Remastered “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” Airs This Weekend May 5, 2007
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: TOS Remastered , trackback
The Enterprise runs into a ‘black star’ and is sent back in time to party like it’s 1969
Trek’s first time travel episode set the standard of that whole ‘don’t interfere with the timeline’ thing. For CBS Digital there was a surprising bit of work for them. Although they left the F-104 stock footage, but added a CGI F-104 in some shots. Plus new shots of the Ent in orbit and a slingshot around the sun (ala Star Trek IV).
…Traveling back to 1969 inspired Rick’s new video (PLUS he announces his new podcast)
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That was cool Rick. You gonna do a sequel using ’99’s second season theme? Scotty’s whiskey versus Tony’s beer???
I love that Space:1999 theme song…and to have a little SCTV mixed in at the end doesn’t hurt..
Ok, so this one wasn’t really “funny” but it was “fun”. Very cool! Took two of my favorite Sci-Fi shows. BTW-Thank you for using the REAL Space:1999 theme!
4: Dang that takes me back a decade or two! Nice. dl
Very Cool Video Rick, I haven’t heard the 1999 theme in years – - and a “wild” podcast it truly would be!!
I also wanted to thank ‘Steve Johnson’ and ‘Josh T Kirk Esquire’ for adding dimension to this episode in the previous thread discussion regarding the Captain Mantell Incident (BTW ‘Josh T’ are you located in Ky or across the River?).
As to “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, the expectations are high for the remastered effects and Anthony has done a wonderful job keeping us updated. It’s a short wait for me today to see it – - 1:00pm. Can’t Wait!
Nice work Rick! And a tip of my cap to the KY Trek Connection UFO discussion as Greg mentioned.
Someone should use the UFO theme and intercut them firing on the Enterprise, which would be a UFO to them.
Graet, Great, Great!
Uh… “Tomorrow is Yesterday” wasn’t Trek’s first time-travel episode, that title belongs to “The Naked Time” (albeit only back in time three days.)
That was awesome, you and Spockboy are making some really fun video’s to watch. Keep it up!!
thorny i knew someone would say that, but Naked time wasnt a ‘time travel episode’…the episode story wasnt about time travel and dealing with time travel. hence the phrase ‘time travel episode’
damn trekkies are so pedantic
Have just seen the episode – - Not a Homerun I’m afraid (IMO).
There are some very nice effects pulled off, the “Real” Earth orbit shots are terrific and the Jet Fighter was well done.
Other shots had a problem conveying mass and movement (final slingshot sequence) and someone correct me if I’m wrong – - but isn’t that the “old” CGI model being used in places (left to right open space pass).
Anthony: Small correction. It’s an F-104, not 105.
I thought the slingshot sequence was great.
#1 – The second season titles are done and in the can, just waiting for the episode I cut them to, to come up the list.
#5 – Don’t know how wild the podcast will be, but in 25 days we’ll all know for sure.
#7 – UFO is a cool title sequence as well, and is consideration for another episode, the hard bit is taking out the teletype text and putting in new text. Oddly there are no actor’s names or really anything except the titles. But it’s on the list!
We’ll also be revisiting Trek Impossible for another episode but this time there will not be a Tholian ship, but well… you’ll see.
If you want to get an idea of how similar the Space 1999 & Space 1969 titles are, here is a little side by side action of the two, I tried to get the feel of the space shots, the other shots not so much.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=02hfy2CKRGU
Glad you folks enjoy the videos. Spockboy sets the bar pretty freaking high.
I always dig that funky Pinewood Studios music (”Spaceteen-88″ as we called it, along with “Battlestar Galunktica”… and all those other great English soundtracks. Ah to be young in the 70s!)
It is SO GROOVY MAN! Great work Spockboy!!
Kelvington — didn’t mean to slight you man. GREAT WORK!
Barry Gray hit the right note with that theme: epic funk.
By the way, which Flash script is embedded in these vids that stalls Safari until it prompts me to abort it?
I’ve noticed some stalls too on Firefox from time to time. LiveVideo gives a much better picture than YouTube. But here it is on YouTube for you as well..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hhLDZK8D4nY
#16 – Didn’t feel slighted in the least!
I just watched the start of the show, and was really disappointed. I know the unedited version will be better, however whoever edited this episode for television broadcast this weekend completely BUTCHERED the fighter in pursuit of the Enterprise sequence. It’s abrubt, and frankly doesn’t flow. This WAS one of the best sequences of the episode, and should have been left INTACT with the new footage inserted. What were they thinking? I know commercials need to be inserted, but I can think of a couple dozen areas to be trimmed without hacking up a crucial “action” sequence….
This wasn’t a home run because there were a few “plastic looking” shots again but MOST of all, FIRE THAT DAMN EDITING COMPANY!!! Cut other stuff that wasn’t nearly as important. Didn’t even get to see Nebraska like in that still shot they sent the site! GADS!
#19 & 20 -
I agree, I would have cut the “Chicken Soup” and other scenes before “shaving” the episodes the way they’ve done lately. I wonder if the final HD treatment will resolve those “plastic” shots as well.
I doubt it about the plastic shots. Not many of them, just the one around the sun, as far as I’m concerned.
Excellent job RICK!
The whole idea of mixing the Space 1999 credits and Star Trek is brilliant. The editing flowed perfectly as well.
You’re setting the bar pretty hight yourself buddy.
: )
Just saw it. I have to agree with other posters….
Worst editing yet for a remastered episode. Especially the first 10 minutes of the show. Damn commercials!!!
However, this episode will great on DVD, uncut and in HD.
Wow, the shaky enterpise in the clouds looked really bad. Like Land of The Lost bad. Haven’t seen the end yet but oof…
Hmmm, I have to say it was good and bad. Some great shots in orbit and fly-by’s as the Enterprise heads to the Sun.
Weak shots of the ship in motion and wobbling while exiting the clouds. Worse yet is the shot as the Enterprise is braking. The shaking and sudden stop looked on a par with early New Voyages effects. The ship just didn’t move smoothly, I am surprised, the ship lacked the weight it had in past show’s effects.
This was a tough one. It was great to see a first Season show again. Agree al the editing took some great stuff.
#25–I agree! IT look so fake! And the edits—must have been bring your daughter or son to work day when they edited this mess. They really should hire someone who knows about TOS to edit.
The break away at the end reminded me of the scene in Star Trek V when the
Enterprise goes into warp to avoid the Klingon torpedo–cheap-o still of the Enterprise-A slid across a star field by some poor old animator. The ship looked and moved so unnaturally—hmm I am getting way to into this. Yikes !all my Trekkie-ness has returned.
I’d be more into it if it looked better.
It seems like they finally have it, they’ve found their stride, producing very good work and then they have ridiculously bad shots like the wobbly one in the clouds that look far worse than the original FX, and actually look like someone too an art asylum model on a string and photographed it against the sky.
It sounds like once again this episode was broadcast on someones Lite-Brite, I thought it looked fantastic.
