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Original Star Trek Getting CGI Makeover
Tony Pascale writes "Star Trek is the latest sci-fi classic to get the CGI 'special edition' treatment. According to rumors picked up by
TrekMovie.com, CBS and
Paramount have been secretly working on a new version of Star Trek: The Original Series for HDTV. The shows will feature the original episodes with brand new state-of-the-art CGI visual effects, including a a redone title sequence (with re-recorded music). The effects are likely to be limited to the space scenes and not effect the live action scenes, so Edith Keeler will not shoot first. The HDTV Star Trek series will begin broadcasting this fall just in time for the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek."
My work here is dung.
NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo!
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
...
Star Trek, going boldly where they've gone before because they can't come up with anything new.
Cool, now I can hear KHAAAAAAANNNNN!!!! in glorious 5.1 surround sound.
Warhammer forums
Morons. Guess they didn't learn from the Star Wars debacle. Never, ever, ever fool around with the originals.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
They had the CG Enterprise left over from... Enterprise, and wanted to get their dollars back out of it?
And so while ship-scale phasers will be beautiful, hand phasers and transporters will still look like cotton candy?
This is an interesting idea. My favorite bits from the later Star Trek series were the times they showed the original enterprise in re-done FX -- the DS9 "tribbles" episode, the "mirror universe" episodes of ENTERPRISE.
I love the original series as is, but this would be a neat reason to re-watch them.
boxlight
So what are we going to get? Shockwave ring around explosions? CGI Scotty the Hutt animations showing his haggis-worn bulk? Spock shoots first?
Screw CGI updates. Practical effects FTW.
I downloaded a sample CGI demo from some company about 5 years ago that was supposed to be a 'what if' they were doing. It had the TOS titles redone in their entirety in CGI and a separate scene getting similar treatment.
It looked fine but really, why? I LIKE the way the SFX clips of the Enterprise are complete with nose hair, fluff and other sundry gunk. It's supposed to be like that!
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
They'll redo them again, except this time in 3d. Finally, you, the audience member, will personally feel and understand what the Crewman in the Red Shirt went through every week.
:~
Although I do look forward to the re-mastered space hippies.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Instead of spending money on remastering startrek, why not spend the cash on producing a new, good series? Yeah, seeing TOS in new, 3d graphics is appealing, but i would much rather see a new show of the same quality of TOS but with the new eye candy.
This might actually not be a horrible thing. The effects in the original were bad at times and I am willing to except that; however, Star Trek is turning 40 and with that age come a great many people who have probably never seen all of the Original Series (or maybe not even parts of it). The only Trek even fewer may know is those two most recent atrocities. Instead of complaining, this about how this could possibly turn Star Trek on to a whole new generation of people.
So long as the effects changes have no real impact of the story or the idea of the show I do not see a huge problem here. If the shows old film is getting cleaned up too, then that is also something to cheer about. I personally would feel better knowing that they are actually caring for the old film and not letting it just rot in some warehouse.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
...It has been reported that famous Hollywood producer and director Steven Spielberg has begun work on updating the groundbreaking summer blockbuster "Jaws". Inside sources confirm that Spielberg will be replacing the old scenes of the shark and also any scenes of yellow floating barrels with new and improved CGI versions of the shark. According to insiders "This will blow away the old version". It has already been acknowledged that the original version was not his original "vision" of the film. Spielberg has stated that the only reason the shark was not in most every scene was because of all the mechanical failures. But now with the miracle of CGI we will finally be able to see his original "vision". Spielberg also confirmed that all the original negatives of the 1975 classic will be destroyed after the new original is released.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Maybe they'll give scotty a CGI kilt.
They already have.
Once again, technology triumphs over common sense -- did anybody ask the casual fan if this was a good idea? Why is it necessary to somehow "fix" things that aren't broken. The Original Series does not need Next Generation-like effects; it will lose all its charm and character, not to mention the historical context. It was a 60's show -- making it look like something from the turn of the new century destroys its technical merit for being ahead of its time in the 60's. The Star Trek franchise continues to sink slowly into the sunset...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
just because it "worked" for star wars doesn't mean it's going to work for star trek.
Supplies!
I'm so excited, after seeing how the original George Lucas improved the original StarWars and ET by waving the magical CG wand at them!
CGI graphics: check
Cheesy Storyline: check
Bad Acting: check
Hey what's going on, is this about Star Wars or Star Trek?
P226
I just hope the remasters are as good as the Red Dwarf remasters. It was so good they put the unremastered ones on the DVDs instead of the remasters nowadays.
IMHO, the effects were great for their time and were/are an important part of what the show was/is. Simply because we have the technology to change the show doesn't mean that we should. Now, maybe using all that money to hire some new writers and new blood to the Trek family, well, that might be worthwhile, IMHO
"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the universe. It hates me, you know"
:-)
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
From the early '90s, this is VERY rough proof-of-concept footage from when Paramount contracted Digital Stream to insert computer-generated effects into the original Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine". Nothing ever came of the project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HSYC6Wlbv8
Yeah, brother.
