The Omega Glory Screenshots and Video

SFX Video

(WMV)

 

New and Old

 
On routine patrol
 
Omega IV on the viewscreen
 
The Exeter is spotted in orbit
 
Assuming orbit next to the Exeter
 
Over to the Exeter
 
Omega IV from orbit
 
The Enterprise by itself over Omega IV

Heading home

 

Assorted

A crew turned to salt

Brute force jailbreak

Captain Tracey does his best Simon van Gelder impression

Spock’s eyes make the ladies melt

Kirk prattles on about the constitution…

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Just a so…so episode…..Space shots were the best part otherwise…. yawn.
So I turned the channel after about 15 minutes

Ying….Yang that was their thang…..Boo….Hoo…..nothing new. Yadda…yadda…Yadda!

The remastered view of the two ships in orbit is impressive on its own terms, and would have been fine as an alternate–but the original establishing shot really is more dramatic, and one of the main consolations of an otherwise botched Trek episode. Too bad CBS-D opted not to do their own take on it. :-(

Kirk’s elocution in his recitation of the Constitution caused me to have both exasperation and constipation, leaving me with the feeling that I need restitution! How do I sue to get my hour back? Blechhhh….!!

I was disapointed in this episode (new f/x wise). The Enterprise meeting up with the Exeter was less dramatic than the original.

I was also disapointed in the phaser beams of the hand phasers. Please fix the beams from going BACKWARDS at the end of the firing cycle!!

The demat of the Redshirt could have used some better tweaking.

well done Matt. Yet another goofy colored world made to look like Earth. I guess it makes sense but I am getting nostalgic for purple and violet worlds. Seeing those two ships together has me jazzed about The Ultimate computer and seeing all those ships together

Eh. I love the episode, but once again, the remastered effects are video-game-esque, and the angles selected lack the drama of the original. It is as though modern fx artists have no sense of understanding what makes a great set up…only a render set up on the pc.

I like the purple and violet planets better also

Cryin, whiners, and bitches…. Oh my! Dorothy, were not in Ceti Alpha VI anymore!

;)

Perhaps IF they were to show some planets that were simply representative of what the current space probes show of the planets in our own solar system then we’d could say….Oh yeah! Why can’t they show some imagination? I would think that with even CGI that they could come across with a cross pattern of a infinite number of various designs that would make us all say Wow….instead of Oh No!

I’m very disappointed with the Exeter-in-orbit effects. When the Exeter is first sighted and shown on the Enterprise viewscreen, it is now a little dot by a planet instead of the original starship-banking-around-planet shot (though the new effect more in keeping with Kirk saying magnification three). Not very dramatic. Then there is a new shot of the Enterprise side by side with the Exeter — very static and very little movement except from the stars moving in the background, and the lighting seemed off, thus making the ships look too model-like. The original was better with the Enterprise in the foreground and the Exeter in the background. A better, more dynamic remastered shot would have been the Exeter banking around the planet left-to-right followed by the Enterprise banking around the planet left-to-right. The new tracking shot which went from Enterprise to the Exeter bridge was o.k., though the lighting was still off, giving the model look to the ships. This time the original camera angles win out over the remastered effects.

Ok, not too many things to do with this episode, but…

Come AHN CBS-Digital, grow some kahoneys and give a planet a purple ocean. Ya know ya wanna…

Once again, hand phasers need to be addressed. Multiple chances for for phaser beams AND vaporizations.

For future reference, and to fix before the DVD releases… Each ship should be given it’s own little detail, personality, or quirk. Back in the 60’s, they just used the same model. Now it just seems as though you’re just copying/pasting the Enterprise, and only changing the registry numbers. Do some things to the other ships (NOT the Big E) like – the warm blue light to the inner nacelles (the coils I think), the deeper, solid red bussard collector, slightly different color hull, torpedo launchers, tractor beam emitter… if you tweak up the ships that are NOT the Enterprise with those little things, I don’t think anybody could cry foul. So, those are some suggestions you can go back and redo for the DVD release. “The Ultimate Computer” would be a perfect episode to also demonstrate this. I would also even make one of those ships resemble the REFIT Enterprise. My case for that: it is probable that at LEAST one of those ships HAS to be significantly newer than the Enterprise, and therfore, would more resemble that of the Refit Enterprise (I mean, Starfleet isn’t going to have a whole fleet of 20 year old ship). Also: a number of ships have drmatically changed appearance in the Remastered project.

That’s my 2 cents for this week.

