The original television series STAR TREK ran from 1966 to 1969 but was repeated all the time after that. But in 1978 this teaser poster was released, promising a new film in December 1979. Of course, this meant that director Robert Wise did not have enough time to fine tune his film.
Robert Wise did not want to release Star Trek The Motion Picture the way it was done in December 1979 because he had had no time to finetune the editing and there was still a lot of work to be done on it. Paramount had however presold the film for the Cinemas in this time slot so there was nothing that could be done. Let's just say that Star Trek The Motion Picture was interesting to watch but maybe it was a little bit too much for just the fans of the original show.
In 2000 Robert Wise was given permission by Paramount to "finish" the film as he had wanted to for a special DVD release. This was released as STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE: The Director's Edition.
And although the film now looked a whole lot better than before, it was not yet HD. HD TV arrived only a few years after and the first series to have the benefit of that was Star Trek: Enterprise, which was also released directly on Blu Ray. But Star Trek The Motion Picture the Director's Edition had been a major investment by Paramount that was not an easy fit for HD formatting. The new masters that had been made of the film were unsuitable for a Blu Ray upgrade so the first Star Trek The Motion Picture blu ray release was still the theatrically released film.
Now 20 years later, Star Trek The Motion Picture The Director's Edition has been upgraded to 4K, which immediately makes it suitable for a blu ray release.
As a belated 40th anniversary, the 4K edition can now be seen on Paramount Plus or whatever you stream from. Mind you, this does not make the film inherently better. It just improves the way in which the story is told, so you can understand better what is going on.
The immense quality of this 4K upgrade can easily be seen in the outer space shots, the special effects shots and the V'Ger Interior FX shots, which are considerably clearer than before. The story is improved upon in this way because now, you can understand it better. Unfortunately, it still is a film that takes it's time and does not allow all the cast members to have their best moments. Sulu and Uhura really don't have much to do.
But still, seeing the old cast back again as they were in 1979 is a joy I cannot possibly describe in words. STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE was not perfect, even as the Director's Edition, but it did show us Star Trek still had a future we could look forward to.
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