Ultimately disappointing. Where was the screen shot with the Big E facing camera with the jet behind posted here a week ago? That was what got me excited, then it wasn’t even in the broadcast. Plus missing dialogue of Captain Christopher, “Whatever it is it’s big…two cylindrical…” Blame that on the syndication cuts, though.
Agree wobbly horizontal shot of the Big E in the clouds was poorly done, as was slingshot around the sun. Dare I say it, like a cartoon? Mark Altman, please rescue me.
Liked the brightly lit Enterprise in higher orbit, though…and the new chronometer by Sulu’s station.
Smaller bridge monitor screens looked worse than usual, with obvious wrinkles in the panels. These are 1960s imperfections. Why not CGI these with new readout displays? And bridge wall near Spock had a dent. Easy to fix digitally.
The wobbly Enterprise was laughably bad. Looked like it was on strings….
I dont believe they showed the E orbiting with the moon in the background like the still shot showed.
Stock footage of pilots scrambling to jets shows 2 jets prepping
for take off..if they wanted to edit something that would be a start.
Whats with the ultra extreme close up of the E going by in orbit?
Pull back a little, geesh.
Good acting by Nimoy and the Shatman.
Nice seeing the E over a realistic Earth.
Did anyone else notice the big hook shaped hair thingie at the very top right of the screen when Kirk and Sulu beamed down to the base? It was on screen for at least 10 seconds, until the pair entered the room with the film spools. I was very surprised to see something like that in there! Maybe it would have been too difficult to fix, since it was a long, moving shot.
Also, I wonder if they gave any thought to changing the “200 years” that the guy says he’ll put Kirk away for to “300 years.” Unfortunately the actor (Ed Peck) isn’t with us anymore so they would have had to use a sound-alike, but it would have put it more in line with current canon.
Okay it’s up!!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RNeMNXQBzd8
Damn! I prefer sound versions
#30: This episode is indeed marred by some very lousy-looking upper bridge monitors. I had to laugh when Uhura was pointing them out to Capt. Christopher: “In the future, our displays are so light and thin they wrinkle!” But those monitors appear in so many shots in this episode, probably with people moving past them, that I sincerely doubt full-scale replacement would be simple, instead requiring lots of time-consuming rotoscoping. (In the same vein, an opening pan in the briefing room also caught highlights from the briefing table monitor showing it to be a cheap piece of white plastic with a marred surface.)
I enjoyed the new effects overall, but also wish the ship would shimmy and shake less and move more slowly, especially in the abrupt opening cuts after most ship systems seem to be back online. However, in the slingshot and braking sequences I must bear in the mind that the bridge crew gets thrown about a considerable amount, despite inertial dampers, so the ship should be bucking quite a bit.
Long distance “in the clouds” shots looked bad, closer up looked good, super close “E” in orbit looked bad (it was Amok Time shot with a planet slapped in the bacground), orbit shots were very nice, sun slingshot pretty well sucked (my wife said, how can they be THAT close to the sun and not burn up), return to Earth shot very nice with sun in background, braking was FAIR (but I honestly like the “concept” of the braking shot as they did it in the original). 50% good, 25% bad, 25% in the editor’s trash can (what do you bet they are the most breathtaking shots?).
Josh, much did look great, but NOT all, sorry friend.
The biggest improvement, in my opinion, has to be the scale of Earth in the orbit shots. I’d love the planets to look this big every week, rather than seeing a huge Enterprise orbiting a comparatively tiny world, which spins far too quickly.
At least we can see the unedited version soon in itunes.
Chris-Like when? I downloaded a few of the early episodes and now THEY WON’T update! Always the same 11 (or is it 12) episodes.
Anothony-Any chance of finding out why they won’t add any other season one’s? I am SO GLAD I did not get a season pass, I’d be even more upset.
eek. A step backwards on this episode. BTW, would a ship of that size and aerodynamic (or lack thereof) capability really be able function below the cloud level?
#37
Yeah at postage-stamp image size…yay.
I’ve already knocked on the episode in #12 & 21 but I did want to also mention the nice job done inside the Jet. While Captain Christopher is looking up into the sky you can see his reflection in the glass cockpit. (Also note a full field of white clouds)
However close shots of the Captain show him and the cockpit (as in the original) photographed in front of a solid blue field. How difficult would it have been to “blue screen” sky & clouds giving a sense of movement? Help me out here.
WHY OF WHY!!! Why did they make the Enterprise wobble as if on strings while in the clouds? It would have looked 100 times more real if they had simply glided it accross the screen. Isn’t making it look “more real” the whole point of doing CGI effects? I got so excited during the week when I saw the release of the stills from this episode. But after seeing the actual footage, I was very let down. This is something that MUST be fixed before it’s released on DVD.
I hope CBS-D is given an opportunity to enhance the already remastered effects before they are put on DVD. I hope the powers that be are wise enough to see these initial broadcasts as trial runs for the final DVD editions, and thus allow additional time and dare I say money to get them up to snuff.
I hate to say this, because in general I think the remastering decisions are good, but I agree, the wobbling as displayed in this episode doesn’t work. I realize they are trying to convey that the Enterprise is struggling, but this technique, like in Immunity Syndrome, doesn’t work. It was also noticeable as the Enterprise was slingshotting around the sun.
I think the problem may be that they have to fit the shots within a certain time frame and feel obligated to show some kind of motion during that limited time, so it becomes exaggerated. With more time, the wobbling could be more gradual and maybe convey the sense of bulk and scale better. They don’t have that time, so they should not do this.
I thought the stock footage looked OK, all things considered. Most of the new effects shots were well done.
I won’t comment as so many do on syndication cuts, because it is just a fact that that is going to happen. Ultimately the full versions will be available.
just looked at the video…what happend to the moon that we saw in the preview when the E was in Orbit?
Also I have to say the wobbly side on, Enterprise in the clouds wasn’t to hot, shame!
When the E is struggling to leave the lower atmosphere, the wobbling was terrrible. The original was a horrible shot as well. Why would CBS D try and re-create this poorly executed shot so faithfully?? While I think the FULL version will be better. This one was a step back IMO.
The shots of Earth from Space were spectacular and I did like the “slingshot” sequence.
I would agree that all planet orbits need to be at this scale. Much further interior enhancements need to done before the HD-DVDs are released as well(viewscreens, etc). One E extreme close up for the entire series is enough. Don’t reuse any shots-making new shots should be the goal. TIY’s script after leaving orbit doesn’t live up to this level of EFX Now TVH’s EFX look kinda dull
The moon was seen during one orbitng shot as the ship is flying away from camera.
Agree, the scale of Earth while the ship is orbiting was very nicely done and looked great!
Holy Sh*t looks like we are all more or less in agreement!!!
I think we all agree the shots in orbit were again beautiful.
The integration of the actual nasa orbit shots of earth were stunning.
The one big forward shot of E over the clouds was beautiful
The wobbly shots were all terrible, inexcusably so!!
