How long until TNG: Remastered?
- Thread starter Matt
- Start date
In one of the previous threads about this topic, somebody posted a shot of a replicator from TNG. The shot was re-used in the Enterprise finale, and it was in widescreen (approx. 1.85:1, I guess) and showed that its use in TNG had been cropped on the sides. So, I guess the original shots were filmed wider than we saw, and could be used to create widescreen episodes. Who knows if the additional info in all the footage is "clean" though (no booms, wires, etc.)?
Doug
Not necessarily. If the original shot was a panning shot — where the camera moves to one side after showing the replicator working — then they could easily create a wide shot from the footage (by stitching two screen caps together).
That wouldn't be such a big deal. If there were boom mikes, cables etc in the footage, it would only be in a few shots, it certainly wouldn't be the norm. And wires and boom mikes are extremely easy to remove from the picture under normal circumstances. There are very few types of shot, and very few types of object, that would be hard to remove. In rare cases when something heavily obstructed a very complicated background that could not be recreated from any source, then you could always crop the shot down as a last resort. But there aren't going to be that many very difficult scenes.
I'm not holding out much hope for there being any 'missing footage' from the sides of TNG though. Unfortunately, it's just too fanciful to be true. But if it was true, I would be so excited about it. It would make TNG stunning to watch. Certainly, the Enterprise D was made for widescreen. Ten forward was made for widescreen. Everything was! (Apart from the Borg cube
)I know people argue that it was never intended to be seen that way, and the compositioning of the shot will not be true to the director's orders — but I say "to hell with the director's orders!"
A widescreen TNG would be amazing. Babylon 5 was never intended to be seen in full widescreen, but the widescreen DVD is amazing. (B5 was filmed in widescreen.) If B5 can do it, TNG certainly can.
I believe the B5 folks made an effort to film things in such a way as to allow for widescreen. They saw the trend coming, and they planned accordingly. Also, as I recall, they used something along the lines of Super 35 which allows for easier switches from box shots to widescreen (in fact, each version--box shot and widescreen--showed slightly different parts of the image recorded).
I hope I don't. If the trend continues, Star Trek and all its incarnations will be remastered to death by the point that holo technology will be available for the average viewer.
I really don't like all this messing around with old movies or tv shows. Why can't we enjoy them as they are, they are documents of their respective times!
I mean, do we really need to bring everything up to todays production standards? Surely some old books cannot keep up with todays use of language, but does any sane mind would want to have them re-written?
I wouldn't object to TNG/DS9/VGR in widescreen, thought. But only if it was completely unchanged ... no new FX or other fancy "improvements".
You can keep right on watching your old versions if you choose. Personally there's a LOT of things they could fix.
Like that ship that attacked the Enterprise in "The Survivors" it looks SO fake.
Also they could improve the few battles we saw. For example in "Yesterday's Enterprise" was a great battle sequence, but it's so static, they basically stand still and shoot 2 phaser beams.
Just imagine if they redid those shots and make it look like a REAL battle, how much more they would enhance the episode.
Not to mention smaller things, like the quality of the planet graphics (compare planets shown in Season 2 to Season 6, HUGE difference)
I think TNG will eventually do get remastered, since I think once they have a TOS-R DVD Set it will fly off the shelves. TNG will be the same, and I will be a customer once it happens.
The scenery thread in GenTrek reminded me of one thing that bugged me every time it happened.
Any shot facing out towards an open shuttlebay...there is never any of the ship visible outside, and the shuttlebay opening is perfectly vertical, unlike the exterior doors. And before anyone chimes in with, "The doors can close at an angle without it being the same inside" there was never any extension to the floor either. It's a straight drop-off right outside the opening.
Anyway, just a model vs set inconsistancy that would be cool if fixed.
It'd be cool to have Ten Forward featured on the model right from the start, too.
Any shot facing out towards an open shuttlebay...there is never any of the ship visible outside, and the shuttlebay opening is perfectly vertical, unlike the exterior doors. And before anyone chimes in with, "The doors can close at an angle without it being the same inside" there was never any extension to the floor either. It's a straight drop-off right outside the opening.
Anyway, just a model vs set inconsistancy that would be cool if fixed.
It'd be cool to have Ten Forward featured on the model right from the start, too.
Whoever said it before was right...turn off the damn saucer impulse engines...grrrrr.
It was probably the standard Panavision 35mm TV transmitted area... and it was also probably hard matted onto the 35mm film for the entire run of TNG -- that is, a black matte or mask in the familiar 4:3 (or 1.33:1) shape was placed into the film gate so only that area was exposed to light. The surrounding area should have no exposed picture. See below (From a Panavision brochure circa 1999):
Remember the First Contact teaser trailer? Remember the shot of Beverly from "The Best of Both Worlds"?
Here is how it originally appeared in the episode and where they cropped it (zoomed in slightly for tighter close-up it appears):
This demonstrates, I think, two things:
- The original 35mm negatives were telecined (transfered to video for editing) and stored for later use.
- There is no picture information on either side of the originally exposed frame due to hard matting in-camera.
(which is why they had to crop the image for the trailer.)
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If the above is true, it means the 35mm negatives do exist somewhere in storage at Paramount or CBS. These can be transfered to HD in exactly the same process that was done for TOS Remastered: That is, 4:3 pillarboxed within the 16:9 HD frame.
Also, I recall that Jonathan West (Director of Photography on later seasons of TNG and DS9) once explained to a poster on this very forum (through email) that they only started protecting for widescreen in seasons 6 & 7 of DS9 and that Marvin Rush was doing the same on Voyager.
Hope that helps.
It is interesting to note that the large area to the left and the small area to the right in the ENT image does conform somewhat to where extra image area would be if the 35mm film from "Ménage à Troi" wasn't hard matted in-camera.
Perhaps director Rob Legato (one of TNG's VFX Supervisors) decided that for his episode he wasn't going to hard-matte the image in-camera.
But if that is the case -- why did they also have to crop the top and bottom of the image for ENT?
Another possibility was that this practice of hard-matting in-camera was inconsistent during TNG's run and simply resulted in a stroke of good luck for this particular shot being used in ENT?
Wow, good research. What's the deal with the color differences? The bottom looks like TNG as we saw it on tv...kinda bland and slightly washed out. The shot from, the trailer almost looks S1 and 2 style...more dirty and gritty.
Yeah... I noticed that too. I figure when they pulled the 35mm negative or inter-positive (or whatever they have in storage) from BOBW, they had it printed with different color timing -- higher saturation, deeper blacks, more contrast. There's a great deal of picture information and latitude on that original film, so they pretty much could have made it look however they wanted.
In this case they were going for more dramatic, to match the cinematography of a feature film... to what DP Matthew Leonetti was doing with First Contact. Transferring TNG to HD would be a whole new viewing experience, (much like TOS Remastered) as the telecines from the late eighties, early nineties were not that great, to say the least!
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Hmm... that picture seems to have disapeared from Imageshack, so here's a link for those who didn't see it:
DumbDumb2007
Commander
I caught a few first season eps on dvd eariler this week. They beyond need remastering. the whole first season looks low budget and just above a Saturday morning live action show.
It's amazing if you compare the first two seasons with 3 and on. The production value is totally different, including the set lighting.