[queue groovy Spock harp jam]
I don't get the need to do this. People like the show as it is, why go muck with it? Same thing with Star Wars.
:-/
I was over at the starwars.com yesterday looking for information about the release of the unedited versions in a week or so. They have a side by side comparison of many frames they changed from the film. With something along the lines of "Many people don't realize the technical capabiltiy that went into this!"
Stop right there. I'm an engineer and I appreciate technical achievement as much as the next geek. But you're trying to SELL ME ON YOUR TECHNICAL MERITS?
Most people who don't like the edits don't like them for one of two reasons. 1) You're messing with something they remember and liked. This almost always pisses people off. 2) The CGI doesn't look right in the movie with late 1970s effects.
Star Wars was one of the highest grossing movies of all time without any mucking about. Star Trek is insanely popular. I think it's pretty arrogant to go messing with a historical show that's stood up for 30-40 years and expect people to like it (or not be outraged) because it's a technical feat.
I guess I better run buy a copy of the original series DVDs before someone at Paramount decides I don't have the privilidge to see them in their original form again.
*beats head on desk some more*
They should be applying CGI affects to Leonard Nimoy's hair.
--- What?
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, this might actually be cool. If they don't change the charater acting any, and only focus on effects, it really won't harm the show. Of course, sometimes the 60's effects technology is what makes the show good, so I guess we'll just see.
if it can somehow make those miniskirts a little bit shorter
Do NOT fuck with the Gorn.
If I see anything other than that rubber suit with irridescent eyes that terrified me when I was eight, I swear I will burn my Starfleet Academy underpants.
I don't want to see any crap like that goofy thing wrestling with mirror-Archer.
And nobody crack wise about me burning the underpants with me in them.
"Can you fashion a rudimentary lathe?"
This would be a good chance to retcon the Klingons into Klingons that look like Klingons.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
"Star Trek is the latest sci-fi classic to get the CGI 'special edition' treatment."
Rumours have it that the producers were a little upset about Kirk shooting his mouth off at Nomad and killing it with its own logic. After the Special Edition edit, Nomad is shown to self-destruct due to a hardware error and not by Kirk's cruel mind games.
Capt. Kirk: I am the Kirk, the creator?
Nomad: You are the creator.
Capt. Kirk: You could be wrong....
Nomad: Oh no, not again...my capacitors are leaking, and I feel a sudden power surge. Please hold on Kirk, I must reboot...
Cut to Nomad being beamed into deep space and exploding with a ring of fire.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It would be a pity if, instead of just using the opportunity to "clean up" some of the cheesier effects, if they instead used the opportunity to tweak the story line, insert new characters, added ridges to Klingons, etc. I don't say this as a "historical society of Star Trek" member or any such thing, it's just that such manipulation tends to stick out like a sore thumb and distract more than enhance.
This could be even better than the Japanese version of Red Dwarf.
Seriously - leave it alone so that anyone in the distant future who stumbles across it can actually learn about the ones who wrote it. While Trek isn't exactly a classic like, oh, something by H.G. Wells, it may someday become something akin to a classic, given its popularity. We can learn a lot about Wells' time and society from our century-plus future vantage point by reading the stories and seeing period sketches and prints illustrating it, if possible. Sure, it's not exactly eye candy, but it's worth it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Hopefully, they will digitally edit out all of the phasers and replace them with communicators. That could show our youngsters today once and for all that violence isn't a solution to our problems. Maybe while they're at it, they could change Kahn into a gelatinous alien blob instead of a human actor. That would be much better, too.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Khan shoots first.
One of the chinziest things about the ST was these planet surface scenes
on a sound stages with cheap plaster rocks and coloured lights. They
could matt out the actors and superimpose a richer appearing planet surface.
New Voyages, the fan-film continuation of TOS that's running with the tacit approval of Paramount and which has Roddenberry's son as a consultant, has done some neat things with CGI in the original Trek universe.
That said, though, I really hope they won't try to replace the originals like when Red Dwarf tried to. It's an interesting novelty, but it's not worth trashing the original for.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
If they're just redoing the space scenes, won't it look kinda odd to go from fighting a monster that looks like a carpet covered in plastic wrap to huge epic space battle done in modern CG?
Somewhere Braga and Brannon are in their elaborate underground lair, wiggling their fingertips together and say repeatedly "Eeeexxxcellent, our work is now complete".
Just wanted to let the Americans in here know, that the PAL copies of this series (seen in Europe, Australia, etc) look very very good already. They would quite likely benefit even more from an HD 1440x1080p24 transfer. The 576p25 copies we can see in our country now, would have been retransferred from film sometime during the 1990s, and the quality is excellent, closer to the HDTV experience of Enterprise than the fuzzy copies of the "new" Next Generation. By the time of Voyager it was just slightly better, but since it went from film via NTSC, it still doesn't compare with the acuity of Enterprise or Original Series.
