Season FOUR OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

I really liked BoBw and Family. It humanized Picard. Up to this point in the show, I really didn't like the character all that much.


-Chris

 

Watching Brothers, with the commentary. I don't mind the "blurry" Enterprise shot the ship is at warp, wasn't that the intent of the shot in the SD version to be a little blurry at warp speed?


-Chris

 

That particular shot isn't the one that was originally used and later on in the season it is substituted with a CG replacement.

The external effects work is a bit uneven in the first few episodes (Turkana IV lacks an atmosphere for example) but I've just finished Disc 5 and they definitely improve as the season progresses.

 

Final Mission, the desert scenes look AMAZING.

Interesting...that shot with picard back to the camera just after he emerges from the front of the shuttle, you can see 24 frame flicker in the lens flare.

 

I checked the SD version of Redemption and the opening Enterprise shot is blurry, due to the poor resolution, but if you freeze it looks like the same sort of composite issue, the blu-ray and increased resolution just clarify the same problem when they did the recomposite

-Chris.

 

Family has always been a personal favourite, and an underrated episode in its own right, largely due in part at least to the superb location shooting. Have to say, on BD, it looks simply gorgeous. I can understand why they more often than not used matte shots and/or soundstages in lieu of location shooting, but the rare instance where you get outdoor filming like this, elevates the episode IMO.

 

Watched Brothers last night - there's a really off blue-screen-effects shot where Brent Spiner (as Soong) walks up to Data and tests his eyesight moving a stick left to right. The blue screen behind Soong is really obvious (they don't seem to have corrected for it as they did in the original transmission), and somehow the eye contact Data makes with Soong and his pointy instrument seems more off than it did in the original transmission. Thus far the effects have been pretty good so it just seems to be the blue screen stuff here that wasn't quite as carefully handled.

 

Being sick for a week (and having picked this up on the 23rd of July, by living in Australia), I had the chance to get stuck into this season, and overall I'm pretty happy with the visuals, much better than HTV (if not quite up to the brilliant CBS-D standards). The only really jarring visual issue I picked up was in Identity Crisis and The Mind's Eye. In both episodes, there are dark scenes where actors are (supposed to be) heavily obscured, but with the remastering, you can clearly see the slightly immersion-breaking make-up in Identity Crisis and the Romulan body double that is clearly NOT Sela, even though we hear her voice, in The Mind's Eye. It's not a big deal, it's kind of like picking on them for making the picture too clear and high quality! I suppose bringing old shows into HD and crisp clarity does tend to bring out flaws that you never noticed before, but it does break the immersion a bit in those scenes.

Quite happy with Modern's job on this season overall though. Now, on to the special features, which I'm not quite as excited for as previous seasons, but they should still be interesting.

 

I watched both parts of the documentary. I still found them interesting, if not as riveting as other seasons. At this point, they just have fun stories and mostly good memories to share. Wil Wheaton's bit about being treated poorly was ingriguing. I wanted more of that! The writers interviews about spec scripts seemed to cover ground we'd already been over, but I liked hearing from Lolita Fatjo (mostly because her last name is just awesome). I'd say it was a good effort on the docs, but not as satisfying as others and hopefully season 5 will be.

 

I could only find a still of this shot from TrekCore's gallery with Junior attached, but I've noticed this particular Enterprise shot looks pretty bad on Blu-ray.



It's normally seen at the end of episodes. As the Enterprise flies away from the camera, the model loses nearly all detail. It gets worse as the shot progresses.

 

Glowing review from High-Def Digest...

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/5233/startrek_tng_s4.html

 

It's really only problematic during the motion control pan (this was true motion control and not simply an anamorphic shot). As the camera pans with Soong, the traveling matte becomes more blurred and some slight blue fringing can be seen around his body. There's also a brief moment when you can see through his hand right as he says the word "familiar." That's an opacity issue with the matte they pulled from the bluescreen.

Also, in the earlier split-screen shot (also motion control) when Soong first walks up to Data, you can see some plant leaves that don't line up perfectly and appear as a double image. I first noticed it in TrekCore's early look at S4 screencaps.

BTW, for those who are sensitive to these types of errors... if it drives you up the wall, or takes you out of the story, don't go looking for them. Once you see them you can never un-see them! Just try to keep your eyes on the faces and performances. I know that's a bit like me saying pay no attention to the pink elephant, but what are you gonna do?

 

The shot looks much better at the end of "The Nth Degree." For some reason it looks too flat and low contrast in "Galaxy's Child" with missing nav lights. Here, I whipped up a screenshot comparison... sorry for the 720p resolution, it's easier for me to take screencaps from my rips than go back to the blu-rays at the moment:

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/34947

 

The four-footer looks pretty butt-ugly in both shots, IMO.

 

The four-footer is butt-ugly in general.

 

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but has anyone noticed that Timothy Carharts name appears twice in the credits on the "Redemption" bluray?

 

You can see the big differences between the two
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha...nces_between_the_4-foot_and_6-foot_models.jpg

-Chris

 

Ugh. Would it really have been that damn hard for them to use a thinner grade of plastic for the model? That's what ruins the look and lines of the ship the most. I can take the exaggerated lines and panels and such on it but look at the thickness of the deflector housing that's just fugly. I mean did they make the model out roofing tiles?

 

There was an error in creating the credits for the feature-length Redemption, yes. Unfortunately Whoopi Goldberg's credit was substituted for a (second) Timothy Carhart.