1984 ST:TMP Special Edition Article

In 2001, fans of Star Trek: The Motion Picture were treated to Director Robert Wise's "finished version" of the film (The Director's Edition), as he had considered the theatrical release so rushed as to not be what he wanted on screen. This is to me the definitive version, the one I take out and watch now whenever I get the desire to revisit the movie. The tighter edit, the more lush sound effects, the cleaned-up visual effects, and most of all the new visuals created for it (for those that could not be added originally due to the last-minute pressures)... all combine to make it a more pleasant viewing experience, in my opinion. (Finally, we know what V'Ger itself looked like in a long shot without the cloud! I never knew in all those years it even had a defined shape. It reminded me of the ship hidden in Halley's Comet in the film "Lifeforce.")

However, back in 1983 we were treated to a longer version of the film that added in cut scenes. Did it improve it? I feel it did in some respects; some of the cut scenes needed to be back in, others are today more rightly relegated to the "Deleted Scenes" extra on the menu on DVD or Blu-Ray. But back then we were so excited to see "more Trek" that even a longer and more drawn-out version of the movie was interesting to see.

In this article by James Van Hise from his Enterprise Incidents magazine, issue #13 (the first to go national after the promotion from fanzine), published in January of 1984, we have a scene-by-scene comparison of the theatrical cut and the extended TV cut, which turned up on home video later. The intense desire by Wise back then to have a "finished version" can be seen in the write-up, and it was something that took over 20 years for him to get to do. I'm thankful we got to see him accomplish that before his passing shortly afterward.

(Click on images to enlarge; once the picture is open,
you may have to click again to view full-size.)

Bonus: Below are two more pages from the 1976 Lincoln Enterprises "Star Trektennial" catalog that was the Trekker equivalent of Sear's Catalog. I have scanned the cover and first two pages before (page 1 here and page 2 here); and I intend on adding all of them in time. There are so many things on there that I wish I had ordered back then and had now.... 

Bonus #2: Below, the cover to my real introduction to Star Trek and the beginning of my love affair with it. I had never even seen a complete episode of the show up to that point, (only snippets here and there as the parents had me flip channels around) but was starting to become aware of it and absolutely loved what little I had seen. The animated episodes were next, and added fuel to the fire!

 

The cover blurb calls him Scotty, but tell me that doesn't look like Spock that McCoy is attacking with the SpaceVac!

Bonus link: Great poster from this Trekker Scrapbook blog! It looks like Pike and Vina are having fun and doing a great job at entertaining the inhabitants of Talos IV!

The Trekker In "Logan's Run"

 In 1976, the biggest movie to come out that year (at least according to me) was "Logan's Run." I saw it several times in the theater, bought the novel, and the soundtrack LP. I even saved up about $50 to buy a set of over-sized lobby cards from the movie at the Ft. Lauderdale specialty shop "Starship Enterprises."

One thing I noticed immediately was that a Star Trek fan extra snuck in the Vulcan salute at the end! Have you ever seen it? Watch at the end when the young people are reaching for the old man... right in the foreground, one of the raised hands briefly makes the Vulcan hand sign, and it made it in the movie! And it wasn't just off to the side in a subtle motion... but it actually blocked the view of Peter Ustinov's face for a moment! See my screen capture of the moment below... (click on the image to view full-size.)

"Live long and prosper, old dude!"

I originally wrote about this in a post about "Logan's Run" over on my sci-fi/nostalgia blog "Fantastic Flashbacks." You can read the original post here.  I ended the post with the line "My sneaky Trekker friend, whoever you are, I applaud you!"

Well, thanks to the internet, that person has stepped up and claimed this bit of filmic Trekker identification! Here is an email that I got from him:

 Fred,

Thought you might be interested to learn that I was the Vulcan Hand Salute kid in Logan's Run.  My mother was a talent agent in Dallas after we moved here from L.A. in 1970.  I had done many national commercials through an agent there and my mom decided to open an agency in the new film frontier of Dallas.  As a result, she always sent me on extra calls for films made in Dallas at the time like Logan's Run, Phantom of the Paradise, Semi-Tough and others.  I remember working weeks on end on LR culminating to the big finale of filming the destruction of "Dome City" filmed at the Ft. Worth Water Gardens.  We were directed to wait on the far side of a wall for the explosions and then came over to gather around the first old person we'd ever seen, played by the late Peter Ustinov.  I also remember a girl from our agency was selected to be the one to touch the old man's face.  Rumor has it this required a "special audition", but who really knows. Anyway, I was simply wanting to find a way to locate myself in the crowd and didn't do it long, I thought.  I feared it would get noticed and end up on the cutting room floor, but as you mentioned, made the final print.  I had forgotten about this until a friend of mine from back then called me and said the salute had made the Internet.  So, there it is and thanks for the applaud.

Adam Wyse

Thanks, Adam, for writing and sharing with me -and the readers- your story! Now we know... and you certainly did make your mark that stood out from the rest of the crowd!

Bonus: Since today's post concerns the Vulcan salute, here is a nice image I found online that is a mock-up of the old Gold Key Trek comics with nice modern artwork!