I'm really shocked at how many people like the new FX. The models are cheap looking. The lighting is bad. Everything is underexposed. There seemed to be a lot of fear of blowing out the "flim". The animation is also really amateurish. It's too bad because I like their new ship designs. The TAS style cargo ships, etc. But the execution is just garbage.
I can understand not liking the
Remastered effects for purist reasons, but my technical opinion of them is diametrically opposed to yours.
I've seen extremely high-def renders of the Big E used in
Remastered. The CGI model is quite amazing. It even includes the tiny lever-like doohickey on the bottom of the bottom of the primary hull sensor cap. That's a detail that most CGI modelers miss.
Admittedly, you never see that in any of the Remastered episodes, but I thought it was noteworthy that they'd researched the 11-foot model well enough to know it was there.
Some of what you're reacting to may have to do with the limitations of matching new CGI footage to the old footage. The problem is that in vintage 1960s visual effects, they first had to film the models under an extraordinary amount of light. This was necessary to give a sense of scale: if the light faded out too quickly across the model, it looked like a model.
Then they'd take this footage and optically marry it to starfields, planets, etc. There was an enormous amount of contrast added and some lighting lost as a byproduct of the optical processes used.
Furthermore, they were dealing with original footage that was never intended to be viewed in HD. It were intended to be viewed on crappy analog broadcast television in a time period where most people were too distant from the transmitters to get a truly clear image. This is painfully obvious when viewing fight scenes -- it's clear when a stunt double is in use. Similarly, it becomes painful on non-location planet sets: the cyclorama on the far wall is clearly only about ten feet away from the actors and the grass is obviously fake. In an analog broadcast, no one ever noticed.
And that's not just TOS, but
any show of the period. Watch
Bonanza and notice how obvious the exteriors that were shot on a soundstage appear in HD.
So the problem the Remastered folks had was that they absolutely couldn't do CGI effects like the kind in modern movies, because it wouldn't match the rest of the footage. Modern CGI can selectively light where the artist needs it to, after all. If they'd done a scene like, say the opening battle of
Revenge Of the Sith, I think the effect would have been jarring. As it was, I think they did a decent job of matching the older footage and effects.
I'm reasonably happy with the new effects. I might have taken a few more risks on selected episodes like "Balance Of Terror," "The Ultimate Computer," and "The Doomsday Machine." I liked what they did on "Elaan Of Troyius." I actually like the new ships in "Mudd's Women" and "Way To Eden" because they look like the early Jeffries designs for other unused ships.
I really like the small touches, such as the light reflecting on the ship's hull when they fire weapons. I'm very happy with things like blowing up the Klingon ship in "Day Of the Dove." The original is barely passable, but
Remastered looks like what I imagine a 1960s spaceship explosion would have looked like if the show had an unlimited budget. It doesn't look like modern spaceship explosions, and that's good. I also like that they mimicked the "cloud" effect in "Obsession" in such a way that it matches the smoke we see in Garrovick's cabin, yet still has a sense of scale when we see it in space.
I might have tried to insert CGI backdrops where it's clear they're on a soundstage. However, I'm enough of a purist to be happy that they restrained themselves, otherwise it would have been a meaningless CGI mess like the
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.
No doubt the next iteration of
Remastered (20 years or so from now) will re-do the entire episode, keeping only the original dialogue track. Characters, sets, etc. will be entirely CGI. At that point, they'll have the option of completely re-envisioning everything and ejecting any kind of original lighting as unnecessary in a purely CGI environment.
It's my hope that when they do this, they'll at least mirror the original camera angles and shots. However, since this will be done by my grandchildren's generation and us old-school
Trek fans won't be the franchise's least important audience, I suspect it will be extremely different.
Dakota Smith
