Season ONE OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[davejames]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

I think I'll be waiting for the Complete Series set. By then all the errors and kinks will be fixed, and maybe even the SD-upconverted shots, too.

That's going to be a very looong wait.

Whatever minor kinks or audio problems have been found are MORE than overshadowed by the excellent picture quality and great documentaries, in my opinion.

I can't imagine waiting 3 or 4 years to have to see any of that.

 

[gaghyogi49]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

I noticed EAS has their "Code of Honor" comparison up:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/codeofhonor.htm

Great link They did a nice job with the comparison.

Thanks! :-)

Jörg

 

[BriGuy]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

I noticed EAS has their "Code of Honor" comparison up:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/codeofhonor.htm

Great link They did a nice job with the comparison.

Thanks! :-)

Jörg

Looking at the comparisons, I was scanning through where I got stopped dead cold at the one marked as the Enterprise firing its photons.

That new Enterprise (also use in Farpoint) is just god, bloody AWFUL! I'll take the non-HD over that any day. I'm surprised that got OK'd. It looks just completely bad, like a parody drawing of the ship.

Says it was reconstructed by Max Gabl. What was he thinking?!??

 

[BillJ]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Great link They did a nice job with the comparison.

Thanks! :-)

Jörg

Looking at the comparisons, I was scanning through where I got stopped dead cold at the one marked as the Enterprise firing its photons.

That new Enterprise (also use in Farpoint) is just god, bloody AWFUL! I'll take the non-HD over that any day. I'm surprised that got OK'd. It looks just completely bad, like a parody drawing of the ship.

Says it was reconstructed by Max Gabl. What was he thinking?!??

Funny thing is the original model shot appears later in the season. "Heart of Glory", if I remember correctly.

 

[tomalak301]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

I think I'll be waiting for the Complete Series set. By then all the errors and kinks will be fixed, and maybe even the SD-upconverted shots, too.

That's going to be a very looong wait.

Whatever minor kinks or audio problems have been found are MORE than overshadowed by the excellent picture quality and great documentaries, in my opinion.

I can't imagine waiting 3 or 4 years to have to see any of that.

Same here. When I saw that Stardate Revisited documentary, I knew I did the right thing when I purchased this set. You get to learn things about the series you've never heard before and it makes you hope for how much more in depth can they go in the remaining seasons. I've already said I hope they have a part of the documentary talking all about the Writers Strike and coming up with Shades of Gray to end the season just because Season 1's was so in depth and just cool. To wait many years (Even with this high of excitement) is just something I probably couldn't do in hindsight.

 

[davejames]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Just watched The Battle, and that's another one that's better than I remembered. Although as in other first season episodes, the crew seems awfully slow to figure things out. Picard spends the whole episode nearly dying from severe headaches (which apparently no one gets anymore), and yet it takes them forever to make a connection to the Ferengi.

And it's a shame they spend the whole episode building up to Picard attacking the Enterprise with the Stargazer, yet don't have any actual battle. Basically just a standoff, and then the "Picard Maneuver" (which doesn't really amount to much).

 

[zephramc]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Just watched The Battle, and that's another one that's better than I remembered. Although as in other first season episodes, the crew seems awfully slow to figure things out. Picard spends the whole episode nearly dying from severe headaches (which apparently no one gets anymore), and yet it takes them forever to make a connection to the Ferengi.

And it's a shame they spend the whole episode building up to Picard attacking the Enterprise with the Stargazer, yet don't have any actual battle. Basically just a standoff, and then the "Picard Maneuver" (which doesn't really amount to much).

I enjoyed "The Battle" as well. I agree with your assessment of the battle, or lack thereof.

Some geeky nitpicks... How was it that the Enterprise was able to lock a tractor beam on the Stargazer while its (the Stargazer's) shields were up? Why not simply tractor the vessel while it was sitting motionless for those few seconds before it employed the Picard Maneuver?

Was Bok's plan to force Enterprise to destroy Stargazer and kill Picard in the process? Also, was the Enterprise in any real danger? We've seen the Big-E take it's share of punches from other ships (Romulan, Cardassian, Tamarian, Husnok, Borg, etc...) presumably with more firepower than what the Stargazer could muster. Seems to me, worst-case scenario, Riker could have let Picard take a few shots at the Enterprise, then disable Stargazers weapons and shields and beam Picard back. I suppose there's a risk that Picard may have been killed, but the Enterprise disabled other ships successfully in other episodes without loss of life.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

The Picard Maneuver never made sense to me. First of all, how is it no one before had ever used the "light lag" effect to make a tactical advantage? Why doesn't the viewscreen and sensors (which have always shown to be FTL working) compensate for this? And wouldn't it be the obvious choice to focus fire on the "newly appearing" ship and to ignore the "older" after image?

The whole maneuver doesn't make much sense to me given what we know about the technology of Trek's time.

And, at the most, I'd think if this did work the "after image" of the ship should only last for a second or two at most.

 

[davejames]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Was Bok's plan to force Enterprise to destroy Stargazer and kill Picard in the process? Also, was the Enterprise in any real danger? We've seen the Big-E take it's share of punches from other ships (Romulan, Cardassian, Tamarian, Husnok, Borg, etc...) presumably with more firepower than what the Stargazer could muster. Seems to me, worst-case scenario, Riker could have let Picard take a few shots at the Enterprise, then disable Stargazers weapons and shields and beam Picard back. I suppose there's a risk that Picard may have been killed, but the Enterprise disabled other ships successfully in other episodes without loss of life.

Yeah I think Bok was probably assuming that the Stargazer would get destroyed in the battle, and then-- thanks to the altered ships logs, the crazy behavior, and the attack on the Enterprise-- Picard record and reputation would be forever tarnished with Starfleet.

