Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[NewHorizon]

If we can expect this level of quality from this outsourced company...visible matte lines, blurry planets, etc...I think CBS D needs to handle the compositing themselves and just let this company scan the footage for them.

While some consumers here are quite happy to accept the step down, I'm not. I would like consistency from Season to season.

If you're listening CBS D, this really dampens my spirits for the project. First the sound issues with Season 1 and now this?

[FrontierTrek]

NewHorizon wrote:

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If you're listening CBS D, this really dampens my spirits for the project. First the sound issues with Season 1 and now this?

Not CBS-D, just CBS. CBS-D would have dearly loved to have been able to do the whole lot, as Craig Weiss (head of the CBS-D team) told me in our interview, "we would have loved to have kept [Season 2] here, but due to the schedule it was just impossible."

[BillJ]

FrontierTrek wrote:

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Not CBS-D, just CBS. CBS-D would have dearly loved to have been able to do the whole lot, as Craig Weiss (head of the CBS-D team) told me in our interview, "we would have loved to have kept [Season 2] here, but due to the schedule it was just impossible."

Like I said before, I'd rather have had seasons every six months or so with consistent quality. If season two is screwed up, I'll simply start waiting for them to show up on TV or Netflix instead of spending cash on the sets.

[Scotty]

I think that at least part of the problem with these shots can be found with the original effects work. Take the vortex shot from Time's Squared. The vortex itself looks stunning, put apparently the SFX team that made the original shot decided to use the two footer for the flyby shot which 25 years later looks poor in close up in HD. The HD restoration is true to the original shot, maybe to a fault, but it still is a faithfull recomposition of the original work. I think the effects shots in the second season weren't as good to begin with as the first season effects.

[Maxwell Everett]

Scotty wrote:

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I think that at least part of the problem with these shots can be found with the original effects work. Take the vortex shot from Time's Squared. The vortex itself looks stunning, put apparently the SFX team that made the original shot decided to use the two footer for the flyby shot which 25 years later looks poor in close up in HD. The HD restoration is true to the original shot, maybe to a fault, but it still is a faithfull recomposition of the original work. I think the effects shots in the second season weren't as good to begin with as the first season effects.

I think overall, the VFX were better and more ambitious than in season one... but I suspect the reason Robert Legato used the inferior 2-foot miniature for this particular shot was due to the camera move -- the ship had to appear to turn around 180 degrees and then recede from camera by quite a bit. There probably wasn't enough room on the stage floor at Image G to do that move with the larger 6-foot miniature.*

And of course that was one of the primary considerations for creating the intermediate-sized 4-foot miniature. They needed something smaller than the cumbersome 6-footer, but with more detail than the 2-footer.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gala...our-foot_model

*I suppose they could've used a wider lens, but the 6-footer would have looked too distorted up close.

[Tosk]

I don't know if this was brought up before, but I have to say...my number one hope for the new transfers is to finally "fix" all the shots where a destroyed starship would just magically disappear the moment the explosion appeared. I understand why it happened originally, but it would be a minor task to keep them in the shot for a few extra frames until the explosion fully covered the ship. [Fingers crossed]

[M]

Tosk wrote:

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I don't know if this was brought up before, but I have to say...my number one hope for the new transfers is to finally "fix" all the shots where a destroyed starship would just magically disappear the moment the explosion appeared. I understand why it happened originally, but it would be a minor task to keep them in the shot for a few extra frames until the explosion fully covered the ship. [Fingers crossed]

Maybe I'm not as attentive as I thought I am, but I don't recall an episode where we actually see the ship disappear before the explosion fully covers it. Not saying you are wrong, it's just that I can't remember something like that. Any examples?

[davejames]

BillJ wrote:

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Like I said before, I'd rather have had seasons every six months or so with consistent quality. If season two is screwed up, I'll simply start waiting for them to show up on TV or Netflix instead of spending cash on the sets.

I think the season is still awfully far from being "screwed up."

In fact, if anything, I'd say the slightly imperfect, more stitched-together shots we're seeing for S2 are probably more true to what the show actually looked like back then.

The CBS-D team may have done some incredible, feature-quality work on S1 (with cleaned up matte lines, improved CG planets, etc), but it's probably pretty far from what the show was actually capable of in the late 80s.

