Trek Remastered Returns This Week – See Preview For ‘Friday’s Child’

it has been 3 weeks, but TOS-R is back…with Klingons!!


(wmv)

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I wonder if they will show a new klingon ship.

Saturday at 6PM! I’m insanely jealous… (2:45AM Sunday for me)

the enterprise looks 1000 times better in this than it has ever looked before. the planet is interesting too.

Nice shot of the E warping out of orbit!! I’m glad Trek remastered is back, even if it is “Friday’s Child” one of my least favorite episodes.

Ahhhhh… fooey. :(

It doesn’t look like they did anything about the fake-looking cyclorama on the soundstage scenes in the Capellan encampment. If you want to “remaster” Trek to make it look more up-to-date, getting rid (or at least *enhancing*) those hopelessly tacky cycloramas would seem to me to be a no-brainer.

Oh well, let’s hope they at least did something about the “glowing steam iron” Klingon warship. :)

Whoo-hoo!!!! Finally!

I’d like to see the scout ship.

“Ahhhhh… fooey.

It doesn’t look like they did anything about the fake-looking cyclorama on the soundstage scenes in the Capellan encampment. If you want to “remaster” Trek to make it look more up-to-date, getting rid (or at least *enhancing*) those hopelessly tacky cycloramas would seem to me to be a no-brainer.”

I noticed that too. I don’t know when if ever they are going to do something with those cycloramas…

Impressive…..most impressive, but you are not a Kirkolyte yet.

I think an entirely appropriate and pragmatic line was drawn as far as the modifications to the episodes.

The panoramically impaired soundstages add to the charm of the series.
And I likes my 60’s dayglow mood lights.

Subtle alterations to any given planet location soundstage are always possible, probable, and aesthetically allowed for, yet to lose one of the many iconic givens of the series would be dangerously unwarranted, sorta like Decker’s ill-advised suggestion NOT to move into Vejur, thereby playing it safe and allowing Vejur to enter Earth orbit with the Enterprise tailing along and Kirk not knowing a damn thing about the entity. Fortune favors the bold/foolish, but I digress.

I think the intention of the remastered project is to ultimately honor Star Trek, not re-envision or re-make it.
I don’t know about anyone else but there is enough revisionist history to me going around affecting ALL aspects of culture and society to last a lifetime, no need for Trek to contribute to the process.

Someone has to be the bearer of the past otherwise all our collective memories are rendered a damn lie by revisionistic , subjective flavor of the month perceptions of someone unsatisfied with what’s come before looking to make a name and legacy for themselves.

Is Pluto a planet or not?
Is Star Trek a relic or post modern relevant example of science fiction?
Is James Bond a code name or a man?
Is Batman Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney or Bale?
Was George Washington a revered, stoic, idealistic General or Slave owning oppurtunistic Flim-Flam man?
Did the Holocaust occur or not?
If an errant black hole entered the edge of the solar system would it suck or not?

Are your memes are belong to us.

Personally, I think a paradigm shift has occured in collective consciousness nearing us ever closer to worldwide unmitigated, unbiased, in your face alien influence and inteference. I daresay culture has been groomed and molded sufficiently for the realization that far from being alone in the universe, we are rather common and backwater as it were. The recent appearance of a UFO over O’hare international airport for all to see is a harbinger of even more blatant daylight mass sightings culminating in final disclosure that, yes Redneck farmer, you are not the lucky cromagnon top of the food chain you once thought you were, so put away the shot gun and read a book until you develop a headache, exercise that brain on ANYTHING other than what is spoon fed to you during your semi-comotose once a week visits to mass, or Fox News.

You may ask, how does that have bearing on Star Trek? You would be clever in inquiring you know, but it would be entirely too easy to make that association on my part. ;) Suffice it to say, Operant cultural conditioning towards a specific end has been occuring for several generations.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

All your, not are your.

