Season THREE OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Maxwell Everett]

Cap.T wrote:

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In his Interview with TrekCore.com Robert Lay, Jr. mentioned that they could get Frakes only for new Interviews while he was directing an episode of NCIS:

Roger Lay, Jr.: I'd love to do it. I was talking to Jonathan Frakes about maybe coming in and doing "The Offspring" – he directed it, it was his first one – but Jonathan directs like ten episodes a year of multiple shows, including NCIS and Leverage, so he was only going to be in town in October for a week because he was doing an episode of NCIS. We got him that week to do his next interview for the documentaries; a second interview. So we couldn't schedule "The Offspring". We're trying; we're really trying – especially for the ones that are directors. I'd love to get LeVar in there at some point. It's definitely on my list, and I think that if you've seen what we've put out so far, you'll see that when we have an idea, we don't rest until we achieve that.

You know, I'd read that... but forgot the second part where Lay says quite definitively that they couldn't get Frakes for the commentary. Somehow I'd remembered it as they were still trying to get him and make it happen before release. Thanks for pointing that out to me -- I'm not sure why I was surprised when I saw it struck through in the list of features on TrekCore.

"I must be going senile..."

[Dream]

Why can't Jonathan Frakes just do the audio commentary over the phone? Maybe Frakes can record it himself at home while watching the episode and send the audio file to CBS?

[Maxwell Everett]

Dream wrote:

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Why can't Jonathan Frakes just do the audio commentary over the phone? Maybe Frakes can record it himself at home while watching the episode and send the audio file to CBS?

At first I was going to say that in addition to controlling the audio quality they may have wanted him to record it with Echevarria and they didn't want two separate commentaries for "The Offspring." Then I remembered that they now have two for "Yesterday's Enterprise." I suppose they could've edited Frakes and Echevarria so that it sort of sounded like they recorded it together, but that always ends up sounding strange because there's no interaction between the commentators.

But you're right, there's no reason aside from audio quality that they couldn't have done it over Skype or FedExed the episode to him and had him record it himself.

[Tiberius]

Maxwell Everett wrote:

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At first I was going to say that in addition to controlling the audio quality they may have wanted him to record it with Echevarria and they didn't want two separate commentaries for "The Offspring." Then I remembered that they now have two for "Yesterday's Enterprise." I suppose they could've edited Frakes and Echevarria so that it sort of sounded like they recorded it together, but that always ends up sounding strange because there's no interaction between the commentators.

But you're right, there's no reason aside from audio quality that they couldn't have done it over Skype or FedExed the episode to him and had him record it himself.

Actually, there isn't a noticable loss of audio quality when it is recorded over the phone. When Al Gore recorded his lines for Futurama, he did it over the phone, I believe.

[LogicDeLuxe]

jimbotron wrote:

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If they keep that same pattern as season 1 going, the separate parts for Unification, Chain of Command, Birthright will all be together on the same disc. The exception is Gambit, which are the 4th and 5th episodes of the season. I'm sure the guys putting the discs together will notice that, and adjust the disc content accordingly.

Would be cool, if they put both versions, the regular two part episodes and the one part movie versions on the discs. With seamless branching, only a few minutes of credit parts would have to be duplicated.

[jimbotron]

Tiberius wrote:

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Actually, there isn't a noticable loss of audio quality when it is recorded over the phone. When Al Gore recorded his lines for Futurama, he did it over the phone, I believe.

As the story goes, that's how Temuera Morrison recorded replacement Boba Fett dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back for the DVD. Supposedly some sound guys at Lucasfilm called him up, and asked him to repeat the words without telling what it was for, which is why it came off so flat.

[Maxwell Everett]

jimbotron wrote:

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As the story goes, that's how Temuera Morrison recorded replacement Boba Fett dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back for the DVD. Supposedly some sound guys at Lucasfilm called him up, and asked him to repeat the words without telling what it was for, which is why it came off so flat.

I'm not sure which Futurama episode you're referring to Tiberius (Al Gore appeared in five apparently)... unless you mean he recorded all of them over the phone. So at the moment I can't really judge whether there's a noticeable loss in quality. But I would expect there to be *some* loss, compared to him performing on a recording stage or in a booth with high-end equipment. Also, they could have sweetened it to some extent... and you're talking about a few brief lines, not a 45 minute long recording which is more difficult and time consuming to fix if need be.

As for Temuera Morrison, his voice was filtered to sound like it was coming through Boba Fett's helmet, so I imagine very high quality audio wasn't necessary.

[Borjis]

Tiberius wrote:

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Actually, there isn't a noticable loss of audio quality when it is recorded over the phone. When Al Gore recorded his lines for Futurama, he did it over the phone, I believe.

We do this at my studio, it's called a "phone patch" and sounds remarkably good considering the source.

They are recorded through that same pro equipment (ProTools HD Accel) we use for studio recordings. With a bit of eq and other adjustments it actually sounds just fine.

For a commentary track I doubt anyone would notice the difference.

[BeatleJWOL]

jimbotron wrote:

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As the story goes, that's how Temuera Morrison recorded replacement Boba Fett dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back for the DVD. Supposedly some sound guys at Lucasfilm called him up, and asked him to repeat the words without telling what it was for, which is why it came off so flat.

I had heard that Frank Oz did some of the Yoda dialogue for the prequels that way, too.

[Captain Fine]

Having recently rewatched ESB, I found both Fett's replaced lines and the new Emperor both jarring. Let me be clear, I'm not against the idea, just that I feel they were just thrown in there and it doesn't sound good. Palpatine somehow doesn't seem dark/creepy enough, and Fett is totally flat/boring/not ominous.

[davejames]

Captain Fine wrote:

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Having recently rewatched ESB, I found both Fett's replaced lines and the new Emperor both jarring. Let me be clear, I'm not against the idea, just that I feel they were just thrown in there and it doesn't sound good. Palpatine somehow doesn't seem dark/creepy enough, and Fett is totally flat/boring/not ominous.

Yeah I noticed that with the Emperor too. In the new version there's nothing remotely strange or mysterious about him anymore. He's just a wrinkled old man talking to Vader now.

[Zaku]

37.20 € (47.95 $) on Amazon.it!

http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00B...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Obviously region free!

[Aatrek]

Zaku wrote:

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37.20 € (47.95 $) on Amazon.it!

http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00B...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Obviously region free!

Very tempting... until I saw the release date of May 22.

[RAMA]

Robert Burnett tweeted there is an unpublicized extra on the set last night...

RAMA

[Dac]

RAMA wrote:

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Robert Burnett tweeted there is an unpublicized extra on the set last night...

RAMA

Sounds like a fun little toy I'm looking most forward too.