Are clouds too difficult to add to planets? These globes look like they have no atmosphere.

12. Oregon Coast Trekkie…

Just curious where your starbase is. I’m here in Astoria!

Morgan Woodward was great in both of his Trek appearances. Josh T…great ear for hearing that pronuniciation of “di-rective.” Maybe they sent Captain Tracey off for a dose of the neural neutralyzer after this episode, as administered by Dr. Simon Van Gelder.
Morgan Woodward did an episode of the X-Files…I wonder if he’s done anything since.

Once again I find myself liking some of the original FX shots and angles better than the remastered ones.

The original “purple” planet looked “cool” and better than the updated version. And in my opinion, the original shot of the two starships in orbit, one behind the other, looks better than the side by side shot.

Oh well…the CBS/CGI team can’t please all of us critics!

Mike :o

#13 Will

Agreed. The addition of a slight “atmosphere” haze would really help to sell some of CBS Digital’s planets more. And do “parallel” Earth-like planet colours HAVE to be identical to ours all the time?

I didn’t care that much for the shots of the two ships together and I don’t know why. I didn’t care that much for the planet either. But, strangely enough, I didn’t mind the episode. Not one of the best, but I enjoyed it. Woodward is great.

I agree with ‘OR Coast Trekkie’ about tweaking the other ships here and there.

Some things they could do to make it better / more real:

1) Show some lightning flashes below the clouds. A nice storm like some of the NASA videos of earth I’m sure I’ve seem would really bring it to life.

2) Show the sun reflecting off of the sea as the planet rotates.

3) Show some other planets in the solar system or the planet’s sun when approaching or leaving.

4) Have the planet bigger / closer like the real earth shot a few episodes ago.

5) Fly by a space station or an orbiting satellite.

6) Show a piece of space debris entering the atmosphere and burning up. Nothing dramatic just something you might see if you look close enough.

Finally, I wish they had straightened the view screen shot when they started this project.

Wow, all complaints… and the effects were fantastically better than the originals.

You would think people would be more appreciative of what they’ve been given.

Don’t worry CBS guys, your effects work this episode was outstanding.

the new shots were drab, with boring angles. the original shots were indeed much more dramatic.

I thought the effects were top notch, too, BUT…I agree with many that say it was much cooler seeing the Exeter in orbit closer up on the view screen. Other than that, I thought it was much more realistic on all the other effects. I especially liked the shot when they put up the title of the episode.

Two suggestions-tow the Exeter with you to the nearest starbase to end the episode AND even though the planets are class M, it IS time to add a little variety (as many suggest). Not complaints, just suggestions.

Gotta agree, a simple reverse angle of the original 2 ships in orbit shot would have been better with a close up of Exeters’ saucer in the foreground.

Not part of the canon, but Garrovick and Cutty took a team to Omega IV to retrieve the Exeter and put it back into service. Apparently, they change the ship’s registry when they did so.

I’m very surprised that no-one has started screaming about the registry number on the Exeter…
or didn’t anyone notice?

To all those people who like “purple and violet planets” better… what are you guys smoking? LoL…. They may look pretty, but how does it make since to have a purple planet, when after the characters beam down, its clear that it is an Eart-type world. The only way it would work is if they went and changed the sky in all the shots (with the people on the ground) to look purple.

CBS-D…. Just keep doing what you are doing! It looks great!!!

This episode is awesome if you turn it off just after the big fight on the Persian rug.

The thing I find so often with CBS D, is that they don’t know when to keep something that was truly excellent and when to replace it. Current episode in point, the original reveal of the exeter was SO much more dramatic and the original angles had so much more weight/drama to them. The new side by side shot felt pedestrian and uninspired. I mean, just look at the shots CBS D…let yourself feel something and then decide if the angles need to be so completely revamped.

I liked the side-by-side shot but thought they missed an opportunity when the Enterprise moved to a “low orbit” to have the Exeter higher in the distance, but whatever. Not a great episode anyway. Although the wig department certainly worked overtime on this one. Maybe the planet wasn’t a fountain of youth, but it sure seemed to work wonders on the Yang’s hair. I still crack up when the little old guy shows up with that grey moptop on his head!

Maybe that explain’s Kirk’s increasingly wooly hair in later years — just a side effect of the Omega IV microbes…

You know the CGI still doesn’t look really real enough does it.

Just another nit to pick…with all the technical wizardry of TOS, didn’t it ever bother anyone that you couldn’t beam back to the ship automatically by simply sending a signal from your communicator to the computers within the transporter (instead of needing a crewman aboard to do it manually from the transporter room)?

