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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."
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
This would be a good chance to retcon the Klingons into Klingons that look like Klingons.
Eh? No it wouldn't.
The difference was explained in Enterprise. There's a whole multi-episode story arc on it...
It wouldn't make any sense to retcon them since there being two different kinds of klingons is part of the story line.
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.
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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...
If we get to see him devoured by the shark, then it's all good.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"The Gamesters of Triskelion" had the best hat rack fighting in all of SF! And the uniforms shrunk whenever they were washed, so you could tell how far into a season a show was by how high the sleeves rode, and whether Uhura's skirt covered her panties at all.
BTW, the "quatloos on the newcomer" line didn't actually appear in the episode. There was bidding "for the newcomers" at one point, but IIRC you never heard the Providers betting on the outcome of the games.
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ST:TMP:TDE, fixed most of the pacing problems which the theatrical release suffered from. It also fixed some seens that seemed unfinished. The recut of the movie actually earned a PG rating, as opposed to the G rating of the theatrical release.
For example, when V'Ger's attack upon the Enterprise with one of the devices which it used to destroy the Klingons, is aborted, in the theatrical realease the music and sound effects build, then the device simply dissapears from the viewscreen, and the music and sound effects ackwardly fade out. In the Directors Edition, the music and sound effects build, and then cut to an exterior shot of the device disapating as it approaches the Enterprise. This leaves the scene feeling much more tense, and finished.
The scenes of the Enterprise flying around V'Ger's spaceship actually seem to have a point to them, as we actually can see the ship, and get a true sense of scale opposed to the Enterprise. However, this may just be part of the difference of having watched a dirty VHS pan and scan transfer of the film (with 12 extra minutes!) in the past.
There are also some seemingly unnecessary changes, such as the path between the Enterprise and V'Ger itself forming as Kirk & Co. are walking on it. However these do not distract from the movie.
IMHO, the most impressive effects change is the final effect shot of V'Ger's ship sitting over Earth before it explodes into a new level of consiousness. This effect incorporated the original shot of V'Ger's explosion with the Enterprise flying out of the light, with new elements preceeding them.
Overall, the new effect are subtle, and if you hadn't ever watched the movie before, you would never pick them out. But it is the changes in pacing which ultimately make this a much better movie.
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