Star Trek S1 Intro Narration Variation?

Actually, they were supposed to be green. The way the film was developed resulted in the more yellow tone. This can still be seen in FX shots where the tunics are more golden than greenish. Bill Theiss intended them to be green and in the new scans they are. They did not try to fix anything, that is just how it came out. James Crawley of New Voyages/Phase II has several original fabric samples he got directly from Bill Theiss that he used to color match the New Voyages/Phase II tunics. Green is the correct color, not gold.

 

Greg Schnitzer, August 14, 2009:

Part of the problem (in addition to the important fact that different people might use different terms to describe the very same thing they are seeing) is that the colors ar a bit of a moving target. They weren't exactly the same each season, the fabric fades with time, the film on which the episodes appear fade with time, different lighting makes them look different, they look different hanging on a hanger than they do when they are stretched taut, etc. All the stuff folks probably know.

So, when Trek costume designer Bill Theiss died, many of his notes, dyeing formulas and specifications for the very specific fabric dyeing company in Los Angeles, fabric swatches, patterns, and lots of other costume related stuff went to James (Cawley). And, of course, James has some original Shatner-worn shirts, too. At any rate, when we get our fabric dyed to make our command division uniforms, we go to the same fabric dyeing place in L.A., we use the same dye formulas (with codes--somewhat like mixing paint), we have the day shift at the dye shop dye the fabric under sunlight instead of having the night shift dye the fabric under fluorescent lights, and a zillion other picky specifications as spelled out in Bill Theiss' original instructions.

What color does it turn out? Well, you'd have to see it to know exactly what I'm talking about. But I think it looks "goldish" and I think it certainly does have some green in it. (I think the dye formula calls for some green.) In fact, I think you might be suprised at the degree of green. It's still not very much, but you'd probably say "Huh. A bit greener than I thought." Anyway, I believe Bill Theiss actually called this color "avocado" in his notes. Personally, I think that's the perfect name for this golden-greenish-yellow: the color of avocado flesh.​

At another point in time Schnitzer and I discussed the problem of displaying yellow (of any type) using RGB (like displays and TVs). A bright yellow might be easy to pick out... but what happens if you darken it?

Here is an example...

​

Is that dark yellow or some form of green? The point on the color wheel hasn't moved. Or is green a more dominant color compared to yellow, specially when using RGB?

In the end, what the networks wanted most out of the uniforms was that they were all the same tone... so that they all appeared the same shade of gray on Black & White TVs of the day. After all, one of the biggest sponsors of Star Trek was RCA, and they wanted the show to look way different on their Color TVs than on Black & White TVs.

 

Cushman arrived at his number based on total guesswork and his conclusions should be disregarded as such.

The cello theme was recorded on September 20, 1966. By that date, the following episodes had completed dubbing and/or aired: "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "Mudd's Women," "The Man Trap," "The Naked Time," and "Charlie X." Therefore, they must have used the electric violin arrangement of the Star Trek theme.

"The Enemy Within" did not complete dubbing until September 27, 1966. It could have used either variation on the theme.

The questions is as much why did they change it as when did the they change it? Unfortunately, we don't know. The only recorded comments we currently have about the electric violin version are from a Roddenberry memo to Wilbur Hatch, in which he praised the theme while complaining about the rest of the score to "The Man Trap" by Courage. Wrote Roddenberry, "I like the theme. If the music had followed that direction (and I thought it was going to as I left the music stage to take care of other pressing duties), we would have been well off."

Without more information (be it documentation or access to the original mono soundtracks), all we can say for sure is that five episodes from the first season (in broadcast order, 1-4 & 6) definitely used the electric violin theme. Every other first season episode could have used either version of it.

 

Loud and clear re: Cushman. You know I know better.

I am willing to believe that The Enemy Within had the original version mainly because I'm - pretty sure - I remember it being that way in syndication and the last run of uncut episodes before WVIA Channel 44 (a PBS station in Pennsylvania) switched over to the new Paramount prints. I remember they switched over around that time in the run. After that, everything was standardized.

