Balance of Terror - Are they phasers?

[GSchnitzer]

Thanks for checking, TomCove.

So the old VHS versions--years before any messing around with the episodes in creating the DVD versions--actually have the photon torpedo sound accompanying what is basically the photon torpedo VFX?

I'm wondering if people who think that the episode as it originally aired back in 1966 didn't have the accompanying sound effect are simply misremembering instead of remembering. "I recall back on December 15, 1966 when I first saw this episode--I noticed that there was no sound effect that accompanied the proximity blast phaser effect." Really? It's there now on DVDs *and* it's there on pre-DVD VHS versions. Does *anybody* have *anything* where the sound isn't there--something other than a memory?

In the original broadcast version of the episode before anyone messed with it there was no sound to the phaser bursts. That is how we saw it on television in the '60s, '70s. '80s and '90s before they were remastered.

They started messing with things when the episodes were digitized for dvd. Then they just kept messing with it.

If that's true, then they messed with it for VHS releases in the 80's and 90's as well, because the VHS versions have the sound effect as well. And I find it very unlikely that anything was changed for the VHS releases.

 

[Timo]

...It does feel natural to think that the factual lack of audio on the detonations VFX would be confused with a lack of audio in the firing VFX, yes.

Just out of curiosity, was the detonation VFX recycled in any TOS episode? For "photon torpedo detonations" or for something else?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GSchnitzer]

...It does feel natural to think that the factual lack of audio on the detonations VFX would be confused with a lack of audio in the firing VFX, yes.

Just out of curiosity, was the detonation VFX recycled in any TOS episode? For "photon torpedo detonations" or for something else?

Timo Saloniemi

I think the silent distance detonation VFX were recycled in "Errand of Mercy" when the "phasers that look like photon torpedoes" are fired at the (unseen) Klingon ship.

 

[blssdwlf]

On my (original FX, 2 episode) dvd I'm hearing a deep bass explosion on my subwoofer for the sound effect after the firing of the proximity blast phasers. Was that a new addition as well?

The only sound fx difference I can tell between the proximity blast phaser and the photon torpedo firing is perhaps more echo (or is it reverb?) on the torpedo and some extra "tapping?" sound at the beginning of the torpedo firing.

 

[Warped9]

In the original broadcast version of the episode before anyone messed with it there was no sound to the phaser bursts. That is how we saw it on television in the '60s, '70s. '80s and '90s before they were remastered.

They started messing with things when the episodes were digitized for dvd. Then they just kept messing with it.

If that's true, then they messed with it for VHS releases in the 80's and 90's as well, because the VHS versions have the sound effect as well. And I find it very unlikely that anything was changed for the VHS releases.

It's completely true that the original broadcasts version had no sound effects to the phaser bursts. And I'm not the only one around here to affirm it. If the non TOS-R version on the Blu-Ray has sound effects then it's not as it was originally broadcast.

Back in the '70s before the episodes were available on any sort of media I watched these episode dozens of times and I know of what I speak.

 

[CoveTom]

^ It's not that I'm questioning your honesty, but I find it hard to believe that they made such a minor change as adding a photon torpedo sound effect to the VHS version when they didn't make any other changes at all to those editions. Why would they pick that one isolated scene to make a change to out of every scene in all 79/80 episodes?

 

[GSchnitzer]

In the original broadcast version of the episode before anyone messed with it there was no sound to the phaser bursts. That is how we saw it on television in the '60s, '70s. '80s and '90s before they were remastered.

They started messing with things when the episodes were digitized for dvd. Then they just kept messing with it.

If that's true, then they messed with it for VHS releases in the 80's and 90's as well, because the VHS versions have the sound effect as well. And I find it very unlikely that anything was changed for the VHS releases.

It's completely true that the original broadcasts version had no sound effects to the phaser bursts. And I'm not the only one around here to affirm it. If the non TOS-R version on the Blu-Ray has sound effects then it's not as it was originally broadcast.

Back in the '70s before the episodes were available on any sort of media I watched these episode dozens of times and I know of what I speak.

So, we've gone from disliking the sound effect because of "what they did to the episode in TOS-R" to "they started messing with things when the episodes were digitized for DVD" to the sound effect was missing only in prints of the episode aired on the network or in syndication "from the '70s before the episodes were available on any sort of media."

Even if true, it might just have been some sound oddity or glitch in the trimmed, edited and hacked-up version of the local print aired by whatever local station you had been watching--not in the "actual" original episode--unless you also remember the two airings on NBC or CTV also having been missing this sound effect.

