? Well at the start, those blocks are not there. All you see is this floating island where V'Ger resides. When Kirk and crew are seen on top of the saucer section, V'Ger actually forms multiple arms that stretch from it's island that are made up of all of those cubes. So when you see the crew walking toward's V'Ger, they're not walking on a field, they're walking on a bridge. Very nice change.
- The V'Ger explosion after joining with Decker and Ilia has been changed slightly. You now see the V'Ger vessel become completely engulfed in the light you saw earlier until it finally explodes like it did in the original.
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Posted: |
Apr 17, 2013 - 7:57 AM
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By: |
Joe E.
(Member)
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So are there any reliable reports that the entire Kirk/Spock movies are going to be remastered in Blu-ray?
I already have the current Blu-ray set and would be interested in a remastered version.
Well if you look here, you can read the Paramount description on the 6 disc set on the back
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Star-Trek-Original-Motion-Picture-Collection-Blu-ray/4190/
This says they already were 'digitally remastered" whereas it says "ST2 was fully restored in high definition" . Well that is darn confusing isn't it?
I think it is pretty common that when an A list picture is transferred to BR it is remastered to clean it up to some degree or another. I can say from owning this set that they all look pretty good. The reviews on the above site are pretty accurate, and any remastered bluray is still limited to the original source film quality. As far as pure vividness TMP while the oldest, is easily the best of the transfers. The others have degrees of grain, which they probably wanted. Nick Meyer shoots with more grainy stock, so 2 and 6 are more granular and less vivid. I think 4 and 5 look pretty good, and 5 looks especially more colorful. The soundtracks are all much improved, with TMP the most changed in 7.1 sound.
So what I am saying is that you are probably not going to see Paramount investing yet more money into another remastering of the original films. They are still putting lots of money into the remaster of the TNG series on BR.
It was my understanding Paramount is no longer doing anything with the TV series, just the movies, and that CBS is the entity behind the massive amounts of new work being done for the various TV shows (which explains why the shows and the movies are receiving such different levels of treatment). I gather we can only wish Paramount would put even half as much effort and care into the movie releases as CBS has been doing with the TV shows.
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Posted: |
Apr 17, 2013 - 8:12 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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So are there any reliable reports that the entire Kirk/Spock movies are going to be remastered in Blu-ray?
I already have the current Blu-ray set and would be interested in a remastered version.
Well if you look here, you can read the Paramount description on the 6 disc set on the back
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Star-Trek-Original-Motion-Picture-Collection-Blu-ray/4190/
This says they already were 'digitally remastered" whereas it says "ST2 was fully restored in high definition" . Well that is darn confusing isn't it?
I think it is pretty common that when an A list picture is transferred to BR it is remastered to clean it up to some degree or another. I can say from owning this set that they all look pretty good. The reviews on the above site are pretty accurate, and any remastered bluray is still limited to the original source film quality. As far as pure vividness TMP while the oldest, is easily the best of the transfers. The others have degrees of grain, which they probably wanted. Nick Meyer shoots with more grainy stock, so 2 and 6 are more granular and less vivid. I think 4 and 5 look pretty good, and 5 looks especially more colorful. The soundtracks are all much improved, with TMP the most changed in 7.1 sound.
So what I am saying is that you are probably not going to see Paramount investing yet more money into another remastering of the original films. They are still putting lots of money into the remaster of the TNG series on BR.
It was my understanding Paramount is no longer doing anything with the TV series, just the movies, and that CBS is the entity behind the massive amounts of new work being done for the various TV shows (which explains why the shows and the movies are receiving such different levels of treatment). I gather we can only wish Paramount would put even half as much effort and care into the movie releases as CBS has been doing with the TV shows.
Joe, yes, I think that is basically true, although Viacom was the parent company of both Paramount and CBS, I believe that there are corporate ties between CBS and Paramount but it is pretty confusing keeping track of what is what. CBS I believe has the entire Paramount catalog, but I am not sure where the money comes from, I read an interview with a Paramount suit that sounded like they were involved too.
In any case, yes, the first 6 films are a beloved part of my childhood - sounds like a lot of us here. And I wish them the best possible treatment, perhaps a 4k scan someday, and some more background materials. They left off the cool Nimoy documentary about making of the Voyage Home, not sure why. But I was very happy to get my 6 disc Blu-Ray set and I have enjoyed it a great deal, it is far superior to the DVD sets.
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Posted: |
Apr 18, 2013 - 8:34 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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- If there is one FX shot they added that totally ruined it for me it was this one. I never wanted to see the entire VGER vessel, and seeing it destroyed the impression in my mind of the immense size of VGER. If i never see the entire vessel i always wonder just how enormous it is, and that is far better than seeing it on screen.
How does it destroy the the size of the ship? We see the Enterprise cruising over her and looking smaller than a micro machine. Plus the size of the vessel itself was always set in stone since the Enterprise travels from behind the vessel all the way to the front where it is brought inside. It's that view screen shot of the V'Ger vessel when Spock says "Captain, we've been seized by a tractor beam." that you get the overall shape of the vessel. This shape of the vessel is confirmed to be that way when we see the tactical screen of V'Ger transmitting it's signal to Earth.
So in conclusion, the shape, size and look of the V'Ger vessel was always there, they just didn't get around to actually showing it. And to the credit of the Director's Edition, the reveal of V'Ger's vessel doesn't happen until the final act, so the overall mystery of what this vessel actually looks like occurs when we know enough about it to come conclude that it would look exactly the same way as it does in here.
Well Jeyl, you can have your feelings about it.
Personally I never wanted to see the entire physical vessel. I understand that there were tactical renderings, but that is not as important as seeing the "real" thing in space. It is my feeling that I really did not want to understand VGER, we spent the last 2/3 of the film being stunned at the immensity and strangeness of it. Scene after scene saying to me; you think you know how big it is? You think you have seen it all, well guess what? And then we open another corridor, another chamber of vastness. There is a power to the not seeing it physically in my opinion, and I would prefer that experience.
--But all the best to you in your preferred version friend
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