For the 50th anniversary.
BEFORE YOU BARK AT ME, I would love to see on the 50th anniversary a set of the 11 or 12 movies (Whatever we have by then) in both the ORIGINAL (but cleaned up at HD) versions, and NEW AND IMPROVED "Special Edition" style cuts in the same package. So there's NO NEED for counterproductive 'keep it original' arguments here. Been there, done that. NOW on with the discussion...
We need something special for the 50th. I say take the first six films and do extensive restoration, and the rest would need minor adjustments. Rescan the film to double the current HD resolution to prepare for display technology 10 years from now. (We already have "Quad HD" in the works, so it's logical to rescan the film footage at least at "2160P") Clean up all the frames (ALA the TOS restoration) Fix the colors, fix or redo the effects (I just watched TWOK and the outlines around the ships actually bugged me for the first time. It's just as bad as the original Star Wars film masking was, how you could see boxes around everything.)
If they somehow have the original shots (pre-compositing) of the ships, etc. To please the fans it'd be wise to use those, or start from those.
It would probably be easier to use CG, though... As long as the 3d models are exact duplicates of the real models, and they match the camera angles precisely to the original shots.
The stars, planets, etc. could use a lot of work.
Also deleted scenes need to be restored, finished, and an option included in the playback to insert the scenes where they should be. I hate how the scenes are included, but separate from the film. Yes, it will alter the pace of a lot of films, and a lot of scenes are removed to make the film flow better, but give us the option.
TMP:
A lot has been addressed in the Director's Cut, but I think they should redo even that. Plenty hasn't been touched, for example the transporter effects. The effects look FINE but the masking bounces around. (Masking being, where it appears on screen. It looks flat, and looks very fake. If you watch when Kirk beams aboard the space station in the beginning, the edges of the beam move slightly around in some frames. Also there are two large shapes in the back of the room that could easily be turned into windows.
Plenty of other things that need addressed too.
TWOK:
Restore the Saavik Romulan footage and have an option for it to be included in the special features.
Sulu Captain footage too.
TWOK uses a lot of footage from TMP. Change all those shots... Just make the angles a bit different. Maybe add some stuff going on in the background in space around Earth. More ships, shuttles, spacestations, etc. Don't clutter it up unrealistically like cities in Star Wars with millions of flying cars, just add a few here and there.
For Spock's death scene, only if it looked 100% real, if they were to digitally thin his hand out to where it's like mutated flesh and bone, that'd look cool.
TSFS:
When the Enterprise is approaching in the beginning (Captains log) the stars are going straight back while Enterprise is approaching on a different perspective. Looks wrong. Put stars on same perspective. (Just redo in CG.)
Put a subtitle when Chekov is worried about someone being in Spock's quarters. Nobody has any idea what he says. Sounds like, "Yanni Shoo Mishayski. Noo vote!"
Fix Kruge's strange voiceovers where he's clearly saying something in English, but it comes out Klingon. Like when he says "ANIMAL." For example.
Add more ships in and around spacedock. Add more detail to the inside of spacedock. Maybe show a little more of the Phase II Enterprise. Throw a few miranda class ships in there, maybe another connie, some non-starfleet ships possibly? Oberth class ships, and maybe show the first Constellation class under construction.
The bar scene flying airplane game is cool, but a little outdated.
The sound Excelsior makes when it breaks down always bothered me because it sounds like a cartoon car breaking down. Flip of a coin to fix that or leave it alone.
Digitally remove the smile on Shatner's face "You Klingon Bastard, you've killed my son!" He's sort of smiling. (That's a real Greedo shot first move, I know. Don't complain.)
Redo the self destruct. It was a beautiful effect, and still looks great today, so keep the exact same camera angles, etc. Some parts suffer, though, like when the NCC-1701 is melting away, it doesn't look real. The explosion can either be restored or redone in CG, as long as it's EXACTLY the same. (The ship appeared cyan, and the BOP appeared neon green in this shot. I wonder why?)
TVH:
Redo the whales. Fix the matte problems (like when the tank is empty when Jillian arrives too late. It looks way fake.)
Some stuff just doesn't make a lick of sense, but no need to edit/remove it, it just doesn't make sense like... Beaming from the hospital to the park, then walking everyone inside, except Kirk and Jillian who are beamed in. Makes no sense. Should have beamed everyone from the hospital to the BOP. Whatever, though. Just a nitpick.
Fix Scotty's Macintosh scene. Every button he presses a new screen comes up... Maybe when he's typing fast it should be text only, like lines of programming code, and then when he presses enter those screens should flash super quick, with the transparent aluminum finally showing up at the end.
