Star Trek-RM: Elaan of Troyius… Grading/Discussion

[AstroSmurf]

This is the grading & discussion thread for Star Trek Remastered airing the weekend of 03/29/08.

Elaan of Troyius

With the Klingon Empire quickly encroaching closer to their planetary system, two warring Federation members, Elas and Troyius, request assistance in peace negotiations to insure their galactic safety. Realizing unity between the two races is the only way to protect it, Starfleet dispatches the U.S.S. Enterprise to host and mediate the negotiations. But when a confrontation with the Klingons uncovers a sabetor onboard the Enterprise, Kirk must find a way to save the peace talks, the ambassadors and his ship.

Official Website for Star Trek

Next Week’s Episode: The Enterprise Incident
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[Cyrus]

I have always liked this "Taming of the Shrew" episode, so it was nice to see it again.

A lot of new cgi stuff in this one. I liked the Klingon ship and the battle scenes. The green Klingon weapon I wasn't too crazy about, but I guess it was better than the original version. Loved the last sequence with Enterprise firing photon torpedoes at the Klingon ship.

 

[nx1701g]

^ So I take it there have been a few changes rather than blink and you'll miss them changes.

 

[Cyrus]

^ So I take it there have been a few changes rather than blink and you'll miss them changes.

Oh, yeah. Quite a few. Lots of shots of the Klingon ship, both closeup and far away, and from a variety of angles. A few battle scenes. And an interesting sequence of the Klingon ship approaching Enterprise from behind (with the camera/viewsceen view being between the nacelles) and veering away at the last second.

 

[nx1701g]

^ Thanks. I'll check this one out tonight.

 

[Trekwatcher]

On here in a few hours. Looking forward the the Klingon ship shots!

 

[Kryton]

Just watched it. Better than expected. Though my namesake Kryton was just as big a douchebag as always.

 

[cbspock]

The shot of the Klingon ship approaching the Enterprise, then veering looked okay up until the end when it made that turn. It was cool to see the Klingon model finally lit. I did like the other battle shots.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

This one had some disappointments but none that were a surprise considering the decisions the Remastering team's made regarding shot composition, etc.*

Did we need to see the Enterprise and the battlecruiser in the same shot when the latter is supposedly stalking them at extreme sensor range? Visible at extreme magnification isn't the same as naked eye visible. It's supposed to make a seconds long run at Wf6 starting a few miles away? Due to budget restrictions or not, that's one advantage the old shots in this episode have over these: they're not irreconcilable with the dialog.

The snap turn less than a ship-length away on the first pass and the Warp 7 ssssslide for the (second?) shot the battlecruiser made were terrible. At Wf7, the battlecruiser would be a blur at best. Showing it and the crippled sublight Enterprise in the same shot was pointless. Better to have only shown the Klingon firing or the Enterprise alone taking the hit. Or track with the battlecruiser as it fires, pacing its disruptor bolts as they run slightly ahead of the ship, impacting the Enterprise's shields just before the D7 flashes past. But that would have been more complicated, time-consuming, and thus expensive to render, thus likely out of bounds for this project.

As for the model, this new CGI ship is pleasantly smooth hulled, which I really appreciated. I didn't care for the K't'inga class impulse drive arrangement; the Klolode-class had no such structures as clearly shown in "The Enterprise Incident", something Greg Jein got right on his overly-paneled model for "Trials and Tribblations". There were nice beauty passes of the ship and the last two shots of it firing disruptors my favorites of the battle, the next-to-last closely replicating the original.

*Note: The poster acknowledges that these comments may clearly mark him as a stick-in-the-mud and all-around party-pooper. C'est la vie.

 

[Nebusj]

Did we need to see the Enterprise and the battlecruiser in the same shot when the latter is supposedly stalking them at extreme sensor range? Visible at extreme magnification isn't the same as naked eye visible. It's supposed to make a seconds long run at Wf6 starting a few miles away? Due to budget restrictions or not, that's one advantage the old shots in this episode have over these: they're not irreconcilable with the dialog.

On the other hand, nothing can be done to make the dialogue in the episode reconcilable with the dialogue in it. Shame, but at least it gives the technology-oriented folks lots of difficult-to-explain anomalies to build upon.

I'm basically satisfied with the new shots, particularly the rather nice variety of angles at which the Klingon ship prances around. The one that I really dislike is the really-close-pass where the Klingon is trying to goad the Enterprise into shooting back, where you see the Klingon ship flying up the Enterprise's nacelles. The perspective on it just looked all wrong. Maybe they carefully measured how big the Klingon ship is supposed to be and how big it would look flying up Scotty's skirt, but the result looked like an effects glitch to me.


