number6
Vice Admiral
Why don't you ask him?
TOS original or Remastered, which is canon?
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That would be very difficult at this time.
Bob Justman was not paid at all for TOS-R. He was kind enough to help us by answering some questions at the beginning of the project, but he didn't ask for money.
Later, when the show aired, he surprised me by telephoning, completely unexpectedly. He raved that TOS-R was "better than I could possibly imagine," and that it left him "filled with joy." To tell the truth, I was a little embarrassed by this, since after all this was still 98% his work and the work of his colleagues, but I must say it felt a lot better than an angry call would have.
(I've seen Bob Justman angry. [Fortunately not at me!] Trust me, you didn't want to see Bob angry!)
-Mike
Later, when the show aired, he surprised me by telephoning, completely unexpectedly. He raved that TOS-R was "better than I could possibly imagine," and that it left him "filled with joy." To tell the truth, I was a little embarrassed by this, since after all this was still 98% his work and the work of his colleagues, but I must say it felt a lot better than an angry call would have.
(I've seen Bob Justman angry. [Fortunately not at me!] Trust me, you didn't want to see Bob angry!)
-Mike
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It's times like this, I feel like changing my screen name to Zathras...
^It's not "completely replaced," since the original versions are still available. And I'd imagine they probably feel honored by the tribute to their work. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I think some of the people who are complaining about the changes are operating under the misapprehension that creators would be absolutely loyal to the results of their work. On the contrary, creators often look back on their earlier works with disappointment, because they weren't as skilled then or because they didn't have the means to achieve the full effect they were striving for. This is why so many movies have directors' cuts on DVD, why so many writers go back and revise their earlier stories for republication, why George Lucas keeps tinkering with Star Wars. Creators are rarely satisfied with every single detail of a past creation. Some might even be annoyed if fans place more value on the limitations and mistakes of their earlier works than on the underlying intent they were trying to convey. That strikes me as missing the point. Pre-digital optical effects were an impressionistic art form, and it's a mistake to take them too literally.
The goal of TOS's effects artists was not to produce shots with visible matte lines and color-correction problems and generational loss and constant recycling of stock footage with resultant continuity errors. Their goal was to create the impression of a futuristic starship flying through space. The new shots are true to the designs, compositions, and aesthetics of the originals but have fewer of their technical limitations and repetitions, so the creators of the original shots might very well look at them and go, "Yes, that's what I saw in my head all along!"
I think some of the people who are complaining about the changes are operating under the misapprehension that creators would be absolutely loyal to the results of their work. On the contrary, creators often look back on their earlier works with disappointment, because they weren't as skilled then or because they didn't have the means to achieve the full effect they were striving for. This is why so many movies have directors' cuts on DVD, why so many writers go back and revise their earlier stories for republication, why George Lucas keeps tinkering with Star Wars. Creators are rarely satisfied with every single detail of a past creation. Some might even be annoyed if fans place more value on the limitations and mistakes of their earlier works than on the underlying intent they were trying to convey. That strikes me as missing the point. Pre-digital optical effects were an impressionistic art form, and it's a mistake to take them too literally.
The goal of TOS's effects artists was not to produce shots with visible matte lines and color-correction problems and generational loss and constant recycling of stock footage with resultant continuity errors. Their goal was to create the impression of a futuristic starship flying through space. The new shots are true to the designs, compositions, and aesthetics of the originals but have fewer of their technical limitations and repetitions, so the creators of the original shots might very well look at them and go, "Yes, that's what I saw in my head all along!"
Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Okuda.
number6
Vice Admiral
This! And certainly the latter a sentiment expressed by Bob Justman who certainly oversaw most of the hands on production of the show.
Besides, last I heard, the eleven-footer is still at the Smithsonian.
It's probably what a lot of us saw in our heads all along. The thing about old-school effects is that, as I said, they were impressionistic. They were meant to suggest certain things that we filled in the rest of the way with our imaginations. So what we saw in our heads was always better, more realistic, more elaborate than what the actual shots contained. And that was exactly what the FX artists wanted: to inspire our imaginations to see more than what was actually there. So when the artists behind TOS-R created these new shots, they were paying tribute to the original FX artists, saying to them, "Here, this is what your work inspired me to imagine." So to interpret it as a slight against the original creators just makes no sense to me.
Well, all those artists you mention are tinkering with their own creations (although, Lucas replacing model shot with digital shots in ANH rings the same bells with me as TOS Enhanced). But how would you feel if, say, your publisher decided to include one of your stories in an anthology, and commisioned a different author to rewrite it to fit the style of the other stories?
I'm afraid I have to heartily disagree with this sentiment. I'm sure the effects crews and model makers were doing their damndest to make things look as realistic as they possibley could. I'm sure digital artists do the same. But I don't think the end results of either are necessarily more or less impressionist or realistic than the other. I've been watching the enhanced blurays lately, and I'm seeing both very good CGI, and some piss-poor CGI. None of it any more real-looking than the best shots of that beautiful 11-foot model that was made by skilled craftsmen (and some of it as fake-looking as that AMT model wobbling toward the planet killer).