The exact same thing has been happening for quite a while with Doctor Who (and it's not at all shunned by the fans, like this may be).
Check out:
http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/ (a group of BBC employees working in their spare time to restore the classics)
http://www.rtforum.co.uk/ (the official forum of the team)
CK.
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
. . . who let George sit in Gene's chair?
In the words of "ensign Ricky": Aw, crap.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The new DVD's will contain both the original and the remastered versions.
Purists and techno geeks would both be happy.
I mean, why not... let's be honest you WILL watch it just for curiousity even if you hate it. At least it's not Enterprise.
HDTV Star Trek sounds cool to me anyway.
Picard was French and British. Kirk was American. What did you expect?
Clear, Dark Skies
THESE are some impressive technical feats, as in the "what the HELL was the guy who made this smoking?!?!" kind of impressive.
I fear there is no option nowadays.
It's much easier and better to remake special FX in an old good movie/serial than producing new ones with higher quality (in the contents I mean), as we've seen in Star Wars episodes 4 to 6.
Wolrd is getting worse.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Take a look at this. It's a few of the opening scenes from "The Doomsday Machine", and the effects actually look pretty damn good. Nothing was touched except shots of the ships, and things like the main viewscreen. They aren't digitally altering characters or anything.
It's easy to compare this to Lucas and his screwing around with Star Wars, but I don't think it's a fair comparision. Give Trek's effects people their credit -- they did a damn fine job for what they had, which was 60s technology and no budget, but let's face it, the effects look pretty hokey today. Unlike Star Wars, where most of the special effects still look convincing, Trek's effects could benefit from a makeover.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
What annoys me about TOS is the way the technology looks outdated even by 1990s standards. It'd take an awful lot of CGI to fix that.
That scene wasn't in TOS.
Clear, Dark Skies
Will they use the technology to turn all the phasers into walkie talkies?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
I picked up the first two seasons on DVD (region 1), and saw that it was the remastered, without the original model shots. (the campiness of the special effects fit the campiness of the rest of the show)
I haven't even bothered looking at which versions are on the later seasons. (hell, it'd cost 'em how much extra to put both versions on there? A few cents to press a disk, and some extra for a different container to fit 'em in?
Now, that's not to say that the remastered stuff wasn't funny in context w/ the special trailers they were running making fun of the Star Wars remastered, but the original was better.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Star Trek TOS is a classic. It needs no updating. If Captain Kirk can be scared of a flying toaster that shows the viewer the strings its hanging on, then I can too.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Original series:
Director: Ok everyone, we are going to simulate the enterprise doing evasive manuvers...
Lean to the left...now lean to the right.. now lean to the left.. WHY IS THE ENSIGN SKIPPY STILL LEANING TO THE RIGHT !!!!!! GAHHHHHHH !!!!!
'later that epsiode...'
Ensign Skippy investigates a leak in the warp core and is never seen again.
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
There are a lot of glitches like that. I can remember watching the series as a kid, and noticing that the producers couldn't tell the difference between a communicator, a tricorder and a phaser, and that they couldn't remember the difference between photon torpedos and ship's phasers, either.
Clear, Dark Skies
All the phasers will no doubt be replaced by Walkie Talkies, and all red shirt ensigns will be replaced using state-of-the-art CGI by Wookies.
I've always been under the impression that the "CGI" people refer to when talking about special effects was for "Computer Generated Imagery".
ART on dA
Dissapointed. When I first read the headline I thought they were going to give every shot a CGI look and feel. Now that would be cool! A syntho-platic looking Captain Kirk grabbing the shoulders of a hot syntho-plastic alien chick. I'll watch!
Come up dudes, get your imagine on!
:T:R:A:N:S:
Star Trek is history man, we need to preserve what it really is. The cheesy ....special ....effects, and Shatners ....drama..tic ..pauses are a period piece of immense importance for history.
Seriously, I'm not kidding.
The writers in Star Trek were the best and the brightest of the time period. Many of them worked on classics like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.
One of my favorite trivia facts is the "Jeffies Tube." When ST had funding issues, a set designer named Jeffies design a tiny set for Scotty in the form of a tube. The innovation forced by limitations is increadible. Eliminate the inventive solutions in a limited environment, and you erase the record of their genius.
One of the most important aspect of Star Trek was the treatment of computers before anyone had computers. It is facinating, and I learn something new about computer UI concepts everytime I see an episode.
That is what wikipedia says anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-generated_i
Plus CGI reminds me of SGI. They once were pretty sweet...
I have to say that while most special effects enhacements were good, the one thing I really didn't like was the ring explosions around both Death Stars. It was right around the time that particular effect was all the rage in games, and it leaked into my movies... it's a sphere, make it explode like a sphere. To me the original explosions seemed more real.
