Should the remastered versions of TOS and TNG episodes be considered separate stories?
- Thread starter Extrocomp
- Start date
Eh, Alpha isn't much better. They just have a staff enforcing their own particular idea of edits rather than just one guy. And they have a problem with double standards, like a few years back when they got all uppity about not listing Adira as non-binary because they haven't been explicitly stated to be non-binary on screen, despite the fact MA doesn't mind citing other sources besides onscreen material for other matters.I'll put this in spoilercode just in case.
Captain Mike, the owner, pretty much treats MBeta as his own personal fiefdom. Any edit that he doesn't personally approve of, he will undo. And if he doesn't like you, he will ban you, for whatever reasons he pleases (he's even banned me - he claimed I was intentionally spreading spoilers, which I was not in fact doing).
So compared to that, Alpha is a walk in the park.
I think the general rule is that information from background sources must be put in a background note, not in the main body of the article.
Except for non-canon names. If a character wasn't named onscreen, you're allowed to use the name from the script or subtitles in the main body of the article.
But if a character's last name was given onscreen, but the first name wasn't, you're not allowed to use the first name, even if it came from the script.
Except that Miral Paris is still called Miral Paris, even though it violates the previous rule because no one wants to rename the page to Paris (Ensign).
Also, text that appeared onscreen is considered canon, even if it's too blurry to read onscreen and you only know what it says from a background source.
Yeah, Memory Alpha is complicated.
Except for non-canon names. If a character wasn't named onscreen, you're allowed to use the name from the script or subtitles in the main body of the article.
But if a character's last name was given onscreen, but the first name wasn't, you're not allowed to use the first name, even if it came from the script.
Except that Miral Paris is still called Miral Paris, even though it violates the previous rule because no one wants to rename the page to Paris (Ensign).
Also, text that appeared onscreen is considered canon, even if it's too blurry to read onscreen and you only know what it says from a background source.
Yeah, Memory Alpha is complicated.
Nope.
Modern Trek is a bit vague on specifics. What classes of ships attacked in "The Enterprise Incident"? It varies. Does the classic Enterprise look like TOS or SNW? Depends on the whims of the people in charge on a particular day.
Modern Trek is a bit vague on specifics. What classes of ships attacked in "The Enterprise Incident"? It varies. Does the classic Enterprise look like TOS or SNW? Depends on the whims of the people in charge on a particular day.
Some prints of books come with illustrations...I'm taking about the works of Shakespeare, Grimm brothers, etc. Are they separate stories from the prints with no or different illustrations? What about the ones with different phrasing for different levels of readers. The plot is pretty much the same (in certain cases).
I'm starting to have second thoughts about the story list idea. Many public domain novels are connected to Star Trek by a chain of crossovers. These include Dracula, Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, First Men in the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Moby Dick, Father Brown, Pride and Prejudice, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Romeo and Juliet, The Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Iliad and many others.
I had assumed that there's at least one wiki or some other website that has a comprehensive list of translations of these books into each language, but apparently there isn't. And if by some miracle I do manage to create a list that includes every translation, there's no way I would be able to keep it up to date because there are so many novels and so many languages that I would need to monitor for new translations.
Not having translations at all and just making a list on English language stories is not an option because some crossovers only exist in Italian, Japanese or Portuguese.
I had assumed that there's at least one wiki or some other website that has a comprehensive list of translations of these books into each language, but apparently there isn't. And if by some miracle I do manage to create a list that includes every translation, there's no way I would be able to keep it up to date because there are so many novels and so many languages that I would need to monitor for new translations.
Not having translations at all and just making a list on English language stories is not an option because some crossovers only exist in Italian, Japanese or Portuguese.
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It's an interesting idea, but I just think you have to take everything with a grain of salt or you go mad. I always go back to "Justice" and how the buildings there look exactly like Starfleet Academy. Did the same architect do designs on both planets? What about the space God in the same episode looking exactly like the space station in "Conundrum"? Did those aliens set up shop in a dead God's body? It's all a bit nonsense really.
Sorry, but I don't even understand the reasoning here.
Of course they're not.
Of course they're not.
Depends on how much of the story's structure, character motivations, etc, are changed by adding or removing bits. If TOS-R and TNG-R were remastered, but with any new effects used only to enhance the original without altering the live-action content of the story... the bulk of the episodes are just the same. A few new asteroids thrown in one episode doesn't make one story turned into another, see "The Doomsday Machine" and "Booby Trap" as two examples. Nor does adding a new Romulan ship in the background to complement the new Klingon design that they are also using due to presumably an alliance or stolen technology ("The Enterprise Incident"). Had season 3 more budget to play with, you can bet they'd have made a new Romulan model or found the old one or whatever.
Now, adding in deleted scenes and/or deleting others? That can and does change either context within a story, if not the story itself. Usually, scenes are cut for the sake of episode runover rather than anything else. Do we need yet another scene of Data smokin' a 19th century pipe because that's what all the cool androids were doing because they couldn't get lung cancer in doing so? Or Picard reading Data's transfer orders when enough context and exposition were already stated? But other reasons can include a particular scene where the tone of a character's motivations, if not the entire story, is shifted. I just wish I could think of one right now, though "Return of the Jedi" did have a deleted scene about the death star operator getting queasy at having to destroy Endor (the scene of which was removed, not just because it showed "humanity" in the Empire, but because - despite its short length - it altered significantly the plot of the film.
Granted, they could still chop out the second half of the guy's speech where he gives a hooty about the troops on the planet and leave in the rest... but other related scenes also show the sets to look cheap -- so many reasons why the lot of it was chopped out, leaving the bare amount of Palpsy and Luke only in the finished product. The deleted scenes definitely change a lot of the tone of the movie and arguably pointlessly. But I digress, the same concepts are used in tv and movies all over the land.
