'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' DVD News

New info on the special edition 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' DVD has surfaced, thanks to both Media Trek's Matthew J. Klaehn, who forwarded some information from Cinescape Magazine, and thanks to DVD site ThDigital Bits. Take a look:

• Previously, it was announced in the Star Trek Magazine that the release date for the new 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' DVD was the 7th of January of next year (1-7-01), but now it seems it has been pushed back a bit. According to Cinescape, the DVD will be released in the Winter of 2001, but the Digital Bits just got word from Paramount that the DVD is currently slated for Spring 2001. As the Digital Bits info is probably more recent, a Spring release probably looks the most likely now.

• The Special Edition of the DVD is being created by director Robert Wise, together with Sharpline Arts. Sharpline Arts is a company specialising in special Laserdisc and DVD editions, and has already worked on films such as 'Aliens' and 'The Sound of Music'.

• The new version of 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' will not only be released on DVD, but also on VHS.

• Together with the release of the actual film, Paramount will also be releasing a separate VHS video containing a series of documentaries on the making of the film. These will be narrated by Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand).

• A new sound mix will be added to the film, as well as some new effects which "serve the story and not the FX junkies", according to writer Mark A. Altman. The DVD creators are planning to go back and do over all the sound and visual effects that did not make it to the originally released version. Previously it was reported that Voyager effects house Foundation Imaging was working on these effects.

• And finally, Cinescape quotes the producer of the special edition, Dan Fine, as saying, "Want to see a really good rough cut of a movie? Go rent Star Trek: The Motion Picture. What was released 20 years ago was a rough cut." The new DVD version will apparently be what director Robert Wise wanted the final cut to be.

Thanks go out to Matthew J. Klaehn and Michael Colvin for this!

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