Not to mention the lens flare. Lot's 'o lens flare! Get some better coatings on those virtual lenses, boys.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I hope you're joking... Just in case though, CGI in this case means Computer Generated Imagery
We all know that what's important to consider here are the royalties paid to Mr. Shatner.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
They had better not change the look of the Enterprise one iota, although I do admit giant Apollo, the "hand" grabbing enterprise, and shooting to death "Gol" or whatever that dragon head Mr. Fusion maw was called, could all use a lot of improvement.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Didn't Southpark have an episode where Spielberg re-does the Indiana Jones FX? The SP kids go on a quest to stop the atrocity from being seen. The climatic scene has everyone at the screening being killed - in a parody of the opening of the Ark scene from Indiana Jones.
When the BBC did this with Red Dwarf, they utterly ruined it. It was almost universally despised.
This is the path the studios will take to introducing HD to the public, in preperation of really boosting sales of the new media formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray).
And mostly it's a pretty good idea. For some time I has DishHD and watched HDNet, a channel devoted to HD content and who would broadcast older TV shows in HD. Now you might think that's silly, but remember all of these old TV shows were shot on film that has a lot higher resolution that even DVD offers. So the HD versions of these old shows looked really amazing.
The same will be true of Star Trek - ignore the updated CGI, which is probably there to mask all the flaws you can now see from the higher resolution view of the show. All of the live action stuff, untocuhed by CGI, will also look substantially better.
I've avoided buying DVD's of movies for some time now because simply put the HD versions of movies look far better and really offer the same degree of quality you'd see in a theater. People seem to scoff that people will really embrace HD content but when they do I don't think they've really seen how much better it is, for all sorts of content.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't we have enough geeky trekkie pedophiles already?
How many pervert nerds do we need?
Really, how many times must we take our scissors to some pointed ear?
How many fake starfleet uniforms must we rip apart?
How many replicas of silly-looking ray guns must we smash under our feet?
Don't you losers ever tire of getting your teeth kicked in?
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
How about some CGI boobs for Tasha Yar to go with that smokin ass?
Can they CGI Troy looking like she can actually walk in heels without tripping?
CGI Force Fields that if touched more than once, start burning off fingers.
Can we get a CGI of Wesley Crusher's head flying off, thanks to Worf's Batlef after fucking up the Enterprise computer once again?
CGI Borg sex! "Can you assimilate THIS, baby?"
CGI Data killing everyone in a cyber-dream: "Why the fuck do I keep saving these people, when they never let me drive the ship?"
CGI some sweaters for the crew that dont require constant readjustment.
Please, PLEASE CGI Picard kneeing Dr. Crusher in the groin for disobeying orders. I would PAY to see that.
Kirk saves the day by reciting the American Pledge of Allegiance?
Nope. I'm not kidding.
Clear, Dark Skies
The effects are likely to be limited to the space scenes and not effect the live action scenes
Isn't that just going to cause the two types of scene to clash horribly with each other?
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
If you don't like, you don't have to buy it, but don't ruin it for the rest of us whores. Wait a minute...
we all know you're just into it 'cause of the chicks.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
I won't ask WHY people do this. The suits want money and yes, there are fans working on it who honestly think, "ZOMG! We're making Star Trek better! Woot!!!" I just wish that they wouldn't.
I'm a woman who happens to love old science fiction stories. I love the fact that in many of the old sci-fi stories the only women in space are the ship secretaries. Not because I enjoy the sexism of it, but simply because that's the way it was when these stories were written. They're a glimpse backward in time. A reminder of the way that things were. Such great vision, but such short sightedness at the same time. The mix is part of what makes them so special.
I love the cheesy special effects and occasional sub par acting in the original Star Trek because back then THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS. Watching Star Trek is fun because in the middle of this wonderful story you'll suddenly have a monster appear that looks like it was constructed of shag carpet remnants. Sure, you can CGI it out with the latest wonder-effects, but why? You're not adding anything of value to the show, you're removing one of the very things that gives it its value in the first place.
I don't care if they redo the special effects, but leave the font and title music alone. That is part of the Star Trek many of us remember fondly.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Next thing you know they'll be colorizing old black-and-white movies!
Oh, wait...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Are they going to also change That Fight Music?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I wasn't around in the sixties. The TOS is at times so bizarre (in design, costumes, etc) that it almost seems more plausible to me that it could be hundred of years into the future.
That said, if they're going to update it though, they'd better update everything. Having the funky internal panels with cgi space battles would be weird.
Ferris Bueller: "It's over, go home"
Shatner: "Grow up"
Cheesy, the engines at the edge of exploding, the butt-in-everything Dr., Spock puzzled by human behavior, the pompous Kirk. Plzzzzzz. A /.er can generate scripts for this thing w a Palm Pilot.
My favorite repeating foolishness, is the highest ranking folks being the ones going first into any danger. Like in Iraq, where Rummy and Cheney heloed in with the Seals. And how often did Bush fistfight Saddam?
And the new crewman, that you know with bullseyes front and back.
The Nomad episode was the worst of all, "... the declarations of the moons of (Moronia?) ..."
