Star Trek 1 “The V'Ger Incident”

Review by Neglify — March 24, 2012 @ 8:11 am

I only watched Star Trek TMP once and I liked it but thought it was a little too boring for my tastes. I really dug Bob’s edit “The V’Ger Incident”. For me, the pacing was much better and I felt the story flowed really nicely.
There are some technical issues that other reviewers have brought up, such as the audio levels and the letterboxed picture. For me, these didn’t bother me too much, but still factors into it.
Overall Rating – 8/10

Review by joebshmoe — June 28, 2010 @ 8:44 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by havok1977 — June 26, 2010 @ 8:30 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by Ripplin — June 4, 2010 @ 8:47 am

Growing up, I was not an avid TOS watcher. I appreciated it, and saw a fair number of episodes, but I was not yet really into sci-fi in general. Every time I saw TMP, I found it dragged on and on at parts (Spock’s flight in the spacesuit is mercifully short in this edit, which is appreciated) and didn’t have the sense of excitement that the sequels had. But now, I’m a big fan of TOS and have seen every episode at least once, many multiple times. Watching this edit, even without the TOS additions, I must say that in some ways, it felt the most like TOS among all of the Star Trek movies! Amazing. :p I never would’ve thought it.

Bob’s additions are well thought out and not intrusive or jarring. Towards the last third to quarter of the movie, I actually wished there were more of them. I’m a little undecided about the new twist ending. It makes sense, considering what is said about V’Ger’s “people” and planet and whatnot, but…still felt strange. Plus, you have to ignore what was brought out in Star Trek: Enterprise about those people, too. Haha. ;)

Overall, I quite liked this. I would say it is THE version to watch. I have a much bigger appreciation for the movie now because of this edit. Doesn’t make me want to watch the original version, but I would certainly watch this one again sometime. I will give this fine effort 8/10. Well done!

I didn't realize this was fanedit legend BionicBob's first fanedit...it sure doesn't show it!
I have many thoughts on why this is very flawed as a film (here: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/star-trek-the-motion-picture/) but the question is if this edit fixes those issues? Well, not really. A great many of them are script-level and can't be changed, or there simply isn't alternative footage. What this edit does well is trim a lot of the scenes not featuring the holy ST trinity of Kirk/Spock/Bones, and pick up the pace a lot.

However, the framework didn't sell me on this being presented as a long TV episode. It was okay, but the thing still has the beats of a movie and doesn't feel like TV. There are also still long, boring stretches focusing on the dated effects and visuals. At this point, even the extraneous characters' scenes would be better to watch than a lot of that dead space, which didn't grab me or create "mood" at all. Also, while many of the cuts were good, some stuff was cut that helps to give the story a cohesive narrative and flesh out motivations. So it's a bit hit and miss.

Overall, this is still better to watch than any previous version of the film, so it's recommended over those. Chock one up in the Win column for BionicBob.