Synopsis:

This is a cut of 'The Motion Picture' that attempts to get a little closer to the excitement and pacing of the Original-Series and the five Original-Crew films that followed it.

Intentions:

The Motion Picture' has always been a tie for my least favourite Star Trek film (With 'Nemesis'). It has little of the dramatic pacing of 'Wrath of Khan', little of the humour of 'The Voyage Home' and little of the emotional warmth of 'Final Frontier'. To me, it feels like a misjudged attempt to make a cerebral and serious film like '2001: A Space Odyssey', when they would have done better trying to replicate the fun of 'Star Wars'. The pace of the editing is painfully slow, the quality of the VisFX various a lot and most serious for me, the characters just aren't right. Bones isn't humorous enough, Kirk acts confused and uncertain, new crew member Decker is whiny and petulant and all three of them think Spock will betray the Enterprise?! I was never gonna be able to pull a thrilling 'Wrath of Khan' style adventure out of this thing, my intension was simply to bring it as close as I could to the spirit of the rest of the franchise. Still the same cerebral journey but at Warp-Speed instead of just Impulse-Power. This cut is meant to be a "Fanfix" by a Star Trek fan who didn't love the source film but I hope longterm 'Motion Picture Fans' will still enjoy this alternate take.

Change List:

- There are only 3 major removals totalling 5 minutes: The overture, Kirk/Sonac's introduction and Sonac's death (The rest of the 24minutes I've cut is from hundreds of tiny trims) - One whole scene added from 'The Director's Cut' ('Spock's Tear'). Sadly this is in poor Standard-Definition but it's importance to the narrative, meant I had to use it - Several brief moments and shots used from the 'Director's Cut' and the 'TV Cut' where absolutely necessary. I wanted to avoid using any CGI shots from the DC so I tried to "fix" the TC practical FX shots instead, but a few DC shots were used because the TC had no equivelants - A large proportion of the FX shots have been improved by seperating out the elements and recompositing them to allow for seperate colour grading and contrast adjustment - All footage regraded to be more colourful and less drab, plus grain added and slight sharpening (To counteract excessive DNR on the Blu-Ray). This has been achieved by painstakingly regrading most of the movie shot-by-shot - The source film's colour grading was wildly inconsitent and every effort has been taken to correct this. However some shots were impossible to fully correct - Many of the seemingly endless FXshots have been shortened by as much as a half. They are beautiful no doubt but staring at them for too long interupts the flow of the story IMO - The Enterprise ramscoop is now blue in all FX shots. Instead of being sometimes orange when the engines are offline - Kirk is more commanding and decisive and less confused and incompetent. He isn't always right but he instantly admits when he's made a mistake and with good humour. Just as he does in the rest of the franchise. When I could make him react quicker I did. He doesn't need to think, he acts - Decker is much less bitter and argumentative with Kirk. There is still tension between the pair but it now doesn't spill over into unprofessional conduct - Kirk, Decker and Bones no longer question Spock's loyalty. Why would they? - The redundant Sonac subplot is removed. Why introduce a character that dies in the next scene? Plus his gruesome death was a real downer in the first act that I felt the film couldn't recover from - A few areas have had additional music cues added, mostly to transition in and out of the new sequencing of scenes - Many new SoundFX elements have been added as I felt the film's original soundtrack was "empty" at times. These include the sounds of doors, spacecraft, computers, voices, alarms, scanners, buttons, footsteps, tricorders, intercoms, torpedoes, breathing, impacts and various other things. I've used SoundFX from all eras of the franchise but mostly TOS. I won't mention most of them in the cutlist as there are too many Cuts and Additions: These are just the major cuts (The tiny trims for pacing are too numerous to list)... 