Star Trek TNG Remastered?

[Klaitu]

Putting TNG on blu-ray is inevitable. Star Trek is still one of the most popular and well-known franchises ever made, and there's lots of money to be had here.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Klaitu wrote:

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Putting TNG on blu-ray is inevitable. Star Trek is still one of the most popular and well-known franchises ever made, and there's lots of money to be had here.

Of course, but is there *enough* money to justify the massive amounts of work? It would take a lot longer than TOS-R did (I'm guessing at least 5 years, and that's assuming that they can farm out the work to multiple outlets so as to work on many episodes at once), and also the actual amount of work would be much greater. The ROI may not be enough.

I can definitely see a HD 'fan collective' or two, but not necessarily the entire series.

I think that Enterprise will be the next Trek series to make it to Blu-Ray. There's fewer episodes, and they're closer to HD-ready (the show has even aired in native HD).

[Klaitu]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Of course, but is there *enough* money to justify the massive amounts of work? It would take a lot longer than TOS-R did (I'm guessing at least 5 years, and that's assuming that they can farm out the work to multiple outlets so as to work on many episodes at once), and also the actual amount of work would be much greater. The ROI may not be enough.

I can definitely see a HD 'fan collective' or two, but not necessarily the entire series.

I think that Enterprise will be the next Trek series to make it to Blu-Ray. There's fewer episodes, and they're closer to HD-ready (the show has even aired in native HD).

No doubt that Enterprise is ready for blu-ray, with everything about it being in HD.

I suspect that TNG will be able to make a lot of money remastered in HD, especially if they release it in syndication like they did with TOS.

[jefferiestubes8]

while nothing official this The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 2 review mentions this:

As the original series presently rolls out in fully loaded hi-def box sets, and with the Next Generation film series already on BD too, it's all but inevitable that Blu-ray releases of "The Next Generation" are around the corner, the cycle soon to start all over again.

[Doug Otte]

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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while nothing official this The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 2 review mentions this:

That's just more speculation/wishful thinking.

Doug

[CoveTom]

Butters wrote:

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A good miniature shot should look real. A good CGI sequence should look real. Only our knowledge that there is no real starship should betray the effect and as amazing as the filming models were, there's not one shot of it in TNG that would stand up to either today's CGI standards or current viewer expectations.

No offense, but I call bullshit.

TNG's model work was fantastic in most cases, and extremely well done. I've watched many an episode over the years, and I think the visual effects hold up quite well. Sure, there's a lack of certain things, like the ability to show tons of ships when an armada is supposedly going into battle, but what is on the screen looks good.

Frankly, I find a great deal of the televised CGI work done in the later years to be quite wanting in comparison to TNG.

Sure, TNG's visual effects will need to be re-done if they want to do an HD release, simply because they were shot on videotape and don't have the resolution necessary to support HD. But I don't think viewers would otherwise have any problem with most of the visual effects from that series.

[trevanian]

CoveTom wrote:

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No offense, but I call bullshit.

TNG's model work was fantastic in most cases, and extremely well done. I've watched many an episode over the years, and I think the visual effects hold up quite well. Sure, there's a lack of certain things, like the ability to show tons of ships when an armada is supposedly going into battle, but what is on the screen looks good.

Frankly, I find a great deal of the televised CGI work done in the later years to be quite wanting in comparison to TNG.

Yeah, it's total bullshit. The level of TV effects work in the miniature arena during early to late 90s on DS9 and later TNG was very high indeed, and considerably more convincing than what followed during the rush to CG for dollar reasons and being able to do more shots at less credibility.

Then again, viewers today seem to like fake looking stuff more, as long as it is pretty enough. Cater to morons, redo the fx.

[Klaitu]

trevanian wrote:

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Yeah, it's total bullshit. The level of TV effects work in the miniature arena during early to late 90s on DS9 and later TNG was very high indeed, and considerably more convincing than what followed during the rush to CG for dollar reasons and being able to do more shots at less credibility.

Then again, viewers today seem to like fake looking stuff more, as long as it is pretty enough. Cater to morons, redo the fx.

I too agree. While models have production reasons why they are inferior (more expense, complicated shots, limited camera angles) a well done model shot is simply superior in every way to a CGI effect.

The best example of this is in Star Trek: Generations where for much of the movie, the Enterprise-D is a model.. and it looks absolutely amazing, particularly in the new blu-ray release.

TNG's problem, as mentioned above, is that the effects were edited in on video tape.. but at one point these would have had to be composited on film, and maybe that film is still available.. who knows? Heck, if the TOS prints are still around, there's gotta be TNG prints somewhere.