Possibly add some new scenes of parts of the Earth under water, or raining, etc. Futuristic cities, etc. Places that shouldn't get rain... Like Cairo. That'd be a cool scene... Pyramids with futuristic skyscrapers in the background. (Insert these into the part when the probe is terrorizing Earth, sucking up the water and making it rain.)
The Klingon transporter effects from TSFS and TVH don't really need redoing.
Uh, seriously do something about the "MILKY HEADS" scene when they time travel. Either cut it or explain it in the commentary.
When they're approaching 20th century San Francisco in the beginning, the viewscreen footage is going at the wrong angle (Sideways at like 30 degrees) Shouldn't it be straight on? This was probably because helicopter footage back then was mostly shot out of the side of the choppers. Fix that.
TFF:
Every effect needs redone.
Fix the deck numbers in the jetboots scene.
Every exterior effect. Just redo it. Heh.
Maybe add an energy effect between the 'bars' in the brig. Something very subtle.
Center of the galaxy effects need redone... "Shakari" effects redone completely. The rocks, etc. All that.
TUC:
Flip of a coin on fixing/replacing effects in this one, because it was so well done visually.
I mean, if you want to go real crazy, then take all footage of Scotty in engineering and cut him out, and place him into the original engineering set, instead of the TNG set. You can do that with computers now, trust me. It may even look really good.
Put Shatner's face on his stunt doubles who dives after the President. (The same goes for the Kirk vs. Kirk scene, if you can see the stunt double's face in any frames.)
GEN:
Replace BOP explosion with original shot.
Most effects look good, but the model of the Enterprise crashing on the planet looks like a model. Redo that in CG. (I'm talking about the slide sequence, when it's hitting the ground. The rest of the saucer separation sequence looks great.)
Redo the shots they recycled from Encounter at Farpoint.
FC:
Really the only bad 'effects' in this are the stock sound effects. A lot of sounds I've heard before in the game DOOM.
INS:
Plenty to redo... Might want to fix the nip-slip in the water rescue scene.
NEM:
Nothing much to fix. Just FINISH THE CUT SCENES! The ones on my DVD don't have any effects (You can see the green screens behind the windows, etc.) Did they ever complete these?)
BEFORE YOU BARK AT ME, I would love to see on the 50th anniversary a set of the 11 or 12 movies (Whatever we have by then) in both the ORIGINAL (but cleaned up at HD) versions, and NEW AND IMPROVED "Special Edition" style cuts in the same package. So there's NO NEED for counterproductive 'keep it original' arguments here. Been there, done that. NOW on with the discussion...
We need something special for the 50th. I say take the first six films and do extensive restoration, and the rest would need minor adjustments. Rescan the film to double the current HD resolution to prepare for display technology 10 years from now. (We already have "Quad HD" in the works, so it's logical to rescan the film footage at least at "2160P") Clean up all the frames (ALA the TOS restoration) Fix the colors, fix or redo the effects (I just watched TWOK and the outlines around the ships actually bugged me for the first time. It's just as bad as the original Star Wars film masking was, how you could see boxes around everything.)
If they somehow have the original shots (pre-compositing) of the ships, etc. To please the fans it'd be wise to use those, or start from those.
It would probably be easier to use CG, though... As long as the 3d models are exact duplicates of the real models, and they match the camera angles precisely to the original shots.
The stars, planets, etc. could use a lot of work.
Also deleted scenes need to be restored, finished, and an option included in the playback to insert the scenes where they should be. I hate how the scenes are included, but separate from the film. Yes, it will alter the pace of a lot of films, and a lot of scenes are removed to make the film flow better, but give us the option.
TMP:
A lot has been addressed in the Director's Cut, but I think they should redo even that. Plenty hasn't been touched, for example the transporter effects. The effects look FINE but the masking bounces around. (Masking being, where it appears on screen. It looks flat, and looks very fake. If you watch when Kirk beams aboard the space station in the beginning, the edges of the beam move slightly around in some frames. Also there are two large shapes in the back of the room that could easily be turned into windows.
Plenty of other things that need addressed too.
TWOK:
Restore the Saavik Romulan footage and have an option for it to be included in the special features.
Sulu Captain footage too.
TWOK uses a lot of footage from TMP. Change all those shots... Just make the angles a bit different. Maybe add some stuff going on in the background in space around Earth. More ships, shuttles, spacestations, etc. Don't clutter it up unrealistically like cities in Star Wars with millions of flying cars, just add a few here and there.
