I was looking at it a few times. What’s in the doc has the Miranda class nacelle. A Galaxy and Miranda nacelle do not look alike. What is thrown out is an extremely flat nacelle with no rounded edges.
What We Left Behind - Documentary Update Confirms *Some* HD Remastering
- Thread starter Eric Cheung
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I was looking at it a few times. What’s in the doc has the Miranda class nacelle. A Galaxy and Miranda nacelle do not look alike. What is thrown out is an extremely flat nacelle with no rounded edges.
It still hurts a little to see her go like that
Extra points for the ship being a Galaxy-class, even if it wasn't the Enterprise.
M
marlboro
Guest
If (Big IF) DS9 is ever released in HD, I really hope it has a fullscreen option. People today who reflexively say "widescreen is better" are almost as annoying as people in the 90s complaining about the black bars on some of their vhs tapes.
I've bought a few made for tv movies in the last few years where the studio/creators claimed that they originally shot them with 16:9 in mind, but it was b.s.
The composition of a shot is important. There aren't a lot of sweeping vistas onboard a space station that would be improved by a ws shot, imo.
tldr: cropping is bad. Always go with the director's/cinematographer's original intent.
I’m willing to give photographers like Marvin Rush some credit when they claim they shot with protection, which essentially means it can serve both formats because all the vital compositions are in place, and whatever was on top and bottom were just extra information what wouldn’t he missed. This happened with cinema in the 50s where movies like ON THE WATERFRONT were shot to work for both widescreen and full screen formats, as there were still a lot of theaters that had yet to be converted for widescreen presentation so there had to be full screen prints made. Luckily, the blu-ray offers both versions so to give viewers their own preference.
But I agree that if there was no protection for widescreen then it shouldn’t even be considered. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER for example was only shot with 4:3 in mind, but because Fox decided to do a widescreen remaster that resulted in a lot of issues like mic booms or even another camera unit creeping up on the side.
Interestingly, ENTERPRISE was originally going to be presented in 4:3, but at the last minute UPN decided it should be presented in widescreen. Luckily, Marvin Rush shot it with protection, as he did with DS9 and VOYAGER. I believe some international markets actually aired the 4:3 masters.
The problem with opening up "protected" photography is that you end up with a lot of scenes where the characters cluster in the center unnaturally. Still better than cropping, but I always prefer OAR.
*If it was shot protected, they still used a 4x3 version cropped to 16x9 for release for some reason.
Not the pilot though, evidently*. That had to be cropped down to 16x9, resulting in some awkward framing.
*If it was shot protected, they still used a 4x3 version cropped to 16x9 for release for some reason.
Good point. I’m very much for OAR, but if they ever go 16:9 I wouldn’t complain.
On a similar topic, Stanley Kubrick had started shooting films at full frame with THE SHINING. While presented theatrically in widescreen, it would be protected on 4:3 home video so there would be no need for pan-and-scan method as the integrity of the compositions were maintained (unlike what happened with 2001 being broadcast on TV at pan-and-scan, which bugged him). Wasn’t until well after widescreen TVs became the norm that WB would put them out on widescreen for the first time on home video.
4:3 --> 16:9 conversion is a tricky thing. Simply matting the top and bottom of the screen reframes the image but, depending on show, there's "visual data" that can vanish in the process. A workaround is to go scene by scene and crop out the same dimensions while leaving as much as the key visual data intact but that's very time consuming and only adds to "Just leave it 4:3 and let the person watching tap the zoom button on their blu-ray player or streaming player and it's done automatically without impeding the source material. At least in terms of chopping out the top and bottom of the screen, which can include end credits' text, foreheads, the countertop at the bottom of the screen with dossier and/or the carrier pigeon flying across the sky or some other esoteric bit that's actually integral to the plot, and so on... That's obvious for some, but that's true for all things... just not the same ones.
A very tall order and improbable, but seeing so many articles giving love to a show that has not only aged well, it feels more relevant than ever and in so many directions. Rick, Ira, and co were incredibly good with the show and where it went and framing it into the Trek universe, as well as trying to sell it early on to appease those saying the show was about exploring space - it still was, but not as a primary function. Then came Defiant, which also added a lot more to the show's range in the process. DS9 had the most intricate sets, make-up, and costuming (Quark being a staple every week but even the Wadi, who aren't everyone's favorite "baddie of the week") had serious attention brought to the costumiers and it all looks sumptuous and marvelous. That's how cool DS9/S1 was.
Add "The Way of the Warrior" to "Emissary" to the "pretty please remaster" list and I'd be more than ecstatic too.
