Remastered The Trouble With Tribbles

[Harvey]

Nope. The residuals for the actors on ST expired decades ago, and the contracts they had were as day players.

It would affect David Gerrold, since he'd now have to share the writing credit and residuals on the cannibalized hybrid episode with the DS9 writers.

It would also effect the DS9 players; you have to pay actors for the re-use of their image (this stems back to Crispin Glover's suit over the reuse of his image in Back to the Future, Part II in the 1980s).

Despite the fact that the contractual residuals ran out for every actor (including Nimoy and Shatner) associated with the original Star Trek, you can bet that they were paid for the re-use of their image in "Trials and Tribble-ations."

 

[Wingsley]

For me, FWIW, (probably not much) all thee eps seem to be more "flights of fancy", not to be taken too seriously. I enjoy the original "The Trouble with Tribbles" most, as it made the most sense, relatively speaking. TAS' "More Tribbles, More Troubles" was cute, but increasingly silly. Monster tribbles? Definitely a Saturday morning cartoon. For all the fuss about how DS9 was a darker, more serious bad-ass TREK for the '90's, "Trials and Tribble-ations" seemed to be the cheesiest of the tribble-trilogy. (Tribbolgy?)

The idea of a space station being infested with cute little furrballs the purr seems like an early attempt to give TOS some merchandising legs.

I remember seeing the TOS-R version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" several years ago when TOS-R was being exhibited on broadcast TV. It was kinda neat to actually see the Klingon starship circling K-7 opposite the Enterprise. Trekmovie did a great job covering the remastered ep, even including a VFX reel.

"Trouble" always gave me mixed feelings, as far back as I can remember. It was cute and funny, but the Klingons and the Tribbles came off as way too cheesy. (Even though Campbell's Koloth and Pataki's Korax were thoroughly entertaining.) I suppose TOS missed a great opportunity by not making K-7 (or one of its sister-stations) into a "home port" the Enterprise could visit.The station seemed to briefly offer a whole new dimension to the show, even moreso than a visit to Starbase 11.

As far as the OP's question about TOS-R somehow matching up with DS9's revisionism, we do get to see Koloth's starship. We also get to see great shots of both K-7 and the Enterprise, both vastly superior to what was shown in TOS. Naturally TOS-R didn't muddy the waters by showing Sisko's Defiant de-cloaking or anything like that. One thing that always perplexed me about the K-7 station was the seeming contradictions in size. One the one hand, it would have to be pretty big; several times the size of a starship to handle people from multiple ships, offer shopping facilities, and to generally serve as a kind of civilian spaceport. OTOH, the images seem to suggest K-7 isn't that much larger than the Enterprise. This seems pretty smallish for what's vaguely suggested. (Well, maybe the images aren't that conclusive. There may be some wiggle room.)

 

[Maurice]

Nope. The residuals for the actors on ST expired decades ago, and the contracts they had were as day players.

It would affect David Gerrold, since he'd now have to share the writing credit and residuals on the cannibalized hybrid episode with the DS9 writers.

It would also effect the DS9 players; you have to pay actors for the re-use of their image (this stems back to Crispin Glover's suit over the reuse of his image in Back to the Future, Part II in the 1980s).

Goes back further than that...it's why most film contracts have a "Salkind Clause", after the Salkinds made two movies out of a single shoot (The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers), but the cast had only been paid for one film.

 

[Harvey]

Ah, that's right. I've never seen those movies, but I recall reading about that controversy.

 

[Forbin]

Ya know, I swear I remember somebody editing the two eps together and posting it here or on YouTube.

 

[Wingsley]

Forbin, are you talking about somehow grafting "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Trails and Tribble-ations" together to form a single story? Maybe I'm alone in this, but I saw the DS9 installment as more of a farce than an actual evolution of a trilogy.

 

[Destructor]

I think it would be funny if, on the blu-ray, you had the three options:

1. Watch the new effects.
2. Watch the original effects.
3. Watch the 'alternate timeline'.

The alternate timeline, of course, being the same TwT episode, but with a few scenes altered to show Sisko and Dax in the background, Bashir and O'Brien in the line up, etc. That'd be a pretty fun easter egg, IMO. And the same techniques used to upscale the TOS eps to HD could also be used on the original DS9 footage taken to make those shots, as far as we know.

