Odd Choices in TOS-R cgi fx

[ZapBrannigan]

I generally like the CBS Digital Enterprise, insofar as it is close to the original, but a couple of discrepancies bother me.

One is the font used. If you A/B these two pics, it's obvious they aren't the same:

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x03hd/thechangelinghd0899.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x03hd/thechangelinghd0902c.jpg

It's not like they changed U.S.S. to C.B.S. (although they may have discussed it), but still the alteration is pronounced.

The other big thing is the hull color. They went with a darker shade of gray.

Any theories on what motivated these changes?

Are there any other Enterprise-R issues on your mind?

 

[Maurice]

Plenty.

"Elaan of Troyius" provides several.

Choosing to break basic directional continuity. First the Klingon ship is flying right to left pursuing the Enterprise, then it's going left to right. Either that, or ignorance of the idea of directional continuity.

Not choosing to put an "A" effort into the Klingon battlecruiser. It's arguably the second most important ship in the series and they epic failed it with an atrocious low poly mess.

Choosing to show the Enterprise disappear behind the planet Troyius... which is visibly curved, making the planet only a few miles across.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Some bits of the TOS-R I loved, some bits drove me nuts.

A lot of the new CGI backgrounds were gorgeous, particularly when they replaced what had just been a repeated matte painting. I think my absolute favorite shot from TOS-R is the Botany Bay drifting away from the Enterprise under Kirk's log entry that starts with, "They have my ship." That was beautiful & very evocative.

But I hated it when they replaced live-action footage of Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley just to show off a CGI landscape in "Amok Time." That really seemed to be overstepping the bounds of the project.

And I don't know why they were so enamored of that super close-up profile of the Enterprise that just zoomed in on part of the hull. It wasn't a well-composed shot at all.

So it was a mixed bag, as far as I was concerned. When I rewatch the episodes, I generally go for the original versions.

 

[johnnybear]

The new versions I've seen are very good but I've never purchased them! I like the originals even if some of the new effects are better! The earth looks better in the new shots, rather than a green/yellow globe we get a cloudy blue sphere! Some parts of The Doomsday Machine look better but I stick with the original! The ship's nacelles being on screen in the new versions really annoys me as we never saw them the first time round plus it looks more cartoonish than model in my opinion!
JB

 

[Metryq]

The other big thing is the hull color. They went with a darker shade of gray.

Any theories on what motivated these changes?

The hull may be a darker shade of gray, or it may only appear darker, as the CGI rendering undoubtedly had greater control of exposure and lighting. The practical model often looked like a ghost on screen. I suspect that was due to efforts to control "blue spill" from the bluescreen backing. We've all seen the shot of the Enterprise breaking orbit toward the camera with its warp engines "nibbled" away—blue spill makes it hard to extract a clean matte.

The technology existed at the time to cope with such lighting issues. The VFX artists for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY shot multiple passes of ships like Discovery to produce the high contrast images that still look seamless today. All of that was done with mechanical rigs—no computer controlled model pylons and cameras. The hitch is that it cost a lot of time and money, and TOS was falling behind schedule with the VFX they had.

Aside from blue spill making the original Enterprise look lighter, the CGI hull may have been intentionally darkened in order to let the "specularity" (gloss) of the hull stand out. Note that there are even variations in the specularity—just past the bridge you will note some of the hull plating is slightly shinier than contiguous plates. That wouldn't stand out if the hull were a lighter gray.

As for the font, the change may have been intentional, or the artists may have thought the match was "good enough." (Anyone with a career bridging the mechanical era of graphic arts and computers will know that many long-established fonts are now available by the gross in cheap font packages. The look of a typeface may be similar, but changed "just enough" and will carry a different name.) The artists could have recreated the Enterprise stencil by hand—or even created an entire font package by hand (to facilitate other ships in the fleet). So why the change? One would have to ask the TOS-R artists.

The TOS-R effects varied; some looked "better," while others had a what-the-hull-were-they-thinking? quality that others have noted above. Some of the shots are very good—especially the matte paintings—I prefer to watch the episodes with the original VFX. Even the good TOS-R shots simply "don't fit" with the rest of the production and "push" one out of the viewing experience.

 

[Lance]

I must admit I hadn't noticed the font thing before (I'm... astonishingly not that perceptive about these things ), but now that it's been pointed out to me, yes I have to admit it's a weird choice to round off all the fonts like that. I wonder why they did it?

In terms of general nit-picks about TOS-R, my biggie is where we occasionally got a cross-fade that altered the original live-action material. For example, the end of "Spock's Brain": whereas the original shows slightly more of the crew larking about with the controls trying to make Spock shut up (before it fades to the credits), TOS-R fades out a little bit earlier than the original and so misses out on an amusing bit of business from Shatner, Kelley, etc that was there in the original. It's things like that I look at and I think, "why did they do that?".