Wobbly in clouds bad
Wobbly around sun bad (The real shame is they had a chance to do something really special with this- Superman spinning the earth backward was more convincing)
Wobbly braking bad
Coming to sudden stop -terrible – even the model didn’t look up to par
I hope they fix those scenes with something more special before HD DVD
I didn’t like the opening in-cloud shot when Aint it Cool posted the picture, but I really didn’t like it in motion. It’s the same hand manipulated look that plagued the fx in Doomsday Machine and Immunity Syndrome. I think a cooler shot would have been to show clouds hovering peacefully above the Nebraska farmland, when suddeny the Enterprise bursts out of them toward the camera. Once I saw the AICN shot, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
I thought the slingshot was pretty good, so-so, but the Earth orbit shots with the Enterprise coming toward the camera were simply gorgeous, although I didn’t see the close-close one eveybody is talking about.
Hated the braking effect (New Voyages description was accuate), but loved the previous shot after the slingsht with the Enterprise backlit by the Sun. Beautiful.
It’s always a F***ING mixed bag, ain’t it?
What we need is a podcast of each remastered episode from the CBS-D that explains the remastering process. For example, they could give us insight as to why they chose to show the E wobbling. And maybe they noticed the cheesy screens and could tell us that it would cost to much to fix….
What do you think?
The wrinkled screens probably would not cost too much to fix, except that there were a lot of those shots. Also, if an actor was in front of a screen, it would be more expensive because they would have to rotoscope the actor.
I thought the slingshot effect was teriffic, including the shaking ship.
Wow, what a disappointment.
GOOD-
-The shots of the Enterprise orbiting Earth looked excellent. Especially the ‘Amok Time’ close up shot.The authenticity of the of using actual Earth shots added some wonderful realism and was very well executed.
-The F-104 shots. The opening side view of it looked fabulous, The shakiness and the wispy clouds fluttering by were magnificent. The shots of Captain Christopher’s perspective were beautiful. The added reflections were also a very nice touch. However, whenever Christopher himself was shown it was still the blue bristol board behind him while HIS perspective was a sea of beautiful fluffy clouds creating a remarkably distracting inconsistency. What baffles me is, that the shot of Christopher ALREADY had a blue screen behind it! How difficult would it have been to rotoscope it out, put the same fluffy could background you have already created behind it, and finish it off with more of that nice reflection?
BAD-
-The dubious usage of grainy stock footage when you have a wonderful F-104 model was puzzling. I can understand the necessity of using the opening shots, which were incidentally much better in quality, but the shot of it taking off was the most shaky and grainy shot of all of them, and could have easily been replaced with said model.
-CBS Digital seems to have an inherent problem with movement. When the Enterprise follows a lateral line it looks wonderful, but if there is any deviation (IE-WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE, IMMUNITY SYNDROME) the ship’s movement is always incredible awkward looking instantly transforming a 947 foot ship into an 18 inch AMT model. The slingshot around the sun was a prime example of that. It was undoubtedly one of worst sequences CBS has ever done. It actually looked more like a ‘CGI test’ rather than a finished shot. The movement was very haphazard and the sun looked very flat and small, not at all like the giant living inferno of heat and light that we see everyday.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/spockboy/actualsun-CBS.jpg
The sun is a fireball, not a planet. As you can see photos of the actual sun are also available as well as actual Earth shots and could have worked equally as well.
Sadly, CBS again misses the mark when it comes to light. For some reason CBS seems to be deathly afraid of using too much light. Everything from the barely visible navigation lights to the sometimes flat, cartoony look of the ship (Mirror,Mirror) demonstrates that in all of its underwhelming glory. I find that when CBS attempts to create something that is supposed to emit a large amount of light, it invariably looks like a flat painting. This side by side comparison illustrates this point far better than I could ever explain it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/spockboy/SUNCOMPARISON.jpg
In the 1978 film SUPERMAN, the effects house took one of those cheap kiddie pools, filled it with gasoline, lit it, and anchored the camera directly above it in order to create the brilliant effect of Krypton’s red sun. This clever and innovative idea gave the shot a beauty and realism that could have been easily and ‘inexpensively’ recaptured by CBS, far better than using a throwaway texture of “hammered Neutronium”
Further, if a ship was THAT close to the sun the light would have been blinding. If CBS would have played that up it would have underscored the dramatic aspect of the sequence. An overspill of light combined with the violent shaking would have emphasized the confusion and fear of what they were experiencing (like a blind person groping in the dark)or in the light, in this case. The second slingshot sequence was even worse, containing one of the biggest continuity errors I’ve ever seen from CBS. The ship is shaking (the sun is NOWHERE to be found even though they are experiencing the same slingshot effect they just did) the ship comes to an incredibly AWKWARD halt then cuts to Scotty who is still sideways, shaking, hanging on for dear life screaming ‘bridge!’ while in the background we hear that wonderful ship crackling, warp drive humming sound signifying ‘Hey, were STILL moving….VIOLENTLY’
I am very disappointed in this latest offering. CBS DIGITAL’S now famous inconsistency in quality from shot to shot is remarkably confusing. I have never seen an effects house have such hit and miss effects shots in the SAME episode in my life. When I looked at the stills posted at TREKMOVIE I was very excited and pumped about good it was going to be.
But as a good friend of mine always says;” I’m movin’ on “
#53 SPOCKBOY – I agree completely see #41
No need to wait on a Review of this episode you\’ve already provided a Superb, Detailed Piece with Angst! – - which many of us are feeling right now.
I had waited since the beginning of the remastered project for this episode..but it is a mixed bag, as others have commented.
The good: Enterprise in Earth Orbit shots look really superb. The added F-104 model is a plus. The slingshot, although it needs some tweaking, is a big improvement over the previous version.
The bad: Why does the ship wobble??? Spock said Scotty was holding the ship in orbit. Granted, it looks like at 30,000 feet, but I’m pretty sure our Chief Engineer would have been able to fly the Big E and keep it steady even at that low altitude. Funny when the Big E went down in flames in Star Trek 3 it was level, not wobbly…
Furthermore, the Big E looks a lot less like a ship and a lot more like a model kit in these sequences. Spockboy’s Big E that he used in his satire looks much more realistic.
Finally, the editor(s) who savagely cut the chase sequence that I’d been looking forward to for six months should be asked to find other jobs. There were many other non-essential moments that could have been trimmed, but to do a hacksaw job on the MOST IMPORTANT SEQUENCE IN THE WHOLE EPISODE???
Go figure…
saw it last night. I thought they could have done a lot more. The effects were marginal. Come on, a slingshot around the sun…that could have been great. Not impressed!
This episode was quite a potpourri of visual events, ranging from awesome
to WTF were they thinking. From models hanging on wires to state of the art
CGI. The shots of the ship in the Earths atmosphere were embarrassingly
bad. The only shot worth its salt was the farmland flyover. The space and
Earth orbit shots were fine but the Sun fly around was horrid. The braking
scene from the original was more of a shudder to the ship, not the tilt-a-whirl in the remastered version. For all the build up, this episode should have been better. Lets hope they correct this mess before its released on DVD.
ok now lets rejoin it to “the naked time” as originally intended!
