Rating: 
Summary: Now it's finally where it needs to be.
Review: I just finished watching the newly revised dvd edition, and I'm happy to now see this movie as it was meant to be - a nicely finished, polished project with more depth and continuity. The team that worked on this has thankfully avoided the pitfalls of cgi overkill that plauged the Star Wars re-releases a few years ago. The new effects are so seamless, and the new cgi scenes are incredible. I only noticed some depth of field shots that were way to blurry on some of the newly modified enterprise bridge scenes. The only other thing which is hard to control - is some of the original matted shots are so sharp now - that the various camera passes that were then optically printed 22 years ago(the light's, then the model)are mismatched a bit. This is noticeable when the Enterprise has just cleared her moorings and passes by earth with the sunrise in the background - look at the saucer dish to see what I'm talking about.V'ger is finally shown in its entirety - thanks to quality and tastelful cg modelling - jaw dropping! Minor details - such as new backgrounds in the lounge windows, people's faces in portholes, the incredibly great soundmix that gives that right amount of punch and effect in various places- I'm speechless. I never expected the result to be this good. The team that did this put a lot of time and thought into these shots. This is also due to Wise's direction and vision of what he ultimately wanted 22 years ago. It's too bad that Trumbel and Dykstra were so hampered for time when the film was originally made. Now, the film is everthing it was meant to be. The steps to V'ger from the enterprise being built by particles..... incredible touch! If you were already a fan of this movie or just want to give it another chance - you owe it to yourself to get this, especially at such a great price. The experience is well worth it! Chris
Rating:
Summary: Beautifuly Done
Review: I went out today and bought a DVD player for the sole purpose of being able to view Star Trek- The Motion Picture, The Directors Edition. I must say, it was a worthwhile investment. The re-working of the film is beautiful and subtle. New special effects have been added that almost seamlessly match the appearance of the original work. A shot of the Vulcan Kolinahr temple retooled through CGI a-la George Lucas is awesome. There are some beautiful additional shots of the Enterprise throughout the film, all brief but each adds to the scope and visual enjoyment of the overall film. The sequences leading up to the landing party discovering V'Ger have been almost completely redone. It's all very nice! The sound on the picture has been improved. The bridge of the Enterprise is alive with background chatter and the traditional computers humming, making the film mush less quiet. Some scenes have been trimmed back to allow for pacing and to make Kirk seem a little less stressed out. Other scenes have been restored. Even the overture and opening credits have been "jazzed up". Overall, it comes down to a bunch of tiny subtle changes adding up to make a huge positive overall differance. The film is absolutely beautiful. The second disk is filled with a priceless wealth of extras, including live-action screen tests from "Star Trek Phase 2" the series that never was. Also, it was very nostalgic to see the different TV spots and trailers from way back then. THIS IS WHAT PARAMOUNT NEEDS TO DO WITH EACH OF THE STAR TREK FILMS. The other films on DVD are awful by comparison. Fans would eat this kind of thing up. Paramount must realize that. I hope that more Directors Series Trek films are on the way soon.
Rating:
Summary: So Much Better!!!!!!!
Review: I am stunned!!!! Star Trek:The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition is now a good movie. The re-edit and the new visual effects gel together to enhance the story, while the new sound mix (WOW!!!!) engages you so much that you feel as if you are right there on the bridge with the rest of the Enterprise crew. Mr. Wise and his production crew should be applauded for this tremendous accomplishment!