That's a poor analogy, because the expectations are different. Prose is generally a solo effort, but filmmaking is a collaborative process. What you're suggesting would be an outrage in prose, but a routine and expected practice in filmmaking.* In filmmaking, individual creators rarely do all the creative work themselves; rather, they're working as part of a team, and that team is under the supervision of a director or producer. So any ideas they have are subject to change from the get-go. Every design proposal, every shot, has to be submitted to the producer or director for approval, and if they don't like what you did, it's entirely within their purview to order you to change it or to tell someone else to change it. So the kind of proprietary attitude you're assuming just doesn't apply in a medium as collaborative as film or television, certainly not in any echelon below the producer level. Having your work redone or replaced by someone else is something that happens all the time in that industry, and it's accepted because it's understood that you're a participant in a collaboration, a team working to realize someone else's vision.
*Case in point: When Roddenberry and Richard Arnold were keeping close rein on the Trek tie-in novels, they had a couple of books taken out of their contracted authors' hands and rewritten by other authors. This is something that's done all the time with TV and film scripts, so they didn't see anything wrong with it, but it was seen by the novelists as intolerable behavior, because it just isn't done in prose. The cultures and expectations are completely different, because one is a solo effort and the other is thoroughly collaborative. There's also Harlan Ellison's 44-year-long tantrum about TOS's producers screwing him over by treating his script the same way every script in every television production is treated: as a piece of a collaborative puzzle, subject to revision by other hands, rather than inviolable holy writ. Ellison just can't shake off his prose-author way of thinking to understand that there's nothing wrong with that in the more collaborative enterprise of TV production.
I also disagree with "to fit the style of the other stories." That's implying that TOS-R's effects had their style changed to something more modern. I disagree completely. Aside from a few modernizations such as more camera movement, which were still kept a lot more subtle than in modern productions, I think every effort was made to be as true as possible to the design and aesthetics of the original, as I already said.
I don't see any conflict between that and what I'm saying. Yes, all FX artists do the best they can, but it's still understood that it's only a best approximation, not an absolutely perfect representation of reality.
And surely you aren't suggesting that the FX artists actually wanted to portray the Enterprise as constantly switching back and forth between its pilot and series configurations, with the nacelle spires and grilles magically appearing and disappearing, the bridge module magically growing taller and shorter, etc. Surely you aren't suggesting that they actually wanted Flint's mansion to be an exact duplicate of a fortress on Rigel VII right down to the exact same coastline and planets in the sky. Surely you aren't suggesting that they specifically intended half the planets in the galaxy to have the exact same continents. Obviously these were just the best approximations they could manage, and I'm certain that they would've been happy to do the shots differently if they'd had more money and time. That's what I mean by impressionism.
That's exactly what he's suggesting. And don't call him Shirley.
Seriously, I think the "impressionistic" tag is a bit of a stretch and a rationalization for effects shots that fall a bit short of the mark. It probably helps the viewer better accept those shots and stay in the story, but let's not get overly pretentious. They were shooting for as much realism as time and budget would allow, with varying degrees of success, and all completely oblivious to the fact that, forty-odd years later, geeks like us would be dissecting their work with a microscope.
Seriously, I think the "impressionistic" tag is a bit of a stretch and a rationalization for effects shots that fall a bit short of the mark. It probably helps the viewer better accept those shots and stay in the story, but let's not get overly pretentious. They were shooting for as much realism as time and budget would allow, with varying degrees of success, and all completely oblivious to the fact that, forty-odd years later, geeks like us would be dissecting their work with a microscope.
That's exactly what he's suggesting. And don't call him Shirley.
Seriously, I think the "impressionistic" tag is a bit of a stretch and a rationalization for effects shots that fall a bit short of the mark. It probably helps the viewer better accept those shots and stay in the story, but let's not get overly pretentious. They were shooting for as much realism as time and budget would allow, with varying degrees of success, and all completely oblivious to the fact that, forty-odd years later, geeks like us would be dissecting their work with a microscope.
I tend to agree. One should also remember that reusing FX shots is not endemic to just Star Trek but can be found in shows from every generation of television. It's generally viewed as a cost-saving measure and not necessarily a limitation.
^But it doesn't follow to conclude that the FX artists would choose to recycle an old element if they had the budget and time to create something new. I'm not trying to dismiss the value of the original effects; I'm merely pointing out that there are flaws in the assumption that the FX artists would have the same kind of slavish loyalty to the existing shots that some purist fans do. That's just misunderstanding how creators view their work. Nobody is a harsher critic of a given creation than the person who created it. So it just doesn't make sense to assume that the FX artists who created a shot -- let alone the editors who had to settle for reusing a previously created shot -- would be outraged to see it updated or replaced with something true to its intent but more advanced in technique. They might feel envy that they didn't have those techniques or budget available to them at the time, but they wouldn't resent the change. After all, their job was to make the show look as good as it could. So why would they begrudge an effort to make it look even better?
I'm injecting personal feelings into this, I suppose. As a graphic artist in a corporate art department, I'm supposed to be cranking out diagrams, illustrations and charts as part of the "graphics team." There have been a couple of occasions when something I've drawn didn't measure up to what the boss wanted, and she gave one of the other artists a crack at it, ultimately using his piece. I know I'm supposed to shrug and go about my business as part of the team, but (as I'm sure you know), we artists sometimes feel kinda possessive about our work. If it's something I put some heart into, something I thought was fine, you bet I'm going to feel a little slighted that I was replaced. This is the presumed feelings I'm projecting onto the old effects crew and model makers.
If they had a larger budget, something better might be done. For most shows , what is the impetus to mantain such continuity of FX at our level of discrimination?
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