Episodes that would look great in HD

[trekfan_1]

Since it looks like Paramount will release a 4 episode "test" BR disc soon, I thought I put in my 2 cents on which episodes I think would translate the best onto Blu Ray.

These are the 4 episodes I would choose:

Yesterday's Enterprise
The Best of Both Worlds
The inner Light


Yesterday's Enterprise is both a great episode and has superb lighting/cinematography that would look stunning on Bluray. I'm sure the HD treatment for that episode would almost give it a movie-quality look. BOBW is a natural choice, both a fan favorite and would be a good test to see how good the new CG FX (which they will likely re-create) will blend in with the live action shots. And inner light is both a touching story and another episode that has top notch cinematography (much like DS9's "The Vistor"). It's also a good change of pace from the action packed episodes.

If they count BOBW as 1 episode, I would add in " A Fistful of Datas". Its both a fun episode and the on-location western setting would look great in HD.

Any thoughts? Again not necessarily your favorite episodes but the ones that would take advantage of HD the most.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Based on the assumption that they would choose F/X heavy episodes, I'd go with:

Yesterday's Enterprise
BOBW
Parallels
Cause and Effect

Yesterday's Enterprise seems like a shoe-in. It'll be a shame if it isn't one of the ones that they pick.

In reality it'll probably be one high profile episode and three seemingly random episodes chosen for some reason only obvious to the people in development.

Some other episodes that I think would look good in HD: Elementary Dear Data (all the period sets), Clues, Tin Man

I will agree The Inner Light has a good chance to be chosen too

Come to think of it, Q Who has some of the most iconic F/X shots in the entire series, like the Enterprise being cut up by the Borg tractor beam. That might be a good F/X test episode if they didn't want to do BOBW.

 

[RAMA]

I would Pick Yesterday's Enterprise 1st, simply because BOBW is so familiar in my memory. There are some genuine proportional and movement improvements that can be made in the FX.

BOBW seems obvious though..

Over Inner light, I would pick Darmok, which is more FX driven for a "demo".

Watching Redemption recently, I feel these central episodes in the great Klingon saga really could also use some new FX.

RAMA

 

[BillJ]

Q, Who?
Contagion
The Survivors
Silicon Avatar

 

[Brikar99]

Something I thought of while re-watching the show recently via Netflix is that the show is often fairly inconsistent in color - In one shot, the uniforms will look nice and saturated and in the next very pale. "Best of Both Worlds" seemed desaturated all the way through, which led me to think perhaps it was shot that way on purpose, but that was just an off-hand thought.

My point is, I guess, for these episodes to "look great in HD" - For me, a big part of something looking great in HD is color. The TOS blu-ray set has great, vibrant colors and I'd love to see that kind of improvement for TNG, in addition to being able to see all the great details of sets and costumes.

That said... Do I pick episodes that are just my favorites that I want to see with lots of whiz-bang new special effects or do I pick episodes I think would be challenging to "remaster" or that would be great at showing off particular aspects of the project?

If the former, I would totally pick "Yesterday's Enterprise" because it has a lot of really interesting photography that is unusual for the show and battle sequences for the action/adventure fan in me.

I think I might also pick "11001101" because it has both some nifty space effects with the starbase shots as well as that excellent jazz bar. This one would be difficult because of the hazy atmosphere of the bar.

Having watched the TOS sets in HD, a lot of the episodes that looked truly spectacular were ones that featured a lot of outdoor location shooting, so perhaps an episode like "Who Watches the Watchers?"

"Legacy" might not be a fantastic episode, but features some cool sets and phaser fight effects, to give the four episodes a nice rounded feel.

Or, y'know, if I'm just gonna pick favorites that I wanna see all gussied up, "Q-Who", "Best of Both Worlds" "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Redemption."

 

[Art Vandelay]

Any episode from seasons 1 and 2 - the video quality of those has always been horrible, even on DVD. I expect the switch to HD to be a quantum leap for those early episodes.

 

[AviTrek]

Any episode from seasons 1 and 2 - the video quality of those has always been horrible, even on DVD. I expect the switch to HD to be a quantum leap for those early episodes.

Season 1 and 2 were filmed on different grade film with different lighting. An HD remaster will improve them, but I don't think they will ever look as good as seasons 3+.

 

[Start Wreck]

Season 1 and 2 were filmed on different grade film with different lighting. An HD remaster will improve them, but I don't think they will ever look as good as seasons 3+.

Not quite. The whole series, every season, was filmed on 35mm celuloid. Seasons 1 and 2 were transferred to analogue video for editing, whereas seasons 3+ were transferred to digital video, hence the difference in image quality.
In theory, footage from seasons 1 and 2 restored from the original celuloid should look just as good as footage from seasons 3+; however, as you rightly state, the lighting methods changed as well, so they'll always look a little "different" regardless of image quality.


My four episode HD wishlist:

- Justice
- The Royale
- Shades of Gray
- Imaginary Friend

Spoiler: the above list

(Just kidding!)

 

[barnaclelapse]

"Best of Both Worlds" is my easy first choice. That would look fanfreakingtastic.

"Yesterday's Enterprise" is another good one.

 

[Vinkula]

Redemption, both parts.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I'm onboard with Redemption now. All those Qo'nos shots would look really cool.

 

[MikeS]

I'd definitely like to see what they could do with the early stuff;

Where No One Has Gone Before.
Conspiracy.
Contagion.
Q Who?

 

[JRS]

Tin Man would be good choice, there is some nice Romulan warbird stuff and other things. Booby Trap with is asteroid fields would be nice also.

 

[Kinggodzillak]

If they go with BOBW then I would have thought Family would also have a fairly decent chance of appearing. Aside from one or two shots of the Enterprise in spacedock there's no other FX that would need replacing...

 

[BillJ]

If they go with BOBW then I would have thought Family would also have a fairly decent chance of appearing. Aside from one or two shots of the Enterprise in spacedock there's no other FX that would need replacing...

Then what's the point?

 

[Tosk]

Seeing as this is supposed to be a test more than anything, I'd actually expect them to go for very FX-light episodes. They don't know if it will be cost effective yet, and there is less work to be done the fewer FX shots there are.

My completely uninformed guess would be one episode with a fair number of effects and three with hardly any. I'll be very surprised if the always-mentioned BoBW is used.

 

[Brikar99]

It's also an episode with a lot of outdoor location shooting, which could look quite excellent in HD, as well as the interiors of the Picard home.

 

[BillJ]

If they try to push Family on an HD 'Best of...' they might as well stop now.

 

[JarodRussell]

All Good Things
Time's Arrow
and... oh, these are already four.

 

[AviTrek]

If they try to push Family on an HD 'Best of...' they might as well stop now.

It's not a "Best of" set. It's a demo disc designed to test how the conversion will work. The episodes presumably were picked by the team doing the remastering to determine if the remastering will work and to estimate the cost. That means picking a CGI heavy episode, an outdoor heavy episode, probably a sound stage heavy episode, and a ship episode. Or possibly one of the data/lore episodes to test all of that live action editing/blue screen to have Spiner play multiple parts. There has been no indication this will be marketed as a "Best of" set and sold at Best Buy. All they've said is there will be some way for fans to obtain the disc. That could be a mail in offer, a package with something else, or some low key distribution. If you're expecting a mass market promotion and "Best of" set, I think you're going to be disappointed.