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this, because I’ve been a big critic of the syndi editors. But, this time they got SOME of the editing right. They took out single lines, leaving dialogue that worked without. I’m not saying this is BETTER. It’s not. But, it’s an improvement over the LawnBoy approach they’ve been using.
Now, the bad stuff. The E looked like a 5″ plastic model during the breakaway sequence. The sun looked like a basketball. I would think you shouldn’t even be able to see the arc of the horizon on the sun, since it’s thousands of times larger than the Earth. I’d love to see it done with the E in close-up against a Sun that takes up the whole field of vision. And yes, the E should be unbearably bright.
Whelps, that’s my two quatloos.
32. Don – hairy thingy triangle
That was Shatner’s toupee…got hung up on the microphone boom and they had to reshoot the scene with a new rug. :)
I’ve held off criticizing anything about this remastering because I think in general they’re doing very well given the constraints they have, but there were some seriously cheesy elements in this episode. I agree with all the above regarding the wobbling, what the hell was that? It looked like someone was holding an Enterprise christmas tree ornament on the end of a stick, simply horrendous. All sense of scale was completely destroyed. I had also read the interview with the people responsible for this where they talked about the accuracy of the sun effects, but they weren’t accurate at all, any image of the sun you can find will show it not to be smooth yellow ball, but one where there are constant prominences, bright spots, dark spots, a roiling atmosphere. They had said you would see the Enterprise “skimming the surface”, but all I saw was a weirdly dark enterprise wobbling idiotically against a smooth yellow ball. I don’t expect perfection, but the mistakes made in this episode should have been obvious to everyone involved as soon as they were first seen, easily the worst I’ve seen of the remastered episodes, and I say that as someone who was really excited about this entire process from the day it was first announced.
For an instant you can see the Enterprise zip by Pluto. Which was a nice touch.
The shot of the Enterprise flying from left to right at low altitude seen just after the credits looks like a 12″ model. It’s a horrible shot simply because it is not much of an improvement over the original.
Bummer, some shots are great, others stink. Lets go CBS get some consistency here!!
yep.
*Sigh* While I wouldn’t downgrade a couple of otherwise fine shots to “terrible” based on some wobble, I have to agree with the majority opinion here that CBS-D seriously undercuts the credibility of what it’s trying to achieve when it makes bad artisitic calls like this one. A little tweaking of your motion curves is fine, but make an aircraft carrier-sized spaceship wobble around too much and it’s going to look like a toy. If this was meant to convey the idea of the ship struggling to get back into orbit, I have to note in that respect, for all their other problems, the original FX did a better job.
I’m only a dilettante at CGI myself, but aside from technical skill it seems to me that subtlety is the key to pulling this sort of thing off. It’s hard to believe that there was no one on staff who bothered to point this out.
I don’t get to see this episode until tomorrow, as it doesn’t air in NYC til the bizarre 2:35 a.m. From the descriptions though, I’m already feeling the disappointment.
To some points from an early thread, I hope that these complaints that many of us are making about the effects are taken as a springboard for future improvements.
DL
I was thinking about how the Enterprise could have been rendered to appear to struggle to lift itself out of the atmosphere in the teaser.
If Matt Jeffries or Roddenberry was still with us, and being the pilots that they were, I’m sure they would have recommeneded that the forward motion of the ship could have had a slight “nose up” attitude like a real plane might as it is lifting up, only still flying level. Just a thought.
I have to agree with most of the comments here. While the skies looked great the Enterprise with it’s wobble looked almost as cheesy as the original. The Enterprise was supposed to be going almost too fast for a F-104 to catch. That’s about 1000 miles an hour! The big E should have looked screamingly fast – instead it still looked like a wallowing dirigible. It was pathetic in the original and it’s just inexcusable to do the same thing today and call it an “improvement”.
I liked the episode. It looks much better than the original version. The people at CBS-Digital do very good work only to have it picked apart over some minor imperfections. Am I missing something here? If everyone out there thinks they can do it better, why not send in a resume to CBS-D? But be prepared to have your OWN work ripped by the next crop of people whining for perfection. GET OVER IT ALREADY! NOBODY is perfect. But these guys are working hard and despite all the complaints they ARE DOING EXCELLENT WORK. Their contributions have improved every episode to look more believable than before. As much as we all like it, the original Enterprise design simply does not hold up to photo/scale realism from every single viewing angle. So It cannot be lit or shown in a way that will satisfy everybody every time. CGI also has an inherent falseness to it that is obvious when it is scrutinized so closely. So come on, give these guys a break already? That is just my opinion.
Kinda goes to show that no matter how cool any still shots of STXI may be, until it’s shown in motion there’s no guarantee it will be good. I hope there’s a lot of “See, I told ya so.” at CBS-D today.
I actually loved the SFX on this one. Thought they fit in with the episode dramatically. I did miss the first several minutes, from the end of the teaser to the “tractor beam” shot, so I might have missed the problems refered to above.
The slingshot? Didn’t bother me in the least. Wobbles? I hate wobbles… aircraft carriers do not wobble. But it did not detract from the story in my mind.
What about the glorious new print?! WOOHOO! I loved the bridge scenes with the two-shots with various stations in the background. My God that bridge is gorgeous!
Fun episode! Great effects! (Some people are just too busy trying to sound smart.)
Bring on “Errand of Mercy”!
Did anyone else notice the problem with having the Big E travel at high warp velocities inside the solar system? At that speed she’d blow past the Earth into interstellar space in far less time than Spock’s countdown and all that dialogue.
Liked much of it, but I’m just mystified by the thought of some people at CBS digital sitting in from of display, checking out the shots of the ship wobbling and saying, “I like it – looks great.” I hope they said, “boy that actually sucks, but we don’t have any time to fix it!”
#68
I am a huge fan of this project and truly admire the work of our friends at CBS-D, but there is a glaring problem with consistency and what they choose to improve or leave alone. It seems that Paramount is not giving them the time or money to really do some quality control here. Which is a huge shame when they are tasked with pleasing a very finicky fan base that holds these shows in such high regard.
Is the work better than the original? You bet it is. Is it as good as it could be?? Not by a long shot.
Remember, this forum exists so people can express their opinions! :D
I agree. The new remastered version should be so complete and overwhelming that we crap ourselves. Is that asking too much? I think not!
CBS…I hope you are reading these posts!
PLEASE let the digital department tweak these shots…and fix the things pointed out that have not been fixed before the episodes are released on DVD…
TTM
#68 I only say this just in case you might be someone from CBS-D. In all of Star Trek history with both all it’s perfections and flaws, there have never been CGI ships seen wobbling as if on strings. Ships from the movies never looked so bad. Neither did the Enterprise D, Voyager, DS9 or any other CGI ship.
This is not a criticism of bad CGI. This is criticism of simple decisions. “Hey, should it move slow or fast? Should it wobble or just float thru the clouds?” So you do it all and then keep what looks the best!
