Star Trek: Reunion

Right from the opening titles, I knew I'd like this edit. The V'ger cloud is cleverly used, and opening on Vulcan makes a lot of sense. The only thing I found jarring in the first 30 minutes was the Enterprise Introduction, since there were some unfortunate musical cuts and visual effects of Kirk in the pod that haven't aged well.

But the color! I went into this dreading another drab, lifeless experience, but I found myself largely without complaint. Brilliant!

There's one small issue I take with the final card - 'The Human Adventure is just beginning' perfectly encapsulates the spirit of this film (The Human Adventure should have been the title), so to immediately connect it to The Wrath of Khan shakes me out of the introspection that was clearly intended with that cerebral ending.

Other than that, this is just about perfect!

Where to start?

TM2YC turns a severely slow-moving movie with good ideas into a tight, cerebral motion picture along the lines of 2001, a Space Odyssey (which ST MP was 'inspired' by) that continues the original Star Trek show, going in a new direction. The themes of dealing with change and becoming older (Kirk) works well with the theme of facing the unknown. Also gone are the distracting side plots such as the one with Ilia and the new Enterprise Captain (read for the cut list for full changes). Audiovisual wise, It was stunning, i was immersed in it completely, and this is probably the best looking version of the movie you'll get. The audio really gives it an unknown out of this vibe.
Recommended to all Star Trek fans, as TM2YC's version is the only movie to perfectly recreate the original Star Trek feel (Beyond was close, but was limited by modern blockbuster limitations) in my opinion. Also great for Sci-Fi fans who want to see a cerebral sci fi movie that reflects ideas from the 70s.

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: Reunion

First off, the editor removed the prelude--this is actually the only edit I disagree with, and fairly strongly. The prelude sets the tone for the whole movie, setting it apart from that other adventure/space opera franchise. It gives it an introspective 2001 feel and I really miss it. Fortunately, that's easy enough to fix, and even more fortunately, that's the only negative I really have for this edit!

The credits have been re-worked and instead of text on a black background, the text is now overlayed on top of the moving V'ger cloud visuals (no doubt cut from elsewhere in the movie). It's a nice touch and modernizes things a bit without looking out of place.

The next change is one of the more major ones. The main feature opens with Spock on Vulcan instead of the Klingon encounter with the cloud. There are several reasons why I like this change--it allows the movie to continually build from Vulcan to the Klingon encounter instead of leading with Klingons and then dropping the pace back down for Spock and Starfleet HQ (which has also been cut). We now progress from a dose of mystery to a little more mystery with some action on top. Opening with Spock also instantly places the focus of the movie on his journey.

The Vulcan sky is completely repainted and looks great, and I appreciated the cuts to the cloud to emphasize spock's connection, even at this stage, with V'ger.

Several more cuts ensue, the most important of which is the transporter accident. The music was a little jarring at the top of Kirk's leaving the space dock scene, but it works alright. (The original feature had much more subdued music, very slowly building to the introduction of the gorgeous new Enterprise). There's a really nice shot of the sun rising behind the Enterprise as it departs which has been cut. I miss that shot, but conceptually, I understand why this was done and don't exactly disagree with it.

I should mention that I'm a fan of this movie even in its original, unedited form--I love all the drawn out visual scenes, but the editing has been tastefully done. So well, in fact, that despite knowing it had been shortened, I couldn't really tell just how. The end results are clear, though: the Enterprise leaves space dock a scant 22 minutes into the movie. The original version? 33 minutes! (That's 36 including the prelude!)

Ilia's character has been significantly edited, and considerably for the better. There is nothing (ok, other than "she's bald!") to say she's anything other than a normal humanoid female, who aparrently has a bit of history with Decker. No more healing powers, wierd over-sexualization, etc. A very welcome change.

The wormhole sequence has been significantly trimmed, the most noticeable part being Chekhov's line "tooooorpeeeeedooooooo... awayyyyyyyy!", which I always found a bit humorous (and thus distracting from what was supposed to be a very tense situation).

There are several other changes, many of them subtle modifications to characters rather than visuals--you can read about them in the changes log. The bottom line is, if you wanted to love the original version of this movie but couldn't get past the pacing, give this edit a try--it may be just what you're looking for. If you're looking for an action-packed adventure, I'm afraid Star Trek 1 will never be that, no matter how much editing you throw at it.

This is a near flawless edit, both technically and artistically. It tightens things up while staying true to the original concept. Highly, highly recommended.

I'm torn with reviewing this edit because I really don't want to be negative about something that obviously took lots of hard work and time. However I did want to give my opinion on the edit and so I decided to write this up. First off, this is the best "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" has ever looked. It even surpasses the bluray release. There are some issues with the added sound effects and score being slightly louder than the original but it's not a dealbreaker.

My problems with the edit are the same as with the initial release, it's tedious and not very interesting. It's like watching "2001: A Space Odyssey" but with Star Trek characters. Thankfully the over-long beauty shots of the Enterprise are trimmed down. I know this is a divisive movie and I just happen to fall on the negative side I guess. I was hoping this shorter edit would turn me around but it didn't. Like I wrote before, it looks awesome and is not as long so if you like the original this will probably be your preferred version. If you didn't care for the storyline this might not be for you.