Galileo 7 TOS-R...simply glorious...

[Mallory]

Ahhh...the light goes on. Sorry about that.

Yeah, NBC was real sensitive about a lot of things and I'm guessing that Latimer with a huge spear in his back was probably one of them. Plus it might have been cheaper to just plant the stick in the stage and use some dry ice than to actually film him dead like that.

 

[Forbin]

The fog was a post effect, always there. I always assumed it was always planned that way, and not a censorship thing.

 

[Timo]

But to insert a scientific concept that hadn't even existed at the time?

Such as warp drive?

I really, really cannot understand TGT's point of view here. All of Trek is a giant anachronism to begin with - it quite literally and explicitly takes place at a time other than its making, while by obvious necessity relying on writing inspirations from the time of its making. It thus "dates" itself to a more or less detrimental effect, quite unlike a show that would describe its time of making.

It's very seldom that this getting dated can be seen as a positive thing; perhaps it might be nicely "alienating" when we want to see aliens, or perhaps it might perceptively imply cyclic nature to fashions and mores, or something. In the general case, though, it is a minus sign of varying length. Why not put right what the original writer got so blatantly wrong, when in actuality nothing changes (no dialogue is contradicted, no plot point is altered, no cuddly animals are harmed)?

Writer intention may be violated here - but such intention is irrelevant anyway, to an audience that was born after the writer wrote his last line. If the intention doesn't translate to the screen, it doesn't exist. And this in turn is a positive thing in the general case...

What about "Tomorrow is Yesterday"? They mention a "black star" there, before black holes became an established scientific concept. Should we not burn the original master reel and nuke all the copies because the episode is so deeply flawed to begin with? Hell, they even dare claim, utterly anachronistically, that the Moon mission would launch on a Wednesday - another case of witchcraft worthy of a pyre?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[3D Master]

Noname Given said:
2) We keep hearing "it's four days to Marcus..."; and that is the 'time pressure' plot device of the episode; YET after the Shuttlecraft crew are retrived - Kirk orders that they proceed to Marcus at the blistering speed of Warp factor 1

I think it's more like, going to even greater warp speeds isn't a good idea so close to the gravity of friggin' quasar. The gravity of a solar system is enough it's said it's best not to go to warp inside it, so I'm guessing doing it near a Quasar is even worse. In that respect, "Warp factor 1", would indeed be a blistering speed - maybe all but literally. Once outside the Quasar's gravity, the Enterprise no doubt sped up.

About the Quasar, I have to say I think TGT is going somewhat overboard now. I can't stand the new effects, the same way I can't stand most modern effects (starting with Star Wars - and thank god the first few Star Trek movies didn't follow that trend - sadly TNG did). The lighting is SO horrendous, it makes ships look like flat cartoons instead of 3D objects. In comparison, the original TOS effects, and the effects of the first few ST movies, had the ships look like actual 3D objects! The quasar though, I actually went, "My god, they actually did something right. I can't believe it, but they did something right!" ...The ship is still lit like crap of course, making it still bad, but at least the Quasar looks good.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Mallory said:
Ahhh...the light goes on. Sorry about that.

Yeah, NBC was real sensitive about a lot of things and I'm guessing that Latimer with a huge spear in his back was probably one of them. Plus it might have been cheaper to just plant the stick in the stage and use some dry ice than to actually film him dead like that.

I agree that the fog is a way to "sanitize" or censor the scene a bit.

I have also wondered if the fog effect was added to cover up the fact that maybe an original shot of Latimer with the spear in him looked phony, or if the fog was made so dense to make the planet seem more alien and less like a set. This is one of the more glaring examples of planets that look like soundstages.

 

[Rat Boy]

Mallory said:
Ahhh...the light goes on. Sorry about that.

Yeah, NBC was real sensitive about a lot of things and I'm guessing that Latimer with a huge spear in his back was probably one of them. Plus it might have been cheaper to just plant the stick in the stage and use some dry ice than to actually film him dead like that.

You assume that it was his back that it ended up in.

 

[Michael]

Re: Galileo 7 TOS-R ... Simply Glorious ...

 

[Maurice]

The fog overlay could have been to hide some shot-ruining error they were trying to cover...cables, the end of the set, etc.

 

[WalkinMan]

Just wanted to add my thoughts, it was a great choice to have this episode begin S2 of TOS-R, and it was wonderfully done!

 

[Doug Otte]

DS9Sega said:
The fog overlay could have been to hide some shot-ruining error they were trying to cover...cables, the end of the set, etc.

No, it's been documented (Inside Trek, I think...can anybody back me up?) that it was either Desilu or more likely NBC that wanted the gore toned down. They specifically asked that the impaled guy not be shown.

Doug

 

[Maurice]

Doug Otte said:

DS9Sega said:
The fog overlay could have been to hide some shot-ruining error they were trying to cover...cables, the end of the set, etc.

No, it's been documented (Inside Trek, I think...can anybody back me up?) that it was either Desilu or more likely NBC that wanted the gore toned down. They specifically asked that the impaled guy not be shown.