Is there any info on how well remastered Trek does in the ratings. I live in the UK and over here Trek (up until cancelled) was never more popular. In fact towards the end of Enterprise, ratings in the UK were almost matching those in the US (around 3million – when TNG premiered, 6million watched). Insurrection was also the most successful Trek movie in the UK and foreign receipts prevented distaster for its box office. At present the good old beeb repeats ST:TOS, but we are just shown grainy old stock versions! Oh well I suppose we at least get DR WHOand Torchwood, which is watched by 15million people. But I love Trek first and think that if it could appeal to modern sensibilities like WHO then it could and should Live Long and Prosper.

Josh T. etc.

You still kill me…although part of me agrees with your nostalgic reasoning in your INITIALLY sensible…lol…comments, we will always have the true originals, and as this is already a quite extensive, and intentional upgrade, I have to ultimately side with others on this thread, and in the past , who also would ideally have loved to have seen various “bare bones” cyclorama backdrops livened up a bit by the CBS Digital team too. The majority of the enhancements done by them so far have been exceptional, and I eagerly await the day the episodes are all completed, but there have been many possible backdrops in the episodes tackled so far that could have benefitted greatly, from even a slight modification or two. I believe this would have blended these scenes better into a complete updated look for today’s audience, WITHOUT ruining the overall feel of the show…after all, look at how far the team has ALREADY gone in some repects, thankfully somewhat veering off in certain ways, from their originally stated intention to near “duplicate” the original shots of everything they redo. Some of their chosen variations in shots and angles, and other aspects, I have been delighted with, some others I have not…but ALL have been of great interest, and renewed a desire in watching this classic show again with improvements aplenty.

I would at this point in the ongoing project, dearly wish for Anthony to enquire of the CBS Digital team these things…
Do they intend to embellish “soundstagey” cyclorama backdrops in the future in ANY way whatsoever…indeed, DO they wish to make changes or NOT, or would they like to, but cannot, due to budget or time restrictions?
And the SAME questions regarding certain of the dodgier, “wobbly”, poorly done HANDPHASER effects…another area I personally believe would greatly benefit from some kind of attention…ah well, a guy can hope can’t he?

IF these two areas are NOT addressed, whatever the reason, then although I will be somewhat disappointed with the eventual uneven, “curates egg” approach to the enhancements, I will accept it as still being an entertaining attempt to bring a dated (not necessarily a bad thing…) show nearer to today’s standards. As always, the previews on this site are a tantalising watch, and the work done on “Friday’s child” looks to be very good once again.

#13 – Cervantes

I’m on side with you with regards to the cycloramas and other assorted effects that I would like to see updated.

No doubt this will spawn a few responses regarding lack of original film elements, etc., but given that, I (like you) would like to know if the CBS Team is holding back on these effects because of time/budget restraints, or because they feel that these elements are fine “as-is”.

Oh, man…. the ship scenes are AWESOME! What happened?

But let’s hope the Klingon ship is more than just a fuzzy distant shape.

This upgrade was only done because the Effects shots did not match the clarity of the Live action, the Live action already looked great at 1080 so nothing was done to it, but they did set a precedent for a Live action change in Devil in the Dark, and really how is a soundstage change different than matte paintings they are changing? SO I get your point.

TOS remastered is still better than most of the drivel the networks fop on us
week after week. If it wasn’t for a few shows on cable the majority of fare
would be unwatchable. Even the original shows airing on TV Land are more
desirable than most shows. The best part about remastered TOS is to have
something to look forward to watching and enjoying on television again.

I’m on record as a big advocate of cyclorama/BG enhancements — within reason of course — so I was disappointed to see nothing done here. This one was always more jarring since it mixed soundstage exteriors with location exteriors. Maybe we’re only going to see BG enhancements on the “flagship” episodes i.e. The Menagerie, Tribbles, etc. Too bad. Even just a subtle gradient added to the sky would have been nice and might have suggested a twilight scene in contrast to the bright daytime exteriors.