And maybe it's just me, but I'm not really looking for the effects on these sets to be as perfect and flawless as what we see today's movie screens. I just want it to look like TNG, and I think these shots do.

[Rarewolf]

Scotty wrote:

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For crying out loud! Absolutely no-one implied that the extras would be revolutionary. If anyone is disappointed with these extra features they're just bloody ingrates IMO. For one we get deleted scenes, pretty much a first for Trek shows, if you disregard Ent. We're getting a totally remastered EXTENDED frigging version of Measure of a Man and audio commentaries. And let's not forget that all episodes have been remastered from 35 mm. What the hell more do you want?

Zombie Seeker wrote:

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Not to mention remastering outtakes and deleted scenes. That's huge!

Not deleted scenes and commentaries for every episode though.

It might be the best version of this season so far, but you can't say there isn't a better range of extras that could have been done, given more time and money.

Its' a glimpse of perfection, of what could have been.

An extended episode is brilliant. Imagine 22 extended episodes.

[Scotty]

Rarewolf wrote:

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Not deleted scenes and commentaries for every episode though.

It might be the best version of this season so far, but you can't say there isn't a better range of extras that could have been done, given more time and money.

An extended episode is brilliant. Imagine 22 extended episodes.

Would you like an added CGI Jabba The Hutt with that?

[Harvey]

They haven't found the footage to make many extended episodes; money probably wouldn't solve that problem. Agreed about the lack of commentaries, though. CBS is just being cheap by not including them. Considering that The Prisoner, made twenty years before Star Trek: The Next Generation, managed to include commentaries on seven (out of 17) episodes, there's really no reason why they couldn't get together more than a few people in a recording studio for this.

[Rarewolf]

Scotty wrote:

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Would you like an added CGI Jabba The Hutt with that?

An unfinished sequence enhanced to fit into continuity to allow its inclusion. How awful.

So yes, if there's a deleted scene with a hutt in it that adds to the episode by being completed, Make it so.

Harvey wrote:

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They haven't found the footage to make many extended episodes; money probably wouldn't solve that problem. Agreed about the lack of commentaries, though. CBS is just being cheap by not including them. Considering that The Prisoner, made twenty years before Star Trek: The Next Generation, managed to include commentaries on seven (out of 17) episodes, there's really no reason why they couldn't get together more than a few people in a recording studio for this.

The money/time is assuming they haven't been through everything - various interviews suggest they've they've only looked where they knew they had to. They only made an extended MOAM because they had a rough cut to reference. Would they have looked without it?

The biggest comparison for me would be Doctor Who, where we have commentaries on 95% of episodes, some 49 years old. Even odd deleted scenes from the 1970s. Often a new documentary per story. (and still WE find things missed to moan about) But on the other hand its taking 13 years to release 150 odd releases at £20 a pop. Mistakes still happen. I'm just glad they weren't released in boxsets.

Just a shame they weren't recorded on 35mm...

[Harvey]

Rarewolf wrote:

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The money/time is assuming they haven't been through everything - various interviews suggest they've they've only looked where they knew they had to. They only made an extended MOAM because they had a rough cut to reference. Would they have looked without it?

From what I've read, it sounds as if their search for footage has been pretty exhaustive, which is why I said that more money wouldn't mean much in terms of extended episodes. The ones we are getting are a pleasant surprise.

The biggest comparison for me would be Doctor Who, where we have commentaries on 95% of episodes, some 49 years old. Even odd deleted scenes from the 1970s. Often a new documentary per story. (and still WE find things missed to moan about) But on the other hand its taking 13 years to release 150 odd releases at £20 a pop. Mistakes still happen. I'm just glad they weren't released in boxsets.

The Twilight Zone is another good example; the recent Blu-Ray releases (for a fifty year old show!) have commentaries for practically every episode (and many of the episodes have multiple commentaries, in addition to other features).

[BillJ]

davejames wrote:

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I think the season is still awfully far from being "screwed up."

Which is why I said "if".

It may look great in motion, it may not. Just going to use it as a barometer on whether I'm going to be happy as a consumer with two different effects houses working every other season.

[Salinga]

Trailer from CBS is out: