Season FIVE OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Enterprise is Great]

I got season 5 and Unification at Best Buy and was able to use my reward zone 10 dollar certificate on it.

I just noticed today that there's no digital copy with Unification. I wonder why there wasn't on for this release when BoBW and Redepmtion had it.

I'm glad i got to Best Buy when I did because there were only two season 5 sets left. Whew.

 

[HGN2001]

I went to Best Buy at opening and hunted all around in the their abbreviated video section to no avail. There was one of those rolling carts of stuff to be put on shelves, but I couldn't spot it in there either. After finally flagging down a blue-shirt and giving her the details, I waited as she keyed all the crap into her computer.

Then she looked around again and called on her little communications device to locate the person in charge of the department and went to speak to him. Finally she came back and told me that these "Sunday flyer" discs were all up front in a display - the way they used to be in the glory days of Best Buy.

So I grabbed a Season Five set and went on my way. I decided not to get the Unification disc since both parts are included, and the price was a little higher than for Season Four.

Happily, Unification I and II are on the same disc and not split the way most two-parters were in the DVD sets.

Harry

 

[jimbotron]

Happily, Unification I and II are on the same disc and not split the way most two-parters were in the DVD sets.

Harry

If they follow their standard 5 5 5 5 4 2 episode format on the discs, Chain of Command will be split across two discs in season 6. I assume they will put 4 episodes on disc one or two to prevent that. They haven't always put the maximum amount of episodes on disc one, so they will probably accommodate that.

Birthright and Gambit will be clean either way.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

There isn't much point picking up the Unification standalone disc. As both parts are already on the box set.

Well, I'm a commentary nut and I like to share things.

I liked Jeri Taylor's commentary. It's really just a great interview with her for 90-minutes, she talks about her background in TV working for Quinn-Martin, coming into TNG not knowing Trek at all and getting a Trek bootcamp, mentoring the young writing staff of Ron D. Moore, Brannon Braga, etc.

 

[MickJo1701]

Have to say, I enjoyed Peter Griffin's rendition of the TNG theme on the 'Cause & Effect' commentary.

 

[dg1379]

The detail of the beast in Darmok is incredible

 

[mr.peany]

I'm enjoying the hell out of Season 5 a lot more than I thought I would. The transfers blow there standard def counterparts out of the water!

 

[tomalak301]

Just watched the Season 5 Documentary and Burnett and Ley. Jr have returned to form. Both parts were incredible, and I appreciated that they interspersed Gene's interview with the current stuff in Part 1 and the Entertainment Tonight footage in part 2 I kind of teared up when they were talking about Gene, especially when Marina talked about on that very day she lost her father 10 years earlier. This is the type of stuff that was missing on Seasons 3 and 4 and I'm glad they returned to form here. Looking forward to the rest but wanted to post my thoughts on the documentary before I forgot everything.

I have a question regarding part 1 though. Does anyone know what the context was of that Gene Roddenberry interview and who was with him? It seemed like a discussion among 3-4 people and it was quite insightful.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

I have a question regarding part 1 though. Does anyone know what the context was of that Gene Roddenberry interview and who was with him? It seemed like a discussion among 3-4 people and it was quite insightful.

It's from this 1981 interview:
"Gene Roddenberry Up Close and Personal"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec_PoHFhA-g
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry:_Up_Close_And_Personal
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=22452

 

[tomalak301]

Just watched the Season 5 Documentary and Burnett and Ley. Jr have returned to form. Both parts were incredible, and I appreciated that they interspersed Gene's interview with the current stuff in Part 1 and the Entertainment Tonight footage in part 2 I kind of teared up when they were talking about Gene, especially when Marina talked about on that very day she lost her father 10 years earlier. This is the type of stuff that was missing on Seasons 3 and 4 and I'm glad they returned to form here. Looking forward to the rest but wanted to post my thoughts on the documentary before I forgot everything.

I have a question regarding part 1 though. Does anyone know what the context was of that Gene Roddenberry interview and who was with him? It seemed like a discussion among 3-4 people and it was quite insightful.

It's from this 1981 interview:
"Gene Roddenberry Up Close and Personal"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec_PoHFhA-g

Yeah I just found it, but thanks.

 

[jimbotron]

They're still using the blurry Enterprise shot when at warp, at least early on in the season. I skipped ahead to The First Duty to check out the SD footage. The CGI model was used at the beginning of that episode, and not the blurry model. Did they not finish the improved CGI model until midway through the season?

They did a GREAT job blending in the SD footage. I had to go back and look at some of it because I did not notice at first. Honestly, I've seen some film footage throughout this show that looked worse than that.

The SD footage in Power Play is OK. Not quite blink-and-you-miss-it, but it's not very obtrusive. Much better than the previous SD cameos, like in We'll Always Have Paris.

