Star Trek-RM: The Changeling… Grading/Discussion

[AstroSmurf]

This is the grading & discussion thread for Star Trek Remastered for the weekend of 02/02/08.

The Changeling

When the U.S.S. Enterprise is sent to investigate the destruction of the Malurian system and its four billion inhabitants, the crew discovers an intelligent space probe calling itself Nomad. But they soon learn that probe is extremely dangerous and narrowly misses annihilation when Nomad mistakes the captain for its creator. Now it is up to Kirk to disarm this lethal probe before it destroys his ship and more inhabited star systems.

Official Website for Star Trek
.
.

 

[AstroSmurf]

This episode was always a bit of a snooze for me. But to be honest, by the time I had seen this episode in the early 80's I had already viewed TMP several times. That completely destroyed the idea of an all-powerful intelligent machine threatening the crew for me. And the large sweeping epic scale of V'Ger makes this tiny little "trash can" on wires look silly in comparison. Also, by that point, having to watch Kirk talk down yet another machine was becoming common place. I guess viewing the show in 1980's syndication throws off things for us younger viewers.

But as for the episode, I have to give it a C+. The pacing was a little off (even without the syndication cuts) and Nomad could have been a little more threatening. I just never believed that little tiny thing was capable of the destruction it caused. It lacked menace and was one of the few misses the show had design wise.

As for the remastering, I have to give it an Average. The ship shots were nice but nothing special. I did love the shot midway through when the camera sweeps in on the bridge module. The rest were rather lackluster. And the team should have fixed the beam that wipes Uhura's mind. The jagged edged falloff around her head makes the beam look like something out of a comic book. Did anyone notice if they did any wire removal work? The television I watched this on was to small for me to see if they did.

And can I just tell you how excited I am about next week's showing of "The Ultimate Computer"? I am practically vibrating with anticipation.

 

[Woulfe]

^ They did remove any visible wires....
TOS was useually good about that before CG came along, but every so often you'd see the wires, but they're gone now, this time for good....

 

[KennyB]

Anti_Drone said:
And can I just tell you how excited I am about next week's showing of "The Ultimate Computer"? I am practically vibrating with anticipation.

Ditto

 

[Mallory]

Same here. That episode ought to be awesome.

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ "Ought" being the operative word there. I have high hopes though.

Woulfe said:
^ They did remove any visible wires....
TOS was useually good about that before CG came along, but every so often you'd see the wires, but they're gone now, this time for good....

Digital wire removal is such a rudimentary thing these day (almost like red eye fixes in photography) I expected as much. However, I am not giving the remastering team kudos for it since it requires so little effort. Now if they hadn't fixed it... Someone would have had to get me off the roof.

 

[Procutus]

KennyB said:

Anti_Drone said:
And can I just tell you how excited I am about next week's showing of "The Ultimate Computer"? I am practically vibrating with anticipation.

Ditto

Double ditto! I haven't had the chance to watch 'The Changeling' yet (CW airs the damn thing at 4:00 A.M. Sunday morning) but I'm really looking forward to what they might enhance in UC. Four starships - goodbye AMT models!

 

[Keith1701]

A- Average after Remastering

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Nomad rules. The simple design, the voice.

 

[Hambone]

I thought the remastering was a throw-away. The light that wiped Uhura's brain has always looked poor and they didn't upgrade it. Ditto the redshirt-disintegrator beams.

The editing was some of the worst ever. They cut some vital plotline dialogue but left in "the ball is blooey."

Harrumph.

 

[cooleddie74]

While Okuda and his people did a much more thorough job on this one than they did on "Enemy Within"(an almost complete waste of time to Remaster considering how many glaring things they left unchanged that NEEDED it), they could have done a better job on this one. The new, more plasma- and greenish-looking bolts fired by Nomad against the Enterprise look far superior as does the new way Nomad blows up in space at the end of the episode, but aside from those bright spots the Remastered effects kind of fizzled and some things like the star map of our solar system and other items that SHOULD have been tweaked weren't.

 

[Noname Given]

cooleddie74 said:
While Okuda and his people did a much more thorough job on this one than they did on "Enemy Within"(an almost complete waste of time to Remaster considering how many glaring things they left unchanged that NEEDED it), they could have done a better job on this one. The new, more plasma- and greenish-looking bolts fired by Nomad against the Enterprise look far superior as does the new way Nomad blows up in space at the end of the episode, but aside from those bright spots the Remastered effects kind of fizzled and some things like the star map of our solar system and other items that SHOULD have been tweaked weren't.

But, they've always stated they were just fixing the 'exterior outer space' and 'viewscreen' shots for the most part; and would do other things (like the Gorn blinking in Arena) as and if time/money permitted.

 

[cooleddie74]

Noname Given said:

cooleddie74 said:
While Okuda and his people did a much more thorough job on this one than they did on "Enemy Within"(an almost complete waste of time to Remaster considering how many glaring things they left unchanged that NEEDED it), they could have done a better job on this one. The new, more plasma- and greenish-looking bolts fired by Nomad against the Enterprise look far superior as does the new way Nomad blows up in space at the end of the episode, but aside from those bright spots the Remastered effects kind of fizzled and some things like the star map of our solar system and other items that SHOULD have been tweaked weren't.

But, they've always stated they were just fixing the 'exterior outer space' and 'viewscreen' shots for the most part; and would do other things (like the Gorn blinking in Arena) as and if time/money permitted.

Which isn't entirely true or consistent because other episodes had a LOT of gratuitous and unexpected changes and new, more dynamic shots that didn't "need" to be created out of whole cloth. The Remastering process has hardly been 100% consistent.

 

[Nomad]

I enjoyed the episode (of course), although in the edited version I saw the "mass of conflicting impulses" line was cut out. The new FX were average at best.

 

[cbspock]

Replacing the star map would have been a lot of work, and a lot of rotoscoping would have had to been done.

 

[cooleddie74]

^
NOT out of the realm of realistic possibility considering all the work that's been done in far more visually complex episodes that needed a lot more and sophisticated changes. Rotoscoping might not be everyone's idea of a fun way to spend time but the area that needed the process in order to drop a new star map in wasn't very big and Okuda and his people have proven they're more than capable of far more complicated than that.

 

[Trevacious]

Spending time is spending money.

 

[cooleddie74]

But if the Remastering team really cares about making the new effects memorable and impactful(as they claim)they'll spend a little more time on some of these. Otherwise the whole effort to change the effects in the series and update it for the digital TV age will be largely anticlimactic and disappointing.