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
To end w a quote from Mick Jagger: "I just can't seem to drink it, off my mind"
Sure, the visuals in ST:TOS are a little dated. But why do we insist on re-writing history and making everything look shiney and new?
They are as they existed, and according to the technology of the time. Are we going to revisit every piece of TV/movie/video and make them look like a hybrid of 60's fashion and modern technology bling?
How many people who were fans of TOS would watch this? And how many people who weren't already fans are going to decide to watch this all of a sudden?
Like it or not, part of the charm of TOS is that it has become somewhat kitchy in the visual department, while still having been good, pioneering sci-fi.
This is 'redicilus' to borrow a slashdot-ism.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But the question is, will all characters be replaced by Ewoks?
What made the original series good, and ALL the subsequent ones uneven to mediocre (and mostly starting off bad), was that Trek had a focus on characters, writing, conflict and human resolution of problems.
The spaceship was the least important part of Trek.
And on another theme, the knobs were made of WOOD. They didn't turn, or push or anything. Shatner is sitting in that chair pressing painted squares of WOOD.
So, they spend money making the outside shots of the Enterprise cool CGI. Great. Good idea. Fine.
Someone needs to be ashamed of themselves. Can we waste any more money on useless shit? Let the children starve, STOS is more important.
Christ!
1) Don't use newer fangled technology. MORE GLUE!!! MORE FISHING LINES!!!
2) Have Kelloggs Cereal Company threaten William Shatner into taking up the role again, with the immortal line "DO IT, or no more commercials for you again, EVER. YOGHURTY!"
3) Don't hire a cameraman or any post production editors. Just show Shatner where the on off button is on the camera, and let it film everything from him muttering "Are you sure this is on?" to him taking in a deep breath to hide his middle age spread.
4) To cut down on costs, don't use background actors, get some of the regulars from conventions to do all the background character roles, and HAVE THEM PAY THE CAST.
5) Get Patrick Steward to arm wrestle William Shatner in the final episode of the series so this Kirk Vs Pickard nonsense will be settled once and for all.
6) Have Shatner sing the title music. Yes, there were lyrics. Yes, they were dropped for a reason.
7) YOGHURTY!!!
Please feel free to add to this. Live long and remake.
After all of these years I'm still trying to forget that episode.
And yes, I'm an American. Lay ANYTHING on that thick and it's embarassing. Yuck.
... and then if you grew up watching only the mirror universe episodes, when you finally saw a "regular" episode, it would be like mirror universe to you! (in soviet russia, or something)
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Let's put it this way- would you rather have them making a new series? I'd much rather see TOS put back in the spotlight than see another Captain Archer. **shudders**
.
Which is not a good reason to do anything.
/., which given the stature of the moview probably should have rated him an obit here. Robert Wise was also the director on a very different movie: Star Trek the Motion Picture. The commentary on TDTESS makes it clear why: Wise was originally a cinematographer, and as a director he studied each script and meticulously planned each shot before the first frame of film was exposed. On STTMP, he never had a full script. The script was being written as the movie was shot, and as he received more script he'd shoot some more. This accounts, I think, for the remarkable difference between the two films. TDTESS is notable for its brisk pace, strong characterizations, clean story telling and restraint (technologically and budget driven to be sure) in the use of special effects. STTMP is exactly opposite in each of these areas. Under the circumstances, it's remarkable that the film wasn't an utter fiasco. Robert Wise later did a Director's Edition, which I have not seen, in which he reportedly was able to impose some order on the film. This is regarded by some as the best of the film series, wheras the theatrical release version is widely regarded as, not the worst, but close to it.
I recently rented the remastered DVD of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", which to this day is one of the great science fiction movies of all time. What makes it a great science fiction movie? It is credible. It presents the story in a way that compels you to believe it on some level.
The producer was Julian Blaustein. He says in an interview that he decided to do a sneak preview, a Hollywood practice that allows the filmmakers to find and tweak problem spots in a movie. Blaustein's biggest concern: Gort's knees. Gort the robot was just a very tall man in a foam rubber suit. It was very convincing, except when Gort walked away from the camera: the backs of his knees didn't look robotic, they looked like a man trying to walk in a stiff foam rubber suit. Every time he looked at a scene in which Gort walked away, it bothered him.
A few minutes into the movie, there is a scene where tank after tank skids around the corner, racing to confront the flying saucer. The audience reacted in a completely unexpected way to this: they laughed. Blaustein recounts sinking lower and lower in his seat until his eyes were level with the seat in front of him. He knew to the precisely how many seconds it would be until the audience would see Gort, and exactly how many seconds after that Gort would turn around and the world would see his cheesy foam rubber knees. If they laughed, he was finished: no Gort, no movie.
Naturally, nobody laughed. He found out later that the reason the audience laughed was the absurdity of confronting the advanced technology of the flying saucer with tanks and guns. Nobody every thinks Gort's knees are cheesy. Lesson learned: the audience will accept anything once you make them believe. Ang Lee did a movie of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility in which Emma Thompson played a character almost twenty years younger than she was when she made the movie. Lee managed this by avoiding closeups until well into the movie, after Thompson had managed to sell the audience on her performance.
