Which version of TOS is canon??

[Christopher]

Technically the remastered versions (which is not really a correct term since effects wise it's reimagined rather than remastered?)

They were remastered. All the live-action footage and audio was digitally restored to HD quality from the original film and audio masters. That was the primary purpose of the exercise, to make an HD-quality video release of TOS that looked and sounded far better than previous video releases. But since they didn't have access to the original FX film elements, they weren't able to remaster the FX shots to HD quality and had to replace them with CGI instead. So everything was remastered except the FX shots, which are just a few minutes out of each episode, a very small part of the whole.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

They were remastered. All the live-action footage and audio was digitally restored to HD quality from the original film and audio masters. That was the primary purpose of the exercise, to make an HD-quality video release of TOS that looked and sounded far better than previous video releases. But since they didn't have access to the original FX film elements, they weren't able to remaster the FX shots to HD quality and had to replace them with CGI instead. So everything was remastered except the FX shots, which are just a few minutes out of each episode, a very small part of the whole.

True they didn't have the raw prints of the effects shots, but they had the master prints of all the episodes, and thus the effects footage was cleaned up in line with the rest of the footage, as a whole episode. TNG had everything disassembled (mostly); TOS didn't, nor did it have the raw non-effects footage to use. Yes, the raw effects footage would have been amazing, but the completed master prints are the next best thing.

 

[Christopher]

TNG had everything disassembled (mostly); TOS didn't, nor did it have the raw non-effects footage to use. Yes, the raw effects footage would have been amazing, but the completed master prints are the next best thing.

To the connoisseur, perhaps. But the makers of the project were concerned with making TOS appealing to new audiences, a younger generation raised with HD television and having little tolerance for the lower image quality of older television. We dedicated fans shouldn't be so arrogant as to assume we're the only audience that deserves to be considered.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Which version of TOS is canon? The version that we watched in the 60s and 70s! Before ENT was added to the mix because Berman thought TOS was an embarrassment! And long before the endlessly futuristic Discovery was conceived which also was added because TOS needed to be brought into the twenty first century kicking and screaming! I wonder why they didn't just edit in the new effects and costumes onto the existing episodes then instead?
JB

I don't get why it's so important to make TOS canon with the other Treks? None of the follow ups ever connected with and when producers have an opportunity to do justice and make a connection, they don't even try. It's best that all of these incarnations are what they are: an interpretation set within their own universe. And Yes! Admiral Morrow was correct the movie Enterprise was 20 years old. Why? Because TMP Enterprise is not TOS Enterprise. It's completely different design.

 

[Henoch]

And Yes! Admiral Morrow was correct the movie Enterprise was 20 years old. Why? Because TMP Enterprise is not TOS Enterprise. It's completely different design.

Timeline is off. First, Kirk and Khan say it was 15 years since Space Seed. Twenty years puts it 5 years before that, or around 2263-2265. The refit was about 5 years after Space Seed or around 2273, so, the refit Enterprise was only around 10 years old. Twenty years takes us back to the beginning of the Kirk era and TOS implying that the Enterprise was brand new at the beginning of TOS. Maybe the Pike Enterprise got destroyed and replaced with a new ship with the same registry number but they didn't start using the "-A" suffix, yet. Explains the Constellation's low registry number, too.

 

[plynch]

It's completely different design.

To a connie-seur, yes. Man, I had the technical manual, the blueprints, a Trek nut in the 70s, and I never noticed the curve of the secondary hull was off, or the nacelles connect differently. I fully accepted it had a refit and unis changed. Everything in universe made sense to this 13-year-old in 1979.

They're going forward in time and things change.

To set a series before TOS and have it look more advanced and not a precursor visually to what we see in 2264 . . . that to me is a different thing than making a movie 13 years after a show and stating there have been upgrades.

Star Wars has kept its design/aesthetic ethos for 43 years through prequels, sequels, and spinoffs.

 

[Christopher]

To set a series before TOS and have it look more advanced and not a precursor visually to what we see in 2264 . . . that to me is a different thing than making a movie 13 years after a show and stating there have been upgrades.

What we see onscreen isn't the literal future, it's a present-day dramatic interpretation of the future. Any such dramatization made decades ago will look dated to us, because its ability to approximate the future was less than our current ability to do so. We just need to separate the surface appearance from what it was intended to represent. It would be silly to assume that 2260s technology literally looks like it was made with 1960s components like mechanical chronometer drums and toggle switches and light bulbs. Those were just the closest that a 1960s TV production could come to suggesting the far more advanced technology of centuries in the future. The 2250s technology of DSC isn't more advanced in-story; it's just our real-life ability to simulate it on TV that's more advanced.

 

[plynch]

Shoot, I thought it was a literal future.

