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The idea that Jerry was left a week to score this film or something, that is just incorrect.
I'm going to object that I implied any such thing.
This looked like mere misunderstanding, other tall guy. The closest thing I see said is, "When you are recording the score a week before the film premiers..." and that's true, Jerry was indeed recording right up to the week of release (okay, maybe he stopped recording a day or so before the seven day week, but Nov. 30th is close enough, and he was mixing into the wee hours of Dec. 2nd, I think, for the Dec. 7th wide release).
He also recorded a lot of stuff in previous weeks, and previous months, but your point was that the music was still being recorded that late, not that he had only a week to score or record all of it.
Fair enough. STILL recording the score. Yes, he was writing music for this movie for a freaking long time.
But thanks for smoothing things over. I also probably sounded more indignant in print. "HOW DARE YOU, SIR!" was not my intended tone.
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But thanks for smoothing things over. I also probably sounded more indignant in print. "HOW DARE YOU, SIR!" was not my intended tone.
No no, everyone seems more indignant in print than likely intended, especially here, where an angry tone is probably presumed. I also amended my post, as I'd forgotten to mention Ado's mention of something Ado has clearly heard somewhere (and Ado doesn't buy it), so it might not even have been your statement to which Yavar was referring. He may've been agreeing with Ado's dismissal of that notion.
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Posted: |
Mar 20, 2023 - 7:50 AM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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The usual old myths, the TMP release in 79 was "botched so badly", well no, it was a completed film, edited and scored and done. There was not the audience screening that Wise wanted, but the film was completed. Also, the post production was not disorganized, actually the Abel work was disorganized, and it was DURING production. The work by Trumbull and Dykstra was groundbreaking, if anything more advanced and ambitious than Star Wars, and the turned out some 40% of the film in post production.
Totally agree Ado. The revisionism is infuriating. And to think 44 years later think they could "finish" the film. What do I want more of, Trumbull's and Dykstra's masterful work or the new officers lounge scene?
People from the actual production, including Robert Wise, have stated that what was released in theaters in Dec '79 was a rough cut. Ergo, it wasn't finished. For example, they only had 4 days for color timing and that is a process that usually requires weeks. All of this is documented in written and filmed interviews and those like Mike, Dave and Darren, who actually collaborated DIRECTLY with Robert Wise in 2001, really know what they're talking about when they tell you that TMP wasn't even considered finished by the film's director until that DE.
You are certainly free to enjoy that '79 version, but it is essentially a rough cut.
Yes, we have heard this before, Wise was a perfectionist, to his credit. But the film in the cans in 1979 was certainly, by any industry standard now, not a 'rough cut'. Todd Ramsay stated that he was cutting the film throughout the production, and Wise was watching the film cut throughout the production. At post production they were really waiting for the effects drop ins. As far as the color timing, well, the color timing for the original cut, hasty or whatever you want to call it, without question looks much more natural and has more verisimilitude with the tone and scope of the entire film. I am sure the fellas had great intentions, and enjoyed brightening the film with more color, but it just looks artificial, like a colorized old film.
Yes, Ado. And what continually gets brushed aside are all the unnecessary changes. Like I said before the audio mix is atrocious putting the sound effects above Jerry’s music. There’s no excuse for this and it’s funny how so many supporting this remaster are supposed to be some of the biggest Goldsmith fans.
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It’s funny how two people painstakingly producing (month after month, for 5 and 4 years respectively) the only podcast dedicated to Jerry Goldsmith, can have “supposed to be some of the biggest Goldsmith fans” thrown at them. And I DO think I read YOUR tone correctly.
To me Goldsmith’s score has never sounded better, in the film. The cuts don’t bother me and they didn’t bother Jerry. And in at least one instance a cue which was cut in 1979 (with an awkward edit, unlike the seamless ones executed for the DE sequences) is now presented beautifully *un*cut on the new 4K restoration.
Two questions for you:
1. Have you even actually SEEN and heard the new 4K edition (hopefully not at a Fathom Event, lol) or are your crabby comments based on the 2001 DVD and maybe a clip of the (I agree, shocking that they went with it and I wish they’d just reverted to the theatrical there) new officer’s lounge scene? The new sound has been one of the most universally praised aspects of it, from even people who don’t like most of the changes… and Goldsmith’s score is often brought up as sounding better than ever before.
2. Have you still not listened to any of the podcast episode that occasioned the creation of this new thread?
Yavar
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Yes, I think it should. Most people hate that movie anyway (not me) and unlike TMP the effects are a big part of it, so maybe there would even be less outrage against that.
Now on the two Meyer films I’m with my friend David — the Director’s Cuts are inferior in almost every way, and every minor change bothers me every time I see them. The conspirator character flashes during Valeris’s mind meld interrogation in VI are especially head-scratching, to me.
