do you think TOS should have been remastered?

[Warped9]

I am fucking sick and tired of hearing the adjectives "cheesy" and "campy" and such invoked when people start talking about TOS or things like the "slow motion picture" in regard to TMP. Maybe they think they're cute or smart or whatever, but their inherent disdain and lack of grasping context and perspective just screams out.

When they write like that then fuck them. I have no interest to read further.

And the phrase "most of the new effects are not even noticeable" is complete bullshit.

But I can see why RAMA thinks this is an "excellent" article.

 

[urbandefault]

The CGI for Enterprise, even when I first saw them on a VHS recorded at SLP, looked like low resolution models that were intended for a rough cut of the episodes. (When Enterprise first aired none of the channels in my area aired it, so starting in Season 2 I had a family member who had satellite record them off the dish, and he would put 6 episodes on a T-120.). Aside from the CGI in the Voyager episode "Wink Of An Eye", the CGI in DS9 and Voyager, and even the early CGI in TNG for the Crystalline Entity looked 1,000,000 times better than what Enterprise had. Even the TMPE did a lot better with CGI. In all those cases the shows/movie had to make sure that their CGI matched in terms of appearance and on-screen weight, with already shot physical models. Enterprise never had any weight to its models, and even when models were employed (such as in the "Minefield" episode) they never really matched the CGI. Plus that Enterprise-D model in TATV I wanted to vomit when I saw it, for it looked horrendous, and was in no way a match to the physical model from TNG or even the CGI model that appeared in "Generations" (it was not until the 2004 DVD that I realized that there was a CGI shot in the movie); not to mention the torn-up-plastic-bag-look-like-asteroids. And the TOS Enterprise looked like, in both its Enterprise appearances, a reuse of the CGI models that were made for the PS2/XBox game "Shattered Universe", just upscaled.

But the TOS-R effects, even now, look like physical models and have the weight. And by weight, I'm reminded of a comment that Leonard Maltin made on commentary track of the Disney Treasure release of the 1932 cartoon "The Night Before Christmas", especially where in the opening shot you can see elves pitching hay, but you can see the "weight" of the hay on the fork as the elf throws it over his body. That's what I look for in good CGI. If it doesn't have the onscreen weight and appearance of a real thing, then forget it, the CGI is poor. And Eden FX's CGI was nowhere close to being good CGI; infact I would say that the "butchered" CGI from Babylon 5 is better.

Not sure why, but I feel like it's "Opposite Day" and I missed the memo.

 

[Forbin]

I rewatched The Incredibles the other night, and director Brad Bird said that he felt like the computers had their own agenda to make everything they animated smooth, flat, plastic-y, and weightless. They had to constantly fight against those qualities seeping in.

Check out the extras on the original Shreck DVD. There are CG outtakes showing mistakes the computers rendered overnight, like Donkey as a big fluffy ball, or a character running around with their clothing following a foot behind them.

 

[Forbin]

I am fucking sick and tired of hearing the adjectives "cheesy" and "campy" and such invoked when people start talking about TOS or things like the "slow motion picture" in regard to TMP. Maybe they think they're cute or smart or whatever, but their inherent disdain and lack of grasping context and perspective just screams out.

When they write like that then fuck them. I have no interest to read further.

And the phrase "most of the new effects are not even noticeable" is complete bullshit.

But I can see why RAMA thinks this is an "excellent" article.

Although I do love referring to that last series as "Boobyprise", and the one before it as "V'ger", with Captain Insaneway and B'Nanna Torres.

 

[RAMA]

I am fucking sick and tired of hearing the adjectives "cheesy" and "campy" and such invoked when people start talking about TOS or things like the "slow motion picture" in regard to TMP. Maybe they think they're cute or smart or whatever, but their inherent disdain and lack of grasping context and perspective just screams out.

When they write like that then fuck them. I have no interest to read further.

And the phrase "most of the new effects are not even noticeable" is complete bullshit.

But I can see why RAMA thinks this is an "excellent" article.

But WAIT you said the effects are noticeable next to the old footage...But weren't you saying they weren't good CGI??

Yes, well most people realize the FX are not up to snuff with the new stuff, but I think they're usually saying "cheesy" in an endearing sense not maliciously.

Almost the entire non-Trekkie world thinks STTMP is slow btw....as well as 75% of the Trekkie world.

If you had stuck with the article and read it fully, you would have seen the point was how they did not "re-invent the wheel" like some other "remastered" projects.

RAMA

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Check out the extras on the original Shreck DVD.

No thanks. I hated that movie, and I have no desire to ever rewatch it in any form.