We can do far more with graphics than they could in 1977, but targeting computers and scanners in Mandalorian look just like they did in ANH. Silly, primitive line/vector graphics. Like the SW video game I played at Pinball Pete's in 1985. But still they use them.

"Current" ship design aesthetics are different (cf. Trek 09, smooth, roundy, bulbous), but they didn't re-imagine Imperial cruisers. In fact, went BACK to imprecise physical models.

Trek could've made it work, had they wanted to. The fact they didn't is certainly the producers' choice. They're footing the bill and taking the risk.

 

[Christopher]

We can do far more with graphics than they could in 1977, but targeting computers and scanners in Mandalorian look just like they did in ANH. Silly, primitive line/vector graphics. Like the SW video game I played at Pinball Pete's in 1985. But still they use them.

I'll repeat what I said in another thread today about a different subject: I really wish people would stop assuming that just because Star Wars does something a certain way, that somehow requires Star Trek to do exactly the same. That makes no damn sense. The two aren't even in the same genre. Star Trek is science fiction purporting to take place in our own future. Star Wars is pure fantasy set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." So it follows that any ST production design should be projected forward from our current state of the art, while SW's production design can be timeless.

Not to mention that Star Wars is an exercise in nostalgia at its very core. It's George Lucas's homage to 1930s-40s Flash Gordon serials and '40s WWII movies and Kurosawa movies and '60s hot rod movies and Westerns and everything he loved as a child. So clinging to the past is its defining nature. Star Trek is the diametric opposite of that. It's about looking to the future, being on the cutting edge. So it's logical that ST's vision of the future should advance with the times, while SW's "long time ago" continues to be defined by nostalgia for what was. They are not even remotely the same thing and should not do things the same way. Star Trek came first, damn it. It has the right to set its own course.

 

[plynch]

Never said they're required to.

Producers can do what they want.

I can dislike what they do and wish for otherwise if I want.

I am merely rebutting the people who continue to say a consistent design ethos wouldn't have worked with today's viewers.

 

[Christopher]

I am merely rebutting the people who continue to say a consistent design ethos wouldn't have worked with today's viewers.

Art is not strictly pragmatic. It's not just about what "works." Or rather, just because one thing works doesn't mean it's the only thing that will. A lot of different things can work just as well in their own ways. And the great thing about creativity is that everyone gets to try different things.

 

[Noname Given]

To a connie-seur, yes. Man, I had the technical manual, the blueprints, a Trek nut in the 70s, and I never noticed the curve of the secondary hull was off, or the nacelles connect differently. I fully accepted it had a refit and unis changed. Everything in universe made sense to this 13-year-old in 1979.

They're going forward in time and things change.

To set a series before TOS and have it look more advanced and not a precursor visually to what we see in 2264 . . . that to me is a different thing than making a movie 13 years after a show and stating there have been upgrades.

Star Wars has kept its design/aesthetic ethos for 43 years through prequels, sequels, and spinoffs.

To be fair though Star Wars was designed for the large film screen; And had always had a large design budget.

 

[Shawnster]

To be fair though Star Wars was designed for the large film screen; And had always had a large design budget.

And stood on the shoulders of Star Trek. It learned from Star Trek's lead. They knew how to make their tech look like more than just a 60s TV show with blinky lights.

Star Trek's 60s TV design style would not stand up to a general audience today just like a Batman movie would not stand up today if it followed the design style of the 60s TV show.

Now, I think the TMP design style quality (change the uniforms) could stand up today with much less differences.

 

[Christopher]

And stood on the shoulders of Star Trek. It learned from Star Trek's lead. They knew how to make their tech look like more than just a 60s TV show with blinky lights.

But another difference is Star Wars was deliberately trying to make its tech look old, run-down, and lived-in. It was a deliberate departure from the previous norm of making futuristic tech look clean and sterile and brand-new. Designs that are meant to represent the cutting edge of technology get dated quickly; designs that are intentionally retro from the beginning are more timeless.

 

[fireproof78]

I'll repeat what I said in another thread today about a different subject: I really wish people would stop assuming that just because Star Wars does something a certain way, that somehow requires Star Trek to do exactly the same. That makes no damn sense. The two aren't even in the same genre. Star Trek is science fiction purporting to take place in our own future.

Precisely so. Reimaging visuals has been part of Trek since TMP and that is part of the setting. It isn't the same as Star Wars and treating them as the same is ridiculous, completely so. I love TOS aesthetic and all, but using technology the exact same way in a current production would make me roll my eyes. Tech has moved on. Trek, supposedly about future humanity, should too.

 

[Christopher]

Tech has moved on. Trek, supposedly about future humanity, should too.