They took a mediocre movie and made it worth watching again. Buy it and enjoy!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Star Trek: The New Motion Picture (advanced screening)
Review: I got the DVD about 4 hours ago. The second that I peeled all those security stickers off my DVD box, I popped it open, place the disc in my player, turned up the Dolby Digital, my super sub-woofer... my high density screen, shut down all light sources, put my PowerMac G4 to sleep, turned off my phones, and laid back for what I hoped would be a nice treat. Paramount should be ashamed of themselves. This edit should be in theaters. This isn't a minor achievement in quality increase. This is now a great film. I am literally stunned right now. It isn't a matter of effects, so much as it is about dynamics of motion... The tightening of scenes.... Little tweaks here and there.... An added scene here, a missing one here... Revealing more about the characters, keeping a character from being less than he should be. First off, the Visual Effects shots are absolutely superior, while remaining exactly of the same palette as the original film. These new shots add a consistent sense of grandeur that Wise achieved so very well in some scenes, yet not at all in others. Now... Now the film is a sweeping science fiction epic... Man facing the unknown that comes from that place where no man has gone before. The picture quality was gorgeous... the richness of the colors... Everything just gorgeous. The new sound... DEAR GOD, it was magnificent. The remix was handled to perfection and not bungled like those that were toying with SUPERMAN recently. From beginning to end there is a quality increase in the sound that never once falters to my ears on this great sound system of mine. I'd like to tell you about the new visual effects shots, but to be honest... I can't. They are that seamlessly integrated. I'm sure that there were scenes of the Enterprise passing into the great V-GER ship that I had never seen, but they were intercut with old ones so well that all I got was an increased feeling of motion and dynamics of shots. The results were exactly what was needed. Suddenly this film feels like it belongs in Trumbull and Dykstra's Filmography. It always was nice... but before it always felt like a travelogue, and not at all threatening and ominous and creepy and moody and scary and mysterious. That's right, these new shots actually ADD to the ATMOSPHERE. For the first time in too long, I'm looking at not only real STAR TREK, but frankly... This is Star Trek where it should always be. Smart Science Fiction told by great Narrative Filmmakers and folks of vision.... Not the fumblings of visionless hucksters that have kidnapped the franchise since the death of Roddenberry. I have yet to venture into the second DVD... The one loaded with deleted scenes, documentaries and the behind the scenes joys... That will be what I do tomorrow. For now I'm in the afterglow of watching perhaps the best STAR TREK movie and dealing with the realization that due to the lack of vision of cowardly executives, this final masterpiece of Robert Wise's will never be projected upon a Silver Screen as it so needs to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's Khan When You Need Him?
Review: In 1979, Robert Wise's (West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Haunting) highly budgeted, enormously special effects laden, immensely epic, and dramatically devoid of feeling Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit theaters around with the world introducing new fans to the new continuing chronicles of Admiral James T. Kirk, stoic Science Officer Spock, and sardonically comedic Doctor Leonard "Bones" Mc Coy. In the vast horizon of space, there appears to be an immensely lethal gigantic space being intelligence on a direct collision course with the planet Earth. So of course the United Federation of Planets allows recently promoted Admiral Kirk to helm the U.S.S. Enterprise on an extremely vital emergency mission to investigate the mystery alien's intentions. Unfortunately for all but the most blindly devoted of the Trekkie fan base, the film lacked the one crucial engineering ingredient that made the original series glisten amongst all the other one-dimensionally conventional entertainment at the time, character and humanity. Though we do see momentary glimpses of the Shatner/Nimoy/Kelly character dynamic that propelled the original series ascendance into the syndication stratosphere, Star Trek: The Motion Picture creatively concentrates on a mightily bland ambiguous creature that never really fulfills on it's promise of threat to the audience, adheres too stridently to an old Hollywood pacing structure (form the 50's and 60's) that clashes as badly Star Trek as badly as platform shoes stand out at a Moshe pit, focuses on a very uninteresting romance between the first officer and a bald female navigator (both before and after one of them becomes an android), and horrendously confuses telling a intensely jargon-filled space odyssey with that of concocting a compelling movie. All in all, despite an all-star cast, mind bogglingly excellent special effects, and a superbly noteworthy soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith (that track was later re-used in the vastly popular Star Trek: The Next Generation), Star Trek: The Motion Picture fails to go where almost all of it's sequels later went on to do, make an entertaining picture. As for the upcoming Star Trek: the Motion Picture Director's Cut DVD Special Edition, it's intended to included a marvelously remastered anamorphic widescreen presentation, a Robert Wise commentary track, 3 documentaries, 11 deleted scenes, and more impressive Star Trek options to shake a replicated steak at. Highly recommended for any Trekkie with a thirst for antiquity, but for all other indifferent non-fans stay as far away from this as you would from the Influencian Flu or Barclay's Proto-morphosis Syndrome.
