My thoughts so far from my Ideas thread:
Hmmm thinking about a straight-up fanfix of
'Star Trek: The Motion Picture'. It's my least favourite film in the franchise by a long chalk... and yes I am factoring
'Insurrection' into that equation. I've possibly forced myself to watch it all the way through only once. For me it's always just served the purpose of being
Nicholas Meyer's inverted blueprint of how not to make a
Star Trek movie. But I was thinking that just maybe If I trimmed out all the stuff I don't like I could get something I'd enjoy for years to come?
I've no clear plans as of yet, beyond just focusing on the 'holy-trinity' of characters, to the exclusion of most other elements. Maybe I'd need to have another forced re-watch or just go in blind and hope for the best
.
I was just watching a TV broadcast of STII:WOK and started to wonder if STI's colour scheme could be regraded to be more like it. Wack up the shadows and make the FX shots a bit moodier, maybe a bit more saturation etc. I've got a really stroong urge to do an edit of this right now
I've got the
'Theatrical Cut' on Blu-Ray and the
'Director's Cut' on R1-DVD.
The usually reliable Movie-Censorship.com has a comparison essay but without watching them more, it's difficult to know on a character-level (Kirk, Spock, McCoy) if I'd be missing anything important, by going with just the HD footage. I'd prefer to go all out HD with a film of this nature but the fact that both cuts have unique footage and the DC using CGI which makes it a tricky film to fanedit.
I hadn't noticed before how similar the start of WOK actually is to ST1. The same shuttle ride to gawp at the gorgeous awe-inspiring-ness of the Enterprise is there but about 5% of the length. It's awesome... got it.. right on with the adventure. One strategy I was thinking about was making a plan of the position and pacing of scenes in WOK and then trying to force ST1 to follow that pattern. If I recall correctly WOK goes roughly...
1. Titles and awesome music
2. Kobayashi Maru scene sets up our heroes and where they are in life
3. Reliant scene esablishes plot and threat
4. Enterprise launches
5. Khan danger increases
etc
So ST1 could go...
1. Titles and awesome music
2. Get the crew together. Spock, Kirk, McCoy - Jetison everything else.
3. V'ger danger establishing scenes
4. Enterprise launches
5. V'ger danger increases
etc
Maybe I could match the scene lengths to establish that perfect pacing.
I'd like to remove any of the first act buzz-killing-elements such as Kirk being a d*ck to Decker, Decker being a d*ck to Kirk, new Vulcan dude dying a pointless and horific death (Let's just have spock back, end of) etc.
Just watched the first hour of the DC. So far, so good
, I can see how it can be steered in the direction I want. I'll probably have a watch of the 2nd half tomorrow and hope it also looks promising.
^ Here's how I see the problems with the portrayal of Kirk. Too much of the top two and not enough of the bottom two. It's easily fixable (I think ;-)).
btw Going by my copy of the DC...
...it's not at all in good shape. A bit blurry and damaged with dodgy looking brownish-red colours when compared to the lovely looking HD version of the
'Theatrical Cut'. So it'd be nice if somebody did an HD remaster of the DC (Using as much HD footage as possible).
Anybody got any title ideas? I'd want it to follow the familiar
"Star Trek I: --------" format. Naming ST episodes and films after lines from Shakespeare is always a good bet IMO.
Possible title:
Star Trek I: The Empty Vessel
"The empty vessel makes the loudest sound" - Henry V, Act 4, Scene 4
Like
'This other Eden',
'The Undiscovered Country',
'The Mind's Eye',
'All Our Yesterdays',
'Dagger of the Mind' etc etc have been used before.
Boom! Just thought of the perfect problem-solving, drama-creating, tension-building introduction to Kirk&Co for the start of Star Trek:TMP... pretty sure it will work
. Blu-Ray is already on my HD and ready to go, sometimes an idea just gets my blood going and I have to edit it
(I could do with a quick break from the other three projects I'm working on ;-)).
However, one thing I've noticed (Following the earlier point I noted about the murky colour timing of ST:TMP Director's Cut DVD)...
(^ Click to see fullsize image)
...okay the trailer screengrab is shifted a bit into the blue and the contrast is too high but look at how much more vibrant, lustrous and more varied the colours are. Not only that but they've been a bit heavy handed with the grain-removal on the TC Blu-Ray. The BR is way to reddish-brown, while the DC-DVD is just brown (But with the grain still intact).
I'll have to do some serious re-timing of the colours and add on some grain to make this look right.
A first attempt at re-grading that scene I posted above...
(^ Click to see fullsize image)
Recoloured, lightly sharpened and grain added back. I've probably gone too far into the blue but still better than the commercial release IMO.
The colours seem to be wildly all over the place, in some shots the uniforms are blue, grey, brown, orange, green, cream etc. Although some shots in the film already look pretty good to my eye...
Click here to view the original image of 935x623px.
...Kirk's uniform in the shot I posted is fairly close I think. But in a shot like this...
Click here to view the original image of 935x400px.
...Scotty's uniform is a bright pastel blue. I may have to assemble some images of what I think the colours should all be and then try to match every shot to that.
Anyway... I started trying out some ideas on the first few minutes. I'll post a clip when I get my head round it. In the meantime here is a screengrab from the new-look opening credits...
(^ Click to see full res image)
Originally Posted by
TM2YC
8 minutes of ST:TMP cut and 4 minutes cut-out. It's all working very nicely. A few more extremely tricky minutes to work out and I'll post a test clip.
A question: Some people don't like the look of Vulcan in the 'Theatrical Cut'. Why?
Well firstly, the scene was unfinished FX wise due to the release schedule.. honestly, it looks pretty bad--especially the Vulcan statue.
