TMP on Blu-Ray

[Maurice]

You're okay the Earth disappearing because it's possibly a deliberate decision.

Earth doesn't "disappear", it's just not visible during this shot of Enterprise's departure.
Unless we hear otherwise, yes, it's probably a deliberate decision.

If you want to select a shot where Earth would have to be visible but isn't in the film, I suggest you try this one: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0370.jpg

That it disappears and reappears is the point. It's as much a "mistake" as the other things people cite as things which supposedly should be fixed.

You're for replacing the transporter effect, which was a deliberate decision, just because you don't like it.

That's a self-contradictory position.

...Obviously both the VFX screwup in the departure scene and the misaligned transporter effect were results of not having enough time or tools in post-production to get it right.

You wrote, "same applies for the crappy transporter effect" which scans as that it was the effect itself that was at issue, not the compositing. If you meant the latter you should have said so.

 

[trevanian]

Well, the sparkles look pretty tacky to me & always have, though the actual tube of laserscan was pretty nice, if misaligned. I've always been most bothered by the way the effect doesn't seem to ever fade out (when Kirk beams up to the office complex and when McCoy comes aboard), since they do a cutaway each time and fade the sound out and then you kind of abruptly jump back to the guy on the platform with no effects ... it feels very awkward, and the only reason I can think of for it is they didn't want the dupe quality dropoff to appear during a single shot (like the way some films get very grainy when a wipe or dissolve takes place.)

 

[Maurice]

I'm not saying the effect is the best choice, but it's the choice they made.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But at the same time, mistakes that CAN be fixed, should be, when there's an opportunity to do so.

Why?

Because errors should always be fixed.

For example: The bit in TNG's "Darmok" which (originally) showed a phaser shot coming from the torpedo bays, has been fixed in the remastered version of that same episode - the shot now comes from the phaser strip, as it should. Now tell me, why shouldn't they have fixed that? Obvious goofs are not art, they are errors, and all errors must be fixed.

 

[Hober Mallow]

^ But at the same time, mistakes that CAN be fixed, should be, when there's an opportunity to do so.

Why?

Obvious goofs are not art, they are errors, and all errors must be fixed.

No, there's no real reason mistakes "must" be fixed.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Yes, there is.

 

[Maurice]

^ Yes, there is.

Nomad? Is that you?

 

[Lance]

There's a case to be made for both points of view.

Personally, I disagree with the statement that they **must** be fixed, because for me those mistakes are an important part of the tapestry.

George Lucas has made an art form of 'correcting' things he perceives as being mistakes in the Star Wars movies, but he's also a good example of why making those changes isn't always beneficial. It robs the original work of some of it's... um, originality.

When you watch a 'fixed' version of a movie, it has ceased to be the movie that it once was. And for future generations, the original movie ceases to exist, as the "Director's Edition" becomes the canon source that outgrades all others.

I find that view disconcerting. To me, TMP is what it is, a production from 1979 which has it's flaws and has it's plus points too. "The Director's Edition" can only ever be a secondary source, essentially an interesting curio which, nevertheless, does NOT replace the 1979 release... it compliments it.

And that's how Director's Cuts should be. In my opinion.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Personally, I disagree with the statement that they **must** be fixed, because for me those mistakes are an important part of the tapestry.

George Lucas has made an art form of 'correcting' things he perceives as being mistakes in the Star Wars movies, but he's also a good example of why making those changes isn't always beneficial. It robs the original work of some of it's... um, originality.

I don't care, here, about what Lucas *thinks* are mistakes. I'm talking about those things that really ARE mistakes. Objectively speaking.

For instance, that thing in "Darmok" about the phaser beam coming from the torpedo tubes. No one disputes that this is an obvious error. So tell me, WHY shouldn't that be fixed?

When you watch a 'fixed' version of a movie, it has ceased to be the movie that it once was. And for future generations, the original movie ceases to exist, as the "Director's Edition" becomes the canon source that outgrades all others.

Well, yeah, that's kind of the point.

