听 User Rating 
It may have been done without the fanfare that accompanied the upgrading of the "Star Wars" films, but this new Director's Edition of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", adds exciting grandeur to a previously badly dated film.
TECHNICAL FEATURES
Picture As we find out in the "A Bold New Enterprise" documentary on this DVD, all the new process shots were carefully matched to the rest of the film so they retain the same levels of dirt and grain. The look of the movie is slightly soft on disc, but it's intentional, and fits in with the inherently 70s nature of the beast.
Sound The sound for this film has been completely re-mixed from scratch into a 5.1 effort that really thrills. Jerry Goldsmith's score takes centre stage, while all the special flying effects are backed with new speaker-swapping swoops.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentary (Disc One) The commentary track for this movie features director Robert Wise, special photographic effects director Douglas Trumbull, special photographic effects supervisor John Dykstra, music composer Jerry Goldsmith, and actor Stephen Collins. Needless to say, if you want to learn about the technical construction of this movie, this commentary forms a comprehensive manual on the film. Jerry Goldsmith talks about the sci-fi scores he's worked on, and how he was asked to compose the original TV series score, but couldn't. Trumbull and Dykstra discuss the effects in detail, including how they worked on creating the feeling of 'mass' on screen. Plus, Robert Wise fills in on changes made to the movie.
Text Commentary (Disc One) This subtitle option is for those of you out there who thrive on the minutiae of a particular film. It's written by Michael Okuda, co-author of "The Star Trek Encyclopedia", and offers plot and character analysis in the context of the entire saga, and technical details. These include what the budget of the movie allowed them to explore that had been previously impossible for the TV series, right down to details about doors used in the sets!
Disc Two Special Features
Phase II: The Lost Enterprise It took a while for the penny to drop, but Paramount realised that they'd made a serious error in dropping the popular Star Trek TV series. A flagship new series was planned called Star Trek: Phase II, to head-up a new network channel. In this featurette you can see screen tests for this planned series, and learn what might have been had the project not transformed into making a motion picture. Rather frighteningly, this all ends on a triumphalist note from the increasingly excited voiceover with, "Continuing to go where no entertainment franchise has gone before!" What next, we wonder?
A Bold New Enterprise This 30-minute documentary covers the production of the movie - from special effects to anecdotes from Shatner describing how to fight aliens that were represented by a cross scribbled on a piece of paper. The deadlines were tight on the production, so they didn't even know when filming what the final aliens would look like. Proof of the time limits imposed on this production comes from a shot of rows and rows of film cans waiting to be flown out to the cinemas that day in time for exhibition. There wasn't even time for test previews.
Redirecting the Future The technology of 1979, and the rush to complete the film, left a movie that was incomplete in the eyes of Wise. In this 14-minute featurette, we discover what's been added and enhanced, and that all of it was in fact originally storyboarded but was impossible to then realise.
Additional Special Features Also on disc two is a treasure-trove of extra material that completes the story of this movie. There are five additional scenes trimmed from the 1979 version, 11 deleted scenes from the 1983 TV version of the film, a comprehensive storyboard archive, a gallery of trailers, teasers and TV commercials, and a promo spot for the new TV series Enterprise.
Region: 2
Chapters: 32
Ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Technical Features: Scene selection, 3D animated menus, multiple language subtitles, and English captions for the hearing impaired.
This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-S57 DVD player.
