That's why the Saber class, Steamrunner class and Norway class starships were never seen again after First Contact.
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That's why the Saber class, Steamrunner class and Norway class starships were never seen again after First Contact.
If you check DrexFiles, there are entries about the Steamrunner and (IIRC) the Saber with blurry screencaps of them in the DS9 fleet shots.
Weren't those physical models?
But my argument was that 90% of post production is already done. They just have to put all the stuff together and redo a small amount of the FX. That won't take years to do. Remember all the music, sound effects, space scenes, editing etc. are all ready and waiting. In fact, I doubt this would even be finanically feasible if it took 5 years to complete.
The Saber and Steamrunner definitely survived the FC hard drive fail. They pop up several times during DS9's later seasons. Only the Norway Class was irretrievable.
Editing may or may not be ready and waiting. Even if they have the edit decision lists, they still have to find all the appropriate shots on film. And if they don't, they need reedit to conform to the aired episode. Which is doable, but time-consuming.
I think you're also underestimating the work necessary to "put it together".
If they were doing it just for Blu-ray sales, perhaps. Paramount is also going to be able to continue to syndicate the show once it's available in HD, which is probably a bigger concern.
My only worry with when it comes time to redo DS9 is that they get the wormhole just right. It's as iconic an image to DS9 as the Enterprise D's warp shot is in the TNG main titles.
Reeling myself back to the TNG discussion... The recreated effect I'm most looking forward to is -- forgive me if I sound morbid -- Commander Remmick's head exploding in "Conspiracy."
Reeling myself back to the TNG discussion... The recreated effect I'm most looking forward to is -- forgive me if I sound morbid -- Commander Remmick's head exploding in "Conspiracy."
I'm betting their archive is fairly organised so my hope would be the material is fairly easy to access. Also, I have no doubt that syndication is the main thing they have their eye on. However, in 5 years time HD will be far less novel than it is now. In fact SD might be a thing of the past by then, as far as broadcasting goes. But think how much more valuble TNG-R will be if it manages to stay ahead of other shows.
That was a practical effect. They will have to redo the phaser shots, but not the actual head explosion I am guessing.
There are marketing issues to be considered. Dumping $700 of TNG on the market all at once can cause sticker shock. Release a $100 season every year and it’s easier for consumers to swallow, you’ve got new releases coming out every year to get people excited about, and when you’re all done in 14-18 years, it’ll be just about time to start over with TOS and upconvert to holographic 3D or whatever the newest video technology is.
This is The Next Generation for the next generation, and going through the cycle about once a generation is the way to keep it fresh.
If they'd price them closer to $50 a season, they'd sell a lot more units.
Obviously, Paramount doesn't care about moving seasons en masse (at least, that's the only explanation I have for why the DVD MSRP is still $70).
Er, no. Only the mesh for the Norway class was lost. The other three ships appeared in both DS9 and Voyager.
No, they were all CGI. They were never physical, not even in DS9. Only the Enterprise-E and the Defiant were physical models in FC.
I think you missed my "all but the brightest stars" qualifier - and the sensors in HD cameras are probably more sensitive than human eyes. The stars in that NASA clip are nothing like as bright or as numerous as in the newly restored clip. In any case, I don't care that much about accuracy as long as they don't start colouring some of the stars green.
Guessing + bad phrasing. What I actually had on my mind was five years until they'd start releasing DS9-R. Basically I expect the release of TNG-R to take at least three years (amount of work, spacing the releases to sell better as captrek already explained, etc.), and then there's going to be some lead time to ramp up work on DS9, just as there was between TOS-R and TNG-R.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. I'm fairly optimistic that they're going to do a DS9-R eventually, but it's definitely far from a sure thing. Compared to TNG, the number of non-stock effects shots they need to tackle for DS9 is astronomically higher, as is their average complexity, and the amount of CGI work necessary for them. And it's not just space, either; there are entirely new challenges like doing Odo on a fairly regular basis.
DS9 is the product of a post-production department that had most of TNG to train and oil its machine, and as a result it pushed the envelope far above what TNG did. The model photography shots in DS9 are the most sophisticated ever done for a hourly TV show (just look at that one mirror universe episode with the Defiant dodging around the station and the Klingon cap ship; I read a Making Of article on that once that claimed it was the most complex motion control shot ever done for TV; edit: see here and here) and some of the things they did with CGI in later seasons were nothing short of breathtaking as well. It takes giant balls to want to play in that league, and you need to to redo it for HD and do it justice.
On the flipside, I think Voyager is actually easier again. To be sure it's harder than TNG too, and Voyager also had some brilliant and complex shots here and there, but you don't have Odo, you have less fleet battles, you have more shots again where just having a model of the ship gets you most of the way there, etc.
I'm actually kinda fearing they might skip DS9 and go directly to Voyager since it had better ratings and DS9 is just so hard to do.
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I think Enterprise will be next, simply because it only has four seasons and requires NO extra work. It is releasable on Blu-Ray *right now*.
In fact, ENT can already be purchased in HD - from the iTunes Store.
In fact, ENT can already be purchased in HD - from the iTunes Store.
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I'm with you in your admiration of DS9's special effects. In fact, until your post I didn't even realise that the attack of the Defiant on the Negh'var was motion control work. I'm totally blown away by that fact! What an achievement! I always loved that scene but thought it was all just fancy CGI.
In the end you are right DS9 is on a completely different level to TNG production wise. But then again I'm sure it's still doable. For one, I don't think Odo is so much more of a problem than say phaser shots or transporter effects and the likes on TNG. What does however, constitute a real hurdle is all the additional complex and high quality CGI rendering they will have to do for the space scenes. But I remain optimistic. This will happen and Voyager too (which by the way never had better ratings than DS9 AFAIK).
Odo is on a very, very different level from phasers. For phasers you only need to set up a relatively simple rig and write a relatively simple material shader, and you have something in hand where you can go into any shot and just place the phaser effect in 3D space and tweak the input parameters to the shader to produce the exact look you need (i.e. the different colors used by different species and so on). Sure, the motion tracking is still fiddly and time consuming, but it's not that bad given the way most of the shots are set up and there's not all that much rotoscoping to do either. Then in compositing you have to paint the appropriate glow and reflection effects in there to make it blend into the shot; fiddly work again for sure, but all low-complexity.
Now, most software packages today have lots of tools built-in that amount to almost having a ready-made phaser factory. Heck, even the Quantel video effects hardware they originally used to do it already had such ready-made tools to place the phaser beam cylinders and generate their surface appearance.
For Odo on the other hand you have to create a much more complex model and rig, and the animation that goes into each shot is much more complex and unique. Tracking is also harder because they're always live action so the camera movement is more irregular than on motion control. Since it's a liquid that's semi-reflective you need to set up environment maps for the materials for each shot so you need to dig up or fake together appropriate set photos/plates. And so on.
The good news is that there's a lot less Odo than phasers though
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Now, most software packages today have lots of tools built-in that amount to almost having a ready-made phaser factory. Heck, even the Quantel video effects hardware they originally used to do it already had such ready-made tools to place the phaser beam cylinders and generate their surface appearance.
For Odo on the other hand you have to create a much more complex model and rig, and the animation that goes into each shot is much more complex and unique. Tracking is also harder because they're always live action so the camera movement is more irregular than on motion control. Since it's a liquid that's semi-reflective you need to set up environment maps for the materials for each shot so you need to dig up or fake together appropriate set photos/plates. And so on.
The good news is that there's a lot less Odo than phasers though
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