Your Calls: CGI Made it Better, CGI Made it Worse.
- Thread starter ZapBrannigan
- Start date
I actually think it’s absolutely fair to ask ‘does nostalgia play a part in your opinion-making process?’
None of us can give objective opinions on this. Opinions are by nature subjective.
None of us can give objective opinions on this. Opinions are by nature subjective.
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They are neither.
If they make the experience of watching TOS easier for a viewer in the 21st Century then they did their job.
Fans are gonna be fans. We always want to have the purest version. Generally speaking anyway. My wife’s a very casual Trek fan and she prefers the remasters.
Fair enough.
And both are readily available. That's big.
I like the originals for sure, but low polygonal count and other factors prevailing, TOS-R still won me over in fleshing out scenes and stories in ways that they might have wanted to do when first filmed but couldn't, and without going overboard or needlessly indulgent for the sake of "new shiny thing". Red Dwarf even parodied that in some of its "remastered" editions of its first three series, which were done in 1999 and yet they never did series IV through VII (and not just because the actual ship wasn't in VI and most of VII)...
I think it’s very generous to describe what you are describing as a deliberate parody.
It was an earnest attempt to bring the early seasons in line with the new.
Sadly, it looked shit.
Always sucks when family turns on you. My daughter had the audacity to come into my house and tell me she likes TNG better than TOS.
I love the remasters. I love the additions, like the BOP in "The Enterprise Incident" or changes to Woden and the starbase. To be honest, I'd have probably gone even further and I would have continued into TNG with changes for all the reused TOS films ships.
Without reading this thread:
Better:
Tomorrow is Yesterday. The shots of the Enterprise in the sky are amazing and Christopher's jet is photorealistic. The finale actually makes sense!
That's it. No other episode was actually "improved" unless you're new to the series or you feel 1960's effects ruin your viewing experience - and seriously, it's fine if it did. Taste and preference are subjective.
About the same.
Balance of Terror. The BoP is spot on, they recreated the angles just right, but I don't like the cloaking effect as much.
Worse:
The Doomsday Machine. And I'm being hard on it because it's my favorite Star Trek story franchise wide, so any changes at all would not sit well with me. I would have been okay with it but the effects guy missed the point of a few scenes and dialog when they made the effects.
In the original, Washburn finally get's the Aux Control viewscreen up, Kirk says "what the devil's going on?" and we cut to the operational screen showing us the Enterprise approaching the PK. We then cut to Decker giving what it presented as the first order to fire.
TOS-R:Kirk says "what the devil's going on?" and we cut to the screen and it's still showing all static for a moment AFTER he reacts. It is plainly obvious what's going on because they have the Enterprise firing already and Decker's dramatic "FIRE!" is now less dramatic as it's now the third or fourth time he's barked the order.
TOS-R: The Enterprise was taking evasive action while towing the Constellation? There was NO time between Kirk telling Decker he was gonna tow the ship and the planet killer's attack. Kirk was staying on board to "get her ready." So none of that happened. Spock took evasive action to draw the PK away from the defenseless Constellation.
Yes, the original phasers looked like cartoons. I really wish they went with any of the earlier or even later animations, but at least the energy discharge against the PK hull supported Sulu saying they bounced off. TOS-R looked like the energy was absorbed.
Also, I get that a lot of the space battle was made up of Enterprise stock shots, but they originally had energy to them where the new shows didn't. "Hard about, give me some distance!" was now followed by a sloowwwwww turn of the Enterprise.
I do like the strafing runs, the newly damaged Constellation and how the ship weaves its way into the maw of the PK. But this episode is an episode of how this time often missed the point of the dialog in favor of "fixing effects."
Same with Wink of an Eye. When Kirk orders they "sweep the area" with phasers, they added beams. Unnecessary. I liked some planetscapes replacing the Rigel 7 painting, but mostly, I enjoyed the CGI most when they tried to replicate the 60's shots rather than change them, like those obnoxious close ups of the Enterprise in orbit, making the Thasius the shape of a vessel, having Apollo's hand attach to Pollox 4 and so on. The Fesarius also looked like a video game, but the cube and the mini-version looked great. These effects have also aged very poorly and do not look organic to the series, but that could also be my 56 year old eyes who prefers the show as I always watched it. At least I have that choice.
The Ultimate Computer was also a disappointment. And the nova at the end of All Our Yesterdays does nothing for me. I love the original.
YMMV of course.
Better:
Tomorrow is Yesterday. The shots of the Enterprise in the sky are amazing and Christopher's jet is photorealistic. The finale actually makes sense!
That's it. No other episode was actually "improved" unless you're new to the series or you feel 1960's effects ruin your viewing experience - and seriously, it's fine if it did. Taste and preference are subjective.
About the same.
Balance of Terror. The BoP is spot on, they recreated the angles just right, but I don't like the cloaking effect as much.
Worse:
The Doomsday Machine. And I'm being hard on it because it's my favorite Star Trek story franchise wide, so any changes at all would not sit well with me. I would have been okay with it but the effects guy missed the point of a few scenes and dialog when they made the effects.
In the original, Washburn finally get's the Aux Control viewscreen up, Kirk says "what the devil's going on?" and we cut to the operational screen showing us the Enterprise approaching the PK. We then cut to Decker giving what it presented as the first order to fire.
TOS-R:Kirk says "what the devil's going on?" and we cut to the screen and it's still showing all static for a moment AFTER he reacts. It is plainly obvious what's going on because they have the Enterprise firing already and Decker's dramatic "FIRE!" is now less dramatic as it's now the third or fourth time he's barked the order.
TOS-R: The Enterprise was taking evasive action while towing the Constellation? There was NO time between Kirk telling Decker he was gonna tow the ship and the planet killer's attack. Kirk was staying on board to "get her ready." So none of that happened. Spock took evasive action to draw the PK away from the defenseless Constellation.