 

[FrontierTrek]

They're still using the blurry Enterprise shot when at warp, at least early on in the season. I skipped ahead to The First Duty to check out the SD footage. The CGI model was used at the beginning of that episode, and not the blurry model. Did they not finish the improved CGI model until midway through the season?

Correct! It's replaced with CG as of "Conundrum" I think

 

[jimbotron]

Correct! It's replaced with CG as of "Conundrum" I think

I thought so. I've always gotten a sense they go episode by episode, and improve as they went along. The drawback is that after the improvement is made, they are either unwilling or incapable of going back and fixing the older work, likely due to time constraints. Examples of that are season 1 where certain model shots weren't available for Encounter at Farpoint, so CGI was used instead. But then the shots were found and used in later episodes within the same season, yet the early CGI remains.

 

[TheSeeker]

Well my set is still in Utah according to Amazon. There's really no rush though. I've barely started watching season 2!

 

[tomalak301]

Watched the Music discussion feature after the Documentary last night and that was a lot better than the art direction panel in Season 4. We always get things from the writers point of view, so to have a documentary about the music and the problems that the composers had with Berman and the higher ups was really interesting to hear, especially Ron Jones who out of the three were really critical of how they were treated.

I couldn't help but agree with what he said, considering that while I'm a Star Trek fan, the music on the various series (including the original) is either really bad or just plain boring or cheesy. Yeah you have some good music here and there, but overall, especially in DS9, the music was like annoying background noise rather than something that enhances the scene.

My only complaint about this feature was I wish they showed clips or played some of the musical cues they were talking about. Right now, I think the episode I'm looking forward to watching again in this set is Power Play, because Chattaway (Who didn't even speak in the first 30 minutes) said it was one of his favorite cues.

I also agree with them about the soundtracks in movies being so bombastic. I was reminded of when movies used music really well and how they made scenes memorable, like in Jurassic Park. One of my favorite scenes in any movie was when they first land to when Hammond says "I'll show you". It was an epic scene mainly because of the music that played with it. I can't recall a movie in the last 10 years where I had that same feeling and that's a shame.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

The SD footage in Power Play is OK. Not quite blink-and-you-miss-it, but it's not very obtrusive.

I credit the nature of that scene more than anything. It's in a pretty dark area (Ten Forward) and doesn't have many close-ups. The other SD footage this season, of Wesley in the well lit ready room in The First Duty, is a bit more obvious.
But in general I do think CBS-D did a bit better job handling the SD upconversion and color correction this time around.

I think this season's SD footage is handled better than the SD footage from BOBW II in S4.

 

[Borjis]

I also agree with them about the soundtracks in movies being so bombastic. I was reminded of when movies used music really well and how they made scenes memorable, like in Jurassic Park. One of my favorite scenes in any movie was when they first land to when Hammond says "I'll show you". It was an epic scene mainly because of the music that played with it. I can't recall a movie in the last 10 years where I had that same feeling and that's a shame.

Totally agree with you.

I was watching Airforce One the other day...near the end of the movie, every time there is a victory in the punch/fight there is that annoying movie theme bombing it's way through your speakers.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Correct! It's replaced with CG as of "Conundrum" I think

I thought so. I've always gotten a sense they go episode by episode, and improve as they went along. The drawback is that after the improvement is made, they are either unwilling or incapable of going back and fixing the older work, likely due to time constraints. Examples of that are season 1 where certain model shots weren't available for Encounter at Farpoint, so CGI was used instead. But then the shots were found and used in later episodes within the same season, yet the early CGI remains.

If they had simply remastered the show in reverse (began with "All Good Things..." and worked their way backward toward "Encounter at Farpoint"), they would have found material that was moved down the line and more episodes would have original elements. I think most fans would have understood and been okay with that. I've always wondered if that was ever on the table as a solution before they began full season work.

 

[mr.peany]

I'm onto disc 3. It's possible that my TV has it's warm settings up to high or it's just the way it was shot, but I'm finding that scenes on the bridge are skewed towards the yellow. Particularly noticeable on The Masterpiece Society and Power Play. The red uniforms also don't seem as vibrant and did they change Crushers uniform between seasons 4 & 5 because it looks considerably more turquoise than when I last saw it?

 

[trekker670]

I'm onto disc 3. It's possible that my TV has it's warm settings up to high or it's just the way it was shot, but I'm finding that scenes on the bridge are skewed towards the yellow. Particularly noticeable on The Masterpiece Society and Power Play. The red uniforms also don't seem as vibrant and did they change Crushers uniform between seasons 4 & 5 because it looks considerably more turquoise than when I last saw it?

I believe this issue came up a few pages back when someone noticed the screenshots on blu-ray.com had the same coloring issues you described. FrontierTrek claimed the color settings were improperly set, since the TrekCore screenshots didn't have this problem and matched what he saw on his visit to CBS-D.