 

[Captrek]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

The Picard Maneuver never made sense to me. First of all, how is it no one before had ever used the "light lag" effect to make a tactical advantage?

I like how, in the many years since the Picard Maneuver was first used, nobody had been able to develop a defense against it, but Data came up with one pretty much off the top of his head and it was almost as simple as the Maneuver itself.

It’s a lack of creativity by the writers.

 

[davejames]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Interesting. I just checked out the script, and apparently the Stargazer DID originally fire a barrage of weapons at the Enterprise after being seized by the tractor beam.

Shame they took that part out.

 

[Captrek]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Interesting. I just checked out the script, and apparently the Stargazer DID originally fire a barrage of weapons at the Enterprise after being seized by the tractor beam.

Shame they took that part out.

No budget for the special effect?

 

[davejames]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Interesting. I just checked out the script, and apparently the Stargazer DID originally fire a barrage of weapons at the Enterprise after being seized by the tractor beam.

Shame they took that part out.

No budget for the special effect?

Probably. Either that or the ships were so close in the final shot that there just wasn't room for any phaser or torpedo fire.



Speaking of which, it still cracks me up to see Picard in the Conference Room describing this difficult, super-sophisticated battle maneuver... with just an average, modern day ballpoint pen.

 

[tomalak301]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Interesting. I just checked out the script, and apparently the Stargazer DID originally fire a barrage of weapons at the Enterprise after being seized by the tractor beam.

Shame they took that part out.

No budget for the special effect?

According to the documentary, they were running above budget for most of it's Season 1 episodes, so this isn't surprising.

I too just watched "The Battle" tonight and while it's a good episode, I agree with some of the other criticisms, namely, how no one has developed a defense for the Picard Maneuver. Still, I have to say (After watching Last Outpost a few nights ago) that the Farengi were used a lot better here. They may have failed as villains, but this was probably the best use of them (Under their original concept) that TNG ever did.

 

[FrontierTrek]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Here's the next in our TNG: SD to HD video series -

Episode 4, 'Code of Honor' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8_-fBU9BsQ

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Digital noise - video

Technical picture
One technical deficit “Next Generation” has to “Original Series” is there is some digital noise flaring up. Many shots are totally clear in the high definition way I was describing above. Unfortunately, a lot of scenes on the bridge of the Enterprise are peppered with white spots.

Blu-ray aficionados are familiar with this. Sometimes in holding the picture together for 1080p, it creates a haze of white specs. It means they couldn’t create a 100% perfect picture, but you still get the sharpness, colors and detail of high definition with a few flaws. Oddly, the HD trailer doesn’t have those flaws in comparable shots. Only the actual episodes.

http://m.craveonline.com/tv/reviews/193311-star-trek-the-next-generation-season-1-blu-ray-review

From their review which was not mentioned in any other review. This is a very technical video critique.

 

[Ghostface1701]

Re: Digital noise - video

Technical picture
One technical deficit “Next Generation” has to “Original Series” is there is some digital noise flaring up. Many shots are totally clear in the high definition way I was describing above. Unfortunately, a lot of scenes on the bridge of the Enterprise are peppered with white spots.

Blu-ray aficionados are familiar with this. Sometimes in holding the picture together for 1080p, it creates a haze of white specs. It means they couldn’t create a 100% perfect picture, but you still get the sharpness, colors and detail of high definition with a few flaws. Oddly, the HD trailer doesn’t have those flaws in comparable shots. Only the actual episodes.

http://m.craveonline.com/tv/reviews/193311-star-trek-the-next-generation-season-1-blu-ray-review

From their review which was not mentioned in any other review. This is a very technical video critique.

I think it wasn't mentioned in any other reviews because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Another gem from him:

You can totally tell when they used CGI to recreate effects that couldn’t be restored. It looks great but I wonder if an upconvert might have been more authentic since it’s so obvious these are new shots.

I think most people can see from the comparisons that an upconvert would look like crap. I wonder if he could really "totally tell" what shots are CG if he hadn't read about it before online.

 

[davejames]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Was dreading seeing When the Bough Breaks again, but it was actually pretty decent (at least by Season One standards). The basic idea is a bit silly of course, but somehow Patrick Stewart once again makes you care and feel the urgency of the situation.

It's hard NOT to get a huge charge hearing him deliver a line like "You call yourselves a civilized people, but what you have just done constitutes an act of utter barbarity!"

And I have to admit the image of him holding the girl's sad-looking flower at the end made me completely bust up.

 

[Scotty]

Re: Digital noise - video

Technical picture
One technical deficit “Next Generation” has to “Original Series” is there is some digital noise flaring up. Many shots are totally clear in the high definition way I was describing above. Unfortunately, a lot of scenes on the bridge of the Enterprise are peppered with white spots.

Blu-ray aficionados are familiar with this. Sometimes in holding the picture together for 1080p, it creates a haze of white specs. It means they couldn’t create a 100% perfect picture, but you still get the sharpness, colors and detail of high definition with a few flaws. Oddly, the HD trailer doesn’t have those flaws in comparable shots. Only the actual episodes.

http://m.craveonline.com/tv/reviews/193311-star-trek-the-next-generation-season-1-blu-ray-review

From their review which was not mentioned in any other review. This is a very technical video critique.

The reason why other reviewers didn't mention it, is because it is not digital noise, it's filmgrain. And it's perfectly normal.

 

[Brikar99]

Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread

Picard spends the whole episode nearly dying from severe headaches (which apparently no one gets anymore),

This always struck me as rather bizarre and pretty stupid.