Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
by Doc on Feb.09, 2001, under Movies
I thought I had already posted about this, but couldn’t find it. Seems a lot of people – including the director, Robert Wise – thought the original film was, well, boring. It didn’t have the feel of the series. Wise aims to change that on a new DVD coming out…
Seems Paramount was in such a rush to get the film in theaters to ride the wave of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, that Wise never got to “finish” the film. This is evident in the “expanded version” aired on ABC in the 80’s (watch when Kirk leaves the ship to go after Spock – around the airlock you can plainly see the soundstage wall and ceiling). Now, Wise is going back to correct the “disappointment”.
Unlike what George Lucas did to the Star Wars films, Wise isn’t changing history. The plot isn’t changing, no new characters are being digitally added – in fact, there is very little if any new footage (other than what was taken from the expanded version). In some cases, scenes were trimmed to remove unneeded dialogue. Most of whats new is a new sound mix (bringing back some of the sounds of the original series) and new special effects shots, including a beautiful all-CGI version of the Enterprise, done by Foundation Imaging.
Expect a late Spring/early Summer 2001 release. There are rumors of a theatrical re-release before that as well.