 

[Warped9]

I can't speak about the VHS copies because I never saw TOS on VHS. Until I got the dvd's I had only watched TOS on broadcast television. I do know that when the episodes were remastered for dvd SPACE in Canada began to air those versions and that's when I first heard the added sound effect. But before that nada. And I had watched the episodes on numerous different stations.

 

[Maurice]

Just to be clear: I had Balance of Terror on VHS back in 1986 and I distinctly recall there were NO weapons sound effects on any of the space shots, but there was music behind said shots, so it couldn't have been an audio glitch.

 

[Warped9]

Just to be clear: I had Balance of Terror on VHS back in 1986 and I distinctly recall there were NO weapons sound effects on any of the space shots, but there was music behind said shots, so it couldn't have been an audio glitch.

Yes, the accompanying music was always there in a very effective way that augmented the firing of the phaser bursts as well as their detonation.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

There was a sound effect that was used in the interior scenes aboard the Enterprise.

But it was different from the torpedo effect. More a high pitch bzzooopp, then the torps pew-pew.

I think it was re-used in Journey to Babel for when Kirk orders the power cut. But I could be mistaken about that.

 

[Green Shirt]

Just to be clear: I had Balance of Terror on VHS back in 1986 and I distinctly recall there were NO weapons sound effects on any of the space shots, but there was music behind said shots, so it couldn't have been an audio glitch.

Yes, the accompanying music was always there in a very effective way that augmented the firing of the phaser bursts as well as their detonation.

Exactly as I remember it.

 

[Saturn0660]

Just to be clear: I had Balance of Terror on VHS back in 1986 and I distinctly recall there were NO weapons sound effects on any of the space shots, but there was music behind said shots, so it couldn't have been an audio glitch.

My VHS copyStore Bought)... Doesn't make any "weapon" sounds when they are showing the "space" view i.e. outside.. just music. On the bridge you hear the shots.

Not ALL the shots... some of them...

 

[CoveTom]

Okay, I'm going to go dig in my mother's basement and find my old Columbia House "collector's edition" VHS tapes that have Balance of Terror on them and see what I find. It may take me a couple of days, though. Stay tuned.

 

[GSchnitzer]

Okay, I'm going to go dig in my mother's basement and find my old Columbia House "collector's edition" VHS tapes that have Balance of Terror on them and see what I find. It may take me a couple of days, though. Stay tuned.

CoveTom, I just bought a Columbia House Collectors Edition "Balance of Terror" VHS on ebay yesterday. It should arrive in a couple of days. So you don't need to dig around in your basement; I'll have a copy shortly.

 

[GSchnitzer]

CoveTom, et al:

My very early Columbia House VHS of "Balance of Terror" arrived in the mail today. (I think this was the very first VHS version released.)

It turns out the classic "photon torpedo" sound does *not* accompany either the firing of or the detonation of the "proximity blast" phasers; it's just music--as a lot of people seem to have correctly recollected.

It looks like the "photon torpedo" sound was added later--either starting with a *later* version of the VHS tapes (before the DVDs came out--which seems unlikely) or starting with the earliest "two-episodes per disc" DVDs--which seems more likely). And, if it did start with the old DVDs, they might well have made VHS tapes for a while using the same "cleaned up and altered slightly" versions of the episodes that were put onto the DVD--before they phased out making the VHS tapes altogether.

Okay, I'm going to go dig in my mother's basement and find my old Columbia House "collector's edition" VHS tapes that have Balance of Terror on them and see what I find. It may take me a couple of days, though. Stay tuned.

CoveTom, I just bought a Columbia House Collectors Edition "Balance of Terror" VHS on ebay yesterday. It should arrive in a couple of days. So you don't need to dig around in your basement; I'll have a copy shortly.

 

[Captain Robert April]

This reminds me of the occasional debate with younger Star Wars fans who are dead certain that the opening crawl ALWAYS had "EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE" at the top, and quickly fall into conniption fits when informed that it wasn't the case.

 

[Saturn0660]

This reminds me of the occasional debate with younger Star Wars fans who are dead certain that the opening crawl ALWAYS had "EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE" at the top, and quickly fall into conniption fits when informed that it wasn't the case.

Or people not thinking Han fires first..

 

[Captain Robert April]

That's the fan edit I wanna see, restoring that scene.

 

[siskokid888]

I always rationalized them as early "pulse" phasers, like the ones used by the Defiant or the pulse type phasers seen in Trek 09.