 

[Harvey]

Ya know, I swear I remember somebody editing the two eps together and posting it here or on YouTube.

Somebody definitely did that with "These Are The Voyages" and "The Pegaus" (the result was about as disjointed as one would expect, given the two episodes). I don't think I've seen that with the two Tribble shows, though.

 

[Forbin]

^Hm. Maybe that's what I'm remembering.

 

[Harvey]

These comparison videos are kind of fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6KGOkzbf_c

 

[RandyS]

Dear Bry_Sinclair,
I wasn't quite quick enough to avoid the first short and sharp reply to this, and I'm afraid it's the sort of question that can come across as trying to poke "oldsters" with a sharp stick. Whilst my preference is not to "harmonise" the two episodes (one happens in an alternate time-stream, so the DS9 people genuinely aren't supposed to be in the original version of events), there are technical issues why they can't be melded, since DS9 can't be made as high-resolution as the 60's filmed "Star Trek". I won't pretend I understand why, though.
The blu-ray boxed sets (assuming you want to go that route) have a veritable tribbleathon, with the original show, the animated series "sequel" and the DS9 episode all on one disc.

Timon.

Just a minor note, the regular DVD set of the remastered episodes has all three Tribble shows together as well.

But to answer the question, no, the DS9 footage was not incorporated into the remastered episode (something that has always confused me, since the remastering was done by the same people who worked on the DS9 show), so, in effect, you have three different versions of the space scenes, which is fine. At least, unlike with Star Wars, the new versions do not automatically replace the old, you have a choice of which you want to see.

And also Bry, I'm one of those fans who will always prefer the originals, but I can honestly say that seeing the new version, does not take away my childhood memories in any way. It's merely a curiosity. Having both versions on DVD means that I can see whichever one I want, any time I want.

Edit: Oh. I just realized I misunderstood the question. I thought Bry was asking if weither TOS-R reused "Trials" Enterprise, Klingon ship, and K7 shots. I didn't realize he was asking about the DS9 crew themselves.

 

[CoveTom]

Despite the fact that the contractual residuals ran out for every actor (including Nimoy and Shatner) associated with the original Star Trek, you can bet that they were paid for the re-use of their image in "Trials and Tribble-ations."

Nope. The actors didn't even know about the episode in advance. Acting contracts were written very differently in the 60's than they are today. The entire cast of TOS has no say in how footage from those shows are used today nor do they receive any payments from such re-use.

 

[Harvey]

Interesting. Do you have a source on that?

EDIT: According to this page, actors are due residuals for the re-use of their image in productions made from 1960 on. It's talking about motion pictures, though, not television, so there may be a difference.

 

[CoveTom]

I can try to dig up a source. I know I've seen interviews where actors said that they only knew about Trials and Tribble-ations when it aired, not in advance, and also there are many cases of the actors saying their residuals on TOS ran out ages ago. As I recall, their contracts at the time got them paid their regular salary, then residuals for something like 5 reruns, and that was it.

 

[Harvey]

I'd be interested to read that. (Not to sound like I doubt you; I'm far from an expert on contractual agreements, especially with actors).

When it comes to re-runs, I do know that five reruns is exactly the deal the actors made (even Shatner and Nimoy). Once those five re-runs were aired (long ago, obviously) they didn't receive any residuals after that. My understanding is that re-use of their performances is a separate issue, but I could be mistaken.

 

[CoveTom]

I wish I could recall where I read that. I believe it was one of the supporting cast, like Nichelle Nichols or George Takei, in an interview where they were being asked their opinion of Trials and Tribble-ations.

Now that you point it out, though, you're right that residuals and payment for re-use of a performance in a new work are different things. I wonder if perhaps Paramount (now CBS) had to pay for re-use but didn't have to ask permission. Therefore, the first notice the actor would have gotten is when they received their check after the episode aired. That could make both facts -- that they did get paid and that they didn't know about the episode in advance -- be true.

I know that today, if you wish to re-use an actor's footage, you must secure permission. Hence why there is no footage of Terry Farrell as Jadzia Dax in the DS9 finale. But directors get paid royalties yet don't get the option to say no. Maybe it was the same for actors back in the 60's.