I didn't remember how much of this episode amounted to Kirk being pulled away from whatever he's doing to deal with a crisis on the other side of the ship. Nearly the whole first act Kirk is left as a ping-pong ball trying earnestly to catch up with events.

Early on Scott points out how ridiculous the top-security orders for what should be a routine person-delivery operation are. And, objectively, someone within the Federation was being probably needlessly mysterious. However, dramatically, it's a good touch since it means nearly any point where we might ask, ``Shouldn't Kirk know [ say, what a Dohlman is ] before getting there?'' can be answered with ``critical information was withheld on orders''. It's a great way of answering plot objections before they can be even asked.

There's a Federation High Commissioner this episode who's so well known nobody needs to identify him as anything other than The High Commissioner. Or perhaps he comes from one of those planets with the annoyingly unpronounceable names.

 

[NCC621]

Granted. On the other hand, I don't recall you making the same complaints for the original or the remastered version of "The Doomsday Machine" where the Constellation is approaching the planet killer. The Constellation is clearly creeping along at a few miles per hour, while Sulu counts off the distance at a speed of something like ten thousand miles per second.

It's all stylized, and exists to support the drama.

 

[ncc-1017-e]

I thought that some of the klingon shots could have been better!

 

[zopman]

I thought most of the Klingon ship scenes were fine, especially the aforementioned view of the rear of the Enterprise in the distance from behind the approaching Klingon ship. Some very nice panning angles. I was disappointed with one shot at the end of the final battle sequence though, as the Enterprise gets its warp drive back & Sulu is ordered to do a Warp 2 maneuver before Chekov fires the torpedoes, & there is a nice panning shot of the Klingon ship passing the camera & firing at the Enterprise, but the Enterprise is still almost motionless!!! It should of been seen starting to make its move already!

Also, I don't know if anyone else caught this, but there was one REALLY COOL new shot close to the end of the episode, when the Enterprise zooms past the camera for it's approach into orbit around Troyius, and it gets real small & tight to the planet as it looks like it's going to disappear around the back, ...& they BLOW IT!!! The tiny Enterprise image stays in front of the planet's edge (going past the slight atmosphere edge) just a millisecond before the shot cuts away, instead of being masked going behind the planet's edge. I had recorded the episode & played it back in slo-mo to double check. Yeah, they blew it!! To bad, it was a nice change from the standard orbit shots we always got.

 

[WalkinMan]

Cool EFX all around, I liked the way the battle scenes were updated in particular!

When I viewed the original episode, I liked it, except for the same reused EFX shot of the D7 charging at the Enterprise from an angle. IIRC they ran that shot over and over so it seemed like the D7 was continually trying to ram.

 

[Trekfan21]

Overall, I liked the episode. My only gripes are those already voiced by others. When the Klingons are shadowing the Enterprise at the start of the episode, I don't like that they are in view of each other. And then the shot of the Klingon vessel veering off at the last minute. Otherwise, the closeups of the Klingon ship were fantastic.

 

[Maurice]

^^^Except that if the ship vanished behind the planet's edge the scale would have been totally blown.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Missed most of it, too tired to stay up later. But I'd still like to get in France's pants...well, circa 1968. Shrew, the right thing!

 

[Sector 7]

Missed most of it, too tired to stay up later. But I'd still like to get in France's pants...well, circa 1968. Shrew, the right thing!

Hey I'm gay and I still thought she was hot!

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ You may have just been attracted to her skimpy yet sexy outfit. I know I always have been. I don't want to wear it mind you but I still thought it was nifty.

Well I was out and about Saturday night so I missed the episode. I was hoping Trekmovie would do their weekly RM coverage but nothing yet. It never fails. If I miss that week's episode, Trekmovie misses it too. I have the worst timing.

Anyway, this episode has always been a dull one for me. All of the running around, bratty behavior and stabbings never did much for me. It is still an interesting episode but I guess I never cared much for the acting or directing. For some reason, this outing has always seemed "off" to me. I give it a C-.

As for the remastering... I just watched the FX real on YouTube and I was pleasantly surprised. It was actually pretty well done... except the Klingon ship's turn. That was pretty bad, turning an excellent into an Above Average. I loved the impulse engines and the hull scraping shots though.

 

[cooleddie74]

I loved the new D7 cruiser. Especially the back, blue-glowing impulse engines and the way the ship looked reflected in the starlight. Not bluish-green like movie or most of the more recent series Klingon cruisers but not the same as the prequel ENTERPRISE cruiser from "Unexpected," either. A mishmash of them all.