Often hailed as love-it-or-hate-it fare among Star Trek fans, Star Trek: The Motion Picture remains possibly my favorite movie of the entire franchise to date. Seriously. I’m not joking.
What do I like about ST:TMP? Maybe that it’s as brainy and as close to hard science fiction as the original Trek franchise ever got. Granted, that probably didn’t gain this movie the widest possible audience, but in 1979, Star Trek was thought of more fondly than it is by the public in 2002, and also in 1979, the most likely audience for a Star Trek flick was Trekkers themselves – so it was safe to throw a bit of real SF at them. Future movies made much more obvious attempts to appeal to a broad action-adventure audience.
And contrary to all the complaints about an antiseptic, emotionless feel, I thought ST:TMP did a great job of taking the characters where we left off at the end of the original series and building on them, with some hints as to what they’d been doing in the interim, and some expansion on the characters, bringing them from the stereotypes that they occasionally were in the original TV series to more fully-rounded characters.
The double-disc DVD edition of ST:TMP revamps only a handful of special effects shots, but does a great deal more in the cutting room. Entire sequences with which fans are well-acquainted are dropped, the editing is generally tightened up, and the picture is digitally remastered overall, providing a very crisp visual. The effects replacements are very minor indeed, with only a few even standing out – the formation of the bridge leading from the Enterprise saucer to V’Ger’s central complex, an exterior shot of V’Ger (based on original 1978 production sketches) approaching Earth, and a shot of the Enterprise blasting the asteroid which throws it into a wormhole.
There’s just one problem with reworking and re-editing the visuals – the sound mix has to match. And this is one of my most glaring complaints with this otherwise nifty update to one of my favorite movies. In a small number of places, the legendary Jerry Goldsmith music score is butchered in the editing process, and there’s something else which pervades the entire film in this new version which I find even more intensely annoying: they seem to have lost the original sound effects source material and had to start from scratch. In some cases, sound effects hearkening back to those from the original series are used, which makes some sense, but in other cases completely different sounds are used, including one of the most annoying red alert sirens I’ve heard since the animated series. As many times as I’d seen ST:TMP, I found that this new sound mix was more than just a little bit distracting. Granted, those charged with remixed the soundtrack into Dolby 5.1 Surround probably had to start from scratch for their surround sound mix, but the techology exists to lift some of the effects from the original audio track of the movie – it’s not asking too much, really.
I was stunned that some oddities of the original film weren’t fixed. In several scenes on the Enterprise bridge, you probably noticed instances where a blurry area seemed to smudge the background scenery between two characters, in some cases even seeming to warp the background set in a funhouse-mirror way. According to the audio commentary (of which more in a moment), this was an unavoidable side-effect of a special multi-focus lens called a diopter, which Robert Wise was forced to use to compensate for the sets’ low lighting. Now, all of the diopter shots are locked-off, steady shots, for that aforementioned blur would’ve been much more noticeable otherwise. Why not fix that blur? Granted, it might necessitate painting in set details in the background that may not match up, but frankly, I find that blur far more distracting then whether there should be two or three little round monitors on the panel behind Kirk and Decker. I suppose it might drive others crazy, but the diopter blur makes my teeth itch, to say nothing of my eyes.
The 2-disc set is rounded out by the most elaborate package of Trek extras Paramount has yet assembled, including no fewer than three special documentaries, an audio commentary from several key members of the behind-the-scenes crew and actor Stephen Collins, a full slate of TV and theatrical promo trailers, and an on-screen “text commentary” by Trek expert Michael Okuda. The documentaries are the real prize here, particularly the too-short-by-far piece on the aborted Star Trek Phase II television series which eventually mutated into the first Star Trek feature film. For the first time ever, the legendary screen test footage of the engineering sets, Persis Khambatta trying on one of the original series miniskirt uniforms, and David Gautreaux’s screen test for the part of new Vulcan science officer Xon are seen. Numerous new interviews help tell the story, though truth be told, one would be better off having read Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens’ book on the series that wasn’t before seeing this. Still, it’s a real treat finally getting to see that stuff, and it makes one wonder if we might wind up seeing the existing footage of Genevieve Bujold as Star Trek: Voyager’s Captain Janeway someday in a Voyager DVD box set.
The other two documentaries cover the making of the movie in general, with some annoying self-back-patting from Shatner and Nimoy, and a look at the restoration and re-working of the film. Some of the stuff in the documentaries makes me cringe with the cloying, pro-Paramount Studios spin that has been put on them – it’s common knowledge that ST:TMP was, behind the scenes, an excessively troubled movie – and if Paramount itself thought so highly of it, why did future movies only put Gene Roddenberry on the payroll as a consultant whose advice didn’t have to be heeded? I would’ve been happier with some more frank discussion in these interview segments.
The TV ads and teaser trailers are also highlights of the bonus features, with their very 70s and very cheesy ad copy and stand-in effects. Hindsight being 20/20, and being a promo writer myself, I can think of about a dozen ways this movie could have been teased better. But the tight filming schedule and availability of any footage, either special effects shots or from the set, probably made it challenge to come up with any kind of a pitch that would sell this movie. And hey, they’re better than the original theatrical trailers for Star Wars by far.
A little bit more mystifying is a sales-pitch-esque preview/promo for Enterprise, the latest ship off the old Star Trek block. Why this was included, I’m not sure, when there were other things much more closely related to ST:TMP that aren’t on here, including the original 1978 press conference announcing the movie’s production – footage of this event, which happened the same day as NASA rolling out the space shuttle test orbiter Enterprise, does still exist.
Mike Okuda’s text commentary is informative, sure to please triviaholics, and most of all funny. When Kirk notes for the umpteenth time that the Enterprise is the only Starfleet ship standing between Earth and V’Ger, Okuda’s subtitle pops up: “This seems to happen a lot.”
Though my qualms with some aspects of the presentation – most notably the sound effects and the hack-‘n’-slash music editing – keep me from, in all good conscience, giving this title a four-star rating, I do still recommend Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition to Trek fans out there. However it sounds, the movie has never looked better.