Rating: 
Summary: The Star Trek film that started it all.
Review: Its difficult to appreciate today the atmosphere of anticipation that surrounded the release of the first of the Star Trek films. Star Trek fans were not always numerous but die very hard. Year after year the show accumulated a passionate following that after ten years in syndication the numbers were there to justify making Star Trek into a motion picture. Regardless of any story shortcomings it was tough to quell the excitement of finally seeing the of Kirk, Spock,McCoy and the rest of the crew splashed across a thirty foot silver screen in "70mm with Dolby Sound"...still brand new to theater goers in that day.
The spectacular opening showcased the first Klingons to sport the now familiar ribbed foreheads and spoke in a fully developed Klingon dialog developed especially for the film. Their fated encounter with a vast spatial phenomena is the first of a chain of events that draws a shiny new Enterprise prototype out of dry-dock into an emergency mission. Exploiting the emergency, Captain Kirk, now decommissioned, calls on favors from Star Fleet higher-ups making an unseemly power grab that unseats a more deserving and technically more savvy younger Captain. Already making himself unpopular, Kirk proceeds to exacerbate the situation by replacing the untested Enterprise crew with his former shipmates. No longer familiar with current tech, they also resent Kirk's hubris but reluctantly sign on to do battle with the mysterious entity that threatens the solar system.
The unpleasant politics of Kirk's return to Command throws a wet blanket on what many fans expected would be a more joyful reunion. The 2hr 16 minute film also makes some pacing miscalculations in the first hour. It was entirely understandable that after a ten year wait the director would want to make the first view of the new Enterprise a grand experience but the shuttle tour of the exterior drags on more than a little too long. Unfortunately the new Enterprise could not compare to the grandeur of the spectacular ships recently seen in Star Wars or even the magnificent Klingon destroyer witnessed at the opening. The same pacing problem occurs later lingering over the costly effects work that created the spectacular vastness of the alien entity. Meanwhile Still on the planet Vulcan, Spock interrupts an important ritual of mental discipline to intercept the Enterprise crew. Strangely Spock will remain silent his first ten minutes on the ship as they proceed to the phenomena continuing the soggy blanket reunion theme. However after the ice is broken and the Enterprise enters the vast entity, the film finally breaks stride and returns the more familiar adventure and relationship elements that made the Star Trek such a phenomena. The remainder of the film unravels smoothly and liberally borrows favorite plot lines from previous Trek TV episodes and fuses them with some true-life NASA lore.
The financial success of this first effort laid the foundation for a succession of future films the best of which was to follow in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. This will always be fondly remembered as the film that started it all...including the well known maxim that the best Star Trek films are the even numbered ones.
It is probably worth mentioning in passing that foreign model/actress Persis Khambatta was rumored to have been paid one million to shave her head bald for the film. (Not bad for an unknown commodity) Also watch very carefully when Spock is exploring inside of V'ger right after he delivers the line "What or who are we dealing with?" you will briefly see Darth Vader and Miss Piggy! Also Trek trivia buffs might be interested to know Captain Will Decker is supposed to be the son of Commodore Matt Decker who died saving the Enterprise from the fish-shaped "Doomsday machine" on the TV series.
