FAULTY - the two worst TOS remastering mistakes

[BeatleJWOL]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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I, too, hope there'll be an upgrade - and only if to use second and third season original footage to replace the VFX footage of the pilot 11-footer throughout the regular series.

That, then, would be fixing mistakes and/or inconsistencies, which some still do see as overstepping the bounds of remastering.

[ZapBrannigan]

Melakon wrote:

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My favorite original, optically printed beauty shot was a long, slow close-up of the saucer section approaching camera, engines spinning along, repeated several times in the series. It's a shame if they didn't copy it.

I think all the iconic "beauty shot" angles were copied, but they were not all placed in the episodes where they belonged, probably to avoid repeating them too often. They do pop up in TOS-R, though.

[T'Girl]

^^^ First one is better.

[Melakon]

Wasn't there another version, slightly below the saucer? I think it was reused in "Is There in Truth No Beauty".

[boobatuba]

T'Girl wrote:

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^^^ First one is better.

Why? Because it's washed out with no detail?

Sheesh. Hard to argue with that logic.

[Metryq]

boobatuba wrote:

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Why? Because it's washed out with no detail?

Sheesh. Hard to argue with that logic.

A preference of that sort doesn't have to be logical, but I can give you a few reasons why I, too, prefer the first shot.

The original artists were working with bluescreen, which requires a certain amount of "fill light" to combat blue spill on the model. Blue spill would make matte extraction difficult. (In other words, no deep shadows on the model shots.) This had the undesirable effect of making the ship look a bit ghostly at times, yet also made the lighting "directionless."

I've seen maybe a third of the TOS-R effects and dislike them for many reasons. Here is one shot that I believe I capped from "Mudd's Women":



There is a hard "key" light, further accented by what I consider excessive specularity (gloss) on the ship, despite the fact that it is supposed to be in deep space far from any star. Granted, video is a visual medium, so the audience must be able to see something. The TOS TREK movies gave the Enterprise running lights for its external markings, and the makers of Disney's THE BLACK HOLE took another approach to the "lit only by distant starlight" look. The point is, computer artists have virtually unlimited control of an image, yet we get shots like my example above.

One of the TOS movies features a panning shot of the Enterprise passing the camera. The highlights and shadows on the model are coming from one direction, yet there is also a nearby star in the background—in a different direction—occluded by the ship as it passes. I can't recall where, but I think I saw a similar "visible light from the wrong direction" shot somewhere in the TOS-R effects. (I don't have all the TOS-R episodes, as I disliked the alterations in those I've seen.)

[Robert Comsol]

@ Melakon

You don't mean the one-time only bow shot from "Metamorphosis"? Trekplace has Tallguy's great visual compilation of all Enterprise VFX shots from TOS.

@ BeatleJWOL

I don't understand. TOS in its most possible original remastering is available on Blu-ray (together with the TOS-R version). I was under the impression we are talking about a different TOS-R version that makes optimal use of original elements for enhancement.

@ Metryp

Looks like you provided one clue why some or many of us feel the CGI of TOS-R look crappy.

There were no glossy spaceship surfaces in blue-screen VFX before the advent of CGI because blue reflections on such surfaces would have created holes in the optical results (one of the reasons the Star Wars spaceship miniatures had no glass windows!).

For the generation I belong to, a make-believe spaceship never had glossy surface textures, so one that does - consciously or unconsciously - inevitably looks fake.

I've already stated how I feel about this retcon weathering and paneling (that has also tainted the original VFX model at the Smithsonian) and feel the urge to - do so again:

Bob

[Dalen Quaice]

The lack of detail in the first shot is simply a poor telecine transfer coupled with overuse of the digital noise reduction (DNR) that tends to make things muddy and washed out... if scanned properly with a film scanner like the Northlight (rather than a telecine like the Spirit 2k), it would look much better. The main issue with older film is the detail is present, but it is obscured by film grain on the surface. You must do an emulsion level transfer to extract the detail while keeping film grain under control.

Also, there were no gridlines on the model -- only penciled-in lines. The nacelles are wrong also in the CGI. The lights do not blink properly and the colors are wrong-- and they haven't simulated the mirror shards that are the key to proper nacelle lighting, IMHO.

[Metryq]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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Looks like you provided one clue why some or many of us feel the CGI of TOS-R look crappy.

Oh, I can think of many others. For example, I recall one shot of the Enterprise in orbit where the camera pans to follow the ship as it passes. In any other context, that would be an interesting, dynamic shot. However, the production design of TOS did not feature lots of camera movement, even with live-action. (Some movies keep the "action" going even in slow scenes by flying around with a Steadicam, or worse yet, the A.D.D.cam, closely related to the ShakyCam™.) Thus, many of the new shots simply do not match the design philosophy of the rest of the production. So they contrast, rather than complement.

Sometimes a dynamic shot, like the orbit shot I just described, when shoe-horned into the same space, the same duration, as the original shot, ends up looking rushed. Too fast. I felt that many such decisions compromised the "scale" of the nuFX in "The Doomsday Machine." The Enterprise "surfed" around like an X-wing fighter, which made it look like a toy. The flame-like licks of the DM's beam also killed the scale. The straight-edged flash of the original was like a piston-punch or a lightning strike. The audience could feel it.

One other toy-like shot that comes to mind is the Enterprise sling-shotting around the Sun in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday." The curvature of the Sun was too tight, thus making it look smaller, rather than far away. Now imagine if something like the Leonov aerobraking from 2010 had been done instead.

[Warped9]

Several years ago, long before CBS announced TOS-R was going to happen, I envisioned how TOS could have done the sun-slingsht sequence more interestingly while maintaining its familiar look. I even photoshopped it for my Never seen TOS scenes thread. I'll try to find it.




...Okay, found it. This is crude because you're seeing only still shots and I'm using tweaked stock shots rather than a new filming miniature or a cgi model. But I think it does get the general idea across.

[Pauln6]

I can live without the enhanced special effect, I'd just want to digitally add Grace Lee Whitney's head to all those nameless yeomen that served Kirk coffee and PADDS in seasons 2 & 3.

[Melakon]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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@ Melakon

You don't mean the one-time only bow shot from "Metamorphosis"? Trekplace has Tallguy's great visual compilation of all Enterprise VFX shots from TOS.

This was the angle I was thinking of. I couldn't find it at Memory Alpha as they seem to be replacing a lot of the original studio model shots with remastered versions.



And damn it, photobucket will only let me get the url for the thumbnail, I uploaded a 500-something by 480. The larger version when displayed puts it in that stupid scroll frame and I get a javascript void url instead.

[Jonas Grumby]

T'Girl wrote:

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^^^ First one is better.

It certainly is! There is something seriously wrong with that saucer in the second, especially the saucer rim.

[Warped9]

I've always loved this sequence seen rarely. The ship comes right at you and really conveys a sense of size and mass. Love it!

[Robert Comsol]

Jonas Grumby wrote:

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It certainly is! There is something seriously wrong with that saucer in the second, especially the saucer rim.

Yes, it looks most unusual. But so do the glossy reflections that make the hull look like it's made of plastic and you wonder where the light comes from (in contrast the illumination of the original shot is diffuse - made me never wonder about the light source and contributed to the illusion of just being there).

Sometimes "less" actually yields "more" but try telling this to the CGI artists.

Bob