FX/editing wishlist/technical/related discussion for STNG-R

[Sean Aaron]

More durable if you never play the record, perhaps, but at least CDs aren't damaged by listening to them!

One of the things that pissed me off about the forced move from vinyl to CD is that you actually could read a vinyl record with a laser as well - there's actually no need for playback to degrade the medium.

Of course if laser-based record players existed then the music industry wouldn't have been able to force people to adopt their new format more quickly than it did. I know I wouldn't have made the switch in '88, but when the record labels simply stopped pressing LPs for most things I didn't have much choice.

 

[Tomalak]

CD's are also far, far more convenient than vinyl. They are small, easy to store and carry, and you can have a portable player. LPs are 30cm across and relatively fragile. CDs are 12cm in diameter, and are pretty tough. You can jump to any track and any point within a track in an instant. They can hold video as well as audio. You can have a CD player in your car. People didn't adopt them just because record companies made us - if that had been the case, betamax and laserdisc probably would have been more successful than they turned out to be...

 

[Sean Aaron]

People didn't adopt them just because record companies made us - if that had been the case, betamax and laserdisc probably would have been more successful than they turned out to be...

That is true, but they forcibly accelerated uptake. I can assure you that by 1988 CD sales were not that massive. It wasn't until record companies simply stopped pressing vinyl that you saw a wholesale explosion of the format in record stores. I was definitely interested in the format and recognised the advantages, but I probably would have waited until there was a larger catalogue before picking up a CD player.

 

[22 Stars]

Yeah people love that film grain...though I have heard that STII bluray is a much improved picture from the DVD version!

I will say that the current bluray of ST II is not excellent. The clarity is there, but the colors are all shifted slightly to the Blue. Ceti Alpha V is now grey instead of Brown and that just isn't right.

Really? I was going mostly by the large number of Amazon.com reviews. People seem to be quite happy with the picture. I haven't felt a need to buy the blurays because of a little noise reduction though.

RAMA

Yeah, i started a thread about it some time ago, because I was so surprised and disappointed at the difference

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=118964

The other TOS movie blurays look great to me.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

The fact is, recomposit or not, some of the FX will still look dodgy (especially the first 2 seasons as well as the classic "phaser fire out of the torpedo tube" blooper) HD or not, so when they announced no new FX my money was mentally repositioned from a future DVD purchase to being spent on something else.

You realize that all the compositing and F/X like phaser fire was done on video, right?

This means they will have to recut each episode again using modern techniques and they'll have to recreate these kind of F/X which will allow them to correct the error you mentioned.

We've gone through great pains to tell people the FX done on video (like the phaser) will all be redone....

RAMA

Hmm I suppose that is something, but the fact is the majority of the FX is the original model work.
Maybe they'll re-add the phaser beams (In Yesterday's Enterprise, for example they're quite dull and hard to make out and the charging "pulse" before the phaser fire (my favourite thing about the TNG phasers actually, thought it was a shame Voyager's FX teams gave up on it over the course of that series) almost impossible to see without freeze framing) but the Enterprise itself will still be sitting there like a lemon in most battle scenes, especially after "evasive manuevers" is called out by the captain!"

I see what you're all saying and I don't want to turn this into a knock down, drag out mud slinging debate, I'm happy you're all happy with what has been announced, but when we've been going through this thread wondering how certain scenes or FX shots will look after they've been improved by a full CG remake then the actual announcement led to me being a little dissapointment and I'm surprised I'm in the minority in that regard.

There won't be as much new stuff in this project as I expected and for that I'm disappointed. Sorry if that annoys some people but it's just how I feel.

 

[bullethead]

Hmm I suppose that is something, but the fact is the majority of the FX is the original model work.
Maybe they'll re-add the phaser beams (In Yesterday's Enterprise, for example they're quite dull and hard to make out and the charging "pulse" before the phaser fire (my favourite thing about the TNG phasers actually, thought it was a shame Voyager's FX teams gave up on it over the course of that series) almost impossible to see without freeze framing) but the Enterprise itself will still be sitting there like a lemon in most battle scenes, especially after "evasive manuevers" is called out by the captain!"

Maybe they'll do some CGI work for that episode, since it doesn't really make sense that the E-D looks the same in both universes when the YE E-D is a battleship and the regular TNG E-D isn't.

Then they can stick it in the background of that shot in Parallels of all the Enterprises.

 

[22 Stars]

Dick, I can understand your sentiment. Compared to TOS-R this would 'appear' to be less of an overhaul, but remember, the original model shots for TNG were done with feature quality in mind. I think this will be a great project, and full of little surprises for all fans to enjoy.

