In any motion picture, there is always footage that never makes it into the final edit of the film. That's true even when the movie is created on animation cels or in a computer. In the case of "The Director's Edition" of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," the new shots envisioned by Robert Wise and his production team were carefully planned and storyboarded before they were computer generated. But even then, sometimes a shot is discarded once it's seen in the context of the film. David C. Fein, producer of "The Director's Edition," has generously provided some of this unused effects footage, which has never been seen publicly before.

Unused FX shot: V'Ger's fireballs over Earth

The first video on this page is a computer-generated shot where we see V'Ger's destructive "fireballs" taking up positions around the Earth — a scene which is otherwise described in dialogue and illustrated through viewscreen graphics. This would have been a follow-up to a similar, closer-up shot that does appear in "Director's Edition." As Fein explains, "This footage, while exactly what we wanted, simply didn't have a place in the cut. There was also a concern about showing much of the Earth in the shot without the scope of V'Ger present. The film has a very careful balance in presenting scale, and when this shot was cut in, it made the Earth seem a bit too small in the overall scope, so it was discarded."

Alternate CG shot: Rack-focus from Kirk to reflection of Enterprise

In the "Director's Edition" you see a close-up of Kirk in the shuttle gazing upon the Enterprise in drydock — with a reflection of the ship in the window that is out of focus. In an alternate rendering of this shot, the focus shifts from Kirk to the reflection. According to Fein, "There were a number of reasons we went with the one in the film (where we stay focused on Kirk). First, the key to the shot is Kirk's reaction to seeing his ship from the front in all its glory for the first time — it's Kirk's moment, and the reflection adds to the emotional impact, so placing Kirk out of focus would have shifted our attention away from him. Secondly, the next shot that we see is of the Enterprise itself, so it would have been redundant to go from Kirk to focusing on the Enterprise, and then cut to the Enterprise. It would have been contrary to the goal of getting the best possible emotional response from the shot."

Unused Teaser Trailer: NCC-1701

The production team on "The Director's Edition" originally aimed for a DVD release date of January 7, 2001, to take advantage of the correlation of that date to the Enterprise's famous registry number, NCC-1701. To that end, they conceived a teaser trailer to run on other DVD releases and on the Internet to build anticipation for the project. Fein explains:

"What I wanted was a short clip that would accomplish a number of goals. The first, of course, was to announce the project. The next goal was to carefully and gracefully speak cinematically to the audience and let them know that this wasn't just a re-issue, and that the project is something special. The tease of the trailer was that it would also give the audience a chance to see a new shot of the film's Enterprise after so many years of it being off the screen.

"Once we considered the possibility of the street date of January 7th 2001, and the implications of those numbers — 1-7-01 — we conceived a simple shot of our CGI Enterprise coming into frame, bowing, and going off leaving us with 'NCC-1701' ... then move into '1-7-01.' The score was also just as pivotal; it had to be as graceful as the animation.

"At this point we had an audience of Robert Wise and Leonard Nimoy to review the trailer and everyone agreed that it was a great tease and tribute to both the film and the fans.

"This clip was the final test before the concept was abandoned when it became apparent that 1-7-01 wasn't going to be the release date for the project. Even though it's still very rough, I hope you enjoy it."