So -- I'd conclude this. If a TOS episode works, it doesn't need CGI rework. The CGI work might help a less credible episode.
As a side note, Robert Wise, the director of The Day The Earth Stood Still, died last September. So far as I know this was not commemorated on
It's worth noting that nobody says the special effects for the theatrical version were wanting. On the contrary, they were excellent, but there was too much of them and not enough story.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
When they changed the Doctor Who "Five Doctors Special" to whiz-up the SPFX it took out some of the charm.
Part of the charm of The Original Series is that it is so 1960s. Don't change it, not even cosmetically.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Personally, I'm of the school that Science Fiction is a vehicle to tell the "Human Story." This is why shows like "Twilight Zone" were so powerful despite the lack of Effects. I will be far more rivitted by Billy Mumy putting bad people in the corn field than the kid in the "Twilight Zone Movie" playing cartoon games.
If you really want to make some good special editions that fix films that are lacking the oomph...
I'd start with fixing the story in Matrix 2&3 and rewriting Star Wars 1, 2, and 3.
Just my 0.016 Euro.
...it would have been easier to generate those expendable, doomed ensigns to accompany important characters to a potentially dangerous planet's surface.
So it looks like they found a way to get even more money out of an old series. I guess there aren't too many people left who want to buy the DVDs.
However, even on HD it will have to be at the 4:3 aspect ratio to match what it was shot in.
Unless they're going to play with it to make it a widescreen show.
Why use CGI, shouldn't they be doing it with Ruby on Rails?
--
Q
I recently watched the last season of Enterprise, and I really liked the mirror universe episodes. There was something great about them abandoning the whole hippy federation image in favour of a more dystopian view, and making main characters disposable (how many were assassinated in those two episodes?) makes it much cheaper to film; if one of the actors starts getting expensive, just write him or her out in the next episode...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You're right! Curse my limited imagination!
Next up: We discover that Spock was behind the grassy knoll at Khitomer Massacre!
Clear, Dark Skies
...but it won't be. What they would need to do would be to find a way to make better effects that still fit in with the tone of the original. That would mean that they'd have to limit themselves to fixed or slow moving cameras, low detail models, and other things that would blend with the live action sequence style. They could actually improve the look and feel of things quite a bit if they did that. But they won't; they'll most likely put in hyperactive cameras and too-much-detail-to-believe models. Every time they cut to an effects shot it'll be like getting poked in the eye.
But it might sell. So more power to'em.
Cheers.
KHHHHHHAAAAAAANNNNNNnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo!
That leaves the possibility that there will be an interest in putting in more effects than they have time for and they already cut stuff from the original to get it into an hour runtime as is.
... pauses ... from Shatner's ... dialog ... they may not need to cut anything else.
No, not an hour runtime -- unless you're counting commercials. The thing is, back in the 60s they didn't show nearly as many minutes of commercials per hour as they do now. It has become very obvious as various TV shows are released on DVD -- more recent ones run to about 42 minutes per show, from 10-15 years ago it's more like 45-46 minutes per show, and the original Trek may well have been closer to 50 minutes. (Haven't watched a TOS episode recently enough to say for sure.)
That means they'll need to cut nearly 8 minutes of content anyway just to fit in the modern format. Perhaps that's one reason they're completely re-doing the title sequence -- to make it shorter.
On the plus side, if they cut all the
-- Alastair
Jar Jar Binks!
Context, its all about the context. Stupid TLA's (Terribly Lame Abbreviations)
It's a bat'leth, you filthy p'tahk!
In that vein I'd like to know what will happen to the supercheesy effects like Sulu's dashboard clock looking like the odometer from a 1963 Ford Galaxy. There's a certain comfort in things like that, which excuse the rest of the series' transgressions. When Kirk goes and pats Yeoman Rand on the ass, my brain goes "Oh, it's TV from the sixties." If they scrub everything until it looks brand spanking modern, I'll probably react to it with modern sensibilities and wonder when they were packing Sunny Jim off to sensitivity training.
This is not my sandwich.
This was spelled out in the writer's guide that they would give to people who wanted to write episodes for TOS. The phaser was a three piece modular system. The basic phaser was a small box roughly the size and shape of the communicator and was to be used concealed in missions where they didn't expect to need weapons. If that wasn't enough then you would mount the basic phaser on a pistol grip which made aiming easier and increased firepower by adding its own power supply. Take a careful look at a picture of the pistol model and you will see what you thought was a communicator attached to the top of it. The third option was a rifle style piece to which you attached the pistol version and again increased aim and power.
I can see it now, they will be sitting around the convention halls fighting between the old trekkies that saw the originals and the new kids that only watched the new CGI stuff.
Peace, or Not?
They can digitally replace William Shatner with a Jar Jar Binks, and have a good actor there for once. Though retain that annoying outer shell.