The fact that we DON’T have skills in CGI doesn’t make our opinions any less valid. If anything, it should make them even more valid. We’ve been watching Trek for years and we’ve seen what they can do. We know what can be done.
Whenever they release these remastered episodes on DVD, I plan to tweak them all for my own perfectionist reasons. Problems that CBS-D doesn’t fix, I’ll just have to fix myself. (like dubbing the original music in the opening theme back where it belongs instead of having to watch the Enterprise fly to something performed by a junior-highschool band.
The way to fix this wobble problem won’t be difficult. I’ll just cut the speed down by at least 50%. Hopefully that will work.
#68-
” As much as we all like it, the original Enterprise design simply does not hold up to photo/scale realism from every single viewing angle.”
-What the hell are you talking about?
Check out Eden Fx’s “constitution class” work. It was shown from multiple angles and looked good “EVERY” time. Not sometimes, not half the time, ALL of the time. And what do angles have to do with “photo/scale realism” anyway?
Alright then, check this out. Here is one of EDEN FX’s “proposal” pics for Tomorrow is Yesterday, before CBS decided to play it cheap and go “in house” with its effects. Note the realism of the shot. Note the fact that the nacelles are unlit because the warp drive is supposed to be out. Note how dynamic and exciting the angle is. Note how it captures the imagination like TOS used to do, when we were kids.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/spockboy/EDEN-CBS.jpg
Isn’t that CBS Digital’s whole mission?
To RECAPTURE all those wonderful feelings we had as kids watching this stuff but with NEW, MODERN. equally exciting and dynamic visuals?
To show a whole new “more effects savvy” generation how cool Trek can be?
“they ARE DOING EXCELLENT WORK. Their contributions have improved every episode to look more believable than before”
No they AREN’T and no they HAVEN’T.
I’ve just explained why I think so and provided pictures.
What have you got?
More insults to people who aren’t happy with the quality of their work?
FOCUS buddy. If you like what CBS Digital is doing then why don’t you tell us WHY you like it?
ARTICULATE .DEBATE. Present an argument.
WE explain WHAT we DO/DON’T like, and WHY we DO/DONT like it and all YOU do is tell us that you don’t like what WE have to say.
What the hell kind of argument is that?
Some of us are not satisfied about being spoon fed a lot of sub-standard crap based on lack of talent, time, vision, money, WHATEVER the excuse.
CBS Digital’s woefully inconsistent and MYOPIC approach is simply not cutting it in my opinion.
I don’t HAVE to do CGI to comment on it.
I don’t HAVE to be a musician to not like a song,
I don’t HAVE to be a chef to not like a certain kind of food.
So let me get this straight. If our opinion is POSITIVE we don’t need to be qualified, but if it happens to be NEGATIVE we do?
Tell us then, oh wise one, What “QUALIFIES” you to comment on OUR comments?
: )
Well said, Spockboy. I love the Eden FX shot you supplied. Very realistic.
It’s sadly telling that CBS/Paramount has made so many errors…such as leaving the nacelles active when the warp drive is down as you pointed out…and having a red flame instead of a blue flame when the latter is a line of dialogue in “The Paradise Syndrome.”
#78-Spockboy said, “Here is one of EDEN FX’s “proposal” pics for Tomorrow is Yesterday, before CBS decided to play it cheap and go “in house” with its effects. Note the realism of the shot. Note the fact that the nacelles are unlit because the warp drive is supposed to be out. Note how dynamic and exciting the angle is. Note how it captures the imagination like TOS used to do, when we were kids.”
I disagree with much of what you say here. First of all, the landscape is all wrong for Nebraska. Not even close to what you might see in Nebraska, and, they were over Nebraska. Also, notice how much shorter the nacelle is on one side compared to the other. Yeah, the shot is at an angle, but not THAT much of an angle. The only thing I feel they did get right on that shot was the nacelle’s being unlit, though they are too reddish in color for being unlit. It looks like a plastic model to me, too. Also, don’t like the hull plating and so on. But this is my opinion, since you asked people to state reasons.
Spockboy also said, “Some of us are not satisfied about being spoon fed a lot of sub-standard crap based on lack of talent, time, vision, money, WHATEVER the excuse. CBS Digital’s woefully inconsistent and MYOPIC approach is simply not cutting it in my opinion.”
I think what you say above is unfair…at least the lack of talent portion. Actually, they have been quite consistent in their work overall. I can only think of a couple of episodes where it changes within the episode (their approach). Unfortunately, this is one of them. I would agree that there needs to be some kind of quality control about consistency within an episode. However, I do not have a problem with CBS-D experimenting and making changes as they read our comments and comment amongst themselves. BUT, the big issue is this…once they really get a feel for all of this through comments on every episode, THEN it’s time to go back and fix up every episode even further. Run them as reruns again for response. You aren’t ever gonna please everyone, but you should at least please the majority BEFORE putting it on DVD for people to shell out money on, especially with gas prices being what they are now days. If it’s substandard, I’ll save my money to fill my gas tank rather than buy a set of DVD’s.
I think we agree more than disagree, Spockboy. The main difference between us is that I have more patience. But, I do see many of your points. All that said, there is a LOT of CBS-D’s work that I love, probably 75% of it. In your case, I’m guessing that percentage is more like 25%. LOL
“Note the realism of the shot. Note the fact that the nacelles are unlit because the warp drive is supposed to be out. Note how dynamic and exciting the angle is. Note how it captures the imagination like TOS used to do, when we were kids.”
Yeah, what #80 said. Seriously, Spockboy, I respect your own talents but in this case you’ve got to be kidding. Not only is the specular mapping on the Enterprise all wrong–it looks like Ed Mirecki’s justifiably reviled botched repainting of the original 11-foot model, or like “New Voyages,” for heavens’ sake–but if the Enterprise were actually cruising at such a low altitude with no cloud cover, every farmer, cow and chicken in Omaha would have gotten their own VIP viewing of a 23rd century starship, and Kirk’s excursion to Omaha AFB to recover that film would have been even more pointless than it turned out to be in the original episode.
Since “wobble” isn’t a consideration in a still, I’ll take the CBS shot you yourself posted any day. But, as usual, thanks for the comparison.
#78-One other things, Eden’s shot of the Enterprise has the “print” wrong for U.S.S. Enterprise. It’s too straight, rather than curved.
#81-What a glorious day that would have been, chickens looking up at the “big E”. Glorious, glorious! LOL
Not meant as disrespectful at all to you or anyone else, Spockboy. It just made me laugh, picturing the scene of cows and chickens looking up at the big E.
Retards,….. My beloved forum has been infected with retards,,… Retardus Apologizus from the genus Politically Correctus unfortunately all too prevolant and quite virulent today. Tends to appear anytime people unite to give fair and justifiable critisism about something unexcusably bad..
Give em hell Spockboy!!!!!
Lord Garth,
Is “kiss my ass” un-PC enough to suit you? And FWIW this retard would like to note, in the interest of “justifiable criticism,” that you misspelled both “prevalent” and “criticism.” I offer this observation in only the most politically correct, non-judgemental way, of course.
