Star Trek 2 “Perdition’s Flames”

There’s never enough time to watch everything… and man, are there loads of fanedits which I need to catch up on! Well, one wet Thursday evening I fancied a bit of Star Trek, and having only seen 2 of Bob’s Trek edits (of the first and fifth movies), I thought it was about time I watched “Perdition’s Flames”.

Firstly, I really like the whole concept of what Bob has done with his TV series approach to the movies. The adding of the series sound effects, music and all the fade to black ad-breaks worked particularly well in “The V’ger Incident” (a few music level problems aside), and I’m pleased to say that the case for Perditions Flames is no different. In fact, as The Wrath of Khan always seemed to feel much like an extended TV episode anyway, the classic feel which Bob adds to this edit seems perhaps more like a perfect marriage of styles this time around. Indeed, it comes as no surprise that flashback footage to the actual TV episode, “Space Seed” is utilised when Kirk realises it is Khan who is attacking the Enterprise. What’s more, it’s nicely executed too, and to me the only aspect of this edit which would make it even better would have been to try and crop the image to 1.85:1 ratio. That being said, picture quality is good throughout and the sound editing this time around is more consistent with no varying levels to speak of.

So, for picture and sound quality I would give this a solid 9/10. Great job Mr Bionic.

In terms of the story, this was perhaps the most ambitious side of the edit, in that Bob tries to tell the story very much from the point of view of Kirk, meaning that we only ever see Khan when Kirk is also present in the scene. Initially I was a bit worried how this would work. After all, some of the best moments in the film are when Ricardo Montalban is chewing up the scenery, but for this edit and its intentions, it works very well. That being said, when it comes to the heroic exploits of a certain Mr Spock and the consequences thereafter, I did feel that there was a little too much missing, even though I fully understood Bob’s intention to keep things firmly fixed on Kirk’s point of view. The use of flashbacks and new music during Spock’s send off though does not work as well for me; not badly executed, it just didn’t seem to fit comfortably for me.

Overall however, the narrative works perfectly well in context of the edit and I wouldn’t hesitate in giving this 9/10

On the visual and audio front, the editing is more or less flawless and as already mentioned the audio side in particular is an improvement on Bob’s first Star Trek edit. So, Visual editing would get 10/10, audio 10/10.

Enjoyment is, as with all Bob’s edits, the aspect which shines through the most. You can tell the amount of enthusiasm and love which he puts into the edit and I was thoroughly entertained from start to finish, as easy 10/10 for me.

Overall then, Perditions Flames continues and in many ways improves on the good work started with The V’ger Incident. If you want to see Star Trek II from Kirk’s perspective then this is the perfect way to do so and you will have a blast; that I can guarantee.

Review by Neglify — August 2, 2012 @ 6:38 am

What a fun fanedit this was. I never got too much into Trek but I love Wrath of Khan. It was great to watch it in a new way. Bob is the king of Trek edits.

A very cool edit, even though less Ricardo Montalbán means less of his impressive performance, but this is not the goal of this edit.
Perdition’s Flames really feels like a great two-episode finale of a star trek tv-season and if they would have presented a story like this in the star trek series it would have definately become a legendary entry.
With cutting the Khan scenes out and just focusing on Kirk the story progresses without many of the redundancies that the original suffers. The scene with Chekov discovering Khan’s vessel is a great opening and bionicbob manages to make it feel like a tv-opening, everything is there, the captain’s log voiceover as the starship flies by ending with the beaming sound of the away mission, there are dramatic fadeouts and fade-ins, one very very cliffhangery freeze frame
with about half an hour cut this is a very quick and exciting ride. it doesn’t replace wrath of khan, this was never the intention it just gives us a new take on an old classic

Firstly, I want to both apologise for my tardiness at watching and reviewing this edit, both as a fellow huge TOS fan, and also to make clear that because I am watching over a decade on from when this was made, I will take the time factor into consideration. These are just my thoughts...

I love the TOS structure of pre-titles through to commercial breaks etc. How did you create that gorgeous title sequence?

All the breaks were fitting and made me want to keep watching if this was on TV.

I am also impressed and overjoyed at the placement of TOS music! If one were to re-do this now, with the TOS soundtrack collection out there, we have a wealth of material to now choose from, some probably more appropriate in places than what Bob had at the time.

This leads me to my next point: I adore TOS music but found The Doomsday Machine score repetitive. At that point in time, other episodes' cues were available, and Where No Man Has Gone Before music may have been fitting in places. I found the Doomsday Machine music when Kirk and Carol talk about David alone, unnecessary and a little messy. I think the silence, or more pensive music would have been better. But that's just me.

I also think the TNG Inner Light music, while beautifully realised, completely inappropriate to the TOS feel that Bob was going for. Lovely, but not necessary.

I loved the flashback moments. I think b/w works fine, and the choice of clips was suitable, but if this was to be done today, I would pull the original effects version from the blu ray, as the TOS-R footage is jarring.

I *loved* the trailer, but am puzzled at its placement just before the main feature.

The epilogue was perfect.

The end titles were great, but I wonder if all the film credits were included in such a short space of time?

Also, I'm not sure what aspect ratio we were going for here?

To be clear: I enjoyed this alternate take, and whilst just a little more Khan would have been good, the tension of not seeing Khan in that final battle is nail-biting,and I think we can all agree that communication from Khan, literally spitting at Kirk, replacing his original miniature monologue, was simply masterful.

An edit that, despite its age,must be watched by any Trekkie (or -er!)

Wow. I quite loved this! Like a lot of other reviewers are saying of themselves, I am also not really a Trekkie, but I eventually watched all of the original series (no other ones--Pickard Who?) and I saw the original cast movies at home on VHS. So it has been a long time since I have watched this movie.
No matter how great something is, it always seems easier to point out the things I had problems with, so I will start there:

Really didn't not like the opening "teaser". The movie actually starts 1 minute and 25 seconds later. It really just felt like a jumble of scenes/spoilers. This was the one and only thing I actually did not like about the edit, and it is easy to disregard it since it's at the beginning.

I did have a couple of issues regarding the story though. There is some weirdness when Kirk beams down and sees his son and the scientist lady. It's clear there is some backstory that is missing. (Frankly, though not the intent of this edit, I wish that goofy dude was not Kirk's son. TMBTM managed to fix Indy 4's similar "cool guy/crappy son" issue. But I know that is not what you were going for here).
I felt one or two more interior shots of the Reliant with Kahn would have been useful during the final battle scene, especially for more closure on the big villain's death. I know we'd be out of Kirk's POV, but just barely as we'd be seeing damage Kirk was inflicting. I think all the other removing of Kahn worked perfectly.
The other issue I had was with Spock's death. There was no explanation at all for what really happened there. I mean, we can piece together what it was. Unfortunately being in Kirk's POV still doesn't give us Kirk's knowledge of the ship, etc, so I really would have loved to have gotten at least Scotty trying to stop Spock or something by way of explaining what killed Spock.
All we know is he saved the ship, somehow, by doing something and now he's gonna die.

I liked the montage at the funeral, I would have preferred washed out color instead of black and white, but that's just me. I think in the V'ger movie there were fewer fades to commercial, and I felt fewer was better, but that's no big deal.

Overall, I am really REALLY enjoying these Star Trek edits! I am watching them in order, though this is the 1st one I have reviewed. Can't wait to watch the rest of them!