Yes, the original phasers looked like cartoons. I really wish they went with any of the earlier or even later animations, but at least the energy discharge against the PK hull supported Sulu saying they bounced off. TOS-R looked like the energy was absorbed.
Also, I get that a lot of the space battle was made up of Enterprise stock shots, but they originally had energy to them where the new shows didn't. "Hard about, give me some distance!" was now followed by a sloowwwwww turn of the Enterprise.
I do like the strafing runs, the newly damaged Constellation and how the ship weaves its way into the maw of the PK. But this episode is an episode of how this time often missed the point of the dialog in favor of "fixing effects."
Same with Wink of an Eye. When Kirk orders they "sweep the area" with phasers, they added beams. Unnecessary. I liked some planetscapes replacing the Rigel 7 painting, but mostly, I enjoyed the CGI most when they tried to replicate the 60's shots rather than change them, like those obnoxious close ups of the Enterprise in orbit, making the Thasius the shape of a vessel, having Apollo's hand attach to Pollox 4 and so on. The Fesarius also looked like a video game, but the cube and the mini-version looked great. These effects have also aged very poorly and do not look organic to the series, but that could also be my 56 year old eyes who prefers the show as I always watched it. At least I have that choice.
The Ultimate Computer was also a disappointment. And the nova at the end of All Our Yesterdays does nothing for me. I love the original.
YMMV of course.
True... I chose parody as they were (unintentionally) parodying themselves while parodying every other franchise that was doing similar things.
And, yep, it looked truly awful. Even the sock puppet looked better...
At that point… just Star Wars?
I think you’re reaching. There was no parody of anything. The trend you are describing in cinema occurred years after the RD remaster.
Just a typically under-budget attempt to do too much with too little, courtesy of the BBC.
TOS-R does erase some great trivia questions, such as:
Which two episodes have the Enterprise orbiting from right to left (as @ZapBrannigan said, Shore Leave is now switched back)
Which episode shot after the pilots have no shots of the Enterprise created for the series proper (before the facelift this was Charlie X - all of the ship shots were pilot stock footage).
Which episode has unused pilot footage of the Enterprise approaching a planet (used to be Dagger of the Mind - going into act 2)
I love all of the wonky early series effects, it's all part of TV production. But if you're not into that sorta thing (and almost 60 years on, I get it), then TOS-R is fine. I may do a rewatch of the show with the effects, but I loathe the rerecorded second and third season theme.
Which two episodes have the Enterprise orbiting from right to left (as @ZapBrannigan said, Shore Leave is now switched back)
Which episode shot after the pilots have no shots of the Enterprise created for the series proper (before the facelift this was Charlie X - all of the ship shots were pilot stock footage).
Which episode has unused pilot footage of the Enterprise approaching a planet (used to be Dagger of the Mind - going into act 2)
I love all of the wonky early series effects, it's all part of TV production. But if you're not into that sorta thing (and almost 60 years on, I get it), then TOS-R is fine. I may do a rewatch of the show with the effects, but I loathe the rerecorded second and third season theme.
No problem with that. Although I've had more than one person tell me (as fact, not as opinion) that TNG is better (not "I like TNG better") because the special effects are superior.Always sucks when family turns on you. My daughter had the audacity to come into my house and tell me she likes TNG better than TOS.
In a similar vein, I know people who cannot sit still to watch an old movie because it is black-and-white—their given reason. I prefer to think of TOS-R being done for the fans, not to make the show more palatable for "modern audiences." I'll have to stop at that point (no politics on the board), but the given reason many old films have been re-made is to make them suitable for "modern audiences." I'll be generous and concede that many producers are simply out of ideas.
And that's one reason age might come into play. 59. There's also a gestalt. Anyone who was not 12-years-old when Star Wars came out (not "A New Hope") can't understand the cinematic landscape at that time, and what the movie meant.
Anyone who first experienced Star Wars after 1997 also doesn't care about the theatrical editions either. The SE has been in circulation longer than the theatricals were at this point. To most people from a certain age forward, the Star Wars Saga runs in Episode order rather than release date. It's a totally different experience for them then it was for our generation.
There is no "I am your father" shock, no mystery of "there is another," no wondering who Darth Vader really is. Now there are other questions...
"Why is Obi-Wan lying to Luke about this dad?"
"Oh gross, is Leia kissing her brother?"
"Wait....Leia remembers her mom somehow? Why doesn't Luke?"
Actually, we also have those questions.
Also 65. I didn’t see TOS in the ‘60s, but started watching regularly around 1970/71, along with U.F.O. In the ‘60s I saw Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Lost In Space, Time Tunnel, Land Of The Giants, Batman, The Adventures Of Superman, Space Ghost and The Man From U.N.C.LE. I watched most of those with my older brother and somehow I missed seeing TOS. I don’t recall if my brother was aware of it before I was. But once I saw TOS all that other stuff was largely set aside and forgotten. For me in the ‘70s it was Star Trek, U.F.O. and The Six Million Dollar Man.
What probably would have been best would have been the remastered effects filtered through the darker, murkier, grainier look of the filmstock the original effects were shot on.
The one major thing that taints the cgi for me is them doing things that simply couldn’t have been done back in the day even under the best of conditions. It destroys all sense of authenticity. This includes inserting/retconning things that simply wouldn’t have been conceived of back then.
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Yeah, I don't mind all different ship angles and designs to change things up. Different landscapes and planets each time, but some things are just too ahead of their time. Too much motion control, super close ups, ultra realistic planets, etc. There's a difference between bleeding mattes and a matte painting. Photo realistic planets were just not possible then, not on the scale TOS-R shows us. And the Enterprise has no weight (or mass).
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