 

[Maurice]

The trouble is distinguishing what's a genuine technical mistake (e.g. one real bone fide mistake in TMP is that the matte for the Klingon aft-torpedo is one frame out of sync with the torpedo element), what's something they decided they had to live with (the silhouette of the mount crossing the drydock), what's a design decision (was omitting the Earth from many of the Drydock shots a compositional decision or a "we don't have time to do it right" decision?) and flat out revisionism (all of the DE San Francisco VFX shots), and who gets to make that determination?

 

[Robert Comsol]

Although I'm not aware that there is a common set standard on how to define "remastered" I think it's something like this:

1. scanning of original camera negative/s to achieve state-of-the-art (HD) resolution
2. digital removal of dirt and scratches that had been on the camera negative (e.g. TMP departure beauty shot of Enterprise filmed from below)
3. (debatable) removal of blue(screen) lines surrounding the silhouettes of the composited VFX elements
4. (debatable) fixing of obvious VFX errors like the probe's appearance on the Bridge.

None of the aforementioned affects composition and/or obvious artistic intent.

Of course, the original version from 1979 with all its flaws needs to be preserved because that's "the context original audiences experienced the film" (to borrow a line from George Lucas regarding the colorization of "The Three Stooges" - someone should have told him that exactly the same applies for the original, theatrical version of Star Wars ).

The DE San Francisco VFX shots are a revisionism because they a) replace the original footage and b) didn't even use the (deleted) side view of the airtram approach originally shot and composited (I'll try to find it and post it later).

Bob

 

[Maurice]

Although I'm not aware that there is a common set standard on how to define "remastered" I think it's something like this:

1. scanning of original camera negative/s to achieve state-of-the-art (HD) resolution
2. digital removal of dirt and scratches that had been on the camera negative (e.g. TMP departure beauty shot of Enterprise filmed from below)
3. (debatable) removal of blue(screen) lines surrounding the silhouettes of the composited VFX elements

1. 
   Recompositing original elements is rather close to cleanup, but it's a borderline case.
   

   1. (debatable) fixing of obvious VFX errors like the probe's appearance on the Bridge.

   If you're talking about removing the pellicle effect which was used to "squeeze" the on set light source out of the frame, now you're changing the film. That wasn't an error, it was a decision made to solve a problem.
   
   

   The DE San Francisco VFX shots are a revisionism because they a) replace the original footage and b) didn't even use the (deleted) side view of the airtram approach originally shot and composited (I'll try to find it and post it later).

   No need. I believe I was the one who first posted it here.
   
   
   Click to embiggenate.​

 

[Robert Comsol]

Yours got the better colors, resolution and proportions (wasn't that from an issue of Enterprise Incidents?), but I think the one I can offer shows us a little more scenery around the edges:

I just love the view of this San Francisco of the future, would be cool to see how detailed the original matte painting of Frisco really was.

Bob

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'll give you the one about San Francisco - that, indeed, is revisionism. (And that scene itself has a mistake in the director's cut: when the air tram shuttle approaches the building from the outside, it's heading for a point that's hundreds of feet up from the water, but when we see it from the inside, it's level with the water's edge.)

Other things, though, like technical mistakes and flubs? Common sense, really.

 

[trevanian]

Although I'm not aware that there is a common set standard on how to define "remastered" I think it's something like this:

1. scanning of original camera negative/s to achieve state-of-the-art (HD) resolution
2. digital removal of dirt and scratches that had been on the camera negative (e.g. TMP departure beauty shot of Enterprise filmed from below)
3. (debatable) removal of blue(screen) lines surrounding the silhouettes of the composited VFX elements

1. 
   Recompositing original elements is rather close to cleanup, but it's a borderline case.
   

   1. (debatable) fixing of obvious VFX errors like the probe's appearance on the Bridge.

   If you're talking about removing the pellicle effect which was used to "squeeze" the on set light source out of the frame, now you're changing the film. That wasn't an error, it was a decision made to solve a problem.
   
   

   The DE San Francisco VFX shots are a revisionism because they a) replace the original footage and b) didn't even use the (deleted) side view of the airtram approach originally shot and composited (I'll try to find it and post it later).

   No need. I believe I was the one who first posted it here.
   
