Odd Choices in TOS-R cgi fx

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I'm watching TOS-R for the first time on Blu-ray... and probably the last. For everything I like about the new effects, I find two things I don't. And I always cringe when I see a shuttle or the shuttlebay.

All they needed to do was clean up the film for HD presentation, that was it. But they messed about with the audio as well, which means that even if I watch the original FX versions, the audio isn't truly original.

Totally unrelated, but I'm also watching original Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray, which they did indeed release after just cleaning up the print (and giving the audio a surround upmix). Damn that show looks good! For a sci-fi from 1978, its production values have stood up really well, and I'd say it looks better than most of Berman Trek.

 

[spockboy]

Spockboy

 

[Lance]

^

 

[Warped9]

Spockboy

 

[Ssosmcin]

I'm watching TOS-R for the first time on Blu-ray... and probably the last.

All they needed to do was clean up the film for HD presentation, that was it. But they messed about with the audio as well, which means that even if I watch the original FX versions, the audio isn't truly original.

Yay, someone else who noticed! Or, at least, who gives a crap.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Yay, someone else who noticed! Or, at least, who gives a crap.

I think a bunch of us care about it, but we've resigned ourselves to not having a pure experience. During the 70s, whole scenes were cut for commercial time, which often meant good music was left out, and in the 80s it was a never-ending string of tiny cuts within scenes, trimming out bits of dialogue and characterization. Now it's the overall soundtrack.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Here's one that drives me nuts - the arbitrary changing of the color scheme of Scalos in "Wink of an Eye"... What were the remastered people thinking? "Oh, those poor dumb people in the 60s obviously didn't mean to make this cityscape blue -- We'll fix it"?

Don't be so snarky.

I'm a stand up comedian from New Jersey. "Snarky" is my default state.

 

[Metryq]

Yay, someone else who noticed! Or, at least, who gives a crap.

I think a bunch of us care about it, but we've resigned ourselves to not having a pure experience. During the 70s, whole scenes were cut for commercial time, which often meant good music was left out, and in the 80s it was a never-ending string of tiny cuts within scenes, trimming out bits of dialogue and characterization. Now it's the overall soundtrack.

Temporal Police reporting to central authority:
"Sir, I don't think we need to worry about that sudden flood of time travelers from the early 21st century reflexing back to the 1960s and 1970s. Agents have determined there is no time war being fought. Historical indices remain stable."

"Then what is it?"

"Fans of the original STAR TREK TV series and the first STAR WARS movie looking for that pure, pre-franchise experience. A few 'LPs-are-better' activists tried to interfere with the development of audio CDs, but they were all arrested and sent back up-line."

 

[tafkats]

And yet shots like this got left alone...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Temporal Police reporting to central authority:
"Sir, I don't think we need to worry about that sudden flood of time travelers from the early 21st century reflexing back to the 1960s and 1970s. Agents have determined there is no time war being fought. Historical indices remain stable."

"Then what is it?"

"Fans of the original STAR TREK TV series and the first STAR WARS movie looking for that pure, pre-franchise experience. A few 'LPs-are-better' activists tried to interfere with the development of audio CDs, but they were all arrested and sent back up-line."

I can totally see that scene being acted out by Dulmur and Lucsly, BTW.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Yay, someone else who noticed! Or, at least, who gives a crap.

I think a bunch of us care about it, but we've resigned ourselves to not having a pure experience. During the 70s, whole scenes were cut for commercial time, which often meant good music was left out, and in the 80s it was a never-ending string of tiny cuts within scenes, trimming out bits of dialogue and characterization. Now it's the overall soundtrack.

I can't just buckle in and enjoy the sound mix. I should probably just let it go, I mean, it's just sound effects and some music, right? What's it doing to the stories? Nothing. But damn it, I can't enjoy it as much unless it sounds right to me. So, I hold onto my Lasers...

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

This reminds me of Red Dwarf remastered, which, following George Lucas's tinkering of the original trilogy stared a bandwagon that everyone seemed to leap on, adding new effects an CGI to old shows and movies. I can't think of a single instance where such tinkering was wholly appreciated by fans.

For Seasons 1-3 of Red Dwarf, they went back and redid the effects shots with CG, and filmmised the videotape, this was back around 1997-98, so you got a CG Red Dwarf, CG Starbug and Blue Midget, extended polymorph scenes...

I can't think of anyone who watches them now, even the repeats of Red Dwarf are of the original series, not the remastered. Only the hardcore of hardcore fans bought them when eventually released on DVD, although the VHS tapes sold well, just to have everything Red Dwarf in their collections.