While having the odd episode with a different theme before going back to the original for one week seems weird, I have seen it on other shows. Also, Where No Man Has Gone Before aired without the narration, which either confused people or (more likely) most people didn't notice. If they didn't care about uniforms changing due to jumbled air dates, the music wouldn't have been a concern in that regard either. However, the music would have been a production choice and the schedule a network decision.

Pardon me while I think out loud...

Unfortunately, of the two people I knew who had 16mm prints of the series, neither of them were willing or able to send me copies in order to know for sure. This is just one of a dozen reasons why I really wish CBS/Paramount had gone back to the actual mono soundtracks when they released the episodes on Blu Ray. Guessing is "fun" but I really wanna know the answer.

I guess it may have made slender sense to include the new theme on the next episode to air that had Steiner's (partial) score, which would have been What Are Little Girls Made Of?

I would also love to know why CBS/Paramount felt the first ten production episodes should have them, according to the initial DVD releases.

 

The Blu-rays DO have the original mono sound tracks. How do I know? I have ripped the both ways and compared the original effects/sound to my DVD version.

The first recording made after the pilots was The Man Trap. Alexander Courage recorded his electric violin version of the theme on 8/19/66. Fred Steiner recorded the cello verison on 8/29/66. So both were recorded Before a single episode had aired. The liner notes in the complete soundtrack recordings show that Courage's version was used for the early episodes, but at least by 1984, the only episode it was still on was WNMHGB. From my information about when the episodes were edited and what sources were used, that was the case from the earliest reruns. Any editing was done during the production of Season 1. Any retention of the early sound tracks would have been from local stations who needed to record it to broadcast it at a different time. A fairly common practice, though it was not common to keep them. But it has been known to happen, as Doctor Who fans are well aware. But the HD remaster with CG was done from the original negatives (which is why The Cage now has a nice even color) and soundtracks. So the mono version on the Blu-Rays is the original master so any changes were made in the 60's. We would need some solid evidence (not personal anecdotes) to back it up.

 

I have to disagree. Sound changes were made from the 60's-early 80's syndicated runs when they changed over to the mid-80's prints. Then changes were made to the prints used for the DVDs and then again for the Blu-Rays. It wasn't as if they made these sound changes in the 60's and left it alone until the DVDs. There was futzing all around. Example: the sound effect of the phaser rifle hitting the rocks after Mitchell sweeps it away from Kirk in WNMHGB is missing from the VHS prints, but is back in the blu-rays. However, it WAS there before the new prints were struck in the mid-80's.

Some episodes on the Blu Rays do have the original mono tracks. Most actually don’t. I never said none of them do, mind you. The first season has a few and Amok Time is also correct. All you have to do is listen to any second season episode after Amok Time. If there is an engine rumble, it’s not correct. That's pretty much all of them.

Also, the engine rumble was phased out before the end of the first season. The VHS tape prints were accurate with those, to my knowledge. There was some sound tweaking to make them stereo, but sounds don't seem to have been added. If anything, some were removed.

The Naked Time: nope, not the original mix. Engine rumble was not on that episode, according to the VHS tapes.

What Are Little Girls Made Of? Rumble is waaaaay too loud. It drowns out the Captain's log.

The Menagerie: yup that is great. Original mix ahoy!

You don’t need anecdotes, just some early vhs tapes and a 16mm film copy. And while the VHS tapes do not have the original sound mix, it is as close to it as we have gotten on home video to date. As far as the electric violin opening theme for the first season on blu-ray, that is wildly inconsistent and often wrong.

 

You are aware that audio differences can be caused by variation in transfer and the source can have remained unchanged. There have been many audio remaster where listeners swear there are major differences and the artists and engineers swear they are authentic. Sometimes older transfers may have errors and the newer ones are more accurate. VHS transfers are notorious for being "cleaned up" in ways that actually degraded the transfer.

 

I get it and I will absolutely admit to a) faulty memory and b) differences in transfer and technology. However, the comparison between the second and third season audio was done with these sources:

1) Paramount 2-episode VHS tapes from 1982 from earlier prints with no cleanup done. This was pre-Columbia House full series release, pre-Paramount 79 volumes, pre-laserdisc.

