Has Fred Freiberger been misblamed for Season 3 over the years?

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Lance, Dec 9, 2013.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Well, I could be wrong. The original idea was said to be more similar to V, and I took that to mean that they were more evil, but what you're saying here fits too. After all, V was an allegory about the rise of Nazism/fascism in Europe and an "it can happen here" cautionary tale, so if Roddenberry's aliens were fascistic as well, even in a "benevolent" Heinleinian sort of way, that could've been the basis of the similarity.
     
  2. Zaku

    Zaku Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2009
    Location:
    Italy
    Well, about differences between a pilot and following episodes, they killed Baltar in the GALACTICA (original series) movie released in Canada and Europe... :)
     
  3. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2013
    Location:
    Bulawayo Military Krral
    The 'Lucasing' as you put it was similar to the restoration job done on the episodes of Star Trek TOS and TNG, and nothing more than that.. ITV Studios (the current rights holder) must not want the show to be shown on TV anymore, then; they'll get their wish soon enough.

    What was wrong with the proposed restoration job? Nothing that I could see, just something similar to the Star Trek restorations that would enable the shows to be seen on HDTV sets.

    Not everybody wants to spend time in the past?:vulcan::confused:

    Also, TCM is a premium cable channel (on the same tier as HBO) and maybe they don't have cable or can't afford it to be watching TCM, or they prefer watching TV on Internet (like many people here in this BBS do). As for the films not being available on UHF channels like they used to be, blame that on the owners of most of these channels, who are mostly greedy fucking assholes always wanting to maximize profits (that's why you see nothing but infomercials on them now, and if you want to see movies, you have to watch the digital sub-channels, for which you must get an antenna.) The major studios must also take their share of the blame for not promoting older movies enough when they release them on DVD as in years past when they were released on cassette and laserdisc and used to promote them a lot (e.g., Warner Archive and it's putting movies on burned DVD that has to be ordered from Amazon vs. pressed DVD sold in a store.)

    It may be that many of the students are of color and don't relate to all-white cast of said older movies (particularly when said movies feature people of color in subservient roles to whites.) I don't think that something being in black and white is bad to them as much as it's the movie that they might object to, IMHO.

    Again, same thing I said above.

    I think that you got it.

    The best way to solve this would be to start getting pissy about local TV stations and who owns them (as well as getting pissy about the content) so that older movies are shown again and only people who care about TV as something else besides being a perpetual money machine would be the ones to own stations (I'd even say getting cable rates lowered so that people could afford TCM might help, but I don't know if that would work.)
     
  4. Andrew_Kearley

    Andrew_Kearley Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2007
    Location:
    Moonbase Alpha
    What do you mean? The series was remastered in HD back in 2005, and it's been shown on ITV in that format, as well as released on Bluray.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    I believe that's true of the original theatrically released US pilot as well. It was rather awkwardly amended for the series version.

    Of course, sometimes weekly series will just ignore things from their pilots without any explanation while still keeping them in continuity. The series pilot of Alien Nation suggested that a main character had a terminal disease, but this was abandoned by the second episode and never mentioned again.
     
  6. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    That proposal went waaaay beyond that the TOS-R team did, which was mostly replacing VFX shots. This 2099 proposal was going to make dialog changes and change the editing of the episodes to make them faster paced. They planned to actually alter the show in very significant ways.
     
  7. Ryan Thomas Riddle

    Ryan Thomas Riddle Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2003
    Indeed. According to the original website, that I mentioned being taken down, episodes would have been retitled and reordered as well to create a more of an "arc". It also had more extensive videos of entire redone scenes: http://web.archive.org/web/20110914090520/http://www.space2099.com/episodes/episode_1_01.htm
     
  8. Andrew_Kearley

    Andrew_Kearley Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2007
    Location:
    Moonbase Alpha
    Of course, the thing is, that Space 2099 thing was really nothing more than a fan re-edit - and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a perfectly legitimate form of fandom expression. I think the originators of the project got a bit up themselves with their idea that they could sell the proposal back to the rights owners as a revamp of the show. Some of the retitling and re-editing jarred with me, because when you start changing the context and meaning of the episodes to fit a newly conceived "arc", then you're going to alienate others who have a different take on the series. Again, that's fine to do as a fan project, a bit different when you try to make it "official". Not that there's anything wrong with re-ordering the episodes to try and make something a bit more cohesive out of it - it's not as if the show has any sort of definitive running order in any case - and indeed, this is the sort of thing that fandom is supposed to do - interacting with the show rather than just receiving it blindly. (And let's face it, it's something I did myself long ago. See here.) So I've mixed feelings about the project really - I would support any creative fan project, as long as we're clear that that's what it is.
     
  9. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2005
    This is certainly valid, especially when it comes to films produced during the heyday of the Hollywood studio system (which is not to say, of course, that Hollywood doesn't have a significant way to go in terms of diversity).

    But, my observation wasn't that the students I've observed can't sit through older films -- I was pointing out that many of them (indeed, the vast majority in my experience) haven't seen films made before they were born. Which, for the current crop of university students, means they haven't seen many films made before the 1990s.

    (Keep in mind that I'm 26).
     