I'd be in the queue, just ahead of you.
To forecast potential customer base is easier than TNG. TNG gave an insight to the hardcore fans who bought on day one*. All things considered, I'd guesstimate 80-100% of TNG home video buyers would buy a DS9 remastered season. So take the price of remastering the season and divide into projected sales figures. The cost would be higher than TNG, keeping in mind that if TNG was twice as popular as DS9's best days, there's already a smaller gross audience before trying to guess net audience two decades later - ands keeping in mind most harcore Trek fans are more likely (but not always going) to embrace every incarnation regardless... but TNG was a litmus test of sorts, which probably didn't look at all available factors but I'm not going into tangent territory right now... hmm, where'd that loud appreciative studio audience clapping noise come from all of a sudden?
* Most TNG blu-ray purchasers (on day one, not a year or several later when prices plummeted) would be paying the most back into remastering costs. TNG day-one purchasers often paid $60 to $80, half or 2/3 the MSRP - and keep in mind the 2002 releases at shelf price were $120 a pop (and shelf price is always lower than MSRP), so day-one buyers already had it pretty good and many just didn't understand or value the work done, which was extensive and the documentary only can explain so much. Never mind that season one TNG is not exactly the best and people who did splurge may not have kept going until season 3, when the last of TNG's growing pains ended, even if the worst ones got dealt with during season 1 and don't mind the writers' strike that cobbled more of season 2 than I'd originally thought...
Which was great in 1960 when many shows were filmed and broadcast as "televised theater" but even by the 1990s it was obsolete as production methods had expanded into more "natural poses" as opposed to the clustering. Liking the content over its presentation helps but the natural poses, more natural dialogue such as interruption of characters by characters (or klaxons, etc), were a step up - even as a kid I could tell that characters griping about something then pause then another actor started to talk seemed off, but revisiting as an adult only showed how stagey the attempted at "argument drama acting" all looked. And, again, it's not 1990 anymore. Trying such a cluster probably won't work for many audiences no matter how robust and engaging the underlying plot actually is. Not all, some in the older generations might not notice or be as concerned... depends on the mindset, there is rarely a 100% truism...
On a separate note - has anyone else had a shipping notification but not received their backer's Blu-ray on this side of the pond yet? I got my notification back on July 28th, but nothing has arrived yet - and I know other copies have made their way to the UK and Europe. The tracking info isn't useful, as it just says a label was created and nothing since. I'm wondering how long to give it before chasing up.
That's getting to be a long time! I'd definitely ask.
A
Amaris
Guest
I laughed, I cried, I reminisced, I took pride in the social justice aspects of the series. Everyone still looks great, it was a lot of fun for me to watch, and the HD scenes looked gorgeous. ♥
Good thing I did! The doc team were really helpful - they updated me with a new tracking number (seems some of them were relabelled before going out) and told me where it had gotten to on their end. Five minutes later, I was able to track it down on Royal Mail - sitting in my local delivery office with customs charges to pay. And I hadn't received anything through the door to tell me!
Thankfully, you can pay the charges online now, and it looks like it should be with me by Wednesday. Good thing too, as they only hold them for three weeks before sending them back!
When the ep was first aired, my jaw fell to the floor. It was a downright shocking scene. The Galaxy Class had been portrayed as so powerful on TNG - which is exactly why the producers did this scene. Brilliant. Spent the whole summer anticipating the Dominion threat. The scene really made us all take them seriously.
I love that there's just enough mention of the attack ship heading for Odyssey for the pit to open up in your stomach before the collision happens.
I'm pretty sure as a first time viewer when Odyssey began to retreat I figured that was going to be the end of the confrontation. Which as a Trek viewer is probably what you're supposed to think.
It's somewhat akin to the E-D turning tail and running from the Borg cube in "Q Who" only to have the cube start pursuing them while firing upon them. You watch it and there's this sense of utter hopelessness. While they hadn't coined the phrase yet, in that moment resistance really did seem futile.
It's just so rare that Our Heroes withdraw from a situation, and more rare that the enemy doesn't let them.
I'm pretty sure as a first time viewer when Odyssey began to retreat I figured that was going to be the end of the confrontation. Which as a Trek viewer is probably what you're supposed to think.
It's somewhat akin to the E-D turning tail and running from the Borg cube in "Q Who" only to have the cube start pursuing them while firing upon them. You watch it and there's this sense of utter hopelessness. While they hadn't coined the phrase yet, in that moment resistance really did seem futile.
It's just so rare that Our Heroes withdraw from a situation, and more rare that the enemy doesn't let them.