Rating: 
Summary: Re-edit adds some life, but can't save ambitious failure
Review: This film has three things going for it. In order of importance they are:
* A genuinely great film score, not just the famous march that was later used as the _Next Generation_ theme, but also the suite of "wonder of outer space" music written to accompany the Enterprise's interminable journey inside V'ger. The "Klingon theme" is another highlight, but there are many highlights in this score. This is not only the best music ever written for a science fiction film, it's among the best film music ever written, way ahead of pastiche merchants like John Williams and up there with the likes of Vaughan Williams' music for _Scott of the Antarctic_ (revised as the _Antarctic Symphony_) and the best Prokoffiev scores;
* Some great visuals: the scenes in which a camera pans along the Enterprise don't work so well, but the images created for the incredibly long exploration of V'ger's cloud and interior are often quite beautiful, considered as abstract art with a great soundtrack (in some ways they improve on the images for Kubrick's great space trip, but Kubrick came first; this film is all too clearly derivative of _2001_);
* Generally good acting (despite what people say!), with Shatner having the courage to portray his hero as badly flawed, even unpleasant, only recovering his balance again when he has his friends around him, and Stephen Collins making the best of a difficult role as the captain usurped by Kirk's rampaging Alpha Male. The problem was that these elements are never allowed to gel into a good movie. The somnolence of the pacing and the gigantism of the cloud/V'ger effects dwarfed the characters and ate away at the performances, so that the Enterprise crew were merely passive observers of the special effects, having far too little to do and say. And the ideas behind the film simply aren't as interesting as the ideas in _2001: A Space Odyssey_, which is equally slow but always gripping. The other problem with this film is that Wise doesn't really understand the attractions of Star Trek. What he seems to have done is try to make an ambitious, thumpingly sincere and worthy science fiction film, that happens to have the Star Trek cast along for the ride. But Star Trek is first and foremost about its characters, of whom Kirk and Spock, at least, are epic figures (Kirk in particular has a lot in common with Odysseus), and the interrelationships between them. Trek that doesn't focus on the people on the bridge is bad Trek. On the other hand the ideas aren't good enough (or original enough) for the film to be good cerebral science fiction in the mould of _2001_ or _Solaris_, which is what Wise seems to be shooting for. Another way for science fiction to be good is to be dumb-but-energetic, in the "radiation made the bugs grow real big and hungry" sub-genre, or perhaps the light-sword and sorcery sub-genre, but this film doesn't have the energy or humour for that. Its ambition is commendable, but it failed to deliver, and Robert Wise's second thoughts come too late to change the film's fundamentals. Wise's director's cut has improved the film significantly from the original release version and from the longer video version. The main changes are that the special effects are better integrated, serving the story line more than dominating or impeding it, and better use is made of the character scenes. But the revision this film needs most should have been done 32 years ago, at the scripting stage; you can't save everything with a re-edit. I'm not writing the film off. It has the merits mentioned above, some good ideas, and a few (but far too few) good Star Trek moments. I've mentioned Kirk's character arc from an obsessive figure determined to get his ship back, regardless of the consequences, to re-gaining his balance, warmth and perspective, with a little help from his friends. (But that arc was resolved too easily, in practice; special effects time could and should have sacrificed to make Kirk's recovery of himself more detailed and more dramatic.) Spock's character arc, from a pursuit of total logic to acceptance of his emotions, is a late addition to the film, and that sometimes shows. Still, though it's cornball (hey, it's Star Trek), it works well enough. I'd recommend _The Motionless Picture_ for three audiences: Trek fans, of course, science fiction fans prepared to note and forgive borrowings from too many other films, and to forgive the unrelenting slowness (the reward for patience is effects/images that do communicate some of the wonder of space travel), and film music fans, who are in for something seriously good. Casual visitors to Star Trek should be aware that this is very different from "Wrath of Khan" and the subsequent films featuring the original crew. Liking those films is no guarantee that you'll like this one. Cheers! Laon
Rating:
Summary: The Film That Re-Launched The Franchise
Review: STTMP is important in the sci-fi world mostly because it brought about the rejuvenation of the franchise.
After dickering about with a proposed new series in the 70s, Roddenberry decided to go with a feature film that would reintroduce the crew to a new generation of fans. To be honest I have mixed feelings about it; the production values were great for the time, yet the story seemed awfully thin. Additionaly, the main characters looked a little out of practice with thier characters (but that was definately gone in ST2: The Wrath of Kahn).
A little too funky for my taste, but what's important is that it brought them back and even now spawns great shows.
Rating:
Summary: eh
Review: only saw it once a long time ago, but i recall that it moved very slow and didn't seem to draw me in. i guess that's why they took such a long time to put this one out on dvd.
Rating:
Summary: ITS FINALLY HERE!!
Review: I know, I know. All the bitching about plot depth and the such. I just loved this movie for the visual escape that it achieved. It's just nice to be able plug this movie in and let the surround and big screen take control. 'Bout time.
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