TOS-Remastered: a waste of time

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by F. King Daniel, Dec 14, 2009.

  1. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    The only complaints I have of what I've seen so far of "Blood and Fire" are all technical (camera angles, pacing, etc.) but storywise, I wouldn't change a thing.

    Well, I might snip the angle with the Klingons and the damage to the ship and put emphasis on the bloodworms, but other than that, I like what I see.

    Has anybody read the "Star Wolf" version of this story?
     
  2. Nerdius Maximus

    Nerdius Maximus Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Right before the dvd/blu-ray release, I heard someone walk up to a Best Buy employee and say "Whenzat new Star Trak movie comin' out?"
     
  3. trevanian

    trevanian Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, it's okay. Not as bad as MIDDLE OF NOWHERE by a long shot, but short of the first STAR WOLF novel (and way short of the 1978 rewrite of YESTERDAY'S CHILDREN.)
     
  4. RandyS

    RandyS Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, 10 or 12 years ago, so all I remember about it is that I liked it.

    That, and David Gerrold's account of the story's history at the start of the book.
     
  5. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It was part 2 I hated so much.

    Alex should’ve died at the end – as it was the episode plodded with lots of boring nothing-happening talking afterward. James C’s version of the Kirk Morality Speech was painful. Then, in the grand finale, Denise Crosby turned into a butterfly.

    Turned into a butterfly.

    …turned into a butterfly?

    TURNED INTO A BUTTERFLY.

    That then had butterfly babies.

    Oh dear.

    (I want to add that I liked “World Enough and Time” and the non-all-a-dream-BS first version of “To Serve All My Days”)
     
  6. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    This has been explained a million times over...personally I think the remastering is the best thing to happen to TOS since syndication.


    RAMA
     
  7. A beaker full of death

    A beaker full of death Vice Admiral Admiral

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    :rolleyes:

    Don't know what show that was.

    And TOS-R was a waste because it was UNNECESSARY. The original effects were fine. Many of the new ones were way too cartoony. I prefer the realism of the original.
     
  8. FalTorPan

    FalTorPan Vice Admiral Admiral

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    As I've opined in other threads of this type, the remastering is unnecessary, but so is TOS... or almost anything, for that matter.

    I've enjoyed what little I've experienced of TOS-R, and I enjoy and prefer the original versions of the episodes. Both are fun, and neither version looks at all realistic. Each version is a different flavor of "stylized reality," and that's okay.
     
  9. Steven Of Nine

    Steven Of Nine Commodore Commodore

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    Dude. Where were you in September 2006?

    The effects were done so they wouldn't look ridiculous on HDTV. And they do, if you use the option on the Blu Ray to watch the video with the original effects.

    It was a solid project, done well. Could it have been better? Yes, but not doing even more doesn't mean nothing should have been done.

    Don't like it? Don't buy it. Oh, and watching the effects on YouTube does not do justice to seeing them on a 1080p television.
     
  10. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    As has been stated repeatedly on this very thread, what looked perfectly fine on a 19" RCA set in 1967 doesn't hold up very well on a set made after 1992, and looks downright comical on an HDTV. If someeone was to magically produce the original elements of the effects footage, then perhaps that footage could be remastered and, essentially, cleaner high def versions of the original effects could've been produced, but that stuff is long gone.
     
  11. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    Yet another fan who doesn't know what "remastered" means.

    You start a threat about how the "remastered episodes" disappointed you, yet don't actually mention anywhere in the post the remastered film. You know, the part actually remastered. The new FX are new FX. They have nothing to do with the remastered video. I watch remastered Star Trek on blu-ray with the original special FX.

    "Remastered" and "new FX" are two different things.

    The point wasn't to change anything. The point was to, except for a few indulgences, make what basically amounts to high-definition versions of the original FX. The point was to keep all of the original intent.

