Star Trek 4 “Full Circle”

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!