00.00.00 - Added FE.org and TM2YC titles 00.00.24 - Overture removed 00.00.26 - Corrected Paramount logo Aspect-Ratio error from TPM Blu-Ray 00.00.38 - Credit sequence "livened up" with slow-motion shots of V'Ger's interior (Also hopefully this unconciously builds V'ger in the mind of the audience). Footage slowed to 50% via frame interpolation using VirtualDub. Also credit composition corrected so all are now central on the screen. 00.00.51 - New 'Star Trek: Reunion' tilecard replaces the old one 00.02.09 - Establishing FX shot of Vulcan reworked. Black sky replaced with a moving cloud matte. Foreground elements recoloured to match. Also Spock is erased from the frame to match new continuity. 00.02.16 - Vulcan Statue FX shot also reworked in the same way. Plus this time the elements from background to foreground were all seperated and recoloured to improve consitency. 00.02.22 - Spock's intro moved to the front of the movie so there is now a slow build of the mystery/danger posed by V'ger. The scene is striped back to the bare minimum to up the pace and to establish the start of Spock's character arc before swiftly moving on to the next sequence. Subtitles also partly rewritten. 00.02.50 - Inserted shot of V'Ger to further convey what is giving Spock pause for thought 00.03.43 - Opening shot of Spock standing up and looking to the heavens is now moved to be the final shot. Hopefully this taken with the next shot shows that thoughts of V'Ger are troubling him 00.03.55 - Cut to V'Ger shot to transition from waht Spock is thinking of and also what the Klingon's face 00.04.02 - Klingon cruisers recoloured fromgrey to a warm green, something like the familiar Bird of Prey scheme. This also adds a bit more visual interest. 00.04.54 - Removed almost every shot from the Klingon sequence that wasn't essential to the plot to up the pace as much as possible. Subtitles are party rewritten and additional SoundFX are added including footsteps, alarms, computer chatter, sensor screen bleeps and button pressing 00.05.55 - Also removed almost every shot from the Epsilon 9 sequence that wasn't essential to the plot. Removed any nonsensical shots of Epsilon 9 crew seeing V'Ger after the Klingon vessels (and their onboard cameras?) are gone. 00.06.01 - 2nd establishing FXshot of Epsilon 9 seperated into top and bottom sections to correct miscolouring of the two layers 00.06.06 - 3rd establishing FXshot of Epsilon 9 fixed by seperating the interior and exterior and regrading them 00.06.06 - 1st Interior shot of Epsilon 9 fixed by seperating the interior and exterior and regrading them 00.06.31 - Inserted shot of "missing" 3rd Klingon cruiser onto left blank viewscreen (Thanks to BionicBob for that suggestion) 00.07.23 - Inserted reaction shot of Epsilon 9 crew to make it feel more "live" 00.07.53 - The Epsilon 9 crew's final mention of V'Ger heading for Earth is now followed by a cut to Earth. It's a really obvious cut to make the plot flow better IMO 00.07.59 - Heavily slimmed down length of Transfer Station establishing shots and rescored with Star Trek TMP Main Theme. Also added back some missing SoundFX 00.08.16 - Recomposited Transfer Station in 3rd shot to correct miscolouring of the two elements 00.08.20 - Recomposited windows to correct miscolouring of the two elements 00.08.30 - Removed shot of Scotty looking awkwardly at the Transporter operator 00.08.36 - Added brief transporter VisFX as Kirk steps off the pad (It was missing in the original shot) 00.08.45 - Added computer reading out Kirk's Starfleet details 00.08.56 - Crossfaded two different new colour-timings as Kirk and Scotty step into the pod. The only way to make sure both scenes stayed consistent. 00.09.03 - Heavily regraded all interior pod shots to remove as much of the browny-orange tint as possible. 