But then, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity (in multiple episodes), to state that everyone simply CAN’T leave the ship because there wouldn’t be a way to beam the crew back aboard…oh well…

The CGI of the Defiant on ENT looked top-notch…CBS-D needs to add more shadows and depth to the ships… the enterprise looks way to clean and sterile.

…And don’t get me started about the need to phychologically screen around the bend, nut job Starfleet captains with meglomanical (Kirk included) tendencies:

To wit…

“I AM THE CAPTAIN!!!” — James T. Kirk — both USS (& ISS) Enterprise

“LORD Garth!!!” — Former Fleet Captain Garth of Izar

“I’ll burn down your two friends!” & “We killed them by the THOUSANDS, and they kept coming!!!” — Captain Tracy, USS Exeter

“We were a dead hulk…I had to beam them down…to the third planet…”
“There is no third planet!!!”
“Don’t you think I know that?!? There was!!!” [Gasp] [Choke] — Commodore Matt Decker, USS Constellation

i did not like the FX to this episode…just didnt look and feel right

For the first time, I actually thought the original shot of the Exeter in orbit with the Big E in the foreground was a better shot than what CBS came up with. I thought that was one of the best original shots ever done and CBS made no attempt to re-create it or honor the original artists.

While I enjoy the many new shots and angles CBS has given us, I would have preferred they kept this episode similar to the original as far as the angles and all.

As for the planets, I like the how they make Earth like planets look like Earth. That’s how it should be. I am looking forward to seeing a Giant Jupiter like planet down the road or maybe even another ringed planet. “Return to Tomorrow” should give us a strange looking world. If I recall they went miles underground in that episode. There’s a chance there to do something VERY different.

I’ve now seen enough of TOS-R to pronounce the remastering effort a failure. Overall, their efforts are OK, but they STILL–after all this time–can’t produce a starship that doesn’t look like something I drew with Paint Shop Pro. Face it folks, after all this time, there’s no excuse for not getting the nacelle caps/Bussard Collectors right… they still look cartoonish, like something out of TAS.

All of the great things they’ve done… the surface of Vulcan… the much more realistic-looking planets as seen from orbit… fixing Sulu’s chronometer.. are overshadowed by them not getting the most importatnt effect right.

If STARSHIP EXETER can produce a believable looking starship, why can’t these guys?????

The hull I think I will not give a final judgement on until i can actually see it in HD – which is what is was intended for, rather than teeny YouTube screen captures.

I do miss the variety of planet colours though. And the artistic layouts of FX shots is very important. I was rather underwhelmed by the Exeter rendezvous here. The original made you sense the dread of going over to that creepy ship orbiting ahead of you all on its own. Like Sulu didn’t really fancy getting the E too close to it! The new shots have more detail, but the “mood” of the shot has changed completely.

And the sudden trumpet blare from the teaser when they zoom in on the sight of the Exeter in orbit now seems rather pointless as everyone is still squinting to see what is on the screen.

This is so FRUSTRATING! I know they have a good team and I know they love the source material… I even accept that they are having to race through the episodes because of time contraints – but I keep seeing things that bug me!!!

AGH! I need to retreat into a computer room and do it all myself! No-one but me will satisfy my fanboy needs! No-one else may mess with my ship!!!!

(passes out)

I don’t like to complain about the new effects because they are an improvement to the episodes. And the new shots are a nice addition, especially the one where we approach the top of the Exeter’s saucer section. That being said, I would have enjoyed seeing a reworked shot of the original approach of the Enterprise to the Exeter. That could have been presented in the teaser as before. Then we still could have those completely new shots later on in the episode.

It’s fine to rethink some shots completely, but there are some angles of the ship that were dramatic that could be kept, but remastered. It’s a tough call for those guys, but the new effects are well done and in a sense are completely new so I guess you could call them a ‘reboot’.

Perhaps when the team was mapping out the rendezvous sequence, they felt that doing something similar to what was done might cause some fans to react by saying, “why didn’t the CBS team try something different!”

Or maybe they did do something similar and they felt it looked too much like the shots in Doomsday Machine when the Enterprise approaches the Constellation.

I do agree with an earlier posters remark that the mood of the shot is lost now.

One thing I didn’t notice so clearly before, even with the most current DVD’s is the Exeter insignia patch on Captain Tracy’s uniform. Very cool to see that on these new remasters.