2) 16mm syndicated print of the episode "Bread and Circuses" which I own. On the reel.

3) Amazon Prime third season episodes. The original effects episodes are from an earlier print. While I can't identify the source, they look like pre-DVD quality prints.

The Paramount tapes of the second and third season episodes have no engine rumble in the exterior shots of the Enterprise (which is the telltale). The 16mm reel (which is the absolute purest source I can think of over than unspooling the original 35mm prints at Paramount) has no engine rumble.

About 90% of the Prime episodes do not have engine rumble, which was a real surprise when I watched one. Those that do are clearly from the newer prints.

So, I am not making broad assumptions based on memories of a kid from the 70's listening to the entire series on cassette tapes for years... Which I did, which is why I'm so attuned to it and spotted the more obvious changes the moment I saw the new prints and why this has been a quest for me since then. I have done as much due diligence as I can with the media I can get (as soon as I can afford to, I will go back to collecting 16mm prints). The assumptions I do make are: I just can't imagine someone back in the 80's scrubbing out all of the exterior engine sounds for two full seasons and part of the first. Massaging the sound to make it "stereo"? Sure. And in the process, dialing out music cues and sound effects here and there? Absolutely. I admit the VHS tapes aren't faithful. However, cherry picking the first season and then doing all the others? Makes zero sense. However, it is clear that audio mishaps and changes were made to the DVDs (and these have been notices by other people than I): adding sounds where they didn't exist before, adding the wrong music, accidentally removing music from "The Doomsday Machine" (and restoring it for the clamshell release in 2004), and putting the electric violin theme on too many episodes, and so on.

I've spent years obsessing over this and I continue to look for more sources. So, until someone can give me audio evidence that I'm totally wrong the the blu rays are indeed 100% accurate, this is where I'm gonna stand. Hell, they didn’t even put the electric violin theme back on The Man Trap. Or, for that matter, take the time to fix the jump edit in the audio of theme in WNMHGB, which was never on any other version of this episode. So, yeah, I’m not gonna waver on this without evidence.

 

Shaw:

It seems gold is what they were going for, as images under different lighting conditions (L: publicity photo, M: second season screencap) produced nearly identical shades of gold--

--hence the reason the animated series matched that color for command division shirts.

 

Oh! So it wasn't a "Mandala effect"? I didn't simply imagine the weapon "clatter" when watching the episode as a kid in the mid and late 70s? I was recording the audio during those years onto cassette and I used a cable I got from Radio Shack, jacking it into the earplug port of my ole "portable" B?W set and the AUX input jack of the tape recorder. I didn't think I could have gotten external sounds onto the tape, not until that set "died" and the 13" color replacement did not have an audio jack. At that point I had to position the recorder close to the speaker to get the sound and the recorder often captured sounds of my grandmother futzing around the kitchen which was the very next room.

 

Nope you heard it. And it’s on both the aired and unaired versions now. Exactly as it sounded/

 

That's right. If they had wanted the Kirk-Sulu tunic to look green, they had ample opportunities to move to an unmistakable green dye. But they never did. They kept on with the gold look, which is what we saw in first run and then in three decades of syndication. As far as I'm concerned, gold was the in-universe color, and green was a behind the scenes, in-studio quirk.

 

Agreed, the only uniforms Kirk wore which were obviously green were the dress uniform and the wrap. "Command gold" has been the color for decades. Notice TNG spun off on those colors (but giving command red for whatever reason - probably movie based) and the Bad Robot films as well as Discovery have retained gold as the color.

So whatever it was on set, what we at home were meant to see was gold. Because the Mego Action Figures could NOT be wrong!

 

In all seriousness making Red the Command color was done just BECAUSE it was NOT what TOS did, and GR (from the start because he sold the TOS IP rights to Paramount at the end of the original series, and thus had no claim to any TOS merchandising profits, etc.) just wanted TNG to be 'not TOS' - and hopefully and ultimately supplant TOS so that GR could get a slice of the merchandising pie - and he hoped TNG would be (going forward from 1987) tho ONLY (or at least more popular) version of Star Trek the fans would embrace.