TOS had only a very limited number of stock shots, and while I would have liked to see what those negatives looked like cleaned up and scanned in HD, I loved most of the later CGI work done for the remastered series. I wish they had time and budget to fix the first few remastered eps with the newer mesh adopted.

 

[NewHorizon]

Hmm I suppose that is something, but the fact is the majority of the FX is the original model work.

This is a MAJOR plus in my humble opinion. The amount of cash they would have to shell out to redo all of the ship scenes in CGI would be far too much for a project converting 7 seasons of TNG to bare.

The ships were shot professionally on film. Once they're scanned in high res into a computer, all of the limitations of manual compositing will be eliminated. The artists can have a field day touching up the look of the filmed content.

I think people have a tough time imaging anything but a complete CGI overhaul, but filmed minatures with CGI enhancement is going to look absolutely amazing...as we saw in the teaser trailer.

Maybe they'll re-add the phaser beams

There is no 'maybe' about this. As has been stated numerous times, ALL of the 'special FX' will have to be re-added. Phaser beams, transporter beams, lighting...etc. The ships were captured on film...anything added to them afterward were done on Video Tape.

It's a hybrid approach, and quite honestly I think it's the most respectful one. I would feel absolutely terrible for any of the folks who built and filmed those beautiful next gen ships if they were all to be replaced by CGI effects.

Remember, TOS was CGI'd because the original film elements didn't exist. This is not the case with TNG. We're lucky!

 

[Borjis]

agreed!

thankfully the terrible looking planets will be replaced with nicer ones.

 

[22 Stars]

Not all the planets were terrible, there were one or two planet shots that I rememeber that impressed but I agree!

 

[JJohnson]

I know they shot the ships on film, and that's nice and all, but what about the evasive maneuvers when the ship simply sits there, the same 5 or 6 shots of 'standard orbit' or warping past? Those might use a nice physical model, but I would seriously want them to change those out for variety's sake and to give viewers something more than simply a cleaned up image. And the matte paintings? Why not make them come alive with some more detailed images and CG people, like in The Menagerie?

 

[TheSeeker]

How do you change-up a "standard" orbit?

 

[thumbtack]

At a minimum, I'm expecting the up-res coming from the original negatives. At a minimum, for me to buy it, however, I expect to see new FX, new shots of the ship flying by or entering orbit, instead of the same 5 shots and that stupid through-the-neck-with-oddly-angled-stars shot, and those fuzzy JPEG globe planets.

I expect new, larger, 'alive' cg matte paintings like they did for TOS-R, new ship designs, better battle scenes, fixed FX errors, new planets like TOS-R, a redone intro, and little gems that they don't have to do, but will do for the sake of loving the source materials.

Then you can also expect an SRP of $299.99 per season.

 

[JJohnson]

How do you change-up a "standard" orbit?

Check out TOS-R for that. Different angles, show the impulse engines cutting on after dropping out of warp instead of ALWAYS being on, show the planetary glow on the ship, show the ship passing overhead, etc.

Obsession: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W_xBo0TVIk
Spectre of the Gun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD8Lii0dkks (different orbit shots than normal)
Friday's Child: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9OD5r78pMA (planet color reflects on the ship)

There are others that I'm sure could be found if I could go through all 79 episodes, but I don't have that time while there's a baby due

 

[NewHorizon]

...

Personally, I'm more interested in the stories than the FX. I want to see the show I watched in the late eighties and nineties...restored and enhanced using as much of the original material as possible...using modern techniques to make that material look its absolute best.

 

[Start Wreck]

And the matte paintings? Why not make them come alive with some more detailed images and CG people, like in The Menagerie?

To be fair, we don't know that they're not doing that. We don't really know much at all at this point.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I would have liked to see different ships too, but it wouldn't kill me if we kept seeing the same generic alien transport ships over and over again. We noticed it back in the original run, but it hardly made us stop watching...

Mark

 

[Start Wreck]

You notice these things more when you don't have to wait a week between episodes.

 

[JarodRussell]

Remember, TOS was CGI'd because the original film elements didn't exist. This is not the case with TNG. We're lucky!

The CGI in TOS-R looks so horrible. It would have been something had they taken a model and reshot the scenes, because that would have looked a million times better.

 

[NewHorizon]

Remember, TOS was CGI'd because the original film elements didn't exist. This is not the case with TNG. We're lucky!

The CGI in TOS-R looks so horrible.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it horrible, but it certainly didn't match the rest of the footage. Space Seed being a rare exception, that episode really nailed it.

The problem with TOS remastered is that it was rushed and the artists didn't have enough time to perfect the look. They learned on the fly, and it really shows. It was no way to treat the original series.