But that's, so far, just discussing scenes filmed back when the story was scripted. Another fad is to film new material to place into the old story that was never intended. Even Red Dwarf parodied this before it was cool with the series 1-3 "remastering" where they had a sock puppet break the fourth wall deliberately. It was as shrewd as it was dumb, but it's all good. Then you'd be on your way to a "completely separate story".
Never mind deleting a story's scenes to create a new tone or venue - that definitely creates a separate story as a result. Cut out just enough of "I, Borg" and Hugh could stay on and somehow never be detected - the story's writing is so bad and loaded with inconsistencies (situation and character) that a lot of stuff would have to be removed... after which point you'd have a much tighter and compelling adventure, even if it'd be only 6 minutes long (leaving 37 minutes for something far better). But that's an extreme example...
Now, adding in deleted scenes and/or deleting others? That can and does change either context within a story, if not the story itself. Usually, scenes are cut for the sake of episode runover rather than anything else. Do we need yet another scene of Data smokin' a 19th century pipe because that's what all the cool androids were doing because they couldn't get lung cancer in doing so? Or Picard reading Data's transfer orders when enough context and exposition were already stated? But other reasons can include a particular scene where the tone of a character's motivations, if not the entire story, is shifted. I just wish I could think of one right now, though "Return of the Jedi" did have a deleted scene about the death star operator getting queasy at having to destroy Endor (the scene of which was removed, not just because it showed "humanity" in the Empire, but because - despite its short length - it altered significantly the plot of the film.
Granted, they could still chop out the second half of the guy's speech where he gives a hooty about the troops on the planet and leave in the rest... but other related scenes also show the sets to look cheap -- so many reasons why the lot of it was chopped out, leaving the bare amount of Palpsy and Luke only in the finished product. The deleted scenes definitely change a lot of the tone of the movie and arguably pointlessly. But I digress, the same concepts are used in tv and movies all over the land.
But that's, so far, just discussing scenes filmed back when the story was scripted. Another fad is to film new material to place into the old story that was never intended. Even Red Dwarf parodied this before it was cool with the series 1-3 "remastering" where they had a sock puppet break the fourth wall deliberately. It was as shrewd as it was dumb, but it's all good. Then you'd be on your way to a "completely separate story".
Never mind deleting a story's scenes to create a new tone or venue - that definitely creates a separate story as a result. Cut out just enough of "I, Borg" and Hugh could stay on and somehow never be detected - the story's writing is so bad and loaded with inconsistencies (situation and character) that a lot of stuff would have to be removed... after which point you'd have a much tighter and compelling adventure, even if it'd be only 6 minutes long (leaving 37 minutes for something far better). But that's an extreme example...
I remember Mike Okuda doing an interview when TOS Remastered was released and he was quite clear that it was NOT their intention to reinvent the show or stories to make them fundamentally different.
That's why the visual effects are not radically different, or even brought up to the standards of 2000s era TV effects. They only went with the idea of what would it look like if you cleaned up the look of the 60s era visuals to something in the same spirit of the original intention.
So, to me, it's the equivalent of when Coca-Cola or Doritos do retro packaging but in a newer container that's more modern than what they had decades ago. It's still the same Coke and Doritos, just in different packaging that's a little visually different but the substance of what you're consuming is the same.
That's why the visual effects are not radically different, or even brought up to the standards of 2000s era TV effects. They only went with the idea of what would it look like if you cleaned up the look of the 60s era visuals to something in the same spirit of the original intention.
So, to me, it's the equivalent of when Coca-Cola or Doritos do retro packaging but in a newer container that's more modern than what they had decades ago. It's still the same Coke and Doritos, just in different packaging that's a little visually different but the substance of what you're consuming is the same.
Not sure if the OP is still active in this thread but my answer is no and here's why . If you look at he original version of TOS for example , You will find numerous unrealistic spacefare visuals and allot of "recycled footage " for things like planets and ships. So even right there youneed to either reconcilie with the fact that the pure "original " version has (many more) unrealistic clones of Identical planters or cloned star ships etc .... or you simply allow the creative license and accept the revisions as " improvements ." or corrections . Either accept them into canon (per say) or you can simply just choose to accept the core story elements as the real measure of canon and look at the visual changes as simply cosmetic ( up to the viewer's discretion) and not really effecting canon either way.
Remember there's also already precident of "changes " happening in-series...like Worf's forehead ridges being totally different in Season 2 onwards. In fact if you look at the series finale of TNG, they actually used Worf's "new" ridges when they went back in time to Encounter at Farpoint.
So changeing/improving/updating original effects and the like, is not a super big thing IMO. Whether you like it being done or feel they executed on doing it correctly is another discussion Of course.
Remember there's also already precident of "changes " happening in-series...like Worf's forehead ridges being totally different in Season 2 onwards. In fact if you look at the series finale of TNG, they actually used Worf's "new" ridges when they went back in time to Encounter at Farpoint.
So changeing/improving/updating original effects and the like, is not a super big thing IMO. Whether you like it being done or feel they executed on doing it correctly is another discussion Of course.
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In answer to the OP:
No. Of course not. Life’s too short. Don’t be silly. :-)
No. Of course not. Life’s too short. Don’t be silly. :-)
Why not every single one?
You are probably one of the ten most minutiae-obsessed Trek historians alive, after all.
Yeah, someone decided to bump it after almost 10 months of inactivity.
I'll leave it open in case anyone else wants to chime in.