Updating the CGI effects in movies is every bit as tacky as other misguided modifications like colorizing black and white movies, cropping movies to 4:3, and overdubbing dialog in a different language instead of employing subtitles. The intent of the original creators is compromised by someone trying to "improve" it. We don't fix bad notes in old recordings or cover stray brush strokes in old paintings.
Because well all know that CGI makes everything better --EVERYTHING!
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
> Why do people keep calling "Cinema Graphics" CGI? CGI is "Common Gateway Interface", used for CGI Scripts.
You're the one who's confused. CGI is "computer-generated imagery" and CG is "computer graphics," not "cinema graphics." What the hell is a "cinema graphic"???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9XHmj-dPEY
I bought the entire original 3 seasons on DVD and sat down with my kids last night to watch the first eposode. It was the one with the shapeshifting alient who kills humans by sucking all the salt from their bodies. After the show my oldest son asked "if all the special effects and props are like this episode or do they get better". My youngest wouldn't take a shower by himself. Jusdt like a good book, the most important part of the experience happens between your ears.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I really hope that they can take Shatners toupee from the TJ Hooker and superimpose it onto Kirk. That would really be as cool as the crap they did in Star Wars.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Will CBS Paramount also do a CGI makeover of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: The Animated Series and the ten Star Trek feature films?
I know a lot of people (myself included) who refuse to purchase Star Wars until the originals are released on DVD. It looks like that's going to happen soon, but not in a particularly satisfactory way.
I'm not buying the Special Dinosaur Edition just because it comes with a crappy version of the originals.
Fuck Lucas, fuck him with a lightsaber.
You can't take the sky from me...
Also, GC is commonly used in the News/Television world to mean "Character Generator," which makes those little name-bar things under the reporters on TV.
Seriously, no. Please don't. Part of the charm of TOS is it's now very dated special effects. It doesn't need a lame special effects upgrade, it's fine as-is.
but call me when they entirely replace Shatner.
I think that benny goodman would be better playing an electric guitar.
If the 'new TOS' is a success, then perhaps we will see the same thing done with Star Trek: The Next Generation which has a 20th Anniversary coming up soon.
Riiiight. TNG was shot on film, but edited on video. Yeah, think about how bad that looks when you compare a TNG episode on DVD to TOS.
To redo TNG in HD, Paramount would have to go right back to the film masters and re-edit every single episode from scratch. That's what, 176 episodes? And a lot of the visual effects - transporters, phasers, forcefields, etc - were created electronically in the editing bay, so all of those would have to be recreated from scratch as well.
Never going to happen.
You must think in Russian.
Has anyone seen "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"? This movie is from 1977, a time when there was no CGI effects and this movie is simply great! Its special effects are much better than some newer movies like (ugh!) Spawn (let alone the plot).
Leave CGI for videogames and Pixar, they know what to do with it.
So say we all
I think that's reasonable... with one exception:
They HAVE to reproduce the look of the original film stock. You can't have untouched razor-sharp modern CG alongside film from the '60s. It looks totally out of whack, like haphazardly splicing high-res CG into a fuzzy home video.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I know that they did a bunch of CGI work for the new release of the first Star Trek movie. I know this was something like two years ago, but I am curious, does anyone own it? The first Star Trek:TMP had some of the finest model work I have ever seen in sci-fi, IMHO.. did this all get ditched for some crappy CGI?
Well, every Fan Boy wants to see Star Trek vs Star Wars - Screw the death star once it gets borg-i-fied, and Spock would surly-a loosa to messa Binks!
CGI couldn't make up for the fact that the digital panels on the walls were made from coffee cup lids and gel poured in ice cube trays.
Their money would be better spent cloning William Shatner to have a nice young teen age Kirk for the next Star Trek movie...
I prefer to see old classic films in their original black and white. I like the idea of seeing the old Star Treks in their original contexts of minimal budget special effects. The Twilight Zone did so much with so little, and that was part of is charm.
Sad but true...
And hey, they had Hoshi in revealing outfits.
You do realize there's a difference between an actor and the character he plays, right?
Clear, Dark Skies
How can they enhance THAT?
A lot of the money made off this stuff is bait-n-switch. People think they're getting the original, and in fine print it says "remastered" or something like that. Or maybe the print isn't that fine, but you simply can't get the original, so a "reasonable facsimile" will have to do. Or, they're showing "Star Wars" at the Student Union theatre, and a lot of people go. How many of them will know the difference? None, because they weren't born yet when the original came out. Wow. I must really be getting old, because that doesn't make me feel old anymore, and I know it should.
Somebody needs to do a parody, where they replace the vacuum tubes in Spock's "stone knives and bearskins" with PC motherboards and stuff. Or better yet, make the effects more low-tech than the original. I've seen some things like that, and they're a scream. The major studios would never do that though, and it probably doesn't have mass market appeal.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
that is possibly the best sig i have ever seen...