Uhm, Lord Garth-you’d better not be referring to me because I did give REASONS for what I said, rather than blind faith. Check my post #20, 22, 35. I am not defending ALL of their work. I always kinda liked Lord Garth, but I can’t see him using the word “retards.”
Spelling not my strong suit. I was referning to anyone including on this site who says we should accept anything that is unpallatible. If you genuinely liked the work on Tomorrow then god bless you, but anyone saying we should accept it, or get over it, or be happy with it is full of poopy. And 84 I wasn’t even talking about your comments, I disagree but at least you backed them up with cogent arguements. But you saw fit to volunteer yourself as a retard so…
#84 & 86-”I am in control of my emotions!!!!!” LOL Anyway, glad to hear, Lord Garth, that you were not referring to me, I truly was trying to back up what I had to say, rather than blindly saying, “get over it.”
Garth, along with spelling and grammar making cogent “arguements” (sic) apparently isn’t your strong point either. No one here suggested that anyone should just accept the (sic) “unpallatible.” And SPOCKBOY certain pointed out lots of cogent reasons to dislike the slingshot sequence, some of which I even agree with. I just felt that his pointing to Eden FX as a viable alternative to CBS-D wasn’t justified by their work, and politely gave my reasons for saying so. (I’ll also add that I found Eden’s rendering of the Defiant in those Enterprise episodes to be far more “cartoony” and CG than most of what CBS-D has done since getting their new digital model.) But sadly, I’ve found as a rule that civility isn’t much valued by those who routinely parrot that mindless phrase “political correctness.” So it goes.
No Problem my brother Jim J. I get really furious when others tell me to accept or just take it or it’s as good as it can get . We don’t have to take anything, each and every one of us can make a difference, We matter!!! together our voices can move mountains or even force NASA to name it’s first Space Shuttle the Enterprise. Yes our voices did that. I and most of us have heaped enormous amounts of price on CBS Digital for months now and it has been warranted. But when they slip up we also have the right to make our displeasure known so it doesn’t happen again.
Michael I told you I wasn’t refering to you . I don’t care if Eden or CBS or Spockboy or ILM are doing the effects I routinely trumpet CBS Digitals beautiful work but when it falls waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay short we reserve the right to say so. Don’t know why you have a hard on for me and quite frankly I don’t care I never argued against what you were saying in the first place.
May cooler heads prevail from here on out. Hopefully we can all agree to disagree or say that some of the shots were great, some fair, and some poor to almost laughable. Everyone happy? LOL I thought not!
I like all of the shots in the Tomorrow is Yesterday Remaster, including the wobble. I just have a slight problem with the end of the braking sequence. The Enterprise comes to what seems to be a full stop, but then cut to the live action and we hear the warp engines speeding up. In other words, the Enterprise should not brake to a full stop but just to a slower speed.
Jim J your’re a better man than me. I agree. Chimpanzees have entered the perimeter of the compound, prepare the countermeasures.
I’m really cyked to see this episode, it clearly has divided people on the quality of effects. My opinion is pretty well known overall, but one comment which stuck with me (paraphrased) is that…
Lots of people are extolling the virtues of CBS-D with comments of superb and brilliant work with little or no substance as to what is so good… while complaints are derided as being sourced by madmen who chime in like broken records about their dissatisfaction.
If BSG is such a bad benchmark, give us some other benchmarks to agreeably comapre against. Let’s all agree that we have numerous new effects shots that are cool, and that the original effects of TOS were created in the 60’s, this is not a comparison to that. This is a comment on the quality only of the new shots, what works and what doesn’t, and why.
What do ya say!!!
dl
I say Jesus Christ!!!! The Chimps have broken into the reactor control room. Oh my God, where’s my reinforcements. My Lord there’s so many of them. Get away from that weapons locker you damn hairy chimp!!!!!
Garth-No more Romulan ale for you!!!!
“If BSG is such a bad benchmark, give us some other benchmarks to agreeably comapre against.”
That’s a very good question. Unfortunately, there’s no obvious answer as this is a very unique situation. Whatever the limitations of time, money or talent (as Spockboy would have it) that CBS-D operates with, another major factor here is the expectations regarding alterations made to a show produced four decades ago, where the audience is probably just as often comparing the new work to their memories of what they saw, and their feelings of nostalgia for it, rather than the actual show itself. And while unreasonable expectations are no excuse for substandard work, I can sympathize with the CBS team, who routinely face the wrath of a crowd of world-class retentives, myself included.
From the many postings I’ve read on this site it’s obvious to me that different people are looking to experience different things from these remastered episodes. The purists would just as soon the effects be left untouched, matte lines and all; a subset of them would be happiest if the digital replacements were done in a style to match the originals as much as possible, and no more (e.g. Starship Exeter, or some of Daren Dochterman’s work). Others, perhaps like yourself, would like to see the FX team go all-out to produce shots that would be as impressive to a 2007 audience as the work done for Firefly or Galactica. This might be very cool, but would no doubt offend the first group and probably wouldn’t cut very well with the existing footage. Then there are those like myself (let’s call us the “moderates” :-) ) who see CBS-D’s style as a necessary compromise between those two extremes, and tend to approve of the work as a worthy upgrade so long as there aren’t any major missteps (or maybe we should refer to them as ‘wobbles’ from this point forward).
Obviously, they can’t please us all. But since only Eden FX, Dochterman, Digital Stream, Dennis Bailey, Scott Gammans and a few other fans productions have seriously taken on the challenge of using cutting-edge techniques in the service of Groovy Nostalgia, I’d say the only valid comparison to CBS-D’s work is with theirs.
My God in heaven do you people even watch the damn episodes before you open your mouth??
The Enterprise was in the upper atmosphere where she is NOT designed or intended to operate, and you think she should smoothly and gracefully glide along and ascend with nary a bump??
I thought the nacelle domes fiasco and Tholian crying and bitching were a bit much but I’ve seen it all now.
So a ship struggling to maintain and achieve an orbit makes it look like a model huh? Well no shit Sherlock the Enterprise doesn’t exactly exist in the real world, and you can damn well believe an aircraft carrier sized vessel bee-bopping along in the upper atmosphere isn’t going to be pretty and graceful, It’s going to bounce all over the damn place since it’s mechanism of propulsion has NOTHING to do with free-roaming oxygen/nitrogen particles in a planetary atmosphere.
This site pisses me off, you people don’t DESERVE the effort and THOUGHT CBS puts into this shit.
Oh Sweet Mother of God, the Chimps have unleashed the anti-life equasion. God help us all those damn filthy hairy little bastards!!! No Hope, no hope!!
Hey Garth just out of curiosity has anyone told you it’s IZ-A-R not IZ-O-R?
Phonetically speaking, though both incorporate vowels, well, they are pronounced entirely differntly.
I think the good Captain, Esquire, is telling the rest of us that we’ll eat our wobblies, by God, and like it!
IZAR is my cousin, now enough prattle please send me some help these dirty chimps intend on unleashing Hell upon us all!!!!! Oh christ they’ve gotten into the foodstuffs, no …no put that bananna down!!!!!
