Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition HD Recreation (Version 3 out now)

[Bigrob]

The director's cut went straight to DVD, and was edited in SD. (including interlaced material with a hard pulldown and some effects that run at 30 fps) They apparently did a screening for the premire, but it still would have been in SD, projected digitaly.

Just found this nugget of info which is very exciting

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/on...t-15841074

[iguanaclerk]

They've been trying to get Paramount to do this for years. On the startrek.com podcast in 2007 David is saying they were talking to Paramont about doing a blu-ray, so it's been kicking around for 11 years, and someone needs to give it a budget.

The director's cut went straight to DVD, and was edited in SD. (including interlaced material with a hard pulldown and some effects that run at 30 fps) They apparently did a screening for the premire, but it still would have been in SD, projected digitaly.

They've always been very clear that this was that case, because Paramount wouldn't give them the budget for an HD version at the time.
In terms of this:

All of the shots in the film were created with HD in mind so the quality of the models and elements were much higher than the SD renderings. We have everything, and when the time is right, we'll use them.

This is true in the sense that the 3d models and lighting setups are relatively high detail and would probably be reincorporated, but they still would have to do more work than simply re-rendering each shot. Most of the matte shots were definitely done in SD, and often envisioned at a level of detail that wouldn't hold up in HD (low-detail rotoscoping, lots of use of the clone brush, ect.) The one Daren Dochterman did of the shuttle hanger actually cuts painted people's bodies in half to add in the new background. (It's also just really visually confusing and an ugly modification of the original matte painting.)
Doug Drexler once posted an earlier version of the new bay matte (which you can see here: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rowDaW0TGAY/U1...ncisco.jpg). It's neat to look at, because this is before they modified it to add in the shuttle depot and make San Fransisco have a huge park running through it. However, you can see the photo is low detail and the photoshop work was done at a lower resolution than HD. Ideally you would want to commission new Matte paintings rather than replicate the work they did then. They would have to substantially redo most of the new shots to be in HD resolution and cut in well with a new, high quality scan of the film. It would be somewhat less of a undertaking than the DC DVD, as they wouldn't have to consult with a bunch of people, develop new concepts from the old story boards, reedit the film, do a new sound mix, etc, but from Paramount's perspective, it would be expensive.

[CSchmidlapp]

Such a strange set of circumstances to create this Directors Cut!
I new very little about it all until i read your threads, great work

[Chewtobacca]

Just found this nugget of info which is very exciting

The part that interested me most is this...

The color timing for the Director's Edition is exactly right, whereas the Blu-ray of the theatrical is very inaccurate.

It's unusual to see someone in the know criticize a BD's color-timing and come out in support of a DVD!

[iguanaclerk]

The BD is noticeably bad. They attempted to make the space scenes have uniformly black backgrounds, but since a lot of the composites are complex and have fluctuating grey/black backgrounds, they just ended up raising the contrast to absurd degrees. Also some of shots have weird over saturation and it's all covered in a thick haze of aggressive DNR.
What's worse is that they showed clips from the unmodified BD scan in the bonus features, before the DNR and additional contrast and it looks really good. (It's somewhat more blue than the DVD scan, which is more red in the manner of old telecines, but the DVD/HDTV's color is obviously preferable to the final bluray release.)

[Chewtobacca]

Yeah, the BD's obviously bad. It was the fact that a producer was acknowledging it and endorsing an old DVD that got my attention.

[iguanaclerk]

Yeah, the BD's obviously bad. It was the fact that a producer was acknowledging it and endorsing an old DVD that got my attention.

He's got to be frustrated after a decade of getting the runaround by Paramount for making an HD version. The production team were really passionate about making the DC and consider it Wise's complete version of the film.
I believe he mostly works for La-La Land Records and does video stuff outside of larger studio productions, so he can speak freely without getting in trouble.

[Jetrell Fo]

What I would like to see is a Bluray set that contains the DC, the Longer Extended Version, and the Theatrical (with proper color timing), all in one. I don't know a single fan that wouldn't dish out extra cash if the package was done properly.

[Chewtobacca]

^ Fo sho!

[Jetrell Fo]

^ Fo sho!

I see what you did there, lol.