The shark still looks fake.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
They made *millions* off that EP i - III garbage. so tell me, what was the lesson they learned again?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd like to see them digitally put cigarettes INTO all the scenes. Of people holding a ciggy now and then. Put nipples poking through the fabric on all the females. Digitally place the twin towers in the city-scape scenes when they go back to old New York...even though they weren't even built. Why not? They're removed from everything else, let's add them in now.
Things like that. Let's do something COOL with the technology.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
The really sad thing about this is the "accidental wisdom" of the production company in shooting this series (and many others) on film. It's not locked to NTSC resolution or scan rates.
If the negs are still intact, all it should take is a new flying-spot rescan of the original 24fps master neg at Hi-Def resolution to let us see every bit of the original. (yeah, it'll take a little cleanup and color work, but this is for a premium product, right?)
We could have pristine 24p High-Definition versions of the original show (admittedly at 4:3 aspect ratio), but instead we get our memories trampled. No chance to get a look at the show as we remember it, but in High-Def.
This really sucks.
Robert Lansing and Terri Garr had some potential for a spinoff series taken in a completely different direction, but I guess it was not to be.
I think the ring actually was meant to be a sphere, it's just that we could only see the edges because the expanding gases were too thin to be seen except where they were thickest from our point of view.
That would be a good theory but it was a ring on the reverse side as well! It sure didn't look like a "thick from our point of view" kind of ring.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I remember that one as well, but it seemed to me I remember thinking I could somehow accept it because of the nature of the explosion... I don't know, I'll have to re-watch that one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How about CGI Wesley Crusher being inserted into TOS and Kirk kicking his ass for being a know-it-all?
Cinema Graphics are those things featured in powerpoint presentations that tell Paramount execs not to produce any more Star Trek movies. Wait, that should be demographics. My bad.
They could redo the CGI of one of the most beloved and proven television series of all time, so that it won't be modern enough to appeal to young people, and will now be cheesy and distrubing to older fans... OR...
They could try coming up with something ORIGINAL to revive the dead horse of the Star Trek franchise. Something that doesn't involve falling back on the same techobabble they've used for the last 20 years. Something that has a cast that can work together without being the Brady Bunch. Something that doesn't have a big red RESET button every episode or two....
D'oh! What was I THINKING!
Hooray for capitalizm! More DVD re-releases! Whoo hoo!
I heard they devoted a Beowulf cluster to individually model each strand of Shatner's hair! Plus, all the skirts are now 3 inches shorter. Yowza!
Why don't they realize it's not broken! So don't try to fix it.
It is what is! Keey your filthy hands off it!
Jesus, I hope Time travel never becomes possible!!!
Perhaps they will CG Sisko, Dax, and Worf into a few background shots of "The Trouble with Tribbles" (since, canonically, they were there).
That said, who at Paramount thinks that the Trek fan-base is all about TOS now? Didn't that particular show debut almost exactly 40 years ago? Meaning that college students who watched it during its initial run are now 60?!" Do you really think they're going to get HDTV's to watch this (or that you'll be able to sell ads to this demographic)?
Seriously, Paramount, you still have some one-time fans from the 90's who would come back. It starts with a pitch that goes something like "Admiral Janeway secretly recruits Geordi, Dax, Bashir, and Worf to enter the wormhole and find Sisko." Not that hard. Try it.
In the meantime, we'll be watching stuff with strong characters and stories -- in my case, Fullmetal Alchemist and Doctor Who -- traits that Trek was once known for.
Time to get a new Tricorder and phaser, set to "stun" I don't know if I can find the original Trek action figures. Kids were always pinching the heads together and saying things like "Spock, help me" or having Scotty and Spock have a rapelling accident climbing up a hill. Can you beat Spock's Brain?
That said, if the point of watching television or a movie is to "suspend disbelief" for awhile (What? We don't have ships that can travel faster than light? What do you mean, "teleportation is theoretically impractical"?), then F/X can only do so much. Yeah, we knew that all the aliens were guys in makeup. With the exception of a certain flop-eared Jamaican with brain damage, virtually all the aliens are guys in rubber suits. It looks ridiculous - so what? We know that in the story, all we need to know is that this guy isn't from around here; what do I care that the odds of life on another planet being bipedal, let alone humanoid, are pretty slim.
Y'know, if you aren't within, say, 1 or 2 au's of a star like ours, your ship's just gonna be a shadow passing in front of a starfield, right? Incidentally, fights in space are more likely to look like B5 than the Battle of Britain.
We remember the original Star Trek. It captured our imaginations when first we saw it. Captured our imaginations when first we saw it. Captured our imaginations. We don't need no stinking CGI enhancement!
Just before Li vs. Gara
Got back to this thread rather late, but if you're still interested, I got the idea from an episode of Naruto not too long ago where there was a series of elimination rounds and just before this one character Rock Lee's fight his teacher gives him tips about his opponent that he then proceeds to write down and his teacher tells him not to write it down as he won't be able review his notes during the battle. Then he proceeds to write that down.T he_Power_of_Youth_Explodes!_(Naruto_episode)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaara_vs._Rock_Lee:_