The 1701 was such a poor, video-game style element in WNMHGB. It did not appear to have scale of any kind. It was cartoony, and just there.
do you think TOS should have been remastered?
- Thread starter Clym
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The 1701 was such a poor, video-game style element in WNMHGB. It did not appear to have scale of any kind. It was cartoony, and just there.
In the 60s, when watching the original as a kid, it looked like a huge spacefaring cigar to me.
I have no trouble with the remastering touching things up a little bit.
Dang, I never noticed that. That is a bummer. It sounds more like an error than censorship, but one more reason for me to hang on to the previous DVD release I guess.
The "remastered" Constellation is WAY over-damaged. If the ship had sustained this much damage, much of the crew would have never made it to a transporter room. And as I've pointed out before, the "U.S.S." and "CONSTELLATION" are two different fonts, which looks really cheesy and amateurish.
And why we're on the subject of damaged ships, why don't we see any damage on the "remastered" Enterprise during this episode? It sustains at least six hits from the planet killer, some of which occur after it lost shields. You mean it did that much damage to one ship but none to the other? Not a whole lot of thought went into that decision.
The down-throat view of the original planet killer effect is still much more effective, despite the obvious flaws of the matte line and the disappearing piece on the bottom (looks like some tape fell off during filming of the model). The remastered version looks, well, cartooney.
I'm not saying the original effects for TOS are flawless or have stood the test of time well, I'm saying that many--not all, but too many--of the remastered shots are flawed as well, and don't deliver the great upgrade most of us expected. We thought we'd get effects that rivaled what we saw on the last few years of DS9. What we got was nowhere close to that level of quality.
If the original effects were a Ford Pinto, the remastered effects were a Ford Focus.... not the Lexus we were made to expect.
I liked them. I've only seen about twenty episodes of TOS anyway on TV and if I bother to see the rest it'll be this version.
"Better" can often be a matter of definition.
The problem I have with the new damage is, why is it so scattered?
If the ship had been hit with the anti-proton beam it would have caused something that looked more like thermal damage on a larger scale. If she survived such a powerful, wide beam shot at all.
If it's meant to be portions of the ship hit with flaming debris as the ship battled the Planet Killer in the middle of a planets destruction (maybe why she survived, falling into the debris field beyond the Killers ability to see or care) then it should look like impact damage.
That looks like focused particle weapon fire, tearing out specific areas of the hull, more like I'd have expected to see in the Ultimate Computer actually.
If the ship had been hit with the anti-proton beam it would have caused something that looked more like thermal damage on a larger scale. If she survived such a powerful, wide beam shot at all.
If it's meant to be portions of the ship hit with flaming debris as the ship battled the Planet Killer in the middle of a planets destruction (maybe why she survived, falling into the debris field beyond the Killers ability to see or care) then it should look like impact damage.
That looks like focused particle weapon fire, tearing out specific areas of the hull, more like I'd have expected to see in the Ultimate Computer actually.
Wow.
It's funny, when I posted the other day, I had a few comparison pics in my folder from WNMhGB in the energy barrier, and I thought..wow, the new FX and shot selection looks so cinematic here compared to the old versions.
We are never going to agree here.
I think I'll just stand over here quietly being right.
RAMA
More effective how????
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"Where No Man Has Gone Before" is my least favorite of the remastered shows. The camera moves don't match the cinematography of the show at all during the barrier sequence and are far too modern. It doesn't look like an attempt was made to even match the design of the original shots.Wow.
It's funny, when I posted the other day, I had a few comparison pics in my folder from WNMhGB in the energy barrier, and I thought..wow, the new FX and shot selection looks so cinematic here compared to the old versions.
I think I'll just stand over here quietly being right.
RAMA
After the barrier sequence there is an especially bad shot looking down at the Enterprise as Captain Kirk gives his log entry.
Neil
For me, the original version of "Where No Man..." blows away the remastered effects done by CBS Digital. What really blows me away is how lazy the star fields look in the remastered version.
The main blunder in the energy barrier was turning it into a big gas cloud when it was supposed to be, well , an energy barrier. One of the most striking science fiction images ever was reduced to something mundane.
When the CGI fails, it's usually not a matter of technology but of design. Often ST effects were originally designed to have a surreal, jarring effect. These were often replaced with functional shots which ignore artistic considerations.
When the CGI fails, it's usually not a matter of technology but of design. Often ST effects were originally designed to have a surreal, jarring effect. These were often replaced with functional shots which ignore artistic considerations.