This one wasn’t one of the greats, but I always thought it was one of De Kelly’s best performances. But hey, I’m just glad to see TOS: Remastered is back with “new” shows!

“Is Batman Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney or Bale?”

None of the above. He’s West! :)

(I know that had nothing to do with Trek but I just had to say it!)

LOL @ #19…
Gee, if we replace everything but the peformers… and at some instances, enhance them, how much of O.G. Trek will be left? ;-)
Yeah, Trek REMASTERED is back, now… my sundays are complete! :-D

Here’s something totally off the wall:
I’ve seen the previews for all the remastered episodes, and I’ve listened again and again to the closing narration. Are my ears deceiving me, or is the narrator saying Star TRACK instead of Star TREK? During the original broadcasts, I had to hear my parents referring to it as Star Track. The mispronunciation was nauseating then, and I like it even less today. Anyone else “hearing” TRACK in these previews?

Excellent point, Lao3D, regarding the fact that this is one of the few episodes where “soundstage outdoors” were mixed with *real* outdoor location shots. The transition from the encampment scenes to the foot chase through the mountains was quite jarring. If ever there were any “cyclorama episodes” in need of updating, one of them surely was “Friday’s Child”.

Josh T., the ship has already long since sailed on the notion of this project being nothing but “touch-ups” on the original effects. Whole matte paintings have been replaced in such episodes as “The Menagerie” and “Devil in the Dark”, and we’ve seen all sorts of new angles on our beloved spaceships that were never seen back in the 60’s. Unfortunately, I think the line has already been drawn on doing something about cycloramas–look at the similar lack of changes to outdoor soundstage sets in episodes such as “Mirror, Mirror” and “City on the Edge of Forever”.

It’s a pity, but I imagine it’s also a function of the impossible time constraints CBS Digital is forced to work under. Rotoscoping out the fakey soundstage skies in an episode like “Friday’s Child” is NOT a trivial undertaking.

If they are not going to update the worst effects, which in my opinion are the soundstage cycloramas, what is the point? This episode is almost as bad as Mirror, Mirror in that respect. It totally ruins the experience.

If they want me to shell out the big bucks to purchase these again on DVD they are going to have to replace the fake soundstage backgrounds with something considerably more believable.

#23 If those cycloramas ruin the experience for you then I suggest you stick to modern programing and steer clear of all movie and television programming prior to 1985 and don’t attend any plays as you won’t be entertained.
Fiction usually takes a certain amount of suspension of belief anyway…especially futuristic shows which deal with warp drive and beaming atoms back and forth.
it shouldn’t be so hard to take that suspension one more step and apply it to the sky in the background.
Granted, if they could do something with the cycloramas it would be great, but if their inability to do it actually ruins the show for you, then, seems to me, you were watching for all the wrong reasons.

Is Batman Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney or Bale?

It’s Adam West!

Hey! We agree! (see #19).

(Maybe we can campaign for a “Batman Remastered.” ;) )

The only issue I see is that the episode scenes don’t match up now. If we cut from a wonderful new shot of the Enterprise firing nice new phasers to a shot of Kirk firing a phaser that is obviously just a hand drawn effect that doesn’t even have any perspective (it’s a straight line for God’s sake) these don’t match up and draw you out of the story. The same goes for going from a real outside shot to an obvious sound-stage.

Whenever I watch TOS episodes w/ non-Star Trek fans, they seem to enjoy the stories, but when the effects would come up, they’d roll they’re eyes or try to suppress a little giggle. I’d always have to explain that it was the sixties (not to mention NBC’s inability to pony up any cash) and that you have suspend some disbelief to enjoy them. I had always hoped that w/ these new remastered episodes I wouldn’t have to do that. So far that’s not been the case… luckily Friday’s Child is not an episode I’d show to a TOS virgin to try and get them into it.