Rossi On Remastered 'Star Trek'

TrekToday · October 12 2008, 03:43 AM

Working on Remastered Star Trek meant that Dave Rossi and the team had to make tough decisions on what could be changed and what could not.

As reported by The Zero Room, one of the proposed changes Rossi wanted to make was for the Where No Man Has Gone Before episode of the original series. Rossi was working with both Mike Okuda and Denise Okuda and he proposed that the middle initial "R" on the tombstone of "James R. Kirk" be changed to a "T" for "Tiberius." "You've got to change it," said Rossi. "Absolutely not," said Denise Okuda. They argued about it for a bit, but in the end, "the effects company couldn't roto that number of shots in the time we had," explained Rossi, "so we had to leave it."

Fan reaction to the project changed over time. At first, some fans were unhappy because changes were going to be made to a show that they loved and had been around for years. But Rossi and the Okudas cared about their work and wanted to keep Star Trek about the crew, not the special effects. "Our whole credo when we started this was that we never want to make the viewer forget that the crew is in danger," said Rossi. "We never want them to forget that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are going through some kind of s--t right now and our feeling was, if you do, if you have the Enterprise do a barrel roll, and all this stuff, then it becomes about the effects, and we wanted to avoid that."

But over time, some fans thought that more changes should have been done. "But some fans said, 'You got to go further.' They had been against it [the changes]."

The team was aware of fan reaction to the project. "One of the mistakes we made early on was going to these fan websites," said Rossi. "If you really want to be depressed... Those first couple episodes came out and we had created fake names so that we could interact with people. We were on these boards all the time...but after a while, you realize that it's the same twenty people posting. And it became funny to us after a while because it was like you still hate the show but you're still watching, that's good, keep tuning in. You can't blame a lot of people, they have a vision of how they want to see it done."

Rossi was asked if Star Trek: The Next Generation would be remastered. "The problem with doing Next Gen...is all the effects were done on video," he said. "That becomes an eight year project and the money required to do it would be really, really crazy."

The full podcast with this interview, which runs two hours in length and includes comments on Star Trek XI, is available here. One of the hosts of The Zero Room is Doug Mirabello, who was a production associate on Star Trek: Enterprise.

billcosby · October 12 2008, 03:47 PM

Rossi was asked if Star Trek: The Next Generation would be remastered. "The problem with doing Next Gen...is all the effects were done on video," he said. "That becomes an eight year project and the money required to do it would be really, really crazy."

DAMMIT~!

That was the one I was really hoping for, the ENT-D looks so nice in CGI, from Generations and These Are The Voyages.

Dane_Whitman · October 12 2008, 04:07 PM

billcosby wrote:

That was the one I was really hoping for, the ENT-D looks so nice in CGI, from Generations and These Are The Voyages.

Really? I admit it looks adequate, but I much prefer the large physical model. The 1st season could do with some SFX remastering. But later episodes like The Nth Degree and Conundrum really show off how TNG's model work improved during its run.

T'Cal · October 12 2008, 08:49 PM

Quote: The team was aware of fan reaction to the project. "One of the mistakes we made early on was going to these fan websites," said Rossi. "If you really want to be depressed... Those first couple episodes came out and we had created fake names so that we could interact with people. We were on these boards all the time...but after a while, you realize that it's the same twenty people posting. And it became funny to us after a while because it was like you still hate the show but you're still watching, that's good, keep tuning in. You can't blame a lot of people, they have a vision of how they want to see it done."

I'll be we could name all twenty because they're all here!

I thoroughly enjoyed TOS-R and if I hadn't already bought TOS on DVD a while ago, I would've bought TOS-R. I probably will buy it in some HD format in the future.

Mr. Laser Beam · October 12 2008, 09:05 PM

billcosby wrote:

Rossi was asked if Star Trek: The Next Generation would be remastered. "The problem with doing Next Gen...is all the effects were done on video," he said. "That becomes an eight year project and the money required to do it would be really, really crazy."

DAMMIT~!

That was the one I was really hoping for, the ENT-D looks so nice in CGI, from Generations and These Are The Voyages.

He didn't say it was impossible, or that they would flat-out never do it. Just that it'd take a lot of time and money. Anything's possible...don't lose heart.

ancient · October 12 2008, 09:28 PM

If the technology improves they'll find a way to do it cheaper, I'm sure. Though I don't really care about TNG-remastered. Only if they added some cool new CGI END-D interiors. I don't know how they'd do that exactly, but I would like to see some of the more exotic locations. SB-1, the larger holodecks, the big labs, the big lounges, all the stuff they couldn't do on a TV budget in the early 90's.

M'Sharak · October 12 2008, 10:34 PM

T'Cal wrote:

Quote: The team was aware of fan reaction to the project. "One of the mistakes we made early on was going to these fan websites," said Rossi. "If you really want to be depressed... Those first couple episodes came out and we had created fake names so that we could interact with people. We were on these boards all the time...but after a while, you realize that it's the same twenty people posting. And it became funny to us after a while because it was like you still hate the show but you're still watching, that's good, keep tuning in. You can't blame a lot of people, they have a vision of how they want to see it done."

I'll be[t] we could name all twenty because they're all here!

I'll bet they were all Santaman.

Mr. Laser Beam · October 13 2008, 12:42 AM

ancient wrote:

If the technology improves they'll find a way to do it cheaper, I'm sure. Though I don't really care about TNG-remastered. Only if they added some cool new CGI END-D interiors. I don't know how they'd do that exactly, but I would like to see some of the more exotic locations. SB-1, the larger holodecks, the big labs, the big lounges, all the stuff they couldn't do on a TV budget in the early 90's.

I'm fine with TNG's effects pretty much as they are. If they do a TNG-R, all I would really ask is that they get rid of the overused stock footage, such as the same matte paintings showing up as all those different planetary backgrounds, and the stock footage of an Excelsior-class ship every time another vessel is shown with the Enterprise.

I admit I'd also like to see what the main shuttlebay (which we never saw) looks like.

Captain Fine · October 13 2008, 07:56 PM

Babaganoosh wrote:

ancient wrote:

If the technology improves they'll find a way to do it cheaper, I'm sure. Though I don't really care about TNG-remastered. Only if they added some cool new CGI END-D interiors. I don't know how they'd do that exactly, but I would like to see some of the more exotic locations. SB-1, the larger holodecks, the big labs, the big lounges, all the stuff they couldn't do on a TV budget in the early 90's.

I'm fine with TNG's effects pretty much as they are. If they do a TNG-R, all I would really ask is that they get rid of the overused stock footage, such as the same matte paintings showing up as all those different planetary backgrounds, and the stock footage of an Excelsior-class ship every time another vessel is shown with the Enterprise.

I admit I'd also like to see what the main shuttlebay (which we never saw) looks like.

Problem is a lot of those ships that showed up as Excelsior-class ships are now set in canon as Excelsior-class. Even though it makes no sense for Excelsior-class ships to be at Wolf 359 or be Admiral Hanson's flagship. Other than that, though, I totally agree.

You don't even have to invent new classes of ship. Just use more contemporary ones, such as Nebula-class or, um, those other TNG era ships lol. And I'd love to see the Ambassador look more like it's painting.