I always assumed a nearly 300 year old body decomposing in non-sterile environment would look a heck of a lot worse that what we see in the episode. Never dawned on me that was a mistake of any kind.
Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread
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I always assumed a nearly 300 year old body decomposing in non-sterile environment would look a heck of a lot worse that what we see in the episode. Never dawned on me that was a mistake of any kind.
Yeah me either. In reality, after that many years, it would be a lot worse.
It's almost like the script was meant to portray the dead body as though it was still in good condition, as if they could have had an actor actually in the bed. This would account for Riker's comment:
"Looks like the poor fellow died in his sleep."
And it would have been very simple. Have the actor appear to be resting peacefully but motionless and all the dialogue would fit. But when his corpse is a skeleton with a huge gaping mouth, I'm not going to buy the "died in his sleep" idea. After all, we're in a simulation of a book where mob guys who openly murder people in crowded casinos.
Haha, fair enough.
Agreed. It looks more like a bunch of plastic sprues than it did when it was a bunch of plastic sprues.
Last night I returned to watching some TNG and got up to Unnatural Selection, and I'm starting to agree with the people who had major issues with the compositing/remastering going on here. When I got to the scene were we see an ultimate close up of the bridge area between the Warp Nacelles, I was thinking, This is way too white, and way to bland. Remastering is supposed to jump out at you just with how clear and sharp it looked and this scene just didn't look sharp at all.
With that being said, I am still happy I bought the set from a completest point of view, and the special features were amazing, but every day I'm looking more forward to Season 3 and the return of what I think TNG Remastering should be, set by example from Season 1.
With that being said, I am still happy I bought the set from a completest point of view, and the special features were amazing, but every day I'm looking more forward to Season 3 and the return of what I think TNG Remastering should be, set by example from Season 1.
The script specifies, "a skeletal figure -- long dead and decaying." Based on the final look of the corpse in the episode, I think what was intended was a kind of natural, partial mummification like this.
Compare that to the body in "The Royale."
Remember that Data doesn't say, "the lack of any decomposition" he says, "the lack of any advanced decomposition." This would be advanced decomposition. So, I don't think it's that far off personally. If Data had also said, in addition to the environment being sterile, that the climate in the building was unusually dry and arid, I would think that what we see in the episode would be dead-on.
What we saw in the episode is definitely beyond the advanced stage of decomposition, since the advanced stage is the "end of the active decay process". If this corpse was at a stage before advanced, it wouldn't be dry to the point where it's skin has flaked off the bone.
Also remember that this is a writer who wrote a planet's temperature being -291 degrees celsius (That's below absolute zero) and assumed that we would never be able to solve Fermat's last theorem.
Agreed. It looks more like a bunch of plastic sprues than it did when it was a bunch of plastic sprues.
Yeah that was my concern about this ep from the very beginning-- that the Borg ship wouldn't hold up well at all in HD.
At the very least, it probably could have benefited from the more shadowy lighting CBS-D gave all the ships in S1, to hide some of the flaws and give it a bit more mystery.
I won't argue that the episode's science is iron clad -- it clearly isn't. And you're probably right that the condition of the remains could likely be considered advanced in decomposition. But further decay could still conceivably occur if Richey's corpse is indeed mummified. If the tissue were dessicated due to an extreme drying out, then by simply exposing the remains to moisture the decay process would continue. One thing's for sure: the remains are clearly not simply skeletal.
Now, I'm not sure I agree with your suggestion that Richey should have been depicted as a normal person resting peacefully. More likely, he should have maybe looked more like Ötzi the Iceman, which could be explained by the earlier dialogue (I know it's incorrect) of extreme coldness on the planet. I think perfect preservation would be highly unlikely though.
But on this we can both agree, Data's dialogue needed to be tweaked to closer match what we see on screen because it doesn't really matter that the environment is sterile -- Richey would've had live bacteria in his gut. Either my suggestion where Data adds that the environment in the building is (or was before they got there) extremely dry... or stating explicitly that Richey's been mummified. Maybe something like this:
The Absolute-0 error was just a pure, sloppy, error someone should have probably caught. Forgetting that the temperature is below Absolute-0, that's a temperature that pretty much doesn't (and probably can't) exist in nature as even in the coldest, deepest, recesses of space there's energy and where there's energy there's heat and where there's heat there's a temperature above Absolute-0. We could probably fan-wank it that with the "discovery" of meta particles and science Absolute-0 was recalibrated. What we now know as Absolute-0 may be where all atomic motion stops but maybe things like antimatter, subspace particles and such still work meaning there's lower possible temperatures where THESE things stop.