There are CG outtakes showing mistakes the computers rendered overnight, like Donkey as a big fluffy ball, or a character running around with their clothing following a foot behind them.

The Incredibles also has a featurette like that. I'm sure most any CG-animated film has a collection of outtakes like that, whether they include them on a home video release or not.

 

[Irishman]

I just saw the remastered Doomsday Machine and boy does that CGI look dated. Like early Babylon 5

give me real models any day

Badly done CGI does look fake. Good CGI blends in with the rest of the shots and you don't know it's CGI. It's not jarring, no does it remove you from the narrative.

 

[Capn Nick]

Maybe I'm just not very observant but as cool and impressive as effects can look, I don't find early effects like the ones in TOS distracting and kind of like them. I mean, the first couple minutes, if I haven't watched it in awhile I think "this looks old" but then my imagination takes over.

I didn't really mind the remaster except it looked maybe better but more out of place with the rest of the show. So it kept taking me out of the story because I was so conscious of the effects. Don't know if that makes sense. Anyway, it only really makes sense to remaster things with better graphics if we believe now is when the graphics have peaked. Otherwise you are just making new graphics that will look old again in five years :-)

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Badly done CGI does look fake. Good CGI blends in with the rest of the shots and you don't know it's CGI. It's not jarring, no does it remove you from the narrative.

Well said, and TOS-R's FX were jarring beyond belief; it was as obviously out of place as shooting a Fast and the Furious film, but replace all of the live car scenes with Hot Wheels--just as clearly unsuitable to match the filmed work.

 

[STEPhon IT]

But WAIT you said the effects are noticeable next to the old footage...But weren't you saying they weren't good CGI??

RAMA

He got you, Warped9; you set yourself up for that one.

 

[Warped9]

But WAIT you said the effects are noticeable next to the old footage...But weren't you saying they weren't good CGI??

Yes, well most people realize the FX are not up to snuff with the new stuff, but I think they're usually saying "cheesy" in an endearing sense not maliciously.

Almost the entire non-Trekkie world thinks STTMP is slow btw....as well as 75% of the Trekkie world.

If you had stuck with the article and read it fully, you would have seen the point was how they did not "re-invent the wheel" like some other "remastered" projects.

RAMA

There is nothing wrong in what I said. And no one "got me."

My point still stands.

 

[Maurice]

Excellent article: http://www.shadowlocked.com/2011032...rek-remastered-and-the-subtle-art-of-cgi.html

Superficial. It's rather weak tea.

 

[RAMA]

Superficial. It's rather weak tea.

Contrary to the knee-jerkers, the article is very balanced and takes the reality of evolving technical effects into account..the point where the writer suggests doing new FX would possibly have been a disaster (with the SW:SE as context) is a case in point. The fact the new FX were a spectacular success and yet subtle instead of state-of-the-art is key. So yes, it's a very good article in my opinion.

It's actually kind of between the POVs here, since I think more should have been done for the remaster (if they had time) but here, many think it's sacrilegious...something which immediately sets my "anal retentive purist" alert klaxon off.

 

[Maurice]

Not everyone here is a knee-jerker. For instance, I get why they did the new fx, I just don't think the right approach was taken in their execution, resulting in a number of very clumsily executed shots and a failure to recognize when the original fx got something right.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Not everyone here is a knee-jerker. For instance, I get why they did the new fx, I just don't think the right approach was taken in their execution, resulting in a number of very clumsily executed shots and a failure to recognize when the original fx got something right.

Agreed. The places where I disliked the new effects were where they were working at cross purposes with what TOS did.

 

[UnknownSample]

So, enough of us want the originals available that they always WILL be available, in the forseeable future, right? If that's a given, I automatically care far less about any travesties committed by the remasterers. I now am enthusiastic about Remastered as a very cool alternative to standard Trek. That's if I don't look on it as a replacement, but a different view of the same events, from a different angle or point in space. Then, having this alternative enhances the sense of all this being real.

Certain episodes are just mistakes in Remastered. Skip those. Any ep that involves the galactic barrier, or space paramecia.

 

[Warped9]

In some respects they have replaced the originals. For some years now on Space here in Canada TOS-R is now what is broadcast.

 

[Scotchy]

Yes. On the Bluray you can still watch the original effects if you want to.

 

[Kemaiku]

Yes, but actually televised broadcasts around the world now only show TOS-R and TNG-R. The UK has replaced seasons 1-5 of TNG that I know of already.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yes. AFAIK, the TOS-R are the only versions being broadcast. And Netflix only has the TOS-R versions. So you really only have a choice when you buy the series on Blu-Ray. I'm sure that the more casual fanbase doesn't notice or care.