Review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Director`s Edition

Introduction

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director`s Edition) is one of the most keenly anticipated DVD releases so far. The disc has been in production for what seems like ages, and includes new scenes and a few extra effects, plus a whole host of extras.

Following the success of Star Wars, the popularity of science fiction resulted in Paramount bringing Star Trek to the big screen. Featuring the main stars from the TV series, the movie sees Enterprise hurriedly taken out of a refit program and despatched to fend off a huge mysterious alien object that is heading towards earth.

Video

I`ll not beat around the bush here - the picture quality on this disc is unacceptable for such a high profile release, and Paramount should be ashamed of themselves. No attempt has been made to clean up the print, which is littered with dirt and scratches. The image is soft, often out of focus (and this sometimes only effects part of the picture) - and at times the picture is exceptionally grainy. There are also lines across the screen - horizontally and vertically at different times throughout the movie. There is even one scene where Kirk`s head and body are in focus, but his arm is not.

The visual effects are less than impressive as well - there are purple boxes around spacecraft flying over starry skies, rear projection with a lack of contrast which highlights the edges of overlaid objects and matted sets which have variable focus across the image. This isn`t helped by the film looked aged due to the sets and uniforms.

All in all - the video is very very disappointing.

Audio

This disc features a new sound mix supervised by the director and this is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Although a considerable improvement over the original score, the new one doesn`t break any new ground, instead concentrating on reproducing a cleaner sound, particularly the dialogue, and providing effects in the rear channels. Like some aspects of the visuals, the reliance on synthesiser music plants the movie firmly in a timeframe and it hasn`t aged particularly well. An orchestral score really is essential to make sci-fi movies timeless.

In general the dialogue is set at a comfortable level, but at times I felt that it was a little too low and slightly distorted.

Overall, more effort has been put into the sound than the video but it still falls quite some way short of being reference quality material.

Features

Disc 1 contains the movie plus a commentary track with input from the director, effects director, composer and others.

The movie starts with a very long shot of a star field set to the score, and selecting the commentary gives a good introduction to the movie. After three minutes the main feature starts and the commentary is very informative, if a little monotonous at times. The various contributors give plenty of information about how the film was made, and the changes made for the director`s cut of the movie. There is also a secondary textual commentary track - which gives more specific information - I watched with both the vocal and textual commentaries on at the same time and found that the combination provided more than enough information!

Disc 2 contains the main meat of the extra features, which include documentaries, trailers, TV spots, additional scenes, deleted scenes, storyboards and a promo spot for the new Enterprise series.

The three documentaries are all interesting and contain a great deal of information about the original making of the movie and the new scenes. The programs include interviews with most of the people concerned and cover most aspects of the film.

The remainder of the extras are more mundane, with three trailers, the promo spot, 8 TV commercials and a look at the deleted/additional scenes from the theatrical version and TV version. Things are rounded off with a look at the storyboards from three scenes.

The menus are nicely animated and have good transitions between the various screens - and importantly they are easy to navigate.

The disc is packaged in a double case, which contains details of the 32 chapter breaks, a comprehensive list of extras and an introduction from the director.

Conclusion

It is many years since I`ve seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture and I must admit to being very disappointed by this disc - both in terms of picture quality, and the film itself which hasn`t aged very well and really didn`t entertain me a great deal.

The movie is slow and ponderous at times, and some of the cast really didn`t seem to be all that interested in the characters that they were playing, leaving some scenes chronically tedious - not helped by poor special effects and the exceptionally disappointing picture quality.

This double disc package has been keened awaited by Star Trek fans, primarily to see the new footage, but also for the extra material. The new footage is well done and fits into the movie well, but doesn`t do anything to spark any interest in a tired film. The extras on the other hand are very good, and to be honest are more interesting and better presented than the main feature. I`d be quite happy keeping the second disc and putting the first in the bin.

Overall this is the most disappointing major release that I`ve come across so far, the picture quality really isn`t good enough, and the film is too mundane to offset the poor visuals. The extras are good, but Paramount really should have worked harder on the picture to bring it up to the required standard.

A missed opportunity to produce a classic disc. Avoid.