Original Effects Cleaned up with the help of AI...????

[UssGlenn]

Ted Turner's foray into colorizing black and white movies during the 80s - including Casablanca - was about the same thing for the time.

In Ted's defense, the workflow for that meant every colorized film needed to have the original black and white print cleaned up and preserved in its best possible state. So it was a net win for film preservation. They never would have spent the money on that otherwise.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Wasn't the ship filmed on 16 mm film, while the regular filming was on 35 mm film? This could cause some quality loss like with graininess.

I somehow never knew that. I thought the extra graininess came in when they replaced the blue screen with stars and planets, due to generational loss (copy of a copy) issues. Not sure if that would account for all this loss of resolution, probably not:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season3/319-cloudminders/cloudminders-br-001.jpg

There are some BTS photos of Linwood G. Dunn with the camera in front of the 11-footer. Those are pretty cool.

 

[Pauln6]

The Roddenberry Archive Blu-ray set had a bunch of the VFX shots in very good quality, so there’s at least something to start with.



As a side note, it’s interesting the VFX material was presented the best out of all the outtake footage on the set. The live action outtakes were all presented in wonky aspect ratios and slightly step-printed to further downgrade the material, which I still think is a shame.

I admit, I have used a bit of AI generated material to fill in the blanks of my homebrew TMP Memory Wall scene but I am not generally in favour of revamping old shows too much. I like most of the alien ship effects in the remastered TOS but they made the Enterprise shots look too clean and crisp. Maybe if the ship is blurred with added grain it might look better.

I might be tempted to use AI to clean up the decent outtakes but I have not seen them so I am not sure it is worthwhile.

I am tempted to try and use AI to plug the many plot holes/tech inconsistencies in the Enterprise Incident to make it a proper Mission Impossible episode. Things like explaining why Romulan shields were down to allow Kirk to beam aboard, after SNW, maybe have McCoy recruit Chapel to adminster that magic injection to make Kirk more Romulan and harder to spot. And some sort of sabotage device to slow Romulan reaction and pursuit. Main problem there would be generating bridging dialogue. I found voice cloning to be very limited.

 

[Metryq]

Next up: Star Trek Ship of Theseus edition

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I somehow never knew that. I thought the extra graininess came in when they replaced the blue screen with stars and planets, due to generational loss (copy of a copy) issues. Not sure if that would account for all this loss of resolution, probably not:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season3/319-cloudminders/cloudminders-br-001.jpg

There are some BTS photos of Linwood G. Dunn with the camera in front of the 11-footer. Those are pretty cool.

Is this sort of generational loss worse with smaller film?

 

[Metryq]

Is this sort of generational loss worse with smaller film?

Yes. Smaller frame means larger relative size of film grain. And each new "generation" (copy) consumes resolution in the form of "grain as detail" that must be preserved. Each generation also adds more contrast, etc.

A simple, straight duplication of a piece of film is one thing. But composite effects often require multiple steps and passes through the optical printer. One of the ways the VFX artists got the highest quality VFX for 2001: A Space Odyssey was by doing "latent" composites. That is where the film is exposed multiple times by rewinding and making another pass. 2001 did have some composite work requiring optical printers or animation stands, along with hand rotoscoped travelling mattes, etc. But the work was extremely conservative—as close to one shot as possible, as though the scenes were real.

Larger film stock, like 70mm (which is actually 65mm before audio) is expensive. VistaVision used cheaper 35mm stock horizontally, rather than vertically, as with most film formats. Thus, it provided a frame similar to that of 70mm for less money. Vista was "obsolete" by the time Star Wars came out, so the nascent ILM was able to buy up Vista cameras for VFX work cheaply. Special, custom-made Vista cameras were built for the sequel (The Empire Strikes Back).

Want your mind really blown? IMAX uses 70mm film "Vista-style," which is why those movies are so strikingly sharp and clear.

 

[CoveTom]

Yeah I'm strictly talking about the effects. Not changing any of them just making them cleaner. Get rid of the stars bleeding though the ship for example...stuff like that. As for what version of the ship to use ...EXACTLY what's already there. I just want clearer versions of the original effects and I think AI can fill in those holes now. Production errors like a reverse image of Kirk don't need to be fixed.

Nah, I'd rather just have the episodes as they originally existed, warts and all.

 

[Captrek]

If you want to recapture the feel of watching it like you used to, the non-remastered or remastered-with-original-effects is adequate. If you want to get something that looks good on a modern TV, the remastered is adequate. They’re not going to create yet another version that attempts to be the ultimate ideal of hardcore Trek fans. It’s not going to get new people watching the show and it’s not going to sell a lot of media. A new version of the effects may be feasible as a fan project, but I think another official release seems unrealistic.

 

[Tosk]

The excuse when they put the new effects in TOS was they could not convert them to HD.

I'm slightly confused by what you're saying here. The original effects are in HD on the Blu-ray.
They do have all the old compositing artifacts and filming limitations baked in though, of course.

If Ai was used to bring those shots up to modern standards, they would no longer actually be the original shots. The only way to really get a true to film clean-up without a computer guessing for you would be to re-scan the actual filming elements.

 

[Dar70]

I'm slightly confused by what you're saying here. The original effects are in HD on the Blu-ray.
They do have all the old compositing artifacts and filming limitations baked in though, of course.

If Ai was used to bring those shots up to modern standards, they would no longer actually be the original shots. The only way to really get a true to film clean-up without a computer guessing for you would be to re-scan the actual filming elements.

Yes I know. I'm just saying instead of the ones they put in the Remastered which are jarring. I would like to see the original shots redone with Ai. It could be done I would think where it would not look artificial. Sure they would not be 100% original anymore. But they would fit the show better.

 

[UssGlenn]

Obviously Individual frames are easier because you don't have to worry about consistency, but as a general idea here an example:

 

[Tosk]

It's funny to see that the Ai's training clearly utilized images of other Ent models, because it has introduced details that are not present in this TOS shot but can be seen elsewhere. (Extra windows on the saucer rim, neck, and drive section. Scoring on some edges of hull plating. And it attempted to put the 1701 on the saucer underside but kinda gave up/just gave some jumbled black bits. It also put hull details on the Botany Bay that are from TOSR, not TOS.)

 

[Dar70]

It's funny to see that the Ai's training clearly utilized images of other Ent models, because it has introduced details that are not present in this TOS shot but can be seen elsewhere. (Extra windows on the saucer rim, neck, and drive section. Scoring on some edges of hull plating. And it attempted to put the 1701 on the saucer underside but kinda gave up/just gave some jumbled black bits. It also put hull details on the Botany Bay that are from TOSR, not TOS.)

What would be cool is if it used current existing imagines of the 11 ft model and cleaned up the image with that info.

 

[Dar70]

Obviously Individual frames are easier because you don't have to worry about consistency, but as a general idea here an example:

Right this is kinda what I'm talking about. Though it didn't really need to add more stars. Tbh this is one of the shots from TOS that is done pretty well and really doesn't need to much. The ones that I would really like to see are where half of the Nacelles are invisible or part of the saucer etc.