What We Left Behind - Documentary Update Confirms *Some* HD Remastering
- Thread starter Eric Cheung
- Start date
No, hopefully it's on the blu ray. Probably not mentioned cos some of the clips where filmed a few years ago.
It was a very good documentary. It seemed like they could have touched on more aspects of the series but they even addressed it during the credits.
I just finished the documentary and I enjoyed it, but it really could have gone longer. It felt a bit superficial in parts, but I guess they had to keep the running time down.
What I was most interested in was what the Remastered parts of the documentary would look like. According to the credits the remaster of live actions scences was overseen by Director of Photography Jonathan West. He was the DP of DS9 for seasons 3 to 7. As expected the live action scence look utterly fantastic in HD. As somebody else mentioned here, eventhough the show has a darker look it looks beautifull when it comes to colors and contrast and really shines sometimes, especially during scence on the Promenade, with all the different costumes. It's also evident, that the show oftentimes had a softer look to it, which doesn't necessarily translate well to HD sometimes. But it was the intended look of the show and I really enjoy it here. Most of the live action scences from the show are in real HD in the documentary. Other shots that include short moments of CGI are sometimes just upconversions from SD and they stick out like a sore thumb. For example, in one scenes Kira can be seen using a Phaser. The scence were she shoots it is an upconversion because of the Phaser CGI-Effect. The scenes following it has no CGI and is actual HD material again. There are some more scence like that in it, were material with a CGI effect will be an upconversion and be directly followed by something in real HD. It's not much of a problem, but it definitely can be seen and is a little be jarring when it happens. It probably would have been to expensive and time consuming to recreate the CGI effects for all of these scence though. There are also some very few scence were the Remaster Team just used the live action footage and left the CGI effects out, in order to show the scene in real HD and not just upconverted. I think some of the Promenade-Fight from "Way of the Warrior" is shown that way. As for the aspect ration, 16:9 sometimes looked good, othertimes it didn't, but I wasn't overly bothered by it.
But they definitely went all out when it comes to the remaster of some other CGI-Sequences! The "Sacrifice of Angels"´-Battle footage looks absolutly awesome. Great work by Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz who did the CGI-Remaster for that sequence accordings to the docus credits. Adam was a CGI-Artist in the great late Gary Hutzels' (Visuell Effects Supervisor on DS9 and BSG) team. The station itself also can be seen various times in HD. According to the credits it's Thomas Richter's CGI model and looks great. If I remember correctly his Enterprise D model was also used for the TNG-Remaster a couple of times.
It's really great to see, what DS9 could like today if CBS would be willing to invest in it, which they apparently aren't. I'm greatful to Ira Steven Behr and the whole team for going the extra mile for this documentary and showing us what could be. If you can watch this documentary on the big screen absolutly go for it! I'm from Germany so the chances of seeing it in a cinema here are slim.Therefore I can't wait for the Blu-Ray to come out, so I can enjoy the remastered scence again in even better quality than a stream allows.
What I was most interested in was what the Remastered parts of the documentary would look like. According to the credits the remaster of live actions scences was overseen by Director of Photography Jonathan West. He was the DP of DS9 for seasons 3 to 7. As expected the live action scence look utterly fantastic in HD. As somebody else mentioned here, eventhough the show has a darker look it looks beautifull when it comes to colors and contrast and really shines sometimes, especially during scence on the Promenade, with all the different costumes. It's also evident, that the show oftentimes had a softer look to it, which doesn't necessarily translate well to HD sometimes. But it was the intended look of the show and I really enjoy it here. Most of the live action scences from the show are in real HD in the documentary. Other shots that include short moments of CGI are sometimes just upconversions from SD and they stick out like a sore thumb. For example, in one scenes Kira can be seen using a Phaser. The scence were she shoots it is an upconversion because of the Phaser CGI-Effect. The scenes following it has no CGI and is actual HD material again. There are some more scence like that in it, were material with a CGI effect will be an upconversion and be directly followed by something in real HD. It's not much of a problem, but it definitely can be seen and is a little be jarring when it happens. It probably would have been to expensive and time consuming to recreate the CGI effects for all of these scence though. There are also some very few scence were the Remaster Team just used the live action footage and left the CGI effects out, in order to show the scene in real HD and not just upconverted. I think some of the Promenade-Fight from "Way of the Warrior" is shown that way. As for the aspect ration, 16:9 sometimes looked good, othertimes it didn't, but I wasn't overly bothered by it.