00.09.17 - Recomposited cockpit to correct miscolouring of the two elements (I should note that the cockpit shots are so badly miscoloured in the source, that fully correcting them was impossible) 00.09.21 - Recomposited windows to correct miscolouring of the two elements. Plus added missing "uncoupling" soundFX 00.09.27 - Enlarged the Enterprise in the distance and animated the element to match the shot's movement. Allowing for the reduced journey time in this cut. 00.10.00 - Removed Kirk saying "You're right" or whatever it was. I prefer them laughing at Scotty's joke rather than at Kirk's joke. It plays to Kirk's relaxed/familiar relationship with his crew IMO 00.10.17 - Enlarged the Transfer Station in the distance and animated the element to match the shot's movement 00.10.27 - Heavily slimmed down the Enterprise flyby to the bare minimum and swapped around many of Kirk's reaction shots. It still feels grand and awe inspiring but doesn't go on for so long that we get bored and the story gets interupted. We just need to see how much Kirk has missed the Enterprise and no more. Almost every shot has been trimmed down. 00.10.54 - Enlarged the Transfer Station in the distance and animated the element to match the shot's movement 00.11.12 - Recomposited cockpit to correct miscolouring of the two elements 00.10.54 - Enlarged the Transfer Station in the distance, animated the element to match the shot's movement and corrected miscolouring 00.12.03 - Added missing shuttle flyby SoundFX 00.12.43 - Recomposited cockpit to correct miscolouring of the two elements 00.12.55 - Added missing docking SoundFX 00.13.00 - Removed Kirk thanking Scotty for the tour. It made too much of it IMO 00.14.31 - Cutdown the time Kirk looks worried about Decker's reaction 00.14.42 - Crossfaded two different new colour-timings as Kirk steps into the tubolift 00.14.44 - Added important scene from the DC. Uhura telling the new crew and the audience how awesome Kirk is. It really needs saying, as there is precious little evidence of it in the first half of the movie. The viewscreen graphic has been recomposited to correct the colour back to the pink of the Theatrical Cut bridge shots 00.14.59 - Removed shots of Kirk walking towards Engineering. It wasn't needed now and allows the removal of Kirk staring at Decker wondering what to say. It's Kirk, he knows what to do! 00.15.07 - Added missing SoundFX of Kirk's lift 00.15.48 - Heavily cut down Kirk conversation with Decker. To make Decker less angry and petulant and make Kirk appear more decisive 00.16.43 - Removed the transporter malfunction and the entire grissly Sonac death scene. Also this allows the removal of Kirk getting lost and confused on his own ship, plus let's the brief awkward silence between Kirk and Scotty play out uninterupted 00.16.45 - Heavily trimmed down the rec-deck briefing scene and rearranged many of the reaction shots. There is now only one transmission. All insane exterior shots of Epsilon9 after it's been destroyed are gone. All viewscreen shots recomposited to correct colours. Transmission interference added to all viewscreen shots. Kirk's speech trimmed down to be decisive, to the point and almost a little angry. 00.18.54 - Rearranged Decker's reaction to Ilia's arrival to make it more sudden. Removed the nonsense about Ilia being celibate. Why does Ilia need to tell Kirk this? Why do we the audience need to know this? If you want to build romantic tension between Ilia and Decker, why would you want to say this at all?! 00.19.10 - Uhura now interupts Ilia and Decker. Partly to remove dialogue I didn't like and partly to make the terrible continuity when we cut to Kirk a bit less obvious 00.19.28 - Shortened Bones beeming up and then later trimmed a lot of the silence to make his reunion with Kirk warmer 00.19.31 - Heavily recoloured the Bones beeming scene to remove aggressive purple tint. This required separting many elements out and grading them differently. Also audio replaced with DC version as the TC has a loud omnipresent hum 00.20.54 - Shortened the amount of time in takes to get the Enterprise ready 00.21.15 - Recoloured the ramscoop blue in two shots including a gradual powering up 00.22.00 - Recoloured the ramscoop blue as the Enterprise pulls out of drydock 00.22.23 - Removed beauty shot of Enterprise orbitting earth. It's lovely but gets in the way of the flow of the action 00.22.49 - Recomposited viewscreen to allow me to correct over exposure 00.22.59 - Added Saturn in the distance to the otherwise blank viewscreen, correcting an obvious continuity error 00.23.04 - Removed random radar shot and replaced it with cutaways to Decker and Ilia smiling at each other. This is a similar cut to what is used in the DC. It works so well with music bringing some real positive vibes to the first act 00.24.14 - Moved Bones telling Kirk he's 'pushing the crew' until after Kirk has actually messed up with the Warp drive. It seemed like nagging, now it's friendly advice 00.24.48 - Recomposited Wormhole, Sulu and Kirk to allow me to retime all three. Now Kirk sees the wormhole and reacts, instead of being surprised while his back is turned to bicker with Decker. 00.24.52 - Recut and flipped shot of Kirk so he is always facing forward 00.24.54 - Cut down as much of the goofy slowmo Wormhole stuff as I could 00.26.03 - Retimed Kirk being jostled around to time with Decker doing the same. This allows Decker to cover the distance quicker 00.26.26 - Added new Photon sound as the original was a bit weak 00.26.30 - Added FX shot of the Asteroid exploding from the DC. The TC had to finished element. 00.26.35 - Added slowly receeding slowmo effect to two shots to smoothly transition out of the wormhole wierdness 00.27.16 - Recut Kirk's conversation with Scotty so Kirk reacts instantly 00.27.34 - Reversed shot of Decker to create new match cut with next wide angle 00.27.33 - Added missing bridge sounds 00.27.56 - Added brief moment of Sulu in command as Ilia gazes at Decker. Rescored with 'Ilia's Theme' 00.28.00 - Heavily recut 'Decker Dressing Down' scene to make Decker less of a d*ck to Kirk and make Kirk more commanding and professional 00.29.20 - Recut scene to allow Chekov's message to be brought forward to before Decker's meeting with Ilia. Reworked some sound elements like footsteps and intercom sounds 00.30.22 - Slimmed down the FX shots of the Vulcan shuttle and intercut it with Chekov walking to the airlock 00.30.53 - Added Chekov's footsteps t rescored scene 00.30.57 - Recomposited foreground and background on both shuttle/window shots to correct miscolouring 00.31.02 - Added docking sounds, more footsteps and general spaceship noises 00.31.22 - Added Sulu reaction insert shot that I cut from an earlier scene with Ilia. It works better here and sets up Sulu's next off-camera line 00.32.23 - Added Tricorder sound and general missing button pushing on Spock's console 00.32.30 - Reprised the 'Total Logic' music from the Kolinahr sequence to underline where Spock's mind is at in the story arc 00.33.24 - Added more Tricorder and warpcore sounds 00.34.29 - Combined the low-res window VisFX from the DC with the hi-res live forground from the TC in all four officer's lounge shots. This required frame-by-frame rotoscoping to seperate the actors from the blank starfield. Due to heavy miscolouring of the original elements, it was impossible to completely match them to the rest of the sequence. 00.34.43 - Recut officers-loiunge sequence to cut down on much of the awkward silence. A few reaction shots rearranged to convey different emotions and make Kirk less angry with Spock 00.36.17 - Intercom now interupts the end of the scene (and Kirk's thoughts) to allow the removal of Kirk and Bones questioning their best friend's loyalty. Why would they do that?! 00.36.28 - Recomposited Red- Alert screen to correct massive overexposure of VisFX element 00.37.15 - Reversed shot of Kirk so it appears that he is turning his head to listen to Spock's council 00.37.17 - Brought Spock's "I suspect..." line forward to link into the rest of his scanner readings 00.37.39 - Recut Kirk a lot in this area to make him react quicker to events and to his crew's advice. Plus admit when he has mispoke instantly 00.39.37 - Recomposited overexposured view-screen VisFX element 00.40.23 - Heavily recloured shot of Scotty. It was massively desaturated in the original source for some reason 00.40.31 - Added extra hypo-spray soundFX 00.40.34 - Added TOS viewscreen soundFX 00.41.29 - Swapped around shots of Spock sending the