   
   Click to embiggenate.​

1. 
   
   Even though it looks like a finished comp to me too, wasn't it indicated by TGT that this was actually concept art by a guy who had been uncredited on TMP and done tons of SF artwork, mostly 100% opposite from how they went in the DE?

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I'm fine with whatever revisionism as long as you have the original work available for everyone to see. That's why I'm not too upset over the TOS blu-rays because the original versions are available in them. Still, it would have been sweet if the all the original elements were available to digitally recomposite them, all the original effects intact but without all the dirt/matte/optical printer artifacts. Pretty much what TNG-R is doing.

 

[trevanian]

I'm fine with whatever revisionism as long as you have the original work available for everyone to see. That's why I'm not too upset over the TOS blu-rays because the original versions are available in them. Still, it would have been sweet if the all the original elements were available to digitally recomposite them, all the original effects intact but without all the dirt/matte/optical printer artifacts. Pretty much what TNG-R is doing.

For a few years prior to TOS-R, the digitally recomping original elements was the idea I and several others here were really pushing, and that was when the thought was the elements WERE still available for the series, if not for the features (paramount didn't want the TMP model elements, at least the Trumbull ones, so his company tossed them around 1982 when it became an issue of available space, after Par had decided to go with ILM for TWOK.) I had the idea that the TOS fx elements were stored like the music tapes, under a stage, though I don't know where I got that idea from, and I guess history has proved that to be a fallacy.

 

[BillJ]

It is definitely a shame the original TOS FX weren't available.

 

[Maurice]

I just love the view of this San Francisco of the future, would be cool to see how detailed the original matte painting of Frisco really was.

Handy tip for visitors: Fastest way to prove you're not from San Francisco is to call it "San Fran" <shudder>. Few people here call it "Frisco" even though contraction goes back to the Gold Rush. People here mostly just say "The City" or "SF" if not "San Francisco." (Also, putting the definite article in front of a freeway name is a tipoff that you're a bay area foreigner, e.g. people here say "I took 280 to SF" as opposed to "I took the 280,")

I'll give you the one about San Francisco - that, indeed, is revisionism. (And that scene itself has a mistake in the director's cut: when the air tram shuttle approaches the building from the outside, it's heading for a point that's hundreds of feet up from the water, but when we see it from the inside, it's level with the water's edge.)

Oh, those shots are a MESS in all sorts of ways.

1. They completely redesigned the city proper, violating the original intent of Roddenberry and others as in:
   • Area occupied by the city
   • Architectural style
   • That the only 20th century structures still in existence were to be the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid
2. They redesigned the tram station for no good reason.
3. They changed the landscape. In TMP they deliberately flopped the shot of the shoreline to make it appear that the terrain had changed over 300 years. In the DE they just added some more buildings to the existing landscape.

They shot the bridge from only one side and flopped the image. Since the bridge is NOT symmetrical, this makes the bridge details flip around from north to south between various shots. Ugh.

Oh, and it's impossible for the bridge towers to be shadowed as they are in the 2nd image, which is dead giveaway that "It's a faaaake!" :0

Incidentally, this was shot from Fort Baker (link), which is the site of Starfleet HQ in Enterprise.

The floor of the tram station is not at the shore in the DE, but its height is not consistent. In the 3rd image it's about 60 meters above the water. In the 4th image, its down to about 30 meters.

Oh yeah, and they took out the wall to the right just because they could, again ignoring that it was designed that way, not some technical limitation.

Click to embiggenate.​

Even though it looks like a finished comp to me too, wasn't it indicated by TGT that this was actually concept art by a guy who had been uncredited on TMP and done tons of SF artwork, mostly 100% opposite from how they went in the DE?

That's what he said, but that never sits right, since why would a concept have such obvious matte lines?

 

[trevanian]

photo-collage, where the guy painted the b.g., but then stuck a photo cutout of the tram on?
That's just a guess. Also no motion-blur, though there is no guarantee there would be any on that angle, depending on speed of approach.

If TGT hadn't made that claim, I would never have questioned this, it really DOES look like a deleted shot, always has.