Personally I was crossing my fingers that they would at least do THAT much. I never expected them to actually remaster and re-edit the entire freakin series.
The fact that they are is still kind of mindblowing to me.
The OFFICIAL STNG Next Level Bluray watch and review thread
- Thread starter RAMA
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Personally I was crossing my fingers that they would at least do THAT much. I never expected them to actually remaster and re-edit the entire freakin series.
The fact that they are is still kind of mindblowing to me.
Exactly! I had the same mindset prior to TOS-R. I thought they would do a few shows, maybe air them as a special on CBS for some anniversary and that would be it. To do all 79 was amazing, and now to do all 179 for TNG is really something special.
People have brought up an interesting point with regards to rescaling ships. That could be seen as an "error" that needs to be corrected, as opposed to simply 'jazzing' up the show or trying to inject new life into it. I agree that some scales are definitely off.
This has been in the back of my mind for a while, and others brought it up: how much more time and money would it have taken to give us two versions of each episode: one as it originally was, and one with interpretations based on what some fans wanted (rescaling ships, not using the same shot ten times in an episode)?
This is a serious (i.e. not rhetorical) question. Not every effect shot would have had to have been 'reimaged'. How long does it take to produce, etc. the average effect shot in TNG? How many of us would have been willing to wait a little longer and pay a little more for two versions of the episode? I know I would. I've waited this long already!
I don't think they could have done a project of that scale, where they would give us 2 versions of the same thing. Personally I was hoping they would give it a TOS-R revamping.
The insane insistence that the HD version stay "true" to the original is annoying at best. You will notice that most of TOS-R actually stayed true to the "heart" of the series. While I loved TOS (and my dad even more so), watching the originals now makes us both laugh (my dad calls the Enterprise the "Frying Pan") because the FX are so cheesy. We love the original because it was easy to forgive them for the lame FX, because in that era, that's all they had. Along comes TOS-R, and while you can tell the ship is CGI most of the time, when compared to the original scenes, is light decades ahead!!! I'm fine with the CGI not being ultra realistic if we get to watch an episode like "The Doomsday Machine" actually play out the way it should have been from the start!
It's kind of the same for TNG. I love the show, but it had some stinkers in it that, for the most part were completely due to lack of budget (I'm sure Code of Honor was a budget episode after blowing their load on EaF and Naked Now, and it took them a while to give us another great one, like "Where no one has gone before", etc etc.
I was hoping TNG-R would revamp some of the budget limitations. It doesn't mean that the boring episodes needed Jar Jar Binks in every scene. I would be happy if key episodes play out with action that was only implied in the original episodes (again, due to budget). I seriously would have payed $200 a season easily for this. I don't think I would pay more than $80 a season for what we are getting. There are far too few episodes I liked enough to want to see in HD. The Sampler had none.
We are going to see SOME changes, I am sure about that, so far, I'm not unhappy with the percentage of new shots or tweaks. In the future though, some episodes could use, 20-40% changes to make them better....Yesterday's Enterprise is a great episode, but the battles are lackluster and out of scale for example.
RAMA
I still have high hopes that this episode will have better on screen action. Q Who is another one I'd like to see have better action. Where no one has gone before has such awesome FX to begin with, this one I would not mind if they just remaster to HD as is. Anything extra will be gravy.
Yes and no for me, clearly some of the model work on TNG was "Cheap" model work. ANd I want the original shots (warts and all and they have plenty), but if they had wanted to work on complete reused shots, then I want a higher quality of work then what CBS produced for TOS. Now a lot of their flybys, orbit shots, ect were designed well, but the render of them was horrible. The more active shots were terrible. The location shots were beautiful (go figure). Now if they actually treated these like a new show, with quality (tv wise) CGI, then I wouldn't mind them redoing some stock shots. But I seriously doubt CBS is willing to spend the money to do so.
If TNG-R (or TOS-R for that matter) had an effects budget equivalent to Avatar, then I might see a case being made for replacing the existing model work with CGI. But after watching TOS-R it seems unlikely they can do convincing work on a shoestring budget.
I'd rather have the original model work instead of cheap CGI.
I mean seriously the matte painting at the start of Sins of the Father ( nice image, but terrible in what is supposed to be a moving shot). If that is their attempt to redo old effects it was awful.