For Spock's death scene, only if it looked 100% real, if they were to digitally thin his hand out to where it's like mutated flesh and bone, that'd look cool.
TSFS:
When the Enterprise is approaching in the beginning (Captains log) the stars are going straight back while Enterprise is approaching on a different perspective. Looks wrong. Put stars on same perspective. (Just redo in CG.)
Put a subtitle when Chekov is worried about someone being in Spock's quarters. Nobody has any idea what he says. Sounds like, "Yanni Shoo Mishayski. Noo vote!"
Fix Kruge's strange voiceovers where he's clearly saying something in English, but it comes out Klingon. Like when he says "ANIMAL." For example.
Add more ships in and around spacedock. Add more detail to the inside of spacedock. Maybe show a little more of the Phase II Enterprise. Throw a few miranda class ships in there, maybe another connie, some non-starfleet ships possibly? Oberth class ships, and maybe show the first Constellation class under construction.
The bar scene flying airplane game is cool, but a little outdated.
The sound Excelsior makes when it breaks down always bothered me because it sounds like a cartoon car breaking down. Flip of a coin to fix that or leave it alone.
Digitally remove the smile on Shatner's face "You Klingon Bastard, you've killed my son!" He's sort of smiling. (That's a real Greedo shot first move, I know. Don't complain.)
Redo the self destruct. It was a beautiful effect, and still looks great today, so keep the exact same camera angles, etc. Some parts suffer, though, like when the NCC-1701 is melting away, it doesn't look real. The explosion can either be restored or redone in CG, as long as it's EXACTLY the same. (The ship appeared cyan, and the BOP appeared neon green in this shot. I wonder why?)
TVH:
Redo the whales. Fix the matte problems (like when the tank is empty when Jillian arrives too late. It looks way fake.)
Some stuff just doesn't make a lick of sense, but no need to edit/remove it, it just doesn't make sense like... Beaming from the hospital to the park, then walking everyone inside, except Kirk and Jillian who are beamed in. Makes no sense. Should have beamed everyone from the hospital to the BOP. Whatever, though. Just a nitpick.
Fix Scotty's Macintosh scene. Every button he presses a new screen comes up... Maybe when he's typing fast it should be text only, like lines of programming code, and then when he presses enter those screens should flash super quick, with the transparent aluminum finally showing up at the end.
Possibly add some new scenes of parts of the Earth under water, or raining, etc. Futuristic cities, etc. Places that shouldn't get rain... Like Cairo. That'd be a cool scene... Pyramids with futuristic skyscrapers in the background. (Insert these into the part when the probe is terrorizing Earth, sucking up the water and making it rain.)
The Klingon transporter effects from TSFS and TVH don't really need redoing.
Uh, seriously do something about the "MILKY HEADS" scene when they time travel. Either cut it or explain it in the commentary.
When they're approaching 20th century San Francisco in the beginning, the viewscreen footage is going at the wrong angle (Sideways at like 30 degrees) Shouldn't it be straight on? This was probably because helicopter footage back then was mostly shot out of the side of the choppers. Fix that.
TFF:
Every effect needs redone.
Fix the deck numbers in the jetboots scene.
Every exterior effect. Just redo it. Heh.
Maybe add an energy effect between the 'bars' in the brig. Something very subtle.
Center of the galaxy effects need redone... "Shakari" effects redone completely. The rocks, etc. All that.
TUC:
Flip of a coin on fixing/replacing effects in this one, because it was so well done visually.
I mean, if you want to go real crazy, then take all footage of Scotty in engineering and cut him out, and place him into the original engineering set, instead of the TNG set. You can do that with computers now, trust me. It may even look really good.
Put Shatner's face on his stunt doubles who dives after the President. (The same goes for the Kirk vs. Kirk scene, if you can see the stunt double's face in any frames.)
GEN:
Replace BOP explosion with original shot.
Most effects look good, but the model of the Enterprise crashing on the planet looks like a model. Redo that in CG. (I'm talking about the slide sequence, when it's hitting the ground. The rest of the saucer separation sequence looks great.)
Redo the shots they recycled from Encounter at Farpoint.
FC:
Really the only bad 'effects' in this are the stock sound effects. A lot of sounds I've heard before in the game DOOM.
INS:
Plenty to redo... Might want to fix the nip-slip in the water rescue scene.
NEM:
Nothing much to fix. Just FINISH THE CUT SCENES! The ones on my DVD don't have any effects (You can see the green screens behind the windows, etc.) Did they ever complete these?)
I have the original DVD release and the soundtrack. It could be a good movie if the deleted scenes get restored. As it stands, it's mildly entertaining.