Yup. Star Wars is explicitly "A long time ago." It's meant to be set in the mythic past, just of another galaxy instead of Europe or Middle-Earth or whatever. And the entire thing is an exercise in nostalgia, like pretty much everything else in George Lucas's career except for THX-1138. It's the diametric opposite of Star Trek, which looks to the future. It is missing the whole point to want ST to be forever stuck in a 1960s aesthetic. That was the last thing its creators would've wanted. That's why Roddenberry had everything redesigned when he made TMP. TOS's look wasn't perfect, it was just what they had to settle for given the available time, money, and technology. And they were glad to change it wholesale when given more of those things.

 

[mb22]

Yup. Star Wars is explicitly "A long time ago." It's meant to be set in the mythic past, just of another galaxy instead of Europe or Middle-Earth or whatever. And the entire thing is an exercise in nostalgia, like pretty much everything else in George Lucas's career except for THX-1138. It's the diametric opposite of Star Trek, which looks to the future. It is missing the whole point to want ST to be forever stuck in a 1960s aesthetic. That was the last thing its creators would've wanted. That's why Roddenberry had everything redesigned when he made TMP. TOS's look wasn't perfect, it was just what they had to settle for given the available time, money, and technology. And they were glad to change it wholesale when given more of those things.

Is it at all possible to have some middle ground between slavishly replicating the dated 1960s aesthetic and "changing it wholesale"? TMP, TNG, DS9 and VOY were supposed to be a step beyond TOS. ENT and DSC, however are supposed to precede TOS.

 

[Christopher]

Is it at all possible to have some middle ground between slavishly replicating the dated 1960s aesthetic and "changing it wholesale"?

Of course it is. Had it been up to me, I would've kept more of the basic aesthetic, shapes, and colors while updating the technology. But I wasn't the designer they hired, or the producer in charge of approving the designer's ideas. That's the thing about creativity -- everyone has different opinions about what looks good. You can disagree with someone's choices, but that doesn't mean they're objectively wrong, it just means your tastes differ from theirs.

And really, one of the core philosophies of Trek is Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. The message of the franchise is that we shouldn't be afraid of change and difference, but should welcome the opportunity to try new things. So it's fitting that the franchise allows each new set of production or makeup or costume designers to put their own spin on things. That makes it unlikely that every individual viewer will like every redesign, of course, but that's just the nature of experimentation.

 

[mb22]

And really, one of the core philosophies of Trek is Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. The message of the franchise is that we shouldn't be afraid of change and difference, but should welcome the opportunity to try new things. So it's fitting that the franchise allows each new set of production or makeup or costume designers to put their own spin on things. That makes it unlikely that every individual viewer will like every redesign, of course, but that's just the nature of experimentation.

That's absolutely fine in itself. But it does play havoc with those who like to see consistent world building. There are quite a few of authorized and unauthorized Trek reference sources that have tried to detail a somewhat consistent progression in uniforms, ships, interiors, technology, etc. Perhaps they should just call it a day?

 

[Christopher]

That's absolutely fine in itself. But it does play havoc with those who like to see consistent world building.

Worldbuilding is in the stories and ideas. The visuals are just superficial. It's like when a comic book gets a new artist who draws in a different style. The world hasn't changed, just the representation of it.

There are quite a few of authorized and unauthorized Trek reference sources that have tried to detail a somewhat consistent progression in uniforms, ships, interiors, technology, etc. Perhaps they should just call it a day?

There is no reality here. Everything is just pretending. So it shouldn't be expected to conform to the same standards of consistency as real life. You can create a work of make-believe that pretends to be an in-universe technical manual, but it's still just telling a story, in its own way. It has its own version of the putative reality it depicts, just like any work of make-believe does, and the fact that other works might differ from it is irrelevant to the internal narrative of the work itself. I've read plenty of fan tech manuals over the years, and they all interpret things in distinct ways, even back when there was only TOS and the movies to base them on.

Besides, Trek continuity has always been a moving target. I've always seen that as a feature rather than a bug. I've always maintained a personal chronology of novels and comics I counted in continuity, but it's a chronology that I've constantly had to change in response to information from new episodes and films. (When TNG: "The Neutral Zone" established a clear calendar date for the first time, I had to redo the entire thing from scratch to bump everything forward 60 years.) But as tedious as it could be sometimes to have to rearrange and recalculate the entire chronology or large parts of it (especially back when I did it all in pencil on notebook paper), I enjoyed the creative exercise of reworking it. The fact that it kept changing was a gift that kept on giving, because it kept giving me new opportunities to be creative and solve problems.

I would expect that the kind of people who enjoy creating fan technical manuals share my love of figuring things out and tackling creative challenges. Fan creators have been reconciling new Trek canon with old assumptions for three or four decades now -- I don't expect them to suddenly forget how to do that.