Yavar
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Posted: |
Mar 20, 2023 - 9:00 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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Yavar, I do not want you to feel roughed up here, thanks for all of your work being so passionate, it is truly remarkable you get all of these guests for conversations. Overall I think the newest DE version has 'some' improvements' mostly matte and layer cleanups, and the clearer sounds on voice tracks. The music is indeed clearer, but I, oddly, find the mix too loud for me, at least comparatively. Other than that, the added stuff, the sweetening and expanding of visual effects, I did not care for any of it. I know they are all quite well intended of course. This all goes to my broader view of technology, be it cars, computers, movies etc, technology can make humans lose perspective, the powers of it to do amazing things often suckers us into to doing things that may be 'cool' or 'interesting'. But should it be done? Most often I find that the answer is "No". As for Trek V, at one time I would have said yes, but now the answer is no. As much as anything because fixing the end of the film would require masters of practical effects, and that is not how it would be done now. And, also, yes, Meyer badly messed up his DE, he is a brilliant guy, I am not sure what the heck he was thinking at that time. Almost ALWAYS, expanded edition films are substantially worse than the original cut.
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Yes, Ado. And what continually gets brushed aside are all the unnecessary changes. Like I said before the audio mix is atrocious putting the sound effects above Jerry’s music. There’s no excuse for this and it’s funny how so many supporting this remaster are supposed to be some of the biggest Goldsmith fans.
I'm not brushing it aside. Some of the sound effects are supposed to work WITH the music. The music is never overpowered. It's just not working alone anymore. And that wasn't a CHOICE that they made in 1979. It's just where they were left standing when they ran out of time.
Per tradition, I'll compare it to the various editions of Star Wars. Say what you want about this or that mix but by the time Star Wars hit VHS it was a mix that they had messed with a lot and finally settled on. So going back in 1997 (and beyond) and saying "Hey, this music is really too high in the mix here. Let's get rid of it!" can be seen as a mistake. (Especially when it's done literally by accident.)
There were always lots of places where Jerry's score had sound effects over it. This wasn't like there was some director / composer dictate that the music would always be pristine. The fact that in 79 you can't hear the TMP fanfare under the warp drive the first two times they go to warp (or it's dialed out entirely, I can't tell) is evidence of this.
The only place I can think of where new sound effects somewhat take over from music is the last scene where the music and the new engine effects trade places as the engines power up and briefly surge over the music. And then the ship is gone and the music takes over again. And I think the whole thing is glorious. I wish I'd been able to see it in a cinema that treated it right.
Going to the granddaddy of musical sequences, there have always been spaceship noises over the score during The Enterprise. But in every edition Jerry's music certainly takes center stage, almost over the Enterprise herself!
So do tell, where are the changes where you feel the music is being disrespected or discarded?
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Yes, I think it should. Most people hate that movie anyway (not me) and unlike TMP the effects are a big part of it, so maybe there would even be less outrage against that.
As someone who's on the dislike side of Trek V, I'll agree here as well. There are things that can never be fixed, but some judicious trimming of lame lines and for pacing, maybe some shots here and there, plus a less embarrassing effects palette could render it from an always skip to "Eh, why not; we're doing them all, and it's not that bad anymore."
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Going to the granddaddy of musical sequences, there have always been spaceship noises over the score during The Enterprise. But in every edition Jerry's music certainly takes center stage, almost over the Enterprise herself!
And to clear up something said... somewhere up there (when I'm posting, the thread goes away), that sequence has not been shortened. The Cloud/V'Ger Flyover has, but this one wasn't.
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And to clear up something said... somewhere up there (when I'm posting, the thread goes away), that sequence has not been shortened. The Cloud/V'Ger Flyover has, but this one wasn't.
Shortened only in the sense that there are some frames here and there removed because of FX glitches. Mike's tweaking of Jerry's music track in such a way that you'd almost never tell is amazing. 
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And to clear up something said... somewhere up there (when I'm posting, the thread goes away), that sequence has not been shortened. The Cloud/V'Ger Flyover has, but this one wasn't.
Shortened only in the sense that there are some frames here and there removed because of FX glitches. Mike's tweaking of Jerry's music track in such a way that you'd almost never tell is amazing.
Yeah, I originally wrote "at all" after shortened, but I remembered those few frames.
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Posted: |
Mar 21, 2023 - 10:00 AM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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I enjoyed the podcast. What I found interesting was Mike Matessino’s confession that he could be accused of hypocrisy, as he’s generally an originalist who detests tinkering with films, but not in this case. Clearly, emotions run high on this subject, and of course it calls to mind the famous quote attributed to everybody from Leonardo da Vinci to E.M. Forster that “art is never finished, only abandoned.”
I am not an originalist. This doesn’t mean that I welcome any and all changes to a work, because of course not all changes are created equal. But as long as there has been art, there have been revisions. Plays, symphonies, paintings, novels, all subject to revision after their initial releases. Novelists from Waugh to Shelley to Tolkien to King (and on and on) have rewritten their books years after their first publication. Kubrick, Spielberg, Chaplin, Copolla and many others have revised their films after release. These lists could go on forever, but they are myriad.