Dear Demode,

Oh! I’ll tell ya what I’m smokin. It’s called the ganja!

And alls I’ve gotta say about flourescent purple planets is that they look better whilst stoned …

‘nuf said.

Amazing to me that people still complain about the CGI looking “cartoony,” particularly as compared to the CGI Defiant on the Enterprise episodes, which I thought looked vastly inferior to CBS-D’s work. (Zoic has done some outstanding work on Firefly and Galactica, and their own proposed remaster shots are fascinating to look at, but their Defiant looked like something out of New Voyages.)

That said, I really wish that they had stuck with the original approach to the Exeter, which was one of the few TOS signature shots that didn’t looked like it was culled from a library. Excellent point about it looking like Sulu was keeping his distance, and one of the many plot holes in this show was the failure of the Exeter’s CMO to broadcast a repeat warning to other Starfleet crews to keep away.

As for the planets. . . come on. I wasn’t entirely sold on the look of this one, either, but the orbit was way too high to show the edge of the atmosphere (just check out any photos of the Earth taken from the same distance), and purple oceans on a class-M world are pretty ridiculous. It’s one thing to get nostalgic about the anachronisms in old visual FX that were mostly the by-product of a lack of time, resources, and basic astronomical knowledge; it’s another thing to fetishize them.

Sky is blue, oceans must be blue also ( reflection ).

Great job CBS-D again !!!!

Whats the deal with how fast the Enterprise came in at the beginning of the video, and then when it leaves it’s barely crawling out?

43 – There is an explanation:

On the way in, Sulu is like:
“Gotta find out what exciting adventure lies ahead for me in THIS system!”
Hence – Warp factor 9!

On the way out Sulu is like:
“Whoah, that was scary how everyone who goes to Omega gets the disintegration disease. Sure glad I didn’t go down or else I’d have to spend ages there before coming back to avoid catching the…um…..uh-oh..”

Hence: Screeeeeeech on the brakes!

#14

I’m in Coos Bay/North Bend

I was hoping when they did the remasters that they were going fix some of
the shots that were originally reversed during editing. This episode still had a reverse shot of Kirk and “Doomsday Machine” remastered had a couple of shots with a reversed closeup of McCoy. When they announced
this project they mentioned they were going to fix some goofs in live action scenes. I generally like what they have been doing with the special effects but if you are going to go through all the trouble why not fix the goofs too. I’m not saying that it’s possible to fix all of the goofs but these reversed shots should have been an easy fix.

To me their really wasn’t anything to get hell bent over. I liked the Exeter shots but that’s all their was. In most episodes you end up having to use stock footage of remastered shots over the old ones.
It’s just not new. To me its like “yeah I’ve seen that shot over planet generic 50 times already.”
After a certain time I would think a ship would burn up in the atmosphere with no crew aboard. But alas we wouldn’t have a story would we?
If CBS-D would have had more people, More time and more money they still could do better work.
To me the story still remains intact and the effects don’t for shadow it.

The “remastered” shows are really starting to lose their novelty. The new effects have become very unimaginative over the past few episodes and the angles used leave a lot to be desired. I also wouldn’t have minded ships like the USS Exeter being other classes of starships for these remastered shows. Also, failing to address continuity goofs like reversed shots is pretty shoddy at this point. I really don’t know how Paramount Home Video expects people to shell out cash for these remastered shows when they finally appear on DVD; cleaned up prints and a few minutes of CGI – which often mimics the original shot frame for frame – won’t cut it for me. I really hope CBS-D gets a little more daring for the few FX heavy episodes that have not yet aired. The point of these shows was to introduce classic Trek to a new generation; I really don’t see how they hope to accomplish this given the minimalist approach they take most of the time.

#46 – He’s Dead Jim – “but these reversed shots should have been an easy fix.”

Good point, I looked for this as well. It is my understanding that CBS Digital creates the New FX shots we see each week. They produce them – – then ship them over to Sun Digital. “Sun” is responsible for the actual transfer of the original negative to the New HD print.
The FX shots are dropped in by Sun, presumably they are also responsible for the editing cuts we experience each week. Sun then produces the episode for transmission to us.

Should a scene be reversed (as many of us feel they should) it must take place at Sun Digital. If anyone has information to the contrary I certainly would appreciate knowing otherwise.

14. Oregon Coast Trekkie

Hailing frequencies open!
Great post about updating the look of some of the fleet to reflect the move to the first movie!! Hope ILM picks up on this!