#78 Spockboy:
My G*d that Eden FX test shot of the Big E is amazing! The detail present is light years beyond the CBS-D version.
If only this level of realism would have been realized in the chase sequence. It would have been astonishing!
Your post is one of the most articulate I have read about this topic.
Keep up the good work!
more eden shots here:
http://trekmovie.com/2006/09/08/more-images-from-edenfx/
Although from the start I always thought Eden would have been a good choice, I also understand that CBS just didn’t have the budget.
The sad truth is that CBS-D are working under some pretty limiting time and resource constraints. Under those limits I think that at times they have done some very exceptional work. However other times work seemed rushed.
But the scale of this project was never such that it could justify the cost of what some of us would really want them to do.
Anthony, no one is generally bashing CBS’’s work. I think for months now , week in and week out we have been heaping plenty of well deserved praise upon them. Even this week I think on whole everybody loves the E in orbit shots (even though many shots are apparently now reused stock shots) especially the gorgeous integrated NASA earth shots. But I think most this week agree their work slipped with respect to the money shots. (In clouds, around Sun, Screaching to halt)
We criticise because we know they are capable of far better. The rendering is beautiful, the movement has been beautiful for the most part, week in and week out but this week they missed the mark big time. We just want them to get back on track and fix the miscues before I shell out $200.00 for the HD DVD set.
Anthony,
Thanks a lot for that link to some pretty impressive work. I still don’t much care for the specular maps on Eden’s model, but it’s much more photorealistic than their own Defiant and arguably more so than CBS-D’s. (However, any purist who doesn’t rant about their nacelle caps will stand revealed as a quadrant-class hypocrite.) Per the article, I’m still not all that sure how more ‘realistic’ effects would cut with the old footage in any case. But I love that shot of the Enterprise in drydock–wonder if it was meant for an updated version of “Court Martial,” and if CBS-D plans on doing something similar.
Hey, we are not knocking them, just SOME of their work that’s substandard to the majority of their work. Since Paramount (Or CBS) actually wants us to shell out $200 or so per season when these are released (the only way to see them uncut) they better damn well get them as perfect as they can be. Otherwise, what’s the f*cking point? (Most of us own the originals already.on DVD) The only reason to buy these AGAIN is if they’re as good as they can be.
If that requires giving CBS digital more time, than make it so…
#107- “If that requires giving CBS digital more time, than make it so…”
Oh, I do so wish that they would however:
#104- “I also understand that CBS just didn’t have the budget.
The sad truth is that CBS-D are working under some pretty limiting time and resource constraints.”
Yet Paramount/CBS has No limits toward their “deep desire” to milk the “Cash Cow” once more in getting us to buy the DVDs as Christmas presents – - this year.
exactly!
Lessee…
VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, season set DVDs, now HDdvd and BD….
Look I’m all for freedom of expression and opinions but there is a such thing as TACT, I mean come on people, these guys are working late nights in the trenches filling up on chicken burritos and No doze so we can sit back and watch this shit for free, and week after week, all people can do is complain about it?
I mean I could see if any given criticism was worth a damn but in all the months this site has been reporting on remastered Trek every single criticism put forth has been NOTHING but banal NIT-PICKING. It isn’t even constructive criticism, it’s petty nit-picking over the most outlandish and trite observations imagineable.
Everyone that visits this site CLEARLY loves Star Trek, but stop and listen to yourselves a moment. How utterly ridiculous some of this shit being spewed sounds.
It’s easy to criticize something when you have no investment in it save for sitting your fat ass down in front of the tube at X time with the bag of cheetos and hotpockets splattered all over the couch next to you.
Oh my God!!! The Enterprise Wobbled! It’s the end of the world! A FAKE spaceship on a FAKE TV show WOBBLED in a FAKE way! Jesus wept!
Someone from CBS Digitial should get on here and say Oh My God! A “fan” WOBBLED their fat ass in front of the computer and was on the verge of an original thought! But then naturally nacelle caps, underlit starships, tholians, and wobbling Enterprises got in the way.
Did I commission CBS/Paramount to go out and remaster these shows? HELL NO. They came to us, the fans, and said, Hey… we’re going to remaster Star Trek, and it’s going to be the best thing since sliced bread… you’re going to love it. Fine, let’s see what you got. I take the time to sit my “fat ass” in front of the TV every week to see these episodes. CBS promises it to be fantastic. So when it’s not, well, yeah… I’m going to complain. And in the fairness of pissing anyone off who doesn’t like what I say… TOO BAD!!! Yeah, the nacelle caps still don’t look right. They’ve gotten closer, but now there’s too much frost, so the color lights still don’t come even close to the original 3rd season effects. The interior lighting on the ship looks awful… you can’t even see the running lights blinking most of the time. I would think those were meant to be seen from a distance. Did the light bulbs over and under the hanger deck burn out? They must have… they are never lit. The globes on the back of the nacelles are too small. There’s still a lack of realism to some Enterprise shots that make it look like CGI. When I can tell a shot is CGI instead of a model, then I am going to scream out.
For those of you that don’t like us screaming out… Do you accept without complaint everything that is handed to you? You say we are getting this for free? WRONG. I give up my time to watch this. First I spend a damn hour looking to see when the show is going to be on because our local station doesn’t show it at the same time, or same day for that matter, every week. So I have to research to find out when it is going to be on, hope that they don’t change their minds at the last minute, watch the show, wince in pain at the cruel editing, and study the Enterprise effects when they are shown. Yes, I said study. Why? Because I have watched the original shows continuously for over 40 years now. I know them all by heart. I know all the effects sequences by heart. I’ve seen them over, and over and over again. So when I’m told that they are going to be redone in such a way as to make me think watching them one more time will be the best thing I’ve experienced since sex… yeah… I’m going to complain if they fall short. And you know what… I’m going to complain again and again and again on the upcoming episodes if they fall short as well.
For all of those that tell us to “just get over it”, I tell you… we are NOT going to just get over it, so maybe YOU should “just get over it.” And if CBS/Paramount doesn’t like the complaining, they can either do it better, or just cancel or hand the project over to somebody else. Either way, I really don’t care at this point. So far, I’ve seen nothing that will make me go out and buy these episodes again. I’ve got them CED videodisc, Laser disc, Beta Video, VHS Video, and DVD already. If someone wants me to buy them one more time, they better make it worth my while.
Fun stuff. Too bad Martin Landau didn’t guest star on Trek.
re: 104 Anthony:
I tend to gripe a lot about the effects, but I don’t blame CBS-D. I blame CBS/ Paramount for limiting the time and money they have to do the job.
While other sci-fi shows seem perfectly capable of delivering quality effects on a weekly basis (maybe it’s a manpower issue) TOS-R can’t seem to keep up.
I guess if you have to ask what I would have done? I would have done them in order, on a bi-weekly schedule with holiday schedules adding a little more breathing room. And, I wouldn’t have cheaped out on the budget which apparently is the case.