  10. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2007
    Location:
    Outer Graceland
    There is an embarrasing scene in Mr. Smith with some train porters. I always point that out to students btw. My students are mainly not of any color other than pale whitish pink, here in Northern Michigan. No, I think it is that in our culture "old" = "worse" for the most part. (They were amazed when I busted out my 2001 clamshell iBook, which I use for a word processor and music writing laptop, both of which function perfectly. But old technology -- and tech is the totem of our society -- almost always IS worse.

    As to b/w movies, they do signal "old" movie, which, granted, is a different style of movie than Saw 3 or Transformers 7 or ... STID.:alienblush: (KIDDING: Couldn't help it.) People like what they're used to, and older movies require more attention and listening ... not our culture's strong suits.

    Be well, everyone. We're off to my wife's family's homestead (yes, it's old:) for Christmas Eve, and I just got a good news checkup at the eye surgeon yesterday. Feeling pretty merry, so well wishes to you, whatever your holiday preferences (if any) may be!
     
  11. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    May 9, 2012
    Location:
    The Enterprise's Restroom
    That Space:2099 thing is incredibly weird, but I've gotta admit, I would be intrigued to see it... just out of morbid curisosity for how it could present the very same material so differently, like. Might have been interesting (if somewhat fruitless ultimately).
     
  12. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    I scanned the 2099 episode proposals and ugh. Just ugh.
     
  13. trevanian

    trevanian Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2004
    I think some of the material might have found its way into THE MAKING OF THE TREK FILMS book (which is definitely worth getting if you want to get rid of old CFQ issues, because most of that stuff is in the book too.)

    The R-S book has good info that wasn't available to Gross, but like ART OF, there are some gaps & some errors (even some of the illustrations are captioned wrong -- for instance, they have an exact representation of vger - pretty much what you see in the DE - identified as an early unused design.)
     
  14. Commishsleer

    Commishsleer Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2013
    Location:
    Backwaters of Australia
    My 17 yr old boy said the same thing yesterday when he refused to watch 'Miracle on 34th Street'. It was made before he was born, even before his parents were born.
    He says he doesn't like girls in these old movies as they act all girly and stupid.

    I actually think that some of the older movies have the women extending themselves from their normal roles in society back then but my sons not going to give them a chance.

    I remember when I was young I used to watch movies from the 40s and 50s on TV but there wasn't as much choice back then.

    [​IMG][/URL][/IMG]
     
  15. Ryan Thomas Riddle

    Ryan Thomas Riddle Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2003
    Yep. The only good bit was moving the episode "Earthbound" closer to the first episode so as to get rid of Commission Smit ... er ... Simmons. But the rest is trying too hard for an arc that didn't exist in the original show.
     
  16. LMFAOschwarz

    LMFAOschwarz Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2013
    Thing is, changing the means of the moon's escape to a space warp "changes" absolutely nothing. You still have a moon floating around the universe, which can move untold light-years in months or weeks, but can somehow stay in range of planets for days. Obviously the premise is more fantasy-oriented than science-oriented, so just leave it at that.

    Besides, I have my own personal theory as to how that speed thing works, and it satisfies me plenty. ;)
     
  17. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2003
    Location:
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada
    When I was a teenager and into my early twenties I like many that age could be quite opinionated on some things I probably didn't know much about. You think you know so much, but the passage of a few years soon illustrates you know basically jack shit. :lol: When that happens then your perspective might broaden.

    But previous generations were exposed to film, literature, television and music and history from before our time through our parents. Most homes had only one television and no computer or laptop (or tablet or smart phone) as an alternative. You didn't have the option to watch something else at the same time---you could simply try to occupy yourself in some other way. Today a lot of folks can watch whatever they want whenever they want and largely without being exposed much to their parents' tastes. So much is in the here and now and it's a world where a two year old cell phone or laptop is considered outdated. Additionally, like generations of youth before them, they don't think previous generations have anything of value to offer them. Of course not all are like this, but quite a few are. We can only hope that eventual experience will change their perspectives because one day their kids will do the same thing to them. :lol:
     
  18. Ryan Thomas Riddle

    Ryan Thomas Riddle Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2003
    For those interested, the Space Opera Society just posted a completed re-edit/remastered episode of 1999 as 2099:

    http://youtu.be/UrNvJ7KUp4s
     
  19. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    Thanks!

    What's interesting about this is that they managed to take one of the below-average episodes and make it worse, by robbing it of its distinctive frightening imagery, in obscuring the shots of the (imaginary) human guinea pigs at around 24:35. Instead of "interpreting" those scenes, by washing-out/blurring them (or whatever the obscuring effects were) evidently to play up the made-of-light angle, they should have gone the other way, and made the exposed brain super-realistic (if feasible).

    Another thing: why not replace the static plots on various wall monitors around Alpha with dynamic displays? Although it's trivial, that seems like something relatively useful to do.

    If re-editing to improve things is the objective, then they dropped the ball here, by keeping the scene of lifting the Eagle command module to transport Koenig back to base at around 19:20: they had already moved Koenig to strap him onto the stretcher, so why the fuck was it necessary to do all that at that point?

    One other lost opportunity: the well-known image of Zenno wasn't really botched, thank goodness, but it wasn't improved either. TOS-R at least made the effort to improve this sort of matte shot, and they were generally successful in that.

    In the "coming next week" segment at the end, did they actually replace the Mark IX Hawks? Sacrilege!
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2013