    And, for that matter, the new FX were not the point of remastering the series. The series was remastered to preserve the film. The new FX were added just to spice it up, certainly not to be the main course. The whole point of Star Trek remastered was the HD transfer, something you're not going to see from youtube clips. Everything else was just icing on the cake.
     
  12. trevanian

    trevanian Rear Admiral

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    I thought I just addressed this in another thread, but the film didn't need preserving. Properly stored, film is THE medium for long-term preservation. Digital storage needs to be shunted round to avoid signal decay, and actually costs more given the amount of hands-on to keep that decay from occurring. The outlay for proper storage on film is initially high, but is now practically a fire-and-forget, because unless you have a major trauma, the film is going to remain viable and not decay. (They no longer store stocks that turn from blue to pink in good conditions, like was the case in the JAWS era.)
     
  13. milo bloom

    milo bloom Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Not disagreeing with what you say (mostly because you seem more on top of the technical stuff regarding film than I am), but sometimes the films do need to be re-transferred to keep them on good, current stock, but they also need refreshing from time to time to make new syndication master tapes. Not even considering overuse of physical tape copies, there's also leaps in transfer technology, and like it or not there are many people that will change the channel if a show is in black and white, or even if in color, is faded and overly grainy. That was likely a major reason for this project, and they happened to include the new FX as a way to help sell them into syndication. Let's face it, many of the FX were groundbreaking for their time, and were the product of hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears, but many of them were also victims of insufficient time and resources, and they can hurt the overall feel of the story. The quality of the writing can help people look past the day glo bridge sets and primary color uniform shirts, but when they cut to an exterior shot to show the enemy spaceship, and it looks like a kitbashed ERTL model, it just takes too many people out of the story.

    The fact that both versions are available shows that Paramount is aware of difference of opinion, and that they're not going trying to cram their new vision down our throats whether we like it or not (unlike somebody else I won't mention by name, but his initials are George Lucas).
     
  14. Chrisisall

    Chrisisall Commodore Commodore

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    Yep.
    This from a 60's fan.;)
     
  15. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    No need for magic, the TOS EFX were photographic and existed on film. I hadn't heard that the EFX footage was lost at any point.

    But the rats can still get it.
     
  16. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    The final product is on film. The individual elements, i.e., the model shots in front of the bluescreen, the separate animation cels, have long since been destroyed for the most part (the snipped color footage from "The Cage" very nearly was), so there's really no way to recomposite those effects shots. You can only recreate them from scratch, which means either dragging the 11-footer out of retirement, or cobbling together another model, and doing a lot of expensive blue and green screen work, or going the CGI route.

    As for the film that is still around, what isn't in private collections is being kept by Paramount in a salt mine, where it's expected to last around a hundred years.
     
  17. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Don't need any separate elements, since the EFX exist on that final 35mm interpositive film and can (and have) been played with to clean up the image. You can select the resolution from film fairly easily. The initial DVD release (the two episodes per disc one) in fact did this and had everything reprocessed inclusive of EFX, and I assume that since the Blu-Ray has the original broadcast version in HD as an option that re-processing was done on the entire interpositive in a similar fashion. Whether this looks good on anyone's particular HDTV is not something I can determine.
     
  18. ST-One

    ST-One Vice Admiral

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    Have you actually looked at some of TOS's VFX-shots?
    They are, in part, poorly composited together - they got away with it because of the lower resolution of the then TV-sets.
    But this isn't the case today anymore. The original VFX-shot just don't hold up against the live-action footage anymore at these higher resolutions.
     
  19. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Just because they suck in some people's opinions doesn't have to do with them not being able to process it. The implication in the first message that I replied to seemed to be that the EFX existed only at low resolution and so would look progressively worse as television got better, but the EFX were reprocessed from the interpositive film for HD resolution, same as the live action footage. Wasn't making comment on whether they looked good or not.
     
  20. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    Well, perhaps if I can get my grubby hands on a TOS Blu-Ray disc, I can hijack an HD set at Sam's Club and see how the original effects shots look in HD.

    Or, perhaps someone can chime in here..?