Star Trek: Reunion

I'm old enough to remember this movie when it was released although I never saw it at the cinema. I've seen it many, many times over the years and can pretty much spot any change as it occurs in a fan edit of ST:TMP. What this faneditor has done is nothing short of miraculous. He has improved on the original and made me look at it in a fresh light.

The big change here is the colour timing. There's a very warm push in the colours which make the colour scheme pop and look vibrant in HD. In particular, the external shots look absolutely gorgeous. Some facial tones can look a little too warm at times and unfortunately Spock loses some of his yellow pallor in some close ups, but on the whole the editor has made the film look gorgeous.

Speaking of the editing, the first thing you notice is the V'ger first person journey created by Douglas Trumbull over the beginning credits. Simply put, this looks stunning! Why they never thought to do this originally or even in the directors edition is beyond me. Also it helps connect V'Ger to Spock in a much stronger way than was originally done. This for me this is an inspired choice from the editor.

Personally, I would have preferred either an external shot of Vulcan from space (either taken from the 2009 movie or STIII:TSFS with a caption to place the movie after the credits, or a title card over the fantastic new matte shot created by the editor for this version. I believe the Spock Kolinarh scene could have been stronger if it was edited back to front. For example, after the titles and I would have like to have seen Spock looking up immediately to make that connection between him and V'ger stronger. Then have the matriach watching him and him approach and then leave Spock after the mind meld where he bends to pick up the trinket and then looks up again. I had a tinker with the scene myself and it can be done convincingly, but it is a matter of taste and I applaud the editor for the work he did here.

Then we have a jump to the dry dock completely omitting Kirk's journey to Starfleet HQ. I didn't think this would work at first but actually it works incredibly well. The only problem I had with it was again I didn't know where I was and feel a shot of the Earth or of a Starbase from III or VI would have helped or even a title card with "Earth, Stardate blah blah" etc. Its a matter of taste but I was aware that someone not familiar as I am might not necessarily know where they are at that point in the movie as we were just on Vulcan seconds before.

There are some great music cues, some TOS sound queues that will make old Trekkers smile and some great tightening of editing throughout the movie but Act 2 and 3 pretty much play out as they did originally.

Some of the directors edition footage has made its way into the film and all the choices here are good ones. Some of the footage is barely noticeable as being of a lower quality but some of it towards the end doesn't fare so well. I wonder if it's possible to transcode that stuff and a very high bitrate to improve the quality. Perhaps the editor already tried that and what we get is the results of the encode.

All in all, this fan edit is my preferred version of this movie and one which I will watch whenever I feel like watching ST:TMP.

Highly recommended for Trek fans.

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.

As others here have done, I'm now adopting this is as my go-to version of the film. It's about as definitive as I'm ever likely to see it.

So much so that I just re-watched in lieu of the fancy (and expensive) 4K UHD copy I've had sitting, unwatched, on my shelf for many months now.

I'm old enough *Sigh* to remember the pre-Star Wars Days when there was NO Trek other than the original show. Sure, there were some comics, a couple of books and a few toys and models...but that was it. For fans of the fantasy and sci-fi in the UK there was mostly just Doctor Who, Blake's 7, the odd Trek repeat and whatever Hammer Horror or vintage monster movie you could catch late on Friday BBC 2.

Its funny to think of now but in the pre-VHS days I would ask my school librarian to order in the ST Episode 'Fotonovels' and (like many other fans) record the occasional repeat on these things called ''Cassette Tapes.' Then I could experience a full-length audio episode whenever I wanted - better still, be lucky enough to have an audio recording COMBINED with a Fotonovel...Audio Visual heaven!

As Long as you didn't mind instances of your dad piping up about how this was 'A lot of rubbish' as he passed through the room!

I waited with GREAT anticipation for the Motion Picture to the reach our local screen and when I finally saw it my reaction was, well, complicated, to say the least. It was certainly great to see the old cast back and it really did look great. It felt bigger and more epic. But I was still a kid and, once you'd seen a Death Star trench battle, the pace just felt waaaay too sloooow.

Growing up, my appreciation of the film has grown considerably. I've read a great deal about its troubled, time-constrained production and very much enjoyed Wise's Director's Cut which was a step in the right direction. Especially as I was now ready to view the MP not as a long-form episode of the TV show but as a cerebral 2001-esque science fiction film in the truest sense.

TM2YC has perfected STMP for me and its now fulfilled its potential. THIS was the way it should have been seen originally. Its been tightened up even more and there are all sorts of subtle touches and grace notes which enhance it while keeping its DNA related to the original show. I loved this and if you've always been sniffy about the first ST movie then you should see this and consider a serious re-appraisal.

I've always liked Star Trek TMP, despite it's flaws, but I've never been an avid fan of either the TV show or the movies. I couldn't put my finger on everything that's been cut but it works wonders to speed up the narrative and improve the dynamics between the characters. I followed the topic in the forum so I knew there'd been a lot of new fx work and rebuilding of the audio track, which has all been flawlessly intergrated into the film, I must say, impressively so. As a casual Star Trek viewer I know a few of the scenes that have been cut but they're all good choices and only help to improve the film. The video and audio editing is unnoticeable, you really would need to be a rabid fan to spot where the cuts have been made and I can't think of any of the edits that drew attention to themselves. The narrative flows well, much better than in either the theatrical or director's cuts (IMHO), and it honestly looks the best I've ever seen it look, all the time the editor spent getting it to look this gorgeous has, without doubt, made this my go-to version for whenever I watch STTMP from now on. Which is going to be more often than it would have been before watching this fanedit. This is very impressive work from TM2YC.

Whoa!

I still recall goosebumps at the first teaser poster and the cheers at the Empire Leicester Sq when the music started and the caption STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE appeared....and this edit had a near similar effect. Perfection.

It would be easy to over trim this or to saturate it with excessive sound FX, but here is where TM2YC excels in showing creativity with restraint.

This edit nails it!...all.

The AV is solid, the editing crisp and the audio super. The colour and visual FX fixes are marvelous. The narrative; engaging. I've done 2 edits of this for my own consumption...a 50 min and a sound enhanced one...and this is far better. I found that this just perfectly extracted the story and tone of classic trek like no other edit even though original music from the series was avoided...and rightly so.

I for one will have trouble watching the originals now and this now sits in the BD case with the original (of which I have 3 versions on DVD and one on BD).

If you are a STTTMP maligner, you owe it to yourself to watch this...on a big TV and big sound system at full pelt. It is the definitive version in my humble opinion.

I can't add to what has already been said apart from BRAVO!
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