EDIT: I see now JohnnyQuest037 has already mentioned this kind of thing:

I hated it when they replaced live-action footage of Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley just to show off a CGI landscape in "Amok Time." That really seemed to be overstepping the bounds of the project. [...] So it was a mixed bag, as far as I was concerned. When I rewatch the episodes, I generally go for the original versions.

It was definitely a mixed bag. I agree that some of it was awesome, and I felt a lot of the replacement effects were designed to be complimentary to the original shots (rather than simply replacing them for the sake of trying to 'update' TOS). But occasionally I do think they made the wrong calls on some of the things.

 

[Metryq]

In terms of general nit-picks about TOS-R, my biggie is where we occasionally got a cross-fade that altered the original live-action material.

In the case of "Spock's Brain," the shifted dissolve was because the original episode also dissolved into a VFX shot. If the new dissolve hadn't been shifted, the original dissolve would have been visible even as the new dissolve occurred, creating an overlap of three shots. If the raw footage still existed, the TOS-R crew might have kept the dissolve in the exact same place. Ergo, the raw footage must be unavailable (or tracking it down was too much effort for the TOS-R project).

 

[Dude111]

It's not like they changed U.S.S. to C.B.S. (although they may have discussed it), but still the alteration is pronounced.

The other big thing is the hull color. They went with a darker shade of gray.

Yes and its disgusting..... Not as many nice colours.....

Things getting worse is what caused these changes..... PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED TO THINK CRAP IS BETTER TODAY!!


No purity at all left,very sad......

 

[Lance]

In the case of "Spock's Brain," the shifted dissolve was because the original episode also dissolved into a VFX shot. If the new dissolve hadn't been shifted, the original dissolve would have been visible even as the new dissolve occurred, creating an overlap of three shots. If the raw footage still existed, the TOS-R crew might have kept the dissolve in the exact same place. Ergo, the raw footage must be unavailable (or tracking it down was too much effort for the TOS-R project).

Cheers, that makes sense.

 

[J.T.B.]

Not choosing to put an "A" effort into the Klingon battlecruiser. It's arguably the second most important ship in the series and they epic failed it with an atrocious low poly mess.

Agreed, a very important original design and model, it deserved a full effort.

I haven't seen much of the revised FX, but as I've mentioned before I couldn't believe the wobbling, side-shifting shuttle takeoff from the hangar deck. Talk about an unnecessary and nonsensical choice.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

About the only thing that I did like in the new VFX for TOS-R were some of the new "matte paintings." The Mojave scene in "The Menagerie" is probably the best.

 

[Marsden]

My biggest complaint is what they did to the Tholian ships, I think they took a well done model and made it look shity.

Another big downgrade was the exploding Klingon ship.

I have some minor complaints here and there, but most are just that, minor. I know not everyone agrees, but I have an overall positive regarding the remastering, the small or infrequent negatives outweighed by the improvements. While I certainly don't fault the original effects, I like the new ones better. I understand and actually agree with many that the new Enterprise cg looks less like a real ship, but I can see it better and I prefer a nice and clear cartoon ship than a poorly lit model ship in the same shot over and over.

 

[Bixby]

For the most part I really enjoy the remastered effect shots. But sometimes, sometimes I really want to throw my slipper at the screen in abject frustration.

Not because of the FX per se, but I sometimes get the feeling they were executed by a bunch of CGI artists on their own, with no general supervisor or animation director with actual film experience and knowledge.

For instance, DOOMSDAY MACHINE is my favorite of all TOS épisodes so any senseless alterations are going to jump out at me:
(1) I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure Star Trek as a show never used any cross-dissolves in its editing, for the most part hard cuts. But here at 1:07 the remastering uses a cross-dissolve to go from a bridge shot to a space shot for no reason (don't they know a cross-dissolve is to be used to indicate a passage of time?)

(2) at 18:12 not long after the Enterprise has first been attacked by the planet killer and separated from the Constellation, here they show the E flying straight towards the camera with no big gobbler behind it (this is a very wide shot BTW). Cut to inside the bridge with Spock saying they have outrun it (but not lost it). But at 18:40 we see the POV shot on the bridge main viewer at the planet killer looks like it is right BEHIND the Enterprise as it loses interest and turns around.
So where was it in the shot at 18:12? At least it should have been in the far distance behind the E.

(3) At 25:35 we see Kirk's POV on the Constellation auxiliary room's viewer of the Enterprise firing phasers at the planet killer. But right after that we cut to a bridge shot as Matt Decker yells out ''Fire''. Weren't they just doing that in the previous shot? The new FX made the Decker shot redundant. What they should have done was simply a shot as the Enterprise too dangerously approaches the machine, then cut to Decker.

