I'm ok with remastering, provided the original remains available.
Here's the thing, and there's no getting around it:
TOS was intended to be viewed on a low-definition broadcast TV. In going back to the negatives, they wound up with beautiful prints. I'm a lifelong, Barely First Fandom TOS fan. I've been studying every frame -- in detail -- since at least 1976.
It's never looked as beautiful as in HD. There are things I learned about the props and sets that were not visible until that time.
Now, I want to preface what I'm going to say about the visual effects:
They were the best possible for the time period. People look at them now and go, "How cheap can you get?" without realizing that they were expensive -- and the best you'd ever see on lo-def broadcast TV.
They were never shot with HD in mind. But where live-action footage looks amazing the accompanying original effects simply don't. They look sadly dated -- as is the case with all SF beyond a certain point.
Forbidden Planet is beautiful in HD -- but the effects look dated.
I've even been told that the effects in Star Wars (the 1977 original) now look dated.
I suppose they do. We've come a long way. In fact, I've discovered the hard way that we've reached a really weird place with modern visual effects.
I made the mistake of screening Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 3D. What I discovered was that the CGI was so good that in 3D, the helicarriers looked like a highly-detailed models. Worse, because of how it was shot, I could get no conception of their scale. They just looked like models.
Now here's the really good part from a fan perspective:
Most films are now shot with digital cameras. These cameras have a very high upper resolution, but it's still fixed. In 20 years, the 2009 Star Trek is not only going to look dated, it's going to look pixelated.
Not so TOS. it was shot on film. With the next TV resolution standard, they can go back and make a Really Really Really HD print.
It's going to look even more beautiful than 1080p. It will not be pixelated, because you can blow up flim quite a lot without losing definition.
But the Remastered effects -- like the originals -- are going to look dated.
Here's why the re-creation of effects has a place, IMNSHO:
I was standing outside a screening of Star Trek 2009 waiting to enter the theater. The prior showing's crowd was leaving. A little boy was waxing enthusiastic about the film and how he now wanted to go watch TOS.
Yay! A convert!
The thing is that kids that age have no regard for 1960s special effects. The VFX that dominated the 2009 and later films are not in TOS. At all.
Then I heard the father give his son the best advice possible:
"Well that's great, son -- I love the original Star Trek. But it was made a while ago, so it won't be as fancy as this."
Good call. Set the kid's expectations so when he says, "Dad, why does the Enterprise look so fake?" the father can say, "Well, son, they made this show about 20 years before I was born. It wasn't possible to do what they can now. This was actually pretty cool stuff at the time. And if you can look past it, they tell some good stories."
And all that said ... I'm not against occasionally remastering the original and recreating the effects for a higher definition. It's true that some of the CGI in Remastered is jarring if you've spent a lifetime watching the original. They didn't go too crazy with it, and I'm ok with what they did.
I think next time around (when the video standard is 256K not a measely 4K) they'll do even better.
You unfortunately can't get new, young fans interested in 1960s low-def visual effects. You just can't. I tried for years with my kids and had very limited success. They've literally never seen effects so primitive. It jarringly takes them out of the moment.
For them, you have to get to The Trilogy (ST2-4) before it becomes "real" for them. They will sit and watch The Trilogy with me.
They will watch "City," as will any sane fan of visual drama. Dated effects or not, it's become a Classic. In another fifty years, or a hundred, if they look back fondly on TOS, it will be "City" they remember.
"City" has become a Classic. It's up there with Casablanca. And no, I'm not kidding.
"City" is the Star Trek episode that has survived my granparents' generation, my parents' generation, my generation, and my children's generation.
It will survive until Humanity can no longer empathize with every character -- and that will be never.
"The City On the Edge Of Forever" has become a true Classic.
But my kids' reaction to almost any effects-heavy episode is to be jarred out of the moment.
That's another reason "City" is a Classic. It's a timeless period piece. It needs no effects to tell the story, and what were used now appear charming. It adds to the timelessness of the story.
I'm ok with remastering both the negatives and recreating the visual effects -- provided you keep it simple. "The Doomsday Machine" should never become too complex.
I will admit here and now that I liked what they did with "The Doomsday Machine." Their decision not to add the whine of the planet-killer's tractor beam is odd. Daniels clearly shot the scene with everyone reacting to it.
However, I liked the effects. The asteroid fields were appropriate. As Barely First Fandom, I can recall many geek session about how the planet-killer somehow left no debris. After carving up planets.
Gorrammed right, there should be asteroids -- and a frak-ton of them.
I'm also on-board with the Enterprise, Constellation, and shuttlecraft being a bit more mobile. It was not over-done, IMNSHO. It was an outright battle, and the more mobile craft only underscored it.
Oh, also, the shuttlecraft being retconned to not-Galileo resolved a longstanding fannish dispute:
The first Galileo was lost at Taurus II. Due to stock footage, every shuttle seen after is still the Galileo. The next time we see her exterior is in "The Way to Eden." She's obviously a replacement, so why wasn't it labelled II before?
With a very slight retcon, it both cleared up the problem and made die-hard purists furious.
Well, I don't mind that retcon. It's not harmful to the story in any way. I doubt the current generation can appreciate how frequently we argued about that one little item.
In any case, TOS isn't as "fancy" as the 2009 and later films. The non-CGI version takes the modern viewer out of the moment.
That's a problem for new, young fans. It just is. I wish it weren't, but it is.
If we want to keep TOS alive and vital for new fans, we're probably going to have re-created visual effects.
Again, I'm fine with it -- provided the original is also available.
Dakota Smith
Spockboy
