Star Trek 2 “Perdition’s Flames”

Review by ionvox — December 27, 2010 @ 10:28 pm

The only thing missing was more Khan facetime. But, the intent of this edit made that unnecessary. I did love the last transmission from the Reliant… good way to keep the line in there. =)

All in all, I loved this rendition!

10/10

Review by L8wrtr — October 26, 2010 @ 1:41 am

So I had the privilege of seeing an early cut of this and found it very enjoyable. Bob’s trademark TOS flavor was already in place, and he had gone quite a long way in creating the Kirk only point of view. At the time I quite enjoyed it but still felt that I would return to the theatrical as my go-to DVD.

After having watched the final version, I have reversed this position, this is now my go-to version.

Visual Quality
Like Bob’s previous edit, the V’ger incident this edit suffers from less than ideal video quality. There are compressions in certain reds, and it is as most who follow Bob’s edit’s know, the letterbox aspect. From a purely evaluational standpoint I have to give it a 7/10 for visual quality. Personally, this doesn’t bother me, but I do hope that Bob at some point is able to revisit this edit with improved software capabilities as this is the ONLY aspect that holds this edit back.

Audio Quality
This is one of the shining gems of the edit. Infusion of TOS sound effects and music is seamless and if you had not seen this movie before, or didn’t know what the big deal was, I suspect most wouldn’t be able to identify what was added. I could detect no hard or startling audio cuts or transitions and in particular, the sequence where the Reliant first attacks the Enterprise was handled very well. Audio levels did not seem out of line with the original DVD. I see no reason to give anything other than 10/10.

Editing
On the technical front there were no flaws, no flash-frames and no visual mismatches. Like the audio, I would say that if you were not familiar with the subject matter, or the original story a view would be hard placed to find where the Bob made his edits. His presence is only noticeable because so much has been added, modified and/or removed. 10/10

Story/Film improvement
Surprisingly, and quite contrary to my expectation, the shift to Kirk’s Point of View actually does, at least for me, makes this a better movie and a true example of Less is More. I can certainly be counted among those who absolutely love Ricardo Montalban’s performance as Khan. He has some of the juiciest lines and dramatic performances in the movie. Yet when his scenes are highly redacted, we see a classic Trek story emerge. This is no longer Khan’s Revenge. It’s a Star Trek story, which means it’s a story about Kirk, Spock and Bones, and it highlights the human struggle and issues of mortality that Kirk faces.

**SPOILERS AHEAD!!!**
Of particular joy for me was the Reliant attack on the Enterprise, and the battle of the Nebula right through Spock’s death. The way Bob was able to cut Khan’s prepatory lines from the lead-up were masterful, and the manner in which the attack came off was truly that of a surprise attack and makes it believable that they got the jump on Kirk, but even more impressive was excising Spock’s fixing the Mains – the power of the moment when Kirk looks at Spock’s empty chair is ratcheted up so much more from this angle and makes the emotional payoff of when he first sees Spock hit home even more. And the goodbye montage, much as I was against it in the initial copy I saw, worked very well. 11/10

Extras
The DVD menu is a default template and not terribly exciting (and repetitive if you’re watching more than one of his edits at a time ;) ) but I don’t mark down for menus, I’m here to watch an edit after all.

He does provide a nice little ‘About this movie’ bit that is enlightening and fun.
And as other’s have said, watch all the way through the credits.

Overall
This was a highly enjoyable edit that is a great example of what a Fanedit can be. It is one thing to take a crappy movie that missed the mark and make it better, but to take what is considered the best movie of a franchise and create something new and and enjoyable, that is truly an impressive feet.

The only thing that holds this back from a perfect 10 is the video quality, which drags this down to an 8.5 out of 10 so rounding up I give this a 9/10. This is a fantastic edit and simply a fun movie to watch.