Ultimately, I have one question for Paramount… TOS has been sitting in the vault for nearly 40 years… What’s the sudden rush?
DL
re: 110 Josh T.
Maybe your ass is fat. My 40 year old ass looks pretty good. (and, I don’t think most posts are irrelevant)
DL
#113 Doug L
Agreed. Paramount “suddenly” remastering these to tie in with their 40th Anniversary (and Movie production), along with a seemingly undernourished budget, has only succeeded in giving me a mediocre product ioverall, instead of the great one I know it could be… and I don’t feel grateful for what I’m getting, but rather, feel underwhelmed and disappointed.
Only my honest opinion. Those who ARE satisfied, I salute you.
Meant to say that IF there IS ever a “Remaster project MARK II” done on all these TOS episodes (if only…), then the team involved could do no better than to catch up on various noteworthy comments on this site since it’s speculation on such topics. It has been very interesting to see what HAS pleased fans, and what has NOT, with some very relevant suggestions being put forth along the way by some thoughful contributers.
re 115, 116…
Right on. -d
re re104
I do like the Eden FX shots better than the CBS-D shots, at least as stills, but will agree with a previous poster who said all the nacelle cap haters better speak up…, so while i like the shots better, the nacelle caps do look funny.
I can’t decide whether I like the Big E with the exaggerated grid lines better or not. I give em an equal pass on the grid lines at the moment.
dl
Ok! #111-I disagree with how you feel overall about the effects themselves, but many of your comments are quite warranted.
#110-I agree with lots of what you are saying but some of your comments are unwarranted (Yes, I can already hear the line: “How do you define unwarranted?”).
All of this is IN MY OPINION, of course.
The real problem is this: CBS/Paramount kinda slipped this out from under the rug at the last minute and surprised us with it. They did not trumpet it with TONS of media coverage and make it the anniversary event it could have been. Why??? IMO, I still think someone at Paramount, who was all gung ho for Star Trek 11 realized, OMG, it’s the 40th anniversary and we aren’t doing ANYTHING for it? Our movie IS gonna be about TOS and we aren’t doing a thing to celebrate it’s anniversary!!! DOH! “Don’t just stand there jawing, Spock…you and Dr. Wallace get crackin’!” I think that is how it all came to happen. I truly feel the reason they went with CBS-D is because it was close at hand and easier to gear up. This is especially true because of the Okuda’s.
Also, correct me if I am wrong (and I KNOW many of you will)…but I think this is the first type of project like this for a weekly TV series. Add to that, the age of the prints, matching up shots, and so on…it makes for a unique challenge. The Paramount execs probably sat in a room and said, “Hmmm…how much money are we going to invest in this 40 year old TV show?” I’m sure the answer was to “play it safe” and make it as cheaply as they could possibly get away with. Does this mean that the CBS-D team is untalented and a mess? Not at all. It simply means Paramount is STILL Paramount.
Frankly, though the comments posted here get old and tiring, many comments have been true and even helpful to the CBS-D team in getting it right. Look at how much better something like “Journey To Babel” is compared to “Balance of Terror”. They really have improved, even if there are times of inconsistency. I have to disagree with you, #111, about the nacelle caps. I think they are now splendid. Yes, they weren’t right in the beginning. But look back at the original episodes if you really want to see inconsistent nacelle caps…YIKES! We helped get that nacelle message across. I feel that your “lighting issues” will STILL be resolved when it’s in HD. These are being made to look their best in HD. Be that as it may, you do make valid points about certain lights on the ship. However, no one seems in agreement about the nacelle balls. Some think they are right, some think they are not (somehow), and others are not sure about when they are lit or not. Some of us even complained about Daren Doc’s Enterprise and that his “balls were too big.” LOL Frankly, with people you will never please ALL.
CBS-D used to read comments here. I am guessing they still do. The real trick for them is to balance these comments between what is genuine constructive criticism from the mass majority (example-nacelle caps), and what is just some big whiners in a small group who love raining on anyone’s parade they can rain on (how the “E” should look as it penetrates a space ameoba).
The thing is, this project will be what it is thoughout this first syndication run. THEN, the real test begins. DVD’s will come out, sales will be very sluggish, or brisk. Paramount will start thinking….hmmmm…and then the movie will come out. IF the movie BOMBS, the dvd sales are slow…Paramount will say, “It’s dead, Jim.” However, if by some miracle Trek 11 is the highest grossing Trek movie and dvd sales are decent or good, they will say…quick, let’s redo these AGAIN and spend a lot of money this time!!!! Let’s do it the right way so we can capture the spirit of the movie in our old girl, the original series.
THEN, my friends…is when the real debate and “fun” begins……..
(wow, that was long!)
Joshapolluza
How do you know they eat chicken burritos
FWIW, on a related topic Eden FX was sold today:
http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=D4B7F74AA35949DBBD522928281D8EF6
Also, the people at CBS are getting PAID to do this. It’s their JOB. They’re PROFESSIONALS. The apologists here make it like they are doing this as some labor of love. It’s a gig. It’s a job.
And since this will be a commercial release that they expect us to shell out likely BIG bucks for, yes, it should be as good as possible and when it’s clearly not, there IS cause for complaint. These will NEVER be remastered again most likely, (at least for a LONG time if ever…)
This is IT!. So yeah, it should be as good as it can be and not be rushed. This supposedly is for the FANS. Well, the fans want it to be as good as it should be (and judging by the majority of the work that CBS has done, we know what they’re capable of) and I think the fans would gladly wait an extra year to have these as good as they can be. I don’t blame the artists but please, they are getting paid and we are expected to pay for these with our hard earned $ in return!
Well, after three months of reading countless posts on so many different things I felt it was time to throw in my two credits.
Personally, I love what CBS-D is doing with TOS-R. Why? Because it brought me back to Star Trek: TOS – ‘Trek’ in its purest form – after spending many years absorbing TNG-era Trek in all its technological, P.C. glory. There was a roughness about TOS, a simplicity that I think sometimes got lost in translation (or technology) through the TNG-era shows. Now don’t get me wrong…there are many things I love about all of Trek’s incarnations. But my point is that through TOS-R I’m once again a fan of Original Trek, and I imagine that was one of the goals of the project, to bring people back. Maybe a big goal. So, in spite of shading, and wobbles, and nacelle caps, and headstones with incorrect middle initials, it would seem that they have succeeded. At least with this fan.
As for TIY, I think the new effects were pretty good, and added realism to the story – although the slingshot could’ve been better, and the editing stunk. But since I am not a CGI artist, then I will defer to others more knowledgeable on the details, and look forward to “Errand of Mercy”. I bet TOS:R will only get better and better with time…they’re working their butts off and overall, it’s showing.
And just for the record, I liked Enterprise (for the most part). And TMP. And TAS.
ST V? Eh.
Thank you.
#122: Like it, or don’t. It’s your choice. Buy it or don’t. It’s not as if anyone is forcing you either way.
I’m voting with my wallet: I’m definitely getting it. Maybe I’ll buy two sets.