"Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director's Edition" was unveiled Thursday night before an audience of stars and other Hollywood dignitaries on the big screen at the Paramount Theater.

"The Director's Edition" is the re-envisioning of the first Star Trek feature film by director Robert Wise. The revamped movie will be available on DVD and widescreen VHS on November 6. (See related story here.)

News reporters and photographers lined the path to the theater as such luminaries as William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei and the 87-year-old Wise passed through to attend the screening.

Eric Doctorow, president of Worldwide Home Entertainment for Paramount Pictures, opened the event. "We're here tonight to celebrate 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Bob's Edition,'" he said to the crowd's laughter. "And we're also here to congratulate him on finally realizing his vision." Doctorow then introduced Wise, whom he described as "an incredibly talented, warm, giving man."

To a standing ovation, Wise took the podium and credited the team responsible for helping him bring the project to fruition: producer David C. Fein; restoration supervisor Michael Matessino; and visual effects supervisor Daren R. Dochterman.

"Together we found the tempo, the theme and the soul of the film," Wise said. "Today I'm proud of this film, something I never thought I would be."

The movie then unspooled — being played from a DVD but projected onto the full screen — beginning with a musical overture over a moving starfield. The audience applauded enthusiastically not only during the credits but when each new visual effects shot appeared, such as the re-imagined Vulcan landscape, new shots of V'Ger, and a sequence showing how balls of light formed the walkway from the Enterprise hull to the center of V'Ger.

Walter Koenig, Grace Lee Whitney and numerous other VIPs from the Star Trek world and from the industry in general packed the theater. Among them were crew members from "ST:TMP" such as director of photography Richard H. Kline, A.S.C., production designer Harold Michelson, and associate producer Jon Povill. Other supporters present included Harve Bennett, who produced the second through the fifth Star Trek films — and appeared in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" as the admiral named "Bob" — plus Ronald D. Moore, a writer and producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Bryan Fuller, writer and co-producer of Star Trek: Voyager; Andre Bormanis, staff writer on Enterprise; and Michael Okuda, scenic art supervisor on every Star Trek series since TNG. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who co-wrote several Star Trek novels with Shatner, were also there.

A Hollywood heavyweight came back to his old stomping ground to attend the screening and mingle with old friends. Jeffrey Katzenberg, a partner in DreamWorks SKG (he's the "K" in "SKG"), was an executive at Paramount Pictures in the 1970's who, along with Tom Parry (also in attendance), was in charge of "ST:TMP" on behalf of the studio.

Wise and his restoration team will be autographing copies of the DVD on Wednesday, November 7, at the Virgin Megastore in Los Angeles, 8000 Sunset Blvd., starting at 7:00 p.m.

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