For him TOS was dead because ultimately he got no more money from it (aside from the token fees Paramount paid his to say he was a "Consultant" on the various TOS based feature films).

 

I remember during TNG's glory days, critics and magazine were saying it would supplant the original series in representing Star Trek.

Womp womp.

 

Well you have to be careful with the streaming services. I wouldn't trust them to have everything set up correctly. sure they might say you can watch the original version but I wouldn't count on it that they have all the audio and video tracks setup correctly. The blu-rays are set up Swiss and the two distinct audio tracks and set up where the unchanged scenes they're both versions have in common are the same video file and the original effects and then remastered effects have separate video files I'm playing the episode either way plays basically a playlist.

I was quite obsessive about my documentation of the original series when I was watching it back in the 80s. I made note of the different themes and they different openings and found that where no man has gone before was the only episode without the narration and the only episodes use that version of the music. The rest of season 1, back in 1984 syndication on Denver's channel 2, had the same opening theme for every episode. Season 2 seems to have had the same opening theme for every episode. And season 3 change the color of the text and had the same music for every episode oh, though the music between seasons seem to be noticeably different. And when I got the soundtrack of theology I found that it was sounded different because they made a different recording every season. But I never remember seeing a single episode where Kirk's opening narration was followed by the same music found in where no man has gone before. That is the version for the end credit music of every single episode in season 1, but not the opening. My guess as to when this happened was some time between the original broadcast of the first episodes and the obligatory rerun of those episodes during season 1. Paramount would have no reason to do anything to any of these episodes between the end of the first run of the original series in 1969 and the first release of the unedited episodes. we know for reruns that cut out 5 minutes of every episode, but I fail to see why they would bother changing anything during that time period. What I can see happening is that sometime between making the master negative and audio tapes but someone in the production made some final edits to the broadcast version that we're never saved. so when Paramount went back to the original materials any actual changes you have noticed we're lost. And to find out that we would need to find those original Master prints that were used to broadcast the episodes back in the 60s.if you really want to research this further you should talk to Rod Roddenberry as he is the keeper of just about everything that isn't in the Paramount vaults. but at the present time the only episode I'm aware of that has varied with each release is The Cage. Due to the way it was cut up during the making of The Menagerie, putting it back together has been challenging and several seconds are missing. Very likely they left out the video to match the missing audio. We know it is missing because there were only 2 copies, the negative and the B&W print that Roddenberry took to conventions (where fans made audio recordings that captured the missing audio). Likely it was damaged during projection. But the audio for the full episode only exists on that copy. I wouldn't expect to find any such reason with any other episode. Any documentable changes have to lie in when those changes were made compared to the current masters. And the current masters were not the sources for most syndication or early video releases.

 

Absolutely agree that sound mixed in streaming services are untrustworthy. However, my two telltales for assuming these are earlier prints are: 1) the episodes with what sounds like an earlier mix are quite obviously a different source print. The colors are duller and the quality of the image is not the same as the few episodes of the season which are struck from the more recent sources (and have corresponding sound mixes). This is not the same as bad streaming or anything, the prints themselves are not as vibrant. Only the third season has these episodes. And 2) there is a different audio take of Shatner in Day of the Dove. On the DVD prints forward, when he says "that will take us out of the galaxy" the reading of the word "galaxy" is different than it was in earlier prints (the original has almost a question in his tone while the recent is more certain but obviously dubbed). The Prime version of this episode has the pre-2000 audio. Other sounds which are on the DVDs forward are missing from this episode (the woosh when the Enterprise speeds by and so on).

But even listening to The Naked Time's "mono" mix on the blu rays, it sounds too full. Even ignoring the "not there in the 80's" engine rumble, it doesn't sound like "original mono." It's just too good. It's not flat enough.

