For the first time ever, this film feels whole, polished... finished. The 4K remastering is tremendous, done with an eye towards delivering to the screen every bit of detail present in the original negative, and done by people who know this film better than anyone. Much (though not all) of the original VistaVision and 65 mm VFX negative has been located and scanned in 6K or 8K resolution, which allowed the Director’s Edition team to re-composite many shots that had previously suffered from multiple generations of image loss and matte lines caused by optical printing. And seeing those shots projected on the big screen is nothing short of breathtaking. The film has finally been given a proper color grade, to restore the director’s intended look. There’s one completely new shot early in the film, and all of the revisited Director’s Edition VFX are lovely and well integrated. For the first time seeing this movie, one truly understands the internal geography of V’Ger. And the Director’s Edition scene additions and extensions round out the dramatic arcs and enhance character moments.
But I must tell you, every bit as good as the imagery is the new sound mix. My goodness! The DE team has found all kinds of original ADR recordings (including Wise’s preferred takes, a few of which never made it into the theatrical version), along with background dialogue, sound effects, and proper music cues. All of those have been digitally remastered from original recordings to create a clear, clean, robust, and unified soundscape. You’ll hear things in these scenes now that were always intended to be there, but which Wise and company never had time to include, or that simply got buried in the original and rushed 1979 sound mix. And Jerry Goldsmith’s magnificent score is presented with thrilling fidelity. I actually heard instrumentation in a few cues I’d never noticed before. I can’t wait to hear this in full Atmos (the theater on the Paramount lot is not so equipped).