Now the warp shot in Inner Light I actually really like, but can't wait to see the original (in the 80 or so episodes it appears) to compare.
But look at what we have got, model work that shows what the model was capable of (it still needs work and has flaws), a much richer and balanced picture and color for live shots, sound that is so much better then how I originally listen to it.
It's naive to think this is being done for blu-ray sales. This is being done to keep the show's format competitive in all aspects of video distribution, whether blue-ray, HD broadcast, digital cable or internet streaming.
I think the effects work on 'Q Who' still holds up! If they just rescan it in I think think it'll be rad. That episode just *works*. I don't think it needs to be massively improved.
You don't have to live with it. You can watch the remastered episodes without the new FX. They are optional.
You know what I never noticed before? Just as Kurn steps off the transporter pad at the start of Sins of the Father, you can totally see a bunch of wooden scaffolding above the wall of the set.
It was always there, but I guess the added quality helped the detail jump out at me.
It was always there, but I guess the added quality helped the detail jump out at me.
There is much to be said for minimalism...especially in an episode like that where the stoic, terrifying solidarity of the Borg is communicated perfectly by how little effort they actually need to expend to control their prey. I think "flashing it up" would really undermine the quiet tension of this episode.
I agree, those people who think it is being done just for Bluray are naive, I however, am not one of them. CBS is investing a lot of time and money on this project and I am very pleased that TNG is getting this treatment. I look forward to seeing it in true 1080p on Bluray, and then broadcast to a broader audience in 720 and 1080i and compressed 1080p through Netfilx, and syndicated outlets.
The point, my friend, is that few shows get this treatment, and we should recognize that this is special.
You don't have to live with it. You can watch the remastered episodes without the new FX. They are optional.
They aren't if you're watching on Netflix.
The only thing that might need to be improved is that Borg interior shot, where we pull back to see more of the hive. All it should really take is a small color correction though, to better blend together the set and painting.
But yeah, the actual Borg model and other effects in that episode hold up a lot better than I remembered.
I am so happy with the model work and general fx work the crew did. They really did shoot stuff at near-feature quality. The size of the 6 foooter, and detail in the large Borg cube etc. show that they didn't skimp on the details.
Sure, with a different budget and less time constraints (and a 16x9 AR) TNG could really have looked like a feature every week, but Legato, Moore, Curry, Okuda and Sternbach did a fantastic job.
Sure, with a different budget and less time constraints (and a 16x9 AR) TNG could really have looked like a feature every week, but Legato, Moore, Curry, Okuda and Sternbach did a fantastic job.
You know what I never noticed before? Just as Kurn steps off the transporter pad at the start of Sins of the Father, you can totally see a bunch of wooden scaffolding above the wall of the set.
It was always there, but I guess the added quality helped the detail jump out at me.
Good eye. What's funny is that every time there's a live action shot with VFX, they use the larger image as on the DVD (actually even a bit more, just as you'd expect). Another example is when Riker, Data and Geordie are looking at an LCARS display on the bridge. But when the cut happens, they're back to the overly cropped image that plagues most of the episode.
Roughly 15% of the image is missing on most shots in the Blu-ray version of "Sins." "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Inner Light" look just fine, for the most part. It has to be intentional. I just wonder why they didn't move some of the act one credits up in the frame back to the title safe area. Here are some screenshots of the problem:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=5768819&postcount=2805
You can also see screenshot comparisons here:
http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_verg...&image=2&cID=844&action=1&lossless=#vergleich
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Interesting, I had noticed that the credits seemed a bit too far down the screen but didn't pick up on the cropping for the rest of the episode!
Yeah, little touches like that would make all the difference. When I think back on it, Q-Who was actually the very first episode of TNG that I ever saw. I grew up in the country where we only had two channels available to us. Neither channel carried TNG. My friend a half hour away did get a station that carried it and he recorded a few episodes for me. Q-Who being the first.
Seems like a pretty minor issue to me. But then, I've never been as obsessed with the "whole image" thing like others here.
If we're talking about a Stanley Kubrick movie, where every shot is a carefully composed work of art, then of course. But not an episode of TNG.
If we're talking about a Stanley Kubrick movie, where every shot is a carefully composed work of art, then of course. But not an episode of TNG.
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