It looked pointless if CBS couldn’t make it look goorealistic. I think they just didn’t have the talent.

Maybe it is. Ever been to that planet? What’s “realistic” in Sci-Fi, anyway?

I applaud keeping the original as close to the original styrofoam model or whatever was used as a tribute to Matt Jefferies. I was never a fan of this Remastered effort until I actually started watching the episodes. Even to this day, the still jpg’s look too cartoonish, but when seen in motion live, it looks not only impressive, but artfully so. Most impressive, especially in the remastered film of the sets, is way that we see the background in all of its originally intended hues and brightness. The interrior of the main arrival/departure promenade is absolutely fantastic. Probably always was, but we could never see it that way on the earlier airings, VHS’s, and LaserDisks. Hate to say it, but these guys are going to make me go out and get a HDTV player and new TV to boot.

I consider a lot of the criticism of CBS Digital’s work to be unfair nitpicking, but not this time. I was shocked when I saw the view of Stratos from the ground. They really dropped the ball here, after setting us up with the beautiful overhead view. If they weren’t going to go for an ultra-realistic depiction from the ground, they might as well have left the original shot there – they didn’t really achieve anything better. Instead of the audience marveling at seeing a floating city, they got the same reaction as the original – “Wow, that looks so fake!” Can/will they fix this before the DVD realease of Season 3?

“While the overhead view of the city was photo realistic, the views from the surface of Ardana were not that great. It still looked fake.”

yeah I agree. I just seen the effects on the you tube video. The views from the surface looked a totally different style. I just dont get why they did that?

There! Wasn’t that a more pleasant process than engaging in insulting language? And we (well, some of us, maybe) learned something!

The shot of the troglite falling from the city showed the body flipping slightly as opposed to original static position of the body — decent.

Google turned up a whole lot of guys named Thong in relation to mining.

But Dictionary.com turned up (drum roll, please)…

Whip.

So all they have to bargain with are their whips and mortars.

Finally makes sense.

Morte = mortars, thongs = whip, troglites = troglodytes. I think their universal translators need a little reprogramming, myself. :)

From Wikipedia:
Thong (clothing) an item of underwear or swim-wear
Thong sandal or “flip-flop”, a type of sandal held to the foot by a thin strap
Thong, England, an English village in Kent
a Vietnamese name, Thông
a common Laotian surname

So my speculation about sandals seemed the most relevant – to the episode (since Vanna wore sandals in Stratos) – although such would not be the most practical footwear to wear in a mine, one would think.

I suppose I could google “thong” and “mining,” but I have some Karl Jung reading to do in preparation for a class tomorrow. We “idiocrats” have such intellectually vapid lives.

I suppose you would find post #133, to which I was responding, a “sophomoric” attempt at humor as well. I pity you; I laughed out loud myself!

Ha! I just finished the Ringworld books; yes, I was thinking about this episode as I read about the floating cities there.

Great stills above – but the actual episode was disappointing. I expected to see more shots of, y’know, clouds, and maybe some movement in the shots too.