[jefferiestubes8]

Klaitu wrote:

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TNG's problem, as mentioned above, is that the effects were edited in on video tape.. but at one point these would have had to be composited on film, and maybe that film is still available.. who knows? Heck, if the TOS prints are still around, there's gotta be TNG prints somewhere.

There are TNG original camera negatives as Okuda mentioned. They were composited on videotape at 480i resolution, not film.

Malcolm Orr mentions

they were able to find the exact scene they wanted from Menage a Trois for [re]scanning [the film to HD] for the finale of Enterprise, so presumably they are indexed in some way...

see this post as to why if TNG were given a remastered treatment for Blu-ray why all of the visual effects would probably be done as CGI.
This episode "Parallels" had to do some major compositing. Check this out about the difficulty in reconforming that episode from the original camera negative for the visual effects shot for a 5 seconds shot.

[Butters]

Klaitu wrote:

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I too agree. While models have production reasons why they are inferior (more expense, complicated shots, limited camera angles) a well done model shot is simply superior in every way to a CGI effect.

The best example of this is in Star Trek: Generations where for much of the movie, the Enterprise-D is a model.. and it looks absolutely amazing, particularly in the new blu-ray release.

TNG's problem, as mentioned above, is that the effects were edited in on video tape.. but at one point these would have had to be composited on film, and maybe that film is still available.. who knows? Heck, if the TOS prints are still around, there's gotta be TNG prints somewhere.

Bullshit my arse.

So all CGI is inferior to all miniature. Now that is bullshit. Well done, some of the fx you've seen betrays its working and blatant miniatures are preferable to blatant cgi, but thats not a universal view. Personally, I'd take the primitively rendered yet respectably realistic motion of B5 over the immaculately detailed 3 point turning model composited alongside a ridiculously overscaled bird of prey anyday.

Crap FX have nothing to do with the Video tape.

[Dane_Whitman]

Generally I love what was done on TOS-R, but in some shots the Enterprise has a flat video game-ish look. Compared to some of the great model work that was done on TNG, CGI of that level will hurt the visuals of certain episodes rather than improve upon them. I mean, I don't see CGI-on-a-budget accomplish the sense of size shots like these create:

[Klaitu]

Butters wrote:

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Bullshit my arse.

So all CGI is inferior to all miniature. Now that is bullshit. Well done, some of the fx you've seen betrays its working and blatant miniatures are preferable to blatant cgi, but thats not a universal view. Personally, I'd take the primitively rendered yet respectably realistic motion of B5 over the immaculately detailed 3 point turning model composited alongside a ridiculously overscaled bird of prey anyday.

Crap FX have nothing to do with the Video tape.

There are obviously model effects that are crap, and CGI effects that are excellent work as well. The reverse is also true.

With technology improving, maybe it's possible to create a CGI Enterprise-D that looks better than the model. I'm merely saying that hasn't happened yet.

The B5 effects have their own problems, as do the TNG model effects. A discourse comparing the two would be useless as the technology for those effects is now obsolete.

My point was that in this age of CGI, many people underestimate how great models used to look. The real trick here is to create CGI that doesn't look like garbage.

That way you have the model detail of TNG with the motions lf B5, scale is preserved, and everyone wins.

[FalTorPan]

Dane_Whitman wrote:

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Generally I love what was done on TOS-R, but in some shots the Enterprise has a flat video game-ish look. Compared to some of the great model work that was done on TNG, CGI of that level will hurt the visuals of certain episodes rather than improve upon them. I mean, I don't see CGI-on-a-budget accomplish the sense of size shots like these create:

I like the lighting in those shots, but I hate that $#@%@#% model. To me its overly chunky detail screams "toy" rather than "starship."

[ST-One]

Klaitu wrote:

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With technology improving, maybe it's possible to create a CGI Enterprise-D that looks better than the model. I'm merely saying that hasn't happened yet.

Perhaps not better, but pretty damn close (even in this unfinished, untextured state this CG-model looks amazing):



The thread about this model can be found at Foundation3D.com: http://www.foundation3d.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=3875

[Lazarus]

Dane_Whitman wrote:

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Generally I love what was done on TOS-R, but in some shots the Enterprise has a flat video game-ish look. Compared to some of the great model work that was done on TNG, CGI of that level will hurt the visuals of certain episodes rather than improve upon them. I mean, I don't see CGI-on-a-budget accomplish the sense of size shots like these create:

As much as it pains me to say this, because for some reason I feel like I'm betraying The Next Generation (which did contain some outstanding model shots as well as some TRUELY SHOCKING ones!) I think the CGI Enterprise-D from These Are The Voyages has the edge.

Putting aside the trivial fact that the saucer's impulse engines are glowing, the CGI ship looks absolutely fantastic in my opinion.