Season SIX OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by Salinga, Feb 9, 2014.

  1. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2002
    Why are they doing VAM on the making-of of DS9? Surely if they are intending a remastered release for that show any time soon this would be more than redundant?

    Could this be evidence that DS9 Remastered is far from recieving the go ahead?
     
  2. trekker670

    trekker670 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 29, 2008
    Location:
    Michigan, United States
    Pure speculation, but my guess is that rather than it simply discussing the beginning of DS9 from the perspective of the DS9 cast/crew, the feature will likely discuss how the launch of DS9 affected TNG. Remember, this was the first time that Star Trek had two shows running simultaneously, which was likely a big deal. There may have also been concerns about if they were being replaced and/or issues with reorganizing the behind the scenes crews between the two shows.
     
  3. jimbotron

    jimbotron Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2012
    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    From 1992 onward, it would be difficult to segregate conversation to just one show. For much of the staff, they were working on two shows simultaneously, so it's only natural that the season 6 features will incorporate DS9 discussion.
     
  4. USS KG5

    USS KG5 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2004
    Location:
    England's green and pleasant land.
    Also, optimistically, they are probably asking those very same people a lot of DS9 related questions with material for special features in mind.

    I'd imagine the DS9 specific people would be being tapped up for interviews by now, but presumably told to keep quiet about it, so no news isn't necessarily bad news!
     
  5. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    I don't think they've started interviewing people specifically for DS9 yet. Until the project is greenlit, they have no budget to spend on interview footage and the like. you're right, no news isn't necessarily bad news, but sometimes no news is simply no news.
     
  6. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2002
    At this point, don't people think CBS has already made a firm decision about DS9 remastered? Just for planning security reasons.

    For one I think it is safe to assume work on TNG season 6 is almost complete by now and the team has moved on to working on season 7. In turn they will largely have completed work on that season by the end of the 3rd quarter of this year. So within 5-6 months this team will have to move on to DS9 or they will start being out of a job. To prevent being out of a job a lot of them will start applying for new jobs long before this one finishes unless they have been told already that DS9 is going ahead.

    Secondly, most seem to agree that it would make a hell of a lot of sense to keep the TNG remastered team together for DS9 in order to save time and money and to get the best quality remastering possible. This argument is so strong that some think if CBS disbands the team there will not be another Star Trek remastering project for a long time to come.

    So to prevent a brain drain from this team CBS will have to tell them imminently that they will be keeping their jobs or they will end up having commitments elsewhere come the end of the year.

    Thirdly, CBS surely has all the info it needs right now to make this decision. Or at least it won't gain any substantial new information in the next 6 months that will drastically change the situation. Also what kind of planning cycles does a studio like CBS operate on? Surely a massive project like remastering DS9 can't be decided on an ad hoc basis. Surely just putting all the financial and legal commitments in place would take many months at least.

    Therefore if it hasn't been decided by now it simply isn't going to happen. Unless there is something significant I have overlooked in all this?
     
  7. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2001
    Location:
    America, Fuck Yeah!!!
    I agree with everything stated here. If DS9-HD hasn't been given the go-ahead by now, it likely isn't going to happen.

     
  8. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    Oh ye of little faith. :)
     
  9. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2001
    Location:
    America, Fuck Yeah!!!
    I don't mean publicly announced. I'm talking about behind-the-scenes. I'm sure that CBS has already made a decision one way or the other. :techman:
     
  10. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    Possibly, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. They could very well wait until TNG season seven is released before they decide anything. They've got nothing to lose by waiting.
     
  11. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2002
    I think they do. They stand to loose the current team responsible for remastering TNG. These people have highly sought after skills and they will not be waiting around for CBS to rehire them on the mere hope that CBS might green light DS9. They will be sought after to take jobs elsewhere or seek new jobs themselves. If CBS doesn't make a commitment soon they will have to move on or face the risk of being out of a job. Would you not want to apply for a new job if you were uncertain if your current one would still exist in a few months time? Loosing the experience that was gained while remastering TNG does not seem like a prudent thing to do if they want to make DS9 remastered a success.
     
  12. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 31, 2002
    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Given the fact that CBS Digital is a union shop (because they are owned by a studio) which is rare in the VFX industry, the incentive for the employees would be to stay in their current jobs for security (as more and more work is being outsourced overseas for tax credits and domestic VFX houses are dropping like flies)... and keep working on Star Trek for the rest of the decade.

    For CBS it makes sense too. They use a VFX house they own to do the work -- that saves them tons of money. They certainly didn't like or prefer having to outsource some of the work... they did it on Seasons 2 & 4 just to speed things along (they also went with low-bidders for the work, I'm sure). ;)
     
  13. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2002
    I'm sure the incentive for the employees would be huge but for that there must be a job on offer to continue in. If that opportunity isn't there, for example because DS9 isn't greenlit for remastering, wouldn't they have to try and find alternative employment?

    That's exactly my point CBS would largely benefit to keep these guys around if they did want to remaster DS9 but for that they need to offer some kind of job security or they might be hired elsewhere. So the earlier CBS commits the better it would seem for everyone.
     
  14. jimbotron

    jimbotron Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2012
    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Were these the same people who worked on TOS-HD? If so, then what did they do in the interim? Did they leave and come back, or were they employed the entire time? TOS and TNG are high profile, so perhaps they worked on lower profile titles during the years gap.
     
  15. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 31, 2002
    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Well, CBS Digital has been around since the 90s, they weren't formed just to exclusively do work on remastered Star Trek. If there were no greenlight for DS9 or Voyager, I'd imagine they'd probably just work on some other in production CBS television project.

    Yeah, some worked on both. You can view a list of the staff for both projects here.
     
  16. Salinga

    Salinga Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    May 16, 2005
    Maybe CBS is going to do a HD remastering of DS9 and VOY, but not with new special effects, but just have them upscaled. There is already an example for that in the industry: The X-Files (done by HTV Illuminate, who did Season 2 of TNG).

    So the project for a HD version of these Trek shows would be entirely done outside CBS on a much smaller scale (thus much quicker and much cheaper - but much like with the X-Files, you get an 70-80% HD version of the shows).

    It would not surprise me, if only such a compromise would enable CBS to provide all Trek Shows in HD and still have a profit from that.
     
  17. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    The studio reportedly tried an upscaled version of TNG (and they actually did release an upscaled version of DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations) and weren't at all happy with the result. I don't see them doing it half-assed after setting the precedent with TNG.
     
  18. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 31, 2002
    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Actually, a surprising amount of the original VFX is being redone for The X-Files (granted because they are few and far between and very rudimentary and simple compared to Star Trek). It's true that on occasion they resort to upscaling the original SD VFX, but more often than not it seems they are re-doing stuff, like the parasite-in-jar in "Ice," the laser beam field and alien cloak effect in "Fallen Angel," the morph in "Gender Bender," or the green bugs in "Darkness Falls."
     
  19. trekker670

    trekker670 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 29, 2008
    Location:
    Michigan, United States
    StarTrek.com posted their article announcing TNG S6 and CoC on bluray.

    Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sounds like they located all the film elements, so nothing had to be upconverted this season!

     
  20. MakeshiftPython

    MakeshiftPython Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2013
    Location:
    Baja?! I haven't got anything in Baja!
    It would be extremely disappointing if they went that route. I'm sure it would be cheaper, but I'd hope they're smart enough to realize that bringing the shows to the HD realm as done with TNG is the best thing for the long run. They set the standard for remastering TV shows, they're shouldn't have move backwards from that.