I think that fifteen years from now, TOS-R will be a distant memory too, while the original series will still be watched. And Paramount/CBS do indeed have me over a barrel, as when TOS as meant to be is released on Blu-ray, I will buy it again for the original audio, and hopefully cleaned up original effects.

Thinking of wholescale Lucasing, the alteration of original materials with CGI, I can't think of a single title that I'm happy with. They tried it with Ghost in the Shell, I prefer the Theatrical release of Die Hard 4 to the CGI blood and overdubbed swears of the Unrated Cut, and while I was happy with the 10th Anniversary release of Blade Runner, the different edit with the voiceover removed, when Ridley Scott finally created his Final Cut, some of his further alterations I didn't like.

They really need to stop changing things for current audiences as that's insulting the intelligence. These things stand the test of time surprisingly well unmolested.

 

[Vger23]

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......

U mad bro?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think that fifteen years from now, TOS-R will be a distant memory too, while the original series will still be watched. And Paramount/CBS do indeed have me over a barrel, as when TOS as meant to be is released on Blu-ray, I will buy it again for the original audio, and hopefully cleaned up original effects.

That's the problem with doing this stuff -- you're never really done. Today's state-of-the-art special effects will look really outdated in a decade or less. So you're constantly chasing after a perfection that's just beyond your reach. Better to just leave things as they are and let them stand as products of their time.

They really need to stop changing things for current audiences as that's insulting the intelligence. These things stand the test of time surprisingly well unmolested.

I agree 100%.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Apologies if it was mentioned and I somehow missed it, but the most annoying of the "fixes" in the new versions has nothing to do with new effects, but in needlessly altering an old shot.

Namely, The Apple. Why, oh why, was it considered necessary to re-tint the original shots of the storm clouds? They were a great example of old-school techniques done to perfection, real-life clouds and sky tinted red to match the red sky on the live action set. It was just so perfect, but along come the new guys, and recolored the shots to a gray cast which in no way looks right, or was necessary to the story-telling. Why waste time on that? It's so annoying I can't even watch it.

I'm normally inclined to not judge the work of others in whose shoes I didn't tread, but I defy anyone (including the remastering team) to offer a logical explanation for this.

 

[Metryq]

Today's state-of-the-art special effects will look really outdated in a decade or less.

Disagree strongly, and that's the mentality that drives Lucasing. "Time for a remake. The effects on this 10-year-old movie are outdated!" The work in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is as visually stunning now as it was the day it was released almost half a century ago.

As we've discussed in this thread and other threads, photo-realism is not the only criteria by which to measure VFX. Still, I've seen lots of films older than 2001 which pass muster as "photo-real." VFX also have style. In my opinion TRON LEGACY utterly bombed from every angle—including VFX, yet current CGI is so much "better" than that from the early '80s. The work in THE RIGHT STUFF was not photo-real, yet had an organic edge that matched the stylized telling of history. And I challenge anyone to tell me—with a straight face—that the 2002 TIME MACHINE was better in any way than George Pal's 1960 classic.

Better to just leave things as they are and let them stand as products of their time.

Agree completely. Art is a product of deadlines, resources and so many other factors; art is the result of those choices and perhaps compromises. (Going back to "fix" it later is just wrong.) And yes, art is a product of its time.

 

[Lance]

Compromise is sometimes one of the biggest factors in art, some of the best movies were results of one thing or another having to change as a result of circumstance.

I think that's what rankles me about the Star Wars re-edits. Lucas comes back to a product with the ability to 'fix' things he perceived as having gone wrong... scenes he always wanted to include, but for one circumstance or another he couldn't... but sometimes less is more, and the imagination fills in the blanks. Sure he never quite achieved in 1977 everything he wanted to, but the movie was what it was, and by most accounts it was successful. Going back and changing it tends to fly in the face of the compromises of the time perhaps having had some part in that success.

 

[Maurice]

Hey, I adore 2001, and many/most of the effects remain spectacular, even projected on a big screen, but some of the use of photo cutouts for shots of the orbiting bombs and is painfully obvious now because of the complete lack of perspective change.

 

[Metryq]

^ Every shot of the Orion shuttle (except for the last shot at docking) does not change perspective either—despite the fact that it was a model. So I guess 2001 is ripe for Lucasing or even a complete remake. The C-57D from FORBIDDEN PLANET was not encrusted with surface detail and windows, so there is no visual scale. Add that one to the "IN" basket, too. And THE MATRIX? Complete garbage. The shadows are all wrong.

 

[Maurice]

My point is the satellite shots are the most obvious ones, not that they're the only ones.