See now, I do. I remember The Man Trap having the same version of the theme as Where No Man Has Gone Before, just with the narration and Enterprise whoosh. Yes, we're both relying on memory here (and I knew two fellas who agreed but again more memories). However, apparently Paramount seems to agree, at least on the DVDs, since they restored it to that episode (and 9 others - however inaccurate that total might be). In New York syndication, until Paramount replaced the prints with pre-cut tapes in the mid-80's, the opening and closing themes were the same electric violin theme as Where No Man.

Also, from Harvey a few posts back:

While I totally appreciate what you're saying, I am pretty steadfast in my belief that the "mono" sound mix on the blu-rays isn't right for the majority of the episodes. It's ridiculously easy to add sounds, music and voices to a sound mix on video files. I can do it as a hobby in minutes. So futzing with the sound to add weight and fill up the 5.1 home speakers is easy peasy. As for changing opening credits for home video: I would love to tell you this is a rarity, but the majority of classic shows have been changed. Either to remove sponsors (Bewitched) or just to make them uniform (I Dream of Jeannie). For some, the changes make no sense at all, but someone will make them. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has a few of them for the DVDs. So does Land of the Giants. Go figure.

 

We know the the first broadcast episodes had the other theme (I have no info if it was with or without Shatner's vo). Some of the home video releases may have used that version and the master tapes might be a different edit. Star Wars suffers from this problem. The May 1977 cut of the film had 3 differences from the July 1977 release and for some reason all the English home video releases had 3 of those but not the fourth. And the final audio edit (in mono only) only appeared in a handful of UK broadcasts.

But I very much doubt that any of the Blu-ray mono tracks is not authentic. I'm sure there is some very good reason why it seems to sound different.

 

Since no resource or person has ever mentioned the v/o missing from any other episode, you can be quite sure Shatner's narration was on the other 78 broadcasts.

Yup, there's a very good reason: it's because they are different. It's not the same mix.

I can tell you for absolute certainty that the mono track on "Bread and Circuses" on blu ray is different from the 16mm syndicated print that I have in my possession. The syndie print would not have been changed. They simply would have made 16mm copies of the 35mm episodes for syndication, or stuck copies from other 16mm prints sent out to local affiliates for original broadcast. On that basis alone, I know changes were made to the blu rays. I don't have to go by decades old memory or a 1985 laserdisc for this one.

Further, the sound mix for the mono tracks on "Space Seed' and "This Side of Paradise" aren't even the same between the 2006 blu rays and the 2016 Roddenberry Vault releases. Adjustments were made to those episodes. Perhaps one of those releases has the original mix for those episodes, but one doesn't. I'm going to go with the Vault releases because the sound effect don't drown out the dialog and are closer to the earlier prints (I say "perhaps" because both blu-rays have exterior engine rumble while the LD/VHS tapes don't and they match 16mm film excerpts on You Tube). Plus they also corrected the main titles for "The Corbomite Maneuver," restoring the Steiner arrangement. Honestly, considering how much playing around with the episodes have been done, there is actually NO reason to assume the mix for the blu rays is correct on more than a handful of episodes. Also considering how many labels make unannounced and unexplained changes, it's is well within the realm pf probability that the mix isn't what they claim. It's just that most people wont notice or care. You want to believe it's authentic? That's your privilege, but I don't and won't until someone can prove otherwise.

So, I'll go on hoping for a legitimately accurate release of the series at some point in my lifetime.

 

But the thing about the blu-rays that we know for certain is that they were taken from the original negatives. if these are typical negatives they do not have a soundtrack on them. so they would match them up to the master soundtrack recording. What I am saying is that Master soundtrack recording may not match where has been available for years. I'm not saying there are no changes. I'm saying there are no new changes. I'm saying that any changes we're hearing were made sometime during the production of the original series back in the 60s. I feel it is more likely that the wrong tape got stuck in the archives then the then if they edited it for some bizarre reason since then. because I seriously see no reason for anyone at Paramount to have edited anything about the episodes of second cutting them for time back in the 70s. and also very often when you pull something off of a master tape again with modern technology you can pick up stuff that sounds really different even though it isn't.