Ideas and Suggestions for :Star Trek The Motion Picture (True Fan Edit) — Page 16

I stand corrected. 

This is not dead.  I'm just waiting on getting my computers updated with Blu-ray drives.

I was literally seconds away from asking what's up! Glad to know its still on!

I'm expecting two Blu-ray drives (one for my laptop, and another for my desktop) for my birthday in 3 months.  For the past few weeks I've been re-visiting my "Red Curtains: Twin Peaks Revisited"  fan edit.  The 20th anniversary got me motivated on that again, and a blu-ray release of the entire series is not going to happen anytime soon.

FF

Having recently watched this on blu-ray, I frankly don't have too many problems with the theatrical cut, for what it is.  Maybe a bit slow, but they were trying for the 2001 vibe.

Regardless, to me the biggest problem is that there is no real strong secondary story - I understand it is supposed to be about Spock coming back into the fold and coming to terms with his human side, as well as Decker and Ilia, but what the movie needed was a strong secondary conflict (ie. Decker acting more like his father and/or his crew helping him commit mutiny and taking over the Enterprise or something to that effect; V'ger wants to test the Enterprise, so reintegrates one of the K'tinga's - but to have a K'tinga hunt the Enterprise within the cloud as V'ger watched "after" ST2:TWOK would seem redundant and copied now). 

I can understand the Borg angle, and frankly was kind of hoping at one point in ST:TNG that Q would have some part in destroying the Borg in BOBW part 2, as he would reveal that the Q was the evolved V'ger, with their mission not just to protect humanity but to test them.  Maybe the machine world (Ix?) that found Voyager found other probes, and the Borg are simply a different tact taken to "merge with the creator" of another alien probe from a different part of the galaxy.  Maybe the machine world's primary existence is like a flower, waiting to be pollinated with probes from alien races, whereupon it would send out a seed to merge with that race (?).

In the end, there was not enough character conflict, change and build-up, as the primary (and seemingly sole) focus of the movie was how the characters reacted to a cloud threatening Earth.  Regardless, there is some fantastic imagery, and to see STAR TREK on the big screen for the first time (at 8 years old) left some pretty damn good childhood memories...

You all may want to check out BionicBob's edit, "The V'ger Incident".  It came out last month and has TMP cut to a lean 80 minutes... with a Borg reference at the end.

http://fanedit.org/10700/

Some good stuff, some so-so stuff... frankly it's still slow at 80 minutes, but I think that's because some plot threads were removed.

Anyway, it may give you some ideas what to do and what to avoid.

Doctor M said:

You all may want to check out BionicBob's edit, "The V'ger Incident".  It came out last month and has TMP cut to a lean 80 minutes... with a Borg reference at the end.

http://fanedit.org/10700/

Some good stuff, some so-so stuff... frankly it's still slow at 80 minutes, but I think that's because some plot threads were removed.

Anyway, it may give you some ideas what to do and what to avoid.

I just saw this edit listed on that other site, and was thinking of giving it a look. 

Stumbled on that V'ger Incident edit last night. Before I came here blahblah AA7 and tripped over this one. Watched the first few minutes, but I couldn't be objective. I kept thinking about what I had in mind, and what my reasons were. He had some good ideas going, though.

I've got a lot of notes, but they are scattered across different docs, on different computers. Usually mixed with other project's notes. Also, my first efforts in Womble were TMP and TWoK. I did a lot of trimming. And I surprised with the results. But I was a newbie, and found two completely different ways to force Womble to shift every damn edit point. So I'll see what I can collate from notes. I may even take a whack at reconstructing those projects.

Time permitting, of course.

I sure could use a few Mr. Atoz's of myself. Take care of all the fiddly little crap that eats up my time. Get down to some really serious time with my fan stuff!

All day long, it's [begins muttering unintelligibly].

Hmm.  What is AA7?

Heh, oops. Alien Appendix 7 - some of my internal narrative leaked out.

There, now it reads better.

Opinion:

Speaking of disconnected bits from out of nowhere... I know you're looking at cutting the celibacy oath, et. al. Please cut it. The pitiful remnants of the Deltan backstory are only a morbid reminder of a series that I would've vastly preferred to the movies. And they serve to confuse the majority of Trek watchers. Often, on newsgroups and forums, I've seen involved fans who saw those remnants as odd story flaws. (Because they hadn't got the books off of eBay, or cared what was on the commentary track).

I may have tried to deal with ditching the backstory in my editing. I know I wanted to...

Meandering Question:

But I'm curious - did earlier script versions have any exposition or scenes about the Deltan pheromone backstory? Any mention of filmed scenes Weiss decided to drop? Was it a Phase II concept that would've been explained over the course of the series? I'm baffled why there was any reference left in at all. We know that it plays into Decker's joy at getting the dangerous Probe-Ilia assignment, but... most people don't.

Meandering Suggestion:

On the related subject of Sulu going slapstick apeshit over Ilia, and Decker ignoring that all-too-familiar behavior. I'd like to see a little of his "Yowsa!" reaction, from the deleted scenes disc, without any of the over-the-top parts, of course.

Sulu doesn't get to do much in TMP. "He... doesn't know." is his only good line.

And, by golly, It's always been fun to watch Sulu express his distinct appreciation for the ladies. He lost all his TOS girlfriend scenes to Chekov, while Takei was stuck on that John Wayne movie. All Sulu had left were the Mirror-Sulu scenes with Our-Uhura, a cabaret girl in Shore Leave, a few moments where he got to be attracted to some of the ladies in the series, and two(?) in the movies (the Ilia scene, and the bit at the end of ST5 where he and Checkov were following the Klingon gal).

Yeah, I know what you're all unanimously thinking. But Takei's life isn't the Sulu character's. Sulu is straight. Hell, there isn't even any indication Sulu might possibly be bi. (Except maybe what might be read into the helicoptor pilot scene in ST4, or Sulu in a bathrobe on a hike with Chekov in ST5, or the big, graceful movements - with the jacket-as-a-cape bit in the ST3 prison break, or... :-). (Yes, I hate Roman numerals).

Edit: Was going to add another opinion, but that's enough for one post.

In regards to Sulu's love life, don't forget his fling with Lt. M'Ress.

That takes the term "getting some pussy" to a whole new level!

And sorry for being off topic, but I just stumbled on this and had to share:
    

The entire project is just in concept mode as far as I know. I did no further work with the opening sequence beyond what you see on YouTube. Sorry.

I'm taking some time off from editing this. But I am still making notes.  I find that I never get much work done in the summer. And if I do, I feel much too guilty about spending all that time indoors.  Once the weather gets nasty, I'll be back at this project. 

FF

^Yeah, the weather is nasty now. (is here, anyway, sorta)

Sadly, this edit is no longer in service, but we'd love to hear your suggestions!