But they definitely went all out when it comes to the remaster of some other CGI-Sequences! The "Sacrifice of Angels"´-Battle footage looks absolutly awesome. Great work by Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz who did the CGI-Remaster for that sequence accordings to the docus credits. Adam was a CGI-Artist in the great late Gary Hutzels' (Visuell Effects Supervisor on DS9 and BSG) team. The station itself also can be seen various times in HD. According to the credits it's Thomas Richter's CGI model and looks great. If I remember correctly his Enterprise D model was also used for the TNG-Remaster a couple of times.
It's really great to see, what DS9 could like today if CBS would be willing to invest in it, which they apparently aren't. I'm greatful to Ira Steven Behr and the whole team for going the extra mile for this documentary and showing us what could be. If you can watch this documentary on the big screen absolutly go for it! I'm from Germany so the chances of seeing it in a cinema here are slim.Therefore I can't wait for the Blu-Ray to come out, so I can enjoy the remastered scence again in even better quality than a stream allows.
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Why couldn't they just remaster the actual footage of the station model?
Just finished watching. Have to say it was really bitter-sweet for me in the literal sense of the word.
I loved the heartfelt and passionate chemistry between the actors. They really do seem like a true family. I also enjoyed most of the interviews with the actors some of which were really moving. I would say these scenes form the core of the film. And who knew Max Grodénchik was such a good singer! I thought that was quite a lovely way to open the film.
Of course the remastered (film) segments, realised by Jonnathan West, were all completely fantastic. I think it proved once and for all how a true remaster could really push this show to another plane. My only nick-pick there is that they seemed to have filtered out quite a lot of the grain and I'm not sure why that was necessary (but maybe that was due to the streaming).
By contrast, and this might come as a surprise, I was not hot on many of the reimagined HD space FX shots. They seemed to lack some of the more careful direction and choreography of the originals and they were often overlit giving them a bit of a computer game look. Nevertheless if this was part of the deal of having DS9 in HD I would happily compromise on this in a heartbeat!
The one big criticism I have to make is the writer's room and the pitching of the hypothetical season 8 opener. What a dreadful episode pitch. I mean I understand it was a laugh for the writers but it was just far too random and felt trivial and flippant overall. It might offer some insight into how some of the not so good episodes of the show came into being but I don't think that is what they were going for. Given they took several years to make the doc putting something at the heart of the film that was done in only one day seems like it turned out as a mistake to me.
The problem from the writer's room segment is that it takes up a large chunk of the documentary which should have been used to go more in depth into the 7 actual seasons of the show. They did raise some very good points about this in the credits. The writers room would have been far more appropriate as an extra on the blu-ray instead.
Furthermore, there should have been more time committed to the production of the show, I mean Herman Zimmerman got like less than a minute screen time, Westmore had a few seconds, blink and you'd miss him. Visual effects and music were almost completely omitted.
Potential Spoiler in below Paragraph
And what about the politics behind the show? I felt Ira skirted around this issue. He seemed reluctant to get into the more controversial aspects and conflicts about of how the show evolved and how TPTB (which of course included him) truly influenced this for good AND bad. The suggestion that the biggest mistake he made on the show was not push more for LGBTQ stories and making Garak and Bashir lovers indicated to me he lacked the courage to be more self-critical and reflective.