On Fermat's Last Theorm, as of 1988/89 when the episode was made we hadn't yet solved it, at that point being a 300+ year old problem. It probably didn't seem likely it'd be solved in ANOTHER 300 years either. (I also believe some lip service in DS9 retconned/explained where Picard was coming from on it being an unsolved problem.)
Still, I can't help but get some sense of satisfaction from knowing that our real world society was able to solve it mere years after the episode aired, and yet the perfect utopian race of humans 300 years into the future are still stumped.
I just finished watching the first disc and I noticed in one of the early episodes (possibly Outrageous Okana) the transporter effect was off, like it was much more glittery, to the point where it was more of a silver version of the TOS effect than the TNG effect. I'm not sure if they were recreating it as it originally appeared or if this was one of the early hurdles HTV encountered.
Still, I can't help but get some sense of satisfaction from knowing that our real world society was able to solve it mere years after the episode aired, and yet the perfect utopian race of humans 300 years into the future are still stumped.
It's also likely the current solution is debated in the 24c or people are trying to find other solutions.
Agreed. It looks more like a bunch of plastic sprues than it did when it was a bunch of plastic sprues.
Yeah that was my concern about this ep from the very beginning-- that the Borg ship wouldn't hold up well at all in HD.
At the very least, it probably could have benefited from the more shadowy lighting CBS-D gave all the ships in S1, to hide some of the flaws and give it a bit more mystery.
I borderline almost wish they re-did the cube in CG. Many of the shots of it chasing the ship are just still shots panned and zoomed in. Like it was stated above, maybe if it didn't look so washed out in the remaster, they could've improved the look of the effect as it was originally and without CGI.
Well, I'm not ready to give a writer credit for something he didn't bother to include, especially for a script that's as poorly written as The Royal. The whole entire point of even using Fermat's Last Theorem was just a means of brushing off questions this episode may have raised.
Riker: Why did this happen?
Picard: We may never know, JUST LIKE FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM!
Now you may add that not having the answers to everything can make a story more interesting, and I would agree. But remember, this episode takes place on a planet where the temperature is somehow below absolute zero with an alien species that put a single human in a poorly thought out recreation and left him to die. The reason we don't get any answers to these questions is because the writer simply wrote a 'situation' story, not an actual story that carries any meaning. Oh, it certainly tried to with the Theorem bit, but unfortunately, that didn't last.
Watched "Time Squared," and the time vortex effect looks absolutely spectacular in HD. Glad to see HTV didn't mess up that one at least.
There still isn't that much to the story (which seems to be a continuing issue with S2 eps so far), but the eerie music and Stewart's performance are so strong that somehow it all works anyway.
There still isn't that much to the story (which seems to be a continuing issue with S2 eps so far), but the eerie music and Stewart's performance are so strong that somehow it all works anyway.
But you're judging the writers for not knowing something would happen. From their point of view the Theorem hadn't been solved in 300 years so they certainly didn't expect it to get solved inside the next 300 years let alone the next few. The thing is that knowing what we know NOW we have to rationalize the error so that it makes sense.
It's like how in "The Voyage Home" there's some lip service to Leningrad. Oops! They forgot to predict the fall of the Soviet Union and Leningrad reverting to Sait Petersberg. Are we going to blame the writers of TVH for failing to predict the fall of the Soviet Union and for the renaming of the city?
I've gone through season 2 with an open mind and I've been pleasently surprised with the results (granted, I'm watching on a 32" 720p TV), however I found my first major issue (I find the transporter effect that I referred to above as minor) and it was with DNR.
I was watching "Schizoid Man" and as I watched the opening scene with Palaski walking down the corridor, looked very dull, as if there was a film or haze on the picture, almost like they didn't color correct properly or the contrast was off. I couldn't figure out why for several seconds, thinking maybe I was being too picky, but then I realized it was an effects shot. The continuous shot of Palaski from the corridor to the bridge via turbolift was vfx shot, done by chroma-keying the bridge in post production. There was significant spill once the turbolift doors reopen, especially around her hair. As soon as the cut to a new shot the clarity was back to what I expected.
I know it's not the end of the world, but after 5 episodes, this was the first time I was truly let down...
I was watching "Schizoid Man" and as I watched the opening scene with Palaski walking down the corridor, looked very dull, as if there was a film or haze on the picture, almost like they didn't color correct properly or the contrast was off. I couldn't figure out why for several seconds, thinking maybe I was being too picky, but then I realized it was an effects shot. The continuous shot of Palaski from the corridor to the bridge via turbolift was vfx shot, done by chroma-keying the bridge in post production. There was significant spill once the turbolift doors reopen, especially around her hair. As soon as the cut to a new shot the clarity was back to what I expected.
I know it's not the end of the world, but after 5 episodes, this was the first time I was truly let down...