The remastering of TOS was one huge, inconsistant mess, and the viewers are partially to blame for that. Looking at it now, the first few episodes, like Miri and Balance of Terror were done pretty well. Very few changes and a ship that was lit and detailed very closely to the model. If the whole series had been done like this I would have been OK with it. But people complained about the nacelle caps and demanded more new shots - even though the worst part of BoT is that Romulan top shot. So they used that as an excuse to switch out the model to something dull grey, low polly, and with plating all over it and started doing crazy stuff animation wise. And the nacelle domes still look bad.
First of all, none of the external shots match the internals as far as feel anymore. The Klingon D7 used to be aqua and purple. Now it's just grey. The Botany Bay was red. Now it's just grey. The Tholian ships used to be lit with many oranges, purples, and greens. Now they look like the ships from Enterprise. All the planets were turned into earth type worlds with different colored clouds on top of them. Its just homogeneous, dull, blandness all over.
There are a lot of compositional mistakes like the entire top of the D7 being cut off in Elaan of Troyius or the E taking up half the shot when the Fesarrius shows up in Corbomite Maneuver when she was incredibly small in the original or Andromeda being way too big in By Any Other Name. They shot those scales in the 60s, not because of a limitation, but because they were trying to get across a specific feeling. A feeling lost in the Remaster.
Next, the animations are horrendous. Ships often teeter like they have no mass and are hanging on a string, ex. the E in her first shot in Tomorrow is Yesterday or the D7 in Elaan of Troyius or the Tholians bumping butts in The Tholian Web. Often times the ship and the camera move in bizarre, incompatible ways, like the approach to the K7 station in Tribbles or the E breaking in Tomorrow is Yesterday.
And, lastly, nothing is properly lit. Everything is mid-tone grey. Special effects like phasers, the planet killer's mouth, the sun, a super nova, the barrier - they're all super, super dull. None of them "blow out" the "film". None of them have any kind of blinding power to them because they are literally grey.
Now, I don't hate everything. I approve of nearly all the surface shots. They really do add to the scope of the landing environments without being incompatible. They also break up mattes that were over used. Honestly, thumbs up on creating some really well done, hard to do, bright daylight scenes. Unfortunately they make the space stuff look even more amateurish.
First of all, none of the external shots match the internals as far as feel anymore. The Klingon D7 used to be aqua and purple. Now it's just grey. The Botany Bay was red. Now it's just grey. The Tholian ships used to be lit with many oranges, purples, and greens. Now they look like the ships from Enterprise. All the planets were turned into earth type worlds with different colored clouds on top of them. Its just homogeneous, dull, blandness all over.
There are a lot of compositional mistakes like the entire top of the D7 being cut off in Elaan of Troyius or the E taking up half the shot when the Fesarrius shows up in Corbomite Maneuver when she was incredibly small in the original or Andromeda being way too big in By Any Other Name. They shot those scales in the 60s, not because of a limitation, but because they were trying to get across a specific feeling. A feeling lost in the Remaster.
Next, the animations are horrendous. Ships often teeter like they have no mass and are hanging on a string, ex. the E in her first shot in Tomorrow is Yesterday or the D7 in Elaan of Troyius or the Tholians bumping butts in The Tholian Web. Often times the ship and the camera move in bizarre, incompatible ways, like the approach to the K7 station in Tribbles or the E breaking in Tomorrow is Yesterday.
And, lastly, nothing is properly lit. Everything is mid-tone grey. Special effects like phasers, the planet killer's mouth, the sun, a super nova, the barrier - they're all super, super dull. None of them "blow out" the "film". None of them have any kind of blinding power to them because they are literally grey.
Now, I don't hate everything. I approve of nearly all the surface shots. They really do add to the scope of the landing environments without being incompatible. They also break up mattes that were over used. Honestly, thumbs up on creating some really well done, hard to do, bright daylight scenes. Unfortunately they make the space stuff look even more amateurish.
Yeah, the barrier now looks like a random and oddly sparse plasma halo. Those happen on a lot of galaxies (as well as dark matter halos) with regularity we can now read about in most science periodicals.
The old one was a tight band of strange negative energy that might have had all kinds of invisible aspects, the visible ones being weird enough. It looked unnatural, and that was the whole point.
And the Enterprise does look the worst in that episode of the remaster, I don't know why. Mirror, Mirror shows the model is the same quality render as the 1701 main CGI model, so they must have cheaped out by rendering the whole thing on a lower pass due to the effects heavy nature of the episode. That's just lazy.
I know I'm responding to myself, but here's the shot I was referring to. It's even worse when it's moving.
For comparison, this is the shot it replaced.
Both images are from Trekcore.
Neil
That is plain awful.
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