Potential Spoiler in above Paragraph
I came away from the doc and didn't really feel I had learnt something new or understood the show in a more fundamental way than before. So overall, lots of heartfelt moments with lovely anecdotes from the cast if not as much from the crew and production team. Brilliant to see the remastered film segments. But falls short on showing us on a more profound level what it meant to make and develop DS9 for 7 years.
I loved the heartfelt and passionate chemistry between the actors. They really do seem like a true family. I also enjoyed most of the interviews with the actors some of which were really moving. I would say these scenes form the core of the film. And who knew Max Grodénchik was such a good singer! I thought that was quite a lovely way to open the film.
Of course the remastered (film) segments, realised by Jonnathan West, were all completely fantastic. I think it proved once and for all how a true remaster could really push this show to another plane. My only nick-pick there is that they seemed to have filtered out quite a lot of the grain and I'm not sure why that was necessary (but maybe that was due to the streaming).
By contrast, and this might come as a surprise, I was not hot on many of the reimagined HD space FX shots. They seemed to lack some of the more careful direction and choreography of the originals and they were often overlit giving them a bit of a computer game look. Nevertheless if this was part of the deal of having DS9 in HD I would happily compromise on this in a heartbeat!
The one big criticism I have to make is the writer's room and the pitching of the hypothetical season 8 opener. What a dreadful episode pitch. I mean I understand it was a laugh for the writers but it was just far too random and felt trivial and flippant overall. It might offer some insight into how some of the not so good episodes of the show came into being but I don't think that is what they were going for. Given they took several years to make the doc putting something at the heart of the film that was done in only one day seems like it turned out as a mistake to me.
The problem from the writer's room segment is that it takes up a large chunk of the documentary which should have been used to go more in depth into the 7 actual seasons of the show. They did raise some very good points about this in the credits. The writers room would have been far more appropriate as an extra on the blu-ray instead.
Furthermore, there should have been more time committed to the production of the show, I mean Herman Zimmerman got like less than a minute screen time, Westmore had a few seconds, blink and you'd miss him. Visual effects and music were almost completely omitted.
Potential Spoiler in below Paragraph
And what about the politics behind the show? I felt Ira skirted around this issue. He seemed reluctant to get into the more controversial aspects and conflicts about of how the show evolved and how TPTB (which of course included him) truly influenced this for good AND bad. The suggestion that the biggest mistake he made on the show was not push more for LGBTQ stories and making Garak and Bashir lovers indicated to me he lacked the courage to be more self-critical and reflective.
Potential Spoiler in above Paragraph
I came away from the doc and didn't really feel I had learnt something new or understood the show in a more fundamental way than before. So overall, lots of heartfelt moments with lovely anecdotes from the cast if not as much from the crew and production team. Brilliant to see the remastered film segments. But falls short on showing us on a more profound level what it meant to make and develop DS9 for 7 years.
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I would say it's quite hard to compare it to those. This doc is much more a labour of love and has out of this world production value for a Star Trek documentary. I would say it is superior to "The Captains" in almost every way. The other one you mention about the behind the scences chaos of first season TNG is probably more critical and insightful about the production and politics which I feel remains a bit underdeveloped in What We Left Behind.
Not that I care about being spoiled, but some may find this to be TMI.
Oh wow that was bittersweet. The memorial bit was very touching. 
I need to go to bed, it's midnight now and I've been up since 5 for work. I'm just glad I didn't fall asleep when I finally manged to sort out my phone number. I managed to register an old phone number this morning for the PIN to get the stream working, when I was half-asleep this morning.
I need to go to bed, it's midnight now and I've been up since 5 for work. I'm just glad I didn't fall asleep when I finally manged to sort out my phone number. I managed to register an old phone number this morning for the PIN to get the stream working, when I was half-asleep this morning.
Good point have added a spoiler warning.
I just watched it and loved every minute of it. I particularly relished the actors reading the hate mail and just laughing at the absurdity of it all. 
I'm really looking forward to the special features because it's clear (and not just from the gentle ribbing during the credits) that they left a lot of good material on the cutting floor. I sure hope get to watch a fair amount of that among the special features.
