Star Trek 4 “Full Circle”

Another great BionicBob Star trek edit!
In general, this may have been my favorite so far--though I have 2 more movies to watch in the series. This movie is just fun, and the chemistry between the characters comes through here the best since the tv show, and this edit keeps things moving at a perfect pace.

I had issues with the "flash-forward" montage. It didn't particularly make sense to me. They went back in time and all experienced images of their future selves? If you were going to do that at all, I think using shorter, quick wordless flashes, maybe with a slightly psychedelic filter, would have worked better, IMO. Though, considering they go back in time, I would think images from their past would pop up, and then on the return to their future (which is their present), maybe there use the future images? I'm torn about this part. I was glad not to see another montage when they went back to their present with the whales, but at the same time, I sort of wondered why there wouldn't be another one. This issue is pretty minor, but when you create something nearly perfect, the flaws stand out.
I had minor issues with background music as well, though not the Huey Lewis song (I thought the volume of the music there was fine, as past Earth probably seemed like a cacophony of sounds to the crew. But there were a few times the music was a little loud and in some scenes (Chekov awakening and stating his name/rank) the music just seemed out of place--undercutting the drama of the scene.

My overall enjoyment of this was off the chart though--higher than the 10-point scale allows.
To me, more than the 3 previous TOS movies, this one captures the fun of the original Star Trek. The fate of the world hangs in the balance, but that doesn't mean Kirk isn't still basically trying to get laid, Spock is dressed as some kinda samurai and attempting "colorful" language and Bones gets to play Dr in a real hospital! And even the whale plot made me think of Douglas Adams's So Long And Thanks For All The Fish---which has nothing to do with Star Trek, and yet I think this fun movie shares a little DNA with that brilliant writer's way of having fun with end-of-the-world scenarios.

Review by Neglify — August 3, 2012 @ 8:51 am

This was an excellent edit. It’s not technically perfect, but it was a highly enjoyable story for me. I especially loved the added time warp. And oh yeah, “San Francisco. I was born there.”

Review by L8wrtr — January 13, 2011 @ 9:05 am

Bionic Bob has to date created my favorite series of edits. While I’m a Star Wars guy, I can’t deny that I have a love for Star Trek. My older brother remembers watching the shows when they were new, and he had me watch them with him before there was a Star Wars, they even had that cool cartoon . So I’ve taken to watching these with my bro as his reaction is something that helps me gauge Bob’s success. Normally I watch the edits myself before having my bro over, but this time I waited so that we could see it for the first time together, I’ll use him as a reference point for the review.

As with all of my reviews, they are intended as constructive evaluations of the edit and no offense is intended to the editor.

AUDIO
Normally one of Bob’s strengths is the audio. While never anything fancy from a surround standpoint, the levels are typically appropriate, rarely requiring you to keep your hand on the remote for sudden increases or decreases in audio. This time however I had to keep my trusty remote at the ready. At about half-way through the movie I turned off my surround system and let it play through my tv’s speakers (which aren’t half-bad). This was a big improvement, but still not what I’ve come to expect from Bob. Outside of the audio levels, Bob’s deft ear and keen sensibilities continue with his addition of classic Trek sounds and music. And as all have noted, fantastic work on the HLN playing on the radio. Overall 6/10

VIDEO
Theres not much to say here. As always, the cuts themselves are fantastic, no flash frames, good transitions etc.. but we of course have our Letterbox/codec issues. 8/10

STORY
So far, this has been a brutal review, which is hard because I’m a big fan of Bob’s work. Fortunately, this edit really delivers where it counts. Bob’s treatment of the story brings out the absolute best in the edit and cuts out all that hasn’t aged as you’d hope. Like the Bones side-story on Earth in Search For Spock/Resurrection, the reduction/redaction of the Checkov story is a much needed improvement. Like others, I’m perplexed by the time-travel sequence. Love the idea, but I agree, the individual sequences were long. If you’re a fan of Star Trek and watch it, you don’t need to see the full clips to know their significance, and if you’ve not seen them, well, they don’t mean a whole lot either. If there is a V2, I’d recommend trimming their length (but not number)

But the most important thing I can say about this edit is that quite simply, it feels like a Star Trek episode. My brother grinned and laughed throughout at all the right beats for all the right reasons. This was by far his favorite installment of the Bionic Bob edits. My only disappointment came from the loss of the little old lady that Bones gives pills to. For some reason, her hollering as they leave the hospital always cracks me up, but I can also see why he cut it out.
10/10

OVERALL
Despite the audio issues, this was far and away my brother’s favorite of Bionic Bob’s edits to date. While he’s enjoyed every single one so far, this edit, which has the benefit of a story that FINALLY focuses on the big three, feels completely like a Star Trek story. Our heroes must save the Earth for the umpteenth time are finally allowed be the characters we love. After 3 movies we finally see Kirk, Spock and Bones interact the way we want to see them; they finally reprise their characters, and not just their roles. Bob’s edit strips away the forced humor and dated story-telling, and the result is an edit which allows what we enjoy about Star Trek shine through, the characters.

Despite the audio issues, this edit, like The V’ger Incident and Resurrection before it, are now my go-to versions, but of all Bob’s edits, if he picks just one to come back and do a V2, I hope that is this one. It represents some of his best editing, but is handicapped by the audio and video issues. Overall 7.5 out of 10, but that has to round up to 8/10 when I factor in how much my brother truly enjoyed this film.

Keep’m coming Bob!

I finally got around to watching this at the weekend.

Reading other reviews, I agree about the flash forward images etc.

I also agree some of the music was perhaps out of place and/or repetitious, but back then BionicBob didn't have the luxury of the complete TOS soundtrack. Tribbles music works for the banter between Kirk and Spock, but I wouldn't extend it further than that.

Narrative-wise, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and felt nothing was truly missing. The hospital scenes in particular, benefited from this. A tightened trip to get the whales, and out we come the other side of the sun, back in the future.

Considering I am reviewing an edit made over a decade ago, it's a cute little take on the lighter of the TOS movies, that aside from some music choices, mostly holds up, viewing it today.

this was another enjoyable edit. one thing that lost me was seeing the future when they traveled to the past. i would love to know wherre the future scenes came from as i dont remember ever seeing them. i think the future scenes would have worked better in a forward time warp. overall its a fun movie and i didnt have to explain as much stuff to my middle son as i did the original movies with my oldest son, definite plus and on to the next movie