transmission and played one backwards to try and minimise the original continuity errors 00.41.32 - Recomposited overexposured view-screen VisFX element 00.41.31 - Added exterior VisFX shot from the DC as again the TC shot was never completed 00.42.25 - Placed shot of Spock raising his eyebrow at Decker suggesting caution. This now plays in support of Kirk's decision. He originally raised his eyebrow while Kirk was speaking, casting Kirk's actions into doubt 00.43.00 - Heavily recut Enterprise voyage into the cloud as the VisFx shots went on far too long. Almost every shot has been recut, trimmed or rearranged. I tried to time it to the rhythms of the music. Slow 'Valley' sequence removed entirely 00.43.40 - Added missing turbolift sound that Decker now reacts to 00.46.04 - Heavily recut Enterprise voyage into V'Ger's interior as again the VisFx shots went on far too long. Almost every shot has been recut, trimmed or rearranged. As before I tried to time it to the rhythms of the music 00.46.47 - Recomposited tiny Enterprise to correct drastic green miscolouring 00.48.44 - Replaced annoying TC "Intruder Alert" soundFX with simple alarm sounds from the DC 00.48.45 - Replaced mismatched viewscreen VisFX and recoloured elements seperately 00.48.49 - Added exterior VisFX shot from the DC as again the TC shot was never completed 00.48.57 - Heavily recoloured Probe scene to remove much of the pastel-pink tint. Plus cut it down to the minimum and made Kirk more commanding 00.49.26 - Removed Chekov's flippant remark about the probe. As funny as it was, if you truly fear for your life, you don't make sarcastic comments 00.49.58 - Placed Kirk's line about "Running our records..." over shot of Spock so it appears as a prompt for action, rather than Kirk just saying it and Spock acting on his own iniative 00.50.01 - Added missing sparking electrical soundFX and other elements when Spock hits the console 00.50.05 - Recut Spock being zapped to make it appear more violent and less choreographed 00.50.24 - Reworked sund and visuals of Decker so he now only shouts to Ilia once 00.50.30 - Recut abduction to be more sudden and violent 00.50.38 - Added slow zoom in on Kirk across two wide bridge shots to pull a little focus away from Decker 00.50.49 - Added shocked reaction shot of Uhura that I cut from the earlier trip through V'Ger. This adds to the emotion and covers my removal of Decker once again being a d*ck to Kirk. Additional breathing and chair SoundFX added 00.51.16 - Recomposited overexposured view-screen VisFX element 00.52.54 - Removed Decker questioning Spock's motives and rescored the moment 00.52.58 - Split shot of Kirk and Bones and played the two halves back at different speeds and one in reverse to create a new shot showing there reactions to Spock's warning 00.52.59 - Recoloured the ramscoop blue as the Enterprise moves through V'Ger 00.53.11 - Recomposited shot of Enterprise to improve colour-grading 00.53.38 - Recomposited overexposured view-screen VisFX element 00.55.35 - Recomposited badly miscoloured view-screen VisFX element 01.00.54 - Added extra tearing-of-metal SoundFX to Ilia ripping through the wall 01.01.38 - Recomposited shot of Enterprise to improve colour-grading 01.03.49 - Composited the V'Ger Interior window shots from the DC into the TC HD shots 01.04.42 - Added extra zoom in on the computer console to help hide the actors obviously ducking out of shot 01.05.06 - Moved the Dr Chapel Ilia mirror scene back until after Spock's Odyssey and brought Kirk discovering Spock's action forward. This makes the action appear more immediate and makes Kirk look more on-the-ball 01.05.35 - Removed end of Kirk bridge scene to give the impression he is rushing off after Spock 01.05.57 - Combined both halves of Spock's pre-launch into one scene and removed all the pointless exposition. 