While I get why they're the limited viewing window for the early backers, it's a shame it's so short because my mom is currently on a trip to visit friends and she won't get home until after that window closes. She'll ended up having to wait even longer before gets to watch it.
I'm really looking forward to the special features because it's clear (and not just from the gentle ribbing during the credits) that they left a lot of good material on the cutting floor. I sure hope get to watch a fair amount of that among the special features.
While I get why they're the limited viewing window for the early backers, it's a shame it's so short because my mom is currently on a trip to visit friends and she won't get home until after that window closes. She'll ended up having to wait even longer before gets to watch it.
I just watched it and loved every minute of it. I particularly relished the actors reading the hate mail and just laughing at the absurdity of it all.
I'm really looking forward to the special features because it's clear (and not just from the gentle ribbing during the credits) that they left a lot of good material on the cutting floor. I sure hope get to watch a fair amount of that among the special features.
While I get why they're the limited viewing window for the early backers, it's a shame it's so short because my mom is currently on a trip to visit friends and she won't get home until after that window closes. She'll ended up having to wait even longer before gets to watch it.
I should have read it more closely but the whole reason I got the digital stream was because I thought I could keep the digital stream. Basically I thought it was going to be a digital copy I would be emailed and I can put it on Itunes so I have access to it on Apple TV. Also, did anyone watch this in full screen? I couldn't get it to work and watched it on the Ipad.
I thought the same. My impression was that the time-limitation came in with the theatrical screenings. I think a more permanent digital copy comes later when the blu-ray is sent out.
That is what they said, or at least hope. I would have liked to see this on the big screen, but couldn't figure that out.
I watched it on a Macbook Pro with an external 4K display and it worked fine, once the security thing was working.
I watched it on my TV by casting the display from my phone. (My phone, incidentally has a better resolution than my laptop!) The quality was more or less OK, but to be honest I'll be rewatching it on blu-ray when it finally gets dispatched so I can appreciate all of the remastering more.
Max Grodenchik singing that song was a nice, surprising introduction, and what a voice! Did I read the credits right - I think he wrote the song anyway. And then the reprise at the end with the other guys was good too. Is that something they perform at conventions?
I loved it when the actors read the vitriolic hate mail they received. I knew it was the less-favoured series, but wow.
The season 8 writers room was so much fun. I was suddenly yearning to watch this. Killing Nog would be an upsetting, if perfect way to start a story, but I laughed so much Aron Eisenberg's reaction! I was hooked though.
Anything to do with Michael Piller had me close to tears, as did the little memorial to all of the cast and crewmembers who had passed on since DS9 finished.
Terry Farrell's tales about the time she left were sad to hear. I feel like we've only had half the story there, but wow.
I've already read about Colm Meaney's, erm, fun as a Klingon in Apocalypse Rising. Actually hearing them all talk about it was a hoot though, especially since Andrew Robinson and René Auberjonois had such rough makeup gigs, and seemed to revel in Colm's pain!
Obviously DS9's best moment had to be Allamaraine!
I loved it when the actors read the vitriolic hate mail they received. I knew it was the less-favoured series, but wow.
The season 8 writers room was so much fun. I was suddenly yearning to watch this. Killing Nog would be an upsetting, if perfect way to start a story, but I laughed so much Aron Eisenberg's reaction! I was hooked though.
Anything to do with Michael Piller had me close to tears, as did the little memorial to all of the cast and crewmembers who had passed on since DS9 finished.
Terry Farrell's tales about the time she left were sad to hear. I feel like we've only had half the story there, but wow.
I've already read about Colm Meaney's, erm, fun as a Klingon in Apocalypse Rising. Actually hearing them all talk about it was a hoot though, especially since Andrew Robinson and René Auberjonois had such rough makeup gigs, and seemed to revel in Colm's pain!
Obviously DS9's best moment had to be Allamaraine!
