Review Detail

Star Trek The Motion Picture has always been my favourite Trek movie. There, I said it. Sure, it’s slow, some would say ponderous; but it’s also to my eye visually the best looking and most thought provoking entry in the entire series. The human adventure is just beginning... indeed.

I remember enjoying Bionic Bob’s fanedit take on TMP, being purposefully in the style of the TV series, something which he continued to do for every classic Trek movie thereafter. Here, however, TM2YC focuses more on just streamlining the movie experience by tightening the narrative and rather impressively, adjust a couple of effects sequences and perform some nice colour correction.

Naturally STTMP is a movie which is rife for fan-editing; even being a fan of the movie in both its theatrical and directors cut, I openly admit that I too have thought about editing it. However, pleasingly, I no longer need to think about this movie with a faneditors hat on, as TM2YC has basically re-edited this most spectacular of journeys into a faster paced but equally as fascinating movie and I honestly can’t think of anything bad to say about it.

Technically, as has become the norm for a TM2YC edit, this is spot-on. From the perfectly balanced audio track with no hard audio cuts in ear shot, to a quite stunning picture (I watched the DVD version) , Reunion is a pure pleasure to watch from start to finish. Granted, knowing the film particularly well does mean that I was aware of fan-made audio transitions during such musically powered scenes as the cut down introduction to the Enterprise, but they were never detrimental to the viewing experience. Indeed, when you consider just how important a character Jerry Goldsmith’s stunning score really is, it’s to the editor’s credit that they managed to re-edit these scenes so successfully.

One of the main highlights for me was the work executed on Vulcan right at the beginning of the film. This is honestly the best the scene has ever looked, and is far better than the added effects in the director’s cut. I really can’t applaud TM2YC enough for this. Quite excellent.

So, for me I now feel quite spoiled when it comes to the choices in front of me as to which version of Star Trek The Motion Picture to watch. I can have the whole experience of Robert Wise’s sweeping, bold original vision complete with slow yet beautiful shots of the Enterprise in space dock; or I can go the classic TV series route with Bionic Bob’s fun The V’ger Incident, or now I can have a streamlined version which holds onto everything the original version had going for it, but in just over 100 minutes.

Any self respecting Star Trek fan needs to see this. It’s as simple as that