Doug

I don't recall that. If someone can cite a book and page I'd be interested to read it.

 

[UnknownSample]

The God Thing said:
Whew! After almost two hours of intense Googling I have finally discovered what was bugging me about these new CG effects shots. The Galileo Seven was originally aired in 1967, two years before the black hole and accretion disk model of quasars (and, for that matter, galactic microquasars which would account for Murasaki 312) was proposed (PDF) by Dr. Donald Lynden-Bell in his Nature paper of 1969. Although it won't effect 99.9% of the potential viewership, this blatant scientific anachronism makes me feel even queasier than usual regarding TOS-R.

TGT

Actually, the only response necessary is: it's set in the future. I know everyone knows that, but that's really the only rebuttal needed. They know far more about quasars in the 23rd century than we do now. Improving the science is actually the only thing I DON'T mind about the new versions.

Did someone say their goal was to do effects that would not be out of place in the 60s? Didn't the original series do that already? The effects look like today's, completely, by the way, except with clumsier ship rendering and movement that you never see anymore in TV or films.

And where the hell did "kewl" come from? Maybe I don't want to know....

 

[RAMA]

UnknownSample said:

The God Thing said:
Whew! After almost two hours of intense Googling I have finally discovered what was bugging me about these new CG effects shots. The Galileo Seven was originally aired in 1967, two years before the black hole and accretion disk model of quasars (and, for that matter, galactic microquasars which would account for Murasaki 312) was proposed (PDF) by Dr. Donald Lynden-Bell in his Nature paper of 1969. Although it won't effect 99.9% of the potential viewership, this blatant scientific anachronism makes me feel even queasier than usual regarding TOS-R.

TGT

Actually, the only response necessary is: it's set in the future. I know everyone knows that, but that's really the only rebuttal needed. They know far more about quasars in the 23rd century than we do now. Improving the science is actually the only thing I DON'T mind about the new versions.

Of course that all makes sense...but file TGT's opinion under "arbitrary bias" against TOS-R. I think it won't make any difference.

RAMA

 

[skylark]

How much do you want to bet that if they HADN'T shown the "microquasar," we'd be hearing complaints about how CBS-D ignored scientific discoveries, including discoveries made after the episode was originally produced. It's an amusing case of "grasping at straws."

I thought the quasar looked amazing, even if it wasn't totally correct from a scientific or a historical perspective.

 

[Kryton]

UnknownSample said:
And where the hell did "kewl" come from? Maybe I don't want to know....

Welcome to 1997! We've been waiting for you. Codified by Webster since 2003.

 

[Doug Otte]

DS9Sega said:

Doug Otte said:

DS9Sega said:
The fog overlay could have been to hide some shot-ruining error they were trying to cover...cables, the end of the set, etc.

No, it's been documented (Inside Trek, I think...can anybody back me up?) that it was either Desilu or more likely NBC that wanted the gore toned down. They specifically asked that the impaled guy not be shown.

Doug

I don't recall that. If someone can cite a book and page I'd be interested to read it.

Sorry to be so vague. I'll check at home tonight. I have Making of ST and World of, but Inside Trek I borrowed from the library a few years ago and never got around to buying...but I just ran over to Amazon and ordered a copy.

I'll post back after checking my books at home tonight, but I suspect I'll have to wait until Inside Trek arrives.

Doug

 

[pookha]

Lieut. Arex said:

cbspock said:
I thought the only time Columbus returned was when the Enterprise had to leave?

No, in the TOS-R version, they show the shuttle returning and Kirk sending it right back out with instructions to widen their passes by two degrees. Sulu comments, saying they'd miss covering a dozen miles a circuit, but Kirk sticks to the choice as it "gives us a fighting chance to search most of the surface". At the end of the episode, Kirk tells Farris Columbus has to be recovered before he can break off the search.

well it could be something as simple as continued out side the ship exposure to the quasar effect messes up the sensors of the shuttle to the point they need to go back to the ship to have them checked every once in awhile.

 

[Warped9]

As mentioned on another board...

There is another problem with the new effects that I've not heard other people mention, that is the poor composition and lighting of many of the shots. These new scenes show that because someone can make the shots, that ability does not also make them good cinematographers. CBS has all this capability and yet it is the amatuers who turn out better scenes.

Just goes to show that having an expensive set of brushes and paint does not automatically make one a great artist.

Very well said. You have nicely put into words what I've felt all along for much of the new CBS f/x shots.

 

[Timo]

I'm highly unimpressed by some of the quality of the shots, too, in terms of lighting and mood. It's just that I appreciate the original shots even less in this respect. Wobbly, fuzzy, oddly shadowed, of inconstant color from shot to shot... That's not how I want to view my Enterprise. At least the R-folks have eliminated wobbliness, fuzziness and inconsistency. Here's hoping they manage to do something more to the overall quality eventually, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guartho]

Of course, since they're doing this in fan-favorite order we should have some really great effects on Spock's Brain.