(4) At 28:00 Sulu says ''we're being pulled inside'' as the Planet killer has locked a tractor beam on the Enterprise. But the FX shot seems to show the opposite as the Enterprise is basically fixed in space and instead the planet killer slowly pans into the scene. It can be argued this is a shot on the Enterprise as it is pulled towards the machine to make it more intimidating, but to me it looks more like the machine is approaching instead of the opposite the Enterprise is being pulled. The shot directly contradicts the intent of the line of dialogue.

(5) At 28:34 we have the classic bit where Kirk and Scott react gloriously to the Constellation's weak engines sputtering back to life and lurching forward to go fight its last battle (by the way, whatever happened to Washburn and the black guy during this?). I had always assumed that whole bit was to show that the Constellation was actually moving forward during this sequence.
However that is now contradicted at 29:08 as at the beginning it seems the Constellation goes from almost no forward momemtum to moving forward. This should have been a shot of the ship moving at continuous speed!

(6) At 30:23 the Enterprise is shown almost Inside the planet gobbler's maw only to be released and it starts to veer away. But man here the FX guys have the E too damn close to the maw, what about the brightness of its energies being almost blinding, as we see during the Matt Decker shuttle sequence later?

(7) Nothing to do with the effects and I love the battle scene between Decker and the redshirt, but how is it a two-fisted blow to a man's back will render him unconscious?

(8) continuity problem: At 36:57 we see the Inside shot of the landing bay with the doors opening. I think at the end of the shot they finish opening completely but I'd need to see this on a much better screen. However at 37:08 we go through the door opening action again from the outside view. The remastering team should have had the doors only begin to open at the end of the first shot.

 

[Metryq]

But sometimes, sometimes I really want to throw my slipper at the screen in abject frustration.

Hulk out, smash TV?

any senseless alterations are going to jump out at me:
(1) I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure Star Trek as a show never used any cross-dissolves in its editing

Dissolves were used from time to time, and "properly." In fact, the dissolve you are griping about is in the original—for the purpose of showing the passage of time as the Enterprise follows the trail of broken star systems. Perhaps you don't know the original episodes as well as you believe.

 

[Green Shirt]

(7) Nothing to do with the effects and I love the battle scene between Decker and the redshirt, but how is it a two-fisted blow to a man's back will render him unconscious?

Decker killed him by breaking his back.

 

[Warped9]

About the only thing that I did like in the new VFX for TOS-R were some of the new "matte paintings." The Mojave scene in "The Menagerie" is probably the best.

Pretty much this.

I found a lot of the choices questionable. But the overriding issue I have is that the new sequences look so contemporary and unlike anything that could have been done back in the day even under the best of conditions.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I freaking love the new effects for TOS-R. It makes the show a lot more enjoyable for me. The new effects are absolutely spot-on.

Although I admit I kinda wish they'd fixed the Constellation's registry number but that's just a minor thing, really.

 

[GeorgeKirk]

(7) Nothing to do with the effects and I love the battle scene between Decker and the redshirt, but how is it a two-fisted blow to a man's back will render him unconscious?

The two-fisted Decker Blow works on the same principle as the Shatner Chop.

 

[Melakon]

(7) Nothing to do with the effects and I love the battle scene between Decker and the redshirt, but how is it a two-fisted blow to a man's back will render him unconscious?

The two-fisted Decker Blow works on the same principle as the Shatner Chop.

When a man really, really needs to steal a shuttlecraft to perform a suicide run, he gains extraordinary powers.

 

[Metryq]

the overriding issue I have is that the new sequences look so contemporary and unlike anything that could have been done back in the day even under the best of conditions.

I don't know about that. As noted above, time and budget have a lot to do with how creative the artists can get. I know VFX tools, so I won't argue that the tools are vastly better now than in the '60s. Today's artists can do things not possible back then.

However, the Mojave background in "The Cage" was only a painted studio cyc. It could have been done better back in the '60s, but at what cost? The TOS-R upgrade, now known as "scene extension" rather than matte painting, used match-moving and rotoscope. Again, could the original have achieved a similar result using the studio cyc? Maybe...

One source states that Disney's ACES camera, developed for THE BLACK HOLE (1979), was the first system to permit moving matte painting shots. Yet FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) has a number of moving matte shots during the tour of the underground Krell machine. (By "moving" I mean the camera moves around, rather than being "locked off," a common telltale for composite shots back then.)

Time and money.

TOS's visual effects had a very "theatrical" feel, just like the rest of the show, with its colored lights, cucoloris, and blocking of actors. The VFX were staged in the theater of the mind, and did not need to look ultra-real. And that, I feel, is the missing element with the new visuals.