Star Trek: Reunion

TM2YC shared preview clips of this edit as he overhauled The Motion Picture from stem to stern. It was fun seeing how each scene got many patches, color grading and new FX added. How would they all play when the finished version assembled them all together?

Pretty great it turns out. The biggest changes are in the first two thirds of the movie where unneeded scenes are cut and others reshuffled to fix continuity. The narrative skips along smartly (& bet you never thought "skips along smartly" when you thought of The Motion Picture before). It's a real pleasure to see the colors looking so vibrant and natural. All the new button sounds are a gas, a lot of fun, and add to the story which, let's face it, is mostly on the bridge.

Star Trek Reunion has many tiny changes that you'd hardly notice on a casual viewing but they add up, like an Adywan edit, on a subconscious level. The movie has never looked better and the narrative is less like a vapid "serious" drama and more like a Trek episode.

There's not much to criticize. Personally I would like to see even more trims to the last third of the movie, which is still a little slow, talky and corny. Some of the added FX are more successful than others but they're all up to 1970s level of quality. Mostly the video and audio edits are spotless and flow without effort.

My top rating for audio/visual quality is about improvement to original footage even though some shots are unavoidably in lower resolution. I'd give the original movie a 5 or 6 for enjoyment so Star Trek Reunion is a starship sized upgrade in that department.

I really wanted to love this edit, or should I say I was hoping it would give me a renewed appreciation for the old Trek movies I adored as a kid. Unfortunately it didn't, and I just don't know if I'll ever watch it again because JJ Abrams' reboot is just so damn good!

Having said that, what has been done here is inspiring! TM2YC has done an amazing job resurrecting an old classic, and this by far the best way to view it. It really is a great edit, and vastly improved my experience watching ST The Motion Picture again. If anyone wants to watch it this should be your first preference! Nice work TM2YC :)

What can I really say that hasn't already been said honestly...??
This is a great edit and completely replaces my blu-ray of this film, I loved it!
I will never watch the original cut again...

Only negative I have is - sometimes the added music is a little louder than the vocals.

Thanks so much for finding the great movie within this film.

Highly recommended for any Star Trek fans..

Great job TM2YC..

This is an amazing fanedit. I'm incredibly impressed by TM2YC's work. Instead of just making some trims, TM2YC goes all out to make every aspect of this film as best as it can be. Color grading, visual FX fixes/enhancements, extensive sound editing to make the world come alive. Bravo! This is a perfect example of a fanedit that should be released as an official Special Edition.

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