Nimoy Up for Spock Again, Down on Trek Remastered, Barrett OK With Both

The Akron Beacon Journal spoke to Leonard Nimoy yesterday mostly about is photography, but he dropped a couple of Trek bombshells on the way. On whether or not (if asked) he would reprise his role as Spock in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek XI he said he would be willing "if I thought they had a project of merit". One would also imagine that (as Nimoy and  Shatner have recenlty joked about) Abrams would also have to ‘meet his price’.

But the Beacon reports he wasn’t so optimistic on Trek Remastered:

…he also worried about a newly enhanced version of the original series…Nimoy, who has not seen the new version, said at first that he thought the changes were simply sprucing up the colors and clarity of the show, and that was fine. Told the new version also had computer-updated images of the starships and other new details, he said, “Shame on them.”

The Beacon Journal reports that later Nimoy was shown  a clip of the show and said of it ‘amazing’, so It is unclear from that if the documentary changed his mind or not.  Nimoy has recently spoken about how he felt the old show still held up even with the old effects. This type of reaction also demonstrates the wisdom of Paramount Pictures and JJ Abrams bringing Shatner and Nimoy in early on Star Trek XI, imagine if either of them threw words like ‘shameful’ around about the new picture.  

Barrett OK
Majel Barrett Roddenberry spoke to the Hollywood Reporter last week on the 40th Anniversary of Trek, of course the subjects of Trek Enhanced and Trek XI came up.  On Trek Remastered she said that her late husband Gene Roddenberry would approve:

He wouldn’t have been bothered by it at all. Gene did the best work he could at the time, but he was also all about the future. I think he’d have thought it was terrific that the show was being made to look better because of new technology.

She went on to say that she had not yet spoken to JJ Abrams but believed that once the film gets the ‘go’ she expected to hear more. She also seems happy that Trek is still going forward "What’s nice is you know a "Star Trek" movie is still one that everybody wants. It remains Paramount’s cash cow, so there’s no danger of it going away anytime soon." So true.

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Having the Enhanced version now made available has excited me more about Star Trekthan anything else has in a long time. It’s an idea I have wanted to see since the new footage in “Trials and Tribble-ations,” and expecially after Enterprise’s “In A Mirror Darkly.” It needed to be done.

This will re-energize both fandom and the casual viewer to get excited about the original series again.

Now they just need to go back and do completely new animation (maybe even CGI) over the soundtrack of the Animated Series! That would rock.

I’m with Fred, this remastering has me looking forward to the episodes once again. And, oh yes, a new animated series, heck, they have the voices, would be great!

Once again I ask myself, if the remastered version would keep the surrealistic effects of the original series. There’s a difference between sixties image style and that one of today.

I think its pretty clear from the trailer that the effects are very close to the original.

I would LOVE for them to redo the animated series. I’ve never been able to watch a full episode because I can’t get past the REALLY terrible animation.

The artists that work on the Batman and Justice League cartoons, they’re the ones I’d want to design a new animated Star Trek series. That style of animation would be perfect for the world and characters of TOS.

The old Star Trek was just so cool .And ,I loved the movies.But ,you know,they were so different than the T.V. series in most every aspect(look,feel,etc.).As an original series fan who always looked at the original series ( before the first movie) as a reference point for my imagination I regard the remastered version as more an expansion of the original vision.

As one who grew up with TOS and wrote letters to the network and Paramount in an effort to revive ST, I’m absolutely thrilled with what I’ve seen in terms of the remastering. But, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if Trek XI is intended to be a prequel of TOS, then it better have a “look and feel” that points to “TOS”. This is what really ruined “Enterprise” for me – there was no visually evolutionary path to TOS from “Enterprise”. Say what you will about Star Wars I-III, Lucas and company did a great job creating a “look and feel” that visually delivered the viewer right into Episode IV. That’s the kind of results I’m hoping for in Trek XI.

good to hear majel barrett’s input. i love her. long live lwaxana/computer voice.

Sounds like Nimoy changed his tune when he saw the clips. Like most people when he hears “new effects” he probably thinks of Star Wars and adding animated stuff that wasn’t there originally. Of course he’d be negative about that. I bet Nimoy was pleasantly surprised.

Re-doing the animated series is an interesting idea but I’d definitely want the original version in the same box with it. Keep the soundtrack, re-do the animation. Draw the characters the same way but make them far more animated. Use CG the way Futurama does, rendered to look like it’s drawn but with smooth 3D motion.

I am far more interested in what Abrams and company plan to do with the new film than what is done to the old series at this point in time. But both projects should be true to the vision of what Gene tried to do. Star Trek lives, but not everything produced under it’s banner has been noteworthy. We all know that.
Without the idea of Kirk and Spock, just what does JJ have up his sleeve? Strange we have not heard rumors involving the return of subsequent Trek series stars. If he plans to use both iconic characters-and the original actors-he better make sure the project has merit. It would be his doom if Nimoy blasted the film once details are made known and formally announced.

I was at the Chicago Con this past Sep 8. There they showed clips and talked about the Star Trek “remastered”. (Why does everything have to have a name? remastered. Give me a break. remeddled, more like it) At any rate, they didn’t show much, and what they showed looked good.

I just don’t think it needs to be done.

Gene Rodenberry’s assistant spoke on the matter and summed up my thoughts for the most part. He spoke of the the black square around the shuttle craft and how all though not perfect, is part of the original effect and therefore part of his early affinity for the show; good, bad or ugly. I have to admit I would miss those little touches that I have grown up with also. I don’t understand just because it can be done that it has to be done. I don’t want to watch Lost in Space and have them fix all the effects from back then just because they can. I don’t want to watch the original Terminator and see a more realistic robot effect at the end because it can be done better today.

Hey, I really do concede that new interest in Star Trek by younger generations is a good thing but I still stand by the fact that they should watch the original and take it for what it is and what it was at the time. I argued with Dave Rossi, who is one of the people in charge of remastering Star Trek, that the old Buck Rogers serials of the 30’s don’t need to be fixed with new effects just because we can do it better today. (He missed my point) I didn’t live in that era but I can appreciate them for what they were at the time. Fun.

I will reserve judgement until I’ve seen a full episode but right now (and I believe I’ll still feel this way after I’ve seen it), my opinion is leave it alone. I’ve always felt it was fine as it was.

I never knew or thought the effects were bad until Star Trek history revisionist were writing about it around the 20th and 30th anniversary dates. It also seems that a new one of these critics, usually in their 20’s, pops up in media circles who has a new idea of what is a bad episode. I liked “Assignment: Earth”! I didn’t ask you.

I’ve said for 25 years that “City on the Edge of Forever” was a great episode. My favorite in fact. I didn’t need some, five cokes a day, ‘dude’ at TV Guide to tell me that.

But I digress. Back to the point. Clean ’em up, but leave the effects alone!

Shame on Leonard Nimoy for being more open to the idea before seeing the clip! IDIC anyone?

I meant, not being more open minded to the idea… oops!