And then of course there are the less substantive changes, which Matessino mentions – specifically, new mixes, especially for films initially released in mono that now exist in 7.1 sound. I get it. If I object to colorization (and I do), why should I be okay with tinkering with the sound, just because technology allows it?
I get it, but I don’t feel it. And part of that is because I know that as much planning as goes into any film, some of what we now accept as set in stone is just what happened to occur on that one day. And as much as we may admire our favorite filmmakers, some of what’s on screen is just dumb luck – good or bad.
Of course, everybody has his own line to draw. I sneer at colorization, but what about (to use one example) the original “Twilight Zone” now in true HD, even though certainly nobody ever planned for it ever being seen like this in 1959? I have a friend who will buy every new remaster of the Beatles, which he recently bought in super high resolution on a flash drive. But did John, Paul, George and Ringo ever anticipate that level of resolution, or plan for it? Nope, and I have a better friend who sticks with the original mixes, even the mono ones, because that’s how the Beatles made them.
Everything changes our perception of any work of art. It’s not just that Frank Capra never planned for It’s a Wonderful Life to be presented in color, he also never planned for his film to be seen in a home on a television. For that matter, Fellini never planned for his films to be shown with English words across the bottom of the screen. But I don’t speak Italian, so it’s that or nothing. And the idea that there is one true experience of a film is just clearly wrong – projectors and televisions vary wildly, and no two rooms or sound systems sound alike.
Doug Fake pointed out that their new Herrmann recording uses a larger orchestra than Herrmann used with the originals, because a modern recording sounds flat with the smaller orchestra (which was appropriate for the recording technology of the time). Simply recording a seventy-year-old score in pristine contemporary sound changes the experience (and yet I doubt there are many purists here – maybe there are a few – who would prefer a flat, mono recording in keeping with Herrmann’s original intentions). So if Jaws is remixed for the place 99% of viewers will now see it, I don’t have an issue with that (so long as it’s done well, of course).
I also know from working in television that the shows I do sound very different depending on how you watch it (broadcast, cable, streaming, disc), even though they’re all the same mix.
Okay, I’ve gone on a long tangent here, probably of interest only to me. If anybody’s still with me here, I’ll just finish by saying I admire Mr. Matessino’s care and dedication to doing this stuff tastefully, even if his choices will not be everybody’s (and how could they be?). Also, good (long!) podcast!
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Thanks, Schiffy. And you are reasonable, thoughtful, and articulate as always.
I too am always anti-colorization (and pro-original aspect ratio). And like Mike Matessino, I often dislike later reworkings of things, the Star Wars Special Editions a prominent example (though there were a few changes I did like, I admit). But most (though not all; I'm lookin' at you, captain's lounge!) changes in the DE of Star Trek: The Motion Picture I *do* think improve the film, and I say that as someone who first grew up with the SLV on video, and then the theatrical edition. And I think a very strong case is made for many of the changes, in our podcast episode.
Yavar
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Right, and Badham's Dracula...
Yavar
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Posted: |
Mar 21, 2023 - 3:47 PM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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It’s funny how two people painstakingly producing (month after month, for 5 and 4 years respectively) the only podcast dedicated to Jerry Goldsmith, can have “supposed to be some of the biggest Goldsmith fans” thrown at them. And I DO think I read YOUR tone correctly.
To me Goldsmith’s score has never sounded better, in the film. The cuts don’t bother me and they didn’t bother Jerry. And in at least one instance a cue which was cut in 1979 (with an awkward edit, unlike the seamless ones executed for the DE sequences) is now presented beautifully *un*cut on the new 4K restoration.
Two questions for you:
1. Have you even actually SEEN and heard the new 4K edition (hopefully not at a Fathom Event, lol) or are your crabby comments based on the 2001 DVD and maybe a clip of the (I agree, shocking that they went with it and I wish they’d just reverted to the theatrical there) new officer’s lounge scene? The new sound has been one of the most universally praised aspects of it, from even people who don’t like most of the changes… and Goldsmith’s score is often brought up as sounding better than ever before.
2. Have you still not listened to any of the podcast episode that occasioned the creation of this new thread?
Yavar
Yes, Ive seen the latest edition of the film and my criticisms are based on this version. We were told their goal was to finish an unfinished film, which I categorically dispute because what was put on the screen was a finished film. To my knowledge no one ever walked out of the theater and said, "That didn't feel like a finished film." Absolutely no one to my knowledge complained about the sound mix at the time. No one said, "The sound effects weren't loud enough, or Goldsmiths score was to much in the forefront." I DO remember everyone applauding Goldsmiths score and how it was probably the best thing about the film. It had a proper sound mix so changing it to your own personal tastes or what you think a modern audience wants to hear in 2022 isn't finishing a film, its tinkering with a film. Obviously to the worse as far as I am concerned. The justification for many changes, no matter the noble intentions at the time were not to "finish" the film.
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