Also, the Theatrical Version is in violation of established Trek canon. LOL. Seriously, Vulcan does not have any moons. The Director's Cut version is how Vulcan has been described in TOS and fits more closely with how it was depicted in STIII and IV.
Here's a nice brief list of all the changes and improvements:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079945/alternateversions
Hmmmm... Thanks for all the thoughts on Vulcan.
I also don't like having CGI shots in a vintage film but I also agree most of them aren't too bad in the DC (A few stick out a mile though). I really like the establishing shot of Vulcan in the TC (Moons and all) but the second statue shot isn't the best matte I've ever seen. The low quality of the shots on the DC-DVD puts me off using those shots. I'll try them out and see how noticeable the jump down in quality is.
Nope, nope, nope, the DC Vulcan shots are far too low res to use IMO. They stand out like a sore thumb when I cut them into my timeline. Maybe there are shots from my ST3&4 Blu-Rays that might be useable.
Here's another test. Replaced Vulcan establishing shot with one from the end of ST3 and remade shot of Spock approaching the priests to match it (New sky, no moons etc):
(Password: fanedit.org)
Still needs some finesseing I guess but already looking more in keeping with the Vulcan from the other original crew movies and better than the original shot...
I've got about 8 minutes working pretty well (Hopefully it's done the impossible and made ST:TMP seem like a fast paced and excited adventure :-D). I'm not sure wether to post it unfinished and get some feedback or to get it fully polished before showing y'all. Might start a proper thread too. Still not 100% that I can pull off the new plot configuration I'm planning. Once Spock is on board it's more or less a straight fanfix but up to that point who knows.
Originally Posted by
bionicbob
One idea I had but could never quite figure out how to make it work properly, was make it a straight Starfleet mission, no reunion, so command shuffle, no Vulcan subplot.... cut it as 55 minute adventure, Kirk and co. already on patrol and dispatched to investigate the mysterious intruder.
My cut will be like that ^ "in spirit".... sort of.
Okay here is a rough cut of the opening 10 minutes of my ST:TMP edit. My intention was to make the intro as dramatic, engaging and plot driven as the intros to the other 5 films.
The colour grading isn't finished in many places, the subtitles still need to be (re)written and I'm still not 100% happy with the transition from Kirk arriving at Starfleet to the briefing. Also I'm not even sure yet that the narrative problems created by moving the briefing are possible to surmount but I thought I'd show where this is going anyway. Still, I'm very pleased with the increase in pacing, the greater clarity of the V'Ger threat (And Spock's reaction to it) and the new stronger re-arranged 'hero' speech from Kirk.
(Password: fanedit.org)
- All footage regraded to be more colourful and less drab, plus grain added and slight sharpening (To counteract excessive DNR on the Blu-Ray). Some scenes are pushed too far and need raining back.
- Overture removed
- Credit sequence improved with slow motion shots of V'Ger's interior (Also hopefully this unconciously builds V'ger in the mind of the audience). Footage slowed to 50% and missing frames interpolated using VirtualDub. Also credit composition corrected so all are now central on the screen.
- Spock's intro moved to the front of the movie so there is now a slow build of the mystery/danger posed by V'ger
- Added establishing shot of Vulcan from ST:3 (May change?)
- Shot of Spock contemplating V'ger moved 'til after Kohlinar
- Fixed shot of Spock appraoching priest (Moons removed and Vulcan sky added - needs more work)
- Inserted shot of what Spock is "seeing", again trying to make V'ger the focus
- Tried to make Klingon cruisers more green
- Removed almost every shot from the Klingon sequence that wasn't essential to the plot to up the pace as much as possible
- Ditto ^ for Epsilon 9 sequence
- Removed any nonsensical shots of Epsilon 9 crew seeing V'Ger after the Klingon vessels are gone (Same for rest of edit)
- Added reaction shot from Epsilon 9 crew
- Now cuts from mention of Earth, to Earth. Seems pretty obvious and strange it wasn't like that in the original cut(s)
- Inserted shuttle approach shot from ST:4 to replace static Federation emblem shot
- Retimed music so it peaks as Kirk leaves the shuttle. The music rises as the door rises
- Added camera pan to remove Kirk talking to Sonac
- Moved briefing scene forward, removed intro, removed transmission break, removed Kirk's arrival and again upped the pace by trmming overly long shots or redundant dialogue
- Re-arranged Kirk's speech to be more heroic and make it feels like it was coming directly from the emotion of the tragedy that he's just seen. Really pleased with the dramatic sting now timing with Kirk's reaction at 9.04
After this clip I'm really not sure if I can pull off the problems that the briefing creates. Repeated mentions of "12 hours" instead of "40 minutes", the crew being suprised to see Kirk etc. I might have to scale back my ambition on this front and just go for a straight up fanfix of the footage, without radically re-arranging it. We'll see.
I thought about a pre-credits position for Spock but I preferred to open with the grand opening credits/music. I've decided to put the briefing back where it was as the way I had it, would mean cutting the rest of the first act to ribbons just to keep continuity. I'm just gonna cut the whole Starfleet sequence as it was too akward trimming out Sonac and open the Earth segment on Kirk beaming into the orbital spacestation.
I'm working on the intro to the refitted Enterprise right now.
(I really must evaluate the quality and usefulness of the deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray at some point)
Originally Posted by
Zarius
Kirk is definitely more assertive here.
Yes that's what I want. Kirk will spend much less time f**king up, looking depressed, looking confused and getting lost. The man that walks into the turbolift and runs his hand around as if he knows every inch of the Enterprise in one scene, shouldn't get lost in the next IMO (Plus the lost bit is part of the Sonac sequence luckily).