01.06.20 - Recoloured the ramscoop blue as the Enterprise disappears into the distance 01.09.00 - We now cut from Spock's vision of Ilia to Ilia herself. This also gives a nice gap of time for Spock to float back and Kirk to get suited up. Inserted wide shot from the TV cut to establish that Dr Chapel is present (It was unclear originally IMO) 01.09.23 - Inserted reaction shot of Dr Chapel from the TV Cut. It shows the recognition of the name, more than just the Bones shot alone 01.11.04 - Overlayed animated reflections onto Spock and Kirk's helmet in a similar style to those used in Spock's Odyssey sequence. Also replaced black background with correct blue V'Ger interior by compositing it in frame-by-frame 01.14.40 - Removed Kirk inquiring about Decker and Ilia's whereabouts. This wasn't needed information 01.15.04 - Added TOS computer chatter to otherwise bland and slightly confusing console shot. Plus recomposited badly overexposured central screen. Rescored it as well with the music breaking on the "radio" revelation 01.18.57 - Added powering-off SoundFX as Spock closes the bridge down 01.20.28 - Remade viewscreen VisFX shot to properly match other sequences 01.20.34 - Added final V'Ger interior to originally blank black Iris 01.20.59 - Added powering-up SoundFX as Spock turns the bridge back on 01.21.16 - Added 'Spock's Tear' scene from the DC. It's plainly in a much lower resolution to the rest of the HD edit and the colour-grading was impossible to fully correct but it's narrative importance meant I had to include it despite those flaws. Partially rescored as well 01.23.55 - Recomposited overexposured view-screen VisFX element 01.24.08 - Recomposited overexposured view-screen VisFX element 01.24.53 - Removed extremely slow start to saucer-walk shot as the lift rises 01.25.02 - Split cloesup into two and rearanged sequence of shots, so we get a closeup before the first wide of V'Ger. Also regraded the two closeups as they did not match in anyway to the blue lighting of the rest of the sequence 01.25.14 - Recomposited the sky to correct "rough-halo" around the characters 01.25.29 - Added correct blue tint to closeup walking shot 01.26.11 - Added correct blue tint to closeups of crew looking towards V'Ger satellite 01.26.19 - Added Tricorder SoundFX 01.32.16 - Regraded wide shot to the correct reddish hue, one of the worst in the whole movie. I also had to individually recomposite all of the lighting elements to switch them from light-blue to the correct neon-green 01.35.04 - Removed Decker's final mention of his conflict with Kirk. We don't need to dredge this all up again in such a positive scene 01.37.42 - Crossfaded two seperate colour-grades as the original flyby's colours were inconsistent 01.38.39 - Coming out of V'Ger's rebirth we don't need Uhura spoiling the positive vibes by mentioning "casualties". We the audience also don't need to be told that Decker's actions were a good thing. Rescored transition to Scotty arriving and added new SoundFX 01.40.02 - Replaced original "The human adventure continues" titlecard with my own "Star Trek will continue in... The Wrath of Khan". TMP felt disjointed from the rest of the other 5 original-crew movies to me. So this is my own small personnal gesture of welcoming it back to the fold 01.43.33 - Added fanedit titlecard with thanks to all that helped... I hope I didn't forget anyone Original Length: 132 Minutes Fanedit Length: 104 Minutes Time Added: 2 Minutes Time Cut: 29 Minutes Scenes Added: 1 (2 Minutes) Scenes Cut: 3 (5 Minutes)

Additional Notes:

The main source for this edit is the 'Theatrical Cut' Blu-Ray but a few elements have been drawn from the lower quality 'TV Cut' and 'Director's Cut' sources when absolutely needed.

Other Sources:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Cut (DVD) Star Trek: The Motion Picture - TV Cut (Blu-Ray bonus source) Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Soundtrack www.freesound.org (Various free SoundFX) www.trekcore.com/audio (Various Star Trek SoundFX)

Special Thanks:

This would not have been possible without the help, feedback and encouragement of BionicBob and Brumous. Plus in no particular order, thanks also to MatrixGrindhouse, Zarius, ranger613, Neglify, Rogue-theX, JetSetWilly, kellenpure, Ken Poirier, addiesin, Vultural, dangermouse, Dwight Fry, ThrowgnCpr, reave, Jeffery Crayon, L8wrtr, darth-ender, SmellySkunk, Kal-El, Captain Khajiit, Garp, sgp1428 and LastSurvivor.