I bought this book while on holiday last week in a charity shop for £3.50! Love the shot of Grace Lee Whitney relaxing in her chair! 
JB
JB
Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story
- Thread starter Harvey
- Start date
Yup, both the 2 episode DVDs and the season sets, which used the same prints, although one or two mishaps the first time around were corrected (missing music from Doomsday Machine and a missing part of a scene from The Tholian Web). So, in airdate order, on the DVDs, the EV theme drops out for The Menagerie and comes back for Conscience of the King and Balance of Terror.
Is that article on the way in the near future? It was teased in the opening credits article, of course.
I've thought a lot about it, especially in terms of the opening title music, but I'm definitely not there yet. It's the kind of project that would take a lot of research to complete.
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Along the lines of the silent phasers in Balance of Terror and the missing S2 & S3 ship flyby rumbles... I was lulled to sleep by The Alternative Factor on my tablet last night (the non TOS-R version on Amazon, so probably the '90s remaster), and I noticed that the shot of Enterprise firing phasers on Lazarus' ship (just the orbital shot with the cool rear view of the ship) was accompanied by the phaser sound effect. I recall from early syndication airings that the phaser-firing shot was silent in orbit but then was audible only in the following shot on the planet. Am I remembering correctly?
Thats what I remember.
The VHS and laserdiscs of the 80's do not have a phaser sound accompanying the orbit shot.
The exterior engine rumble was also added. This was actually phased out before the end of the first season, at least according to the home video prints. In the near future, I'll go through them and make sound notes.
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Two things prompted me to watch Where No Man again last night (on blu-ray w/ the original effects and DD 2.0 sound): 1) I was browsing some pics from the episode in Inside Star Trek; and 2) the discussion here about the different opening theme recordings.
Last night I noticed something I'd never noticed before. The very last two notes of the theme sound syncopated. I played it back, and it's definitely there.
Usually, the last two notes are straight quarter notes: dah-dah. This version has the first note shorter and the last note comes in sooner, like an eighth note followed by a dotted quarter: dot-dahhhh.
I think this is the electric violin version as you discussed, but I've never thought it sounded like a violin. Anyway, it doesn't have the voice, and the bongos are there, but way back in the mix.
Can anyone confirm if this is a glitch on the blu-ray or if it's the way it's always sounded on this version? It's possible I never noticed, because for decades I've skipped over the opening credits whenever I watch Trek, to get straight into the episode.
Last night I noticed something I'd never noticed before. The very last two notes of the theme sound syncopated. I played it back, and it's definitely there.
Usually, the last two notes are straight quarter notes: dah-dah. This version has the first note shorter and the last note comes in sooner, like an eighth note followed by a dotted quarter: dot-dahhhh.
I think this is the electric violin version as you discussed, but I've never thought it sounded like a violin. Anyway, it doesn't have the voice, and the bongos are there, but way back in the mix.
Can anyone confirm if this is a glitch on the blu-ray or if it's the way it's always sounded on this version? It's possible I never noticed, because for decades I've skipped over the opening credits whenever I watch Trek, to get straight into the episode.
It's a glitch. Only on the blu-rays does this happen. The DVDs and the laserdiscs/VHS have the theme as it should be. Just one more thing needing correction.
It's one of the annoying little bits of audio that drive me nuts
It appears to be limited to the DD 2.0 track on Where No Man. I watched Corbomite over the weekend, and the glitch isn't there. Or, is that a different theme version?
It's just WNMHGB, which has no narration or "woosh" sound effects. It was probably just a bad edit as Neil said. The skip is not in any other home video incarnation. It's not an issue with the original master recording of the theme, so you wouldn't hear it in Corbomite (which, actually, should be the Steiner arrangement, not the Courage version as heard on the DVDs and the Blu-Ray "mono" track) or any other episode.
New fact check out this morning: http://tinyurl.com/hqe65fx
TOS was fairly good at avoiding having sound in space, so it's really disappointing if they're now inserting more phaser sound in a vacuum, and engine noise, or wind sound as the ship passes the camera, things ST got out of its system after the first few episodes.
Wow. I wonder how different the show would've been if they'd written out Spock and replaced him with some other Vulcan science officer. Would that one also have been half-human?
Huh? TOS always had sound in space. I have no memory of ever seeing a version of TOS that didn't have at least some of the sounds you describe.
Great read.
Regarding where the erroneous figure of $1,125 might have come from (to the degree that even matters), notice that someone might have misread the correct figure of $1,725, for example if it had been written sloppily by hand. It's the sort of mistake that someone who wasn't sufficiently careful about what they were doing could make.
The Man Trap, pre-DVD, didn't have exterior sound effects. There was no engine rumble at all. And with no phasers to be fired or anything other than orbit shots, at least the first aired episode was faithful to having no sound in space.
The mono track on the blu-rays for Amok Time also have what I believe to be the accurate sound mix. No exterior rumble and nothing else to provide a sound effect. There are a number of other episodes that get by without sound in space simply because only traveling shots of the Enterprise were used after they phased out the engine rumble.
However, any episode with phaser beams and torpedos (other than Balance of Terror and Alternative Factor) or an explosion had nice, loud sounds.
We never had awkward-seeming moments where soundlessness in space was a matter of silence or dead air. Music covered over silences. And of course, there were moments when we heard phasers in exterior shots too, but I tend to rationalize those as sound the phasers make if you're inside the ship. It's a stretch, but we hear the captain's log in exterior shots too... and that sound isn't supposed to be taking place in space...
I'm not saying they faithfully stuck to having no sound in space, but they seemed aware of the problem, and made some effort. As opposed to the 24th century series, which went out of their way to have noise as the ships passed the camera, phaser noise in vacuum always, etc.. Now we may be seeing attempts to bring TOS in line with that. Grrr. At least TOS got rid of that wind sound as the ship went by, early on. You can give them credit for that.
I'm not saying they faithfully stuck to having no sound in space, but they seemed aware of the problem, and made some effort. As opposed to the 24th century series, which went out of their way to have noise as the ships passed the camera, phaser noise in vacuum always, etc.. Now we may be seeing attempts to bring TOS in line with that. Grrr. At least TOS got rid of that wind sound as the ship went by, early on. You can give them credit for that.
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