Khan Eugenetically Remastered in Space Seed Preview


(wmv)

also StarTrek.com has a preview of the new Botany Bay…

 

 

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Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!

Oh lookey, blue and red stars make their debut as well.

And these Eugenics Wars happened in late 1990’s??
Where the heck was I?
Cool ship, though.

Botany Bay looks great in its more beaten up state!

Alternate history for teh win!

Today is X-Day!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages… There is a problem. Let’s chat. THE REMASTERING The extra-special uber-revolutionary digital remastering AND refurbishing (revolutionary for we Trekkers) of The Origial Series is, well, pretty terrific stuff to say the least. I remember seeing just such an episode recently on cable, and not knowing about the changes, I was suddenly doing a double-take when I saw the re-mastered Enterprise in all her majestic glory heading straight on towards the screen, over the azure surface of an alien planet, as if skirting a massive blue wave. Now, I am an massive Trekker, big time. Yet the original Enterprise was never a great-looking vessel to my eyes, not the way a galaxy-class is a great looker. This time, though, I saw how it as it was supposed to look, perhaps the way that bigger Trekkers than myself (if that is possible) have always seen it. And she was gloriously beautiful. I think it’s innovative, not to mention “re”-visionary (I supposed that would be the word to use), that they are now re-dressing the effects and shots and little do-dads in T.O.S. Bravo. It also had a sort of eventuality to it, if you know what I mean. As though it was always going to be done, and they only just got around to doing it. But–and this is obvious perhaps only to some–I am certain that those who already own TOS, whether partially or in its entirety, are now the proud owners of that which is, sadly, obsolete. And herein lies my dilemma, and my grand reasons for writing this little essay. OBSOLESCENCE This is not to be too surprising, I shouldn’t think. After all, there is no downside to owning BOTH the Original Original series, and the New-and-Improved Original series. The older version can be stored for comparison, and there will always be comparisons. ((Tangentially: Better still, DVDs for these remastered episodes could have the option of a “split screen” or changeover while watching the refurbished epsiodes. To clairfy that: You can press the alternate track option on your remote and it will “switch” your view from the remastered version to the original version, without missing your place. Or, better yet, they can have a split screen version: a line down the middle of your screen for comparing old-to-restored. [This can be seen in some “Special Features” sections of digitally restored older films.] Or, even better still, a double screen option: the capability of watching both the original and the restored at the same time. Its ceratinly possible to do it; we’ve all seen variations of it before when they restore films, usually just as documentary examples. But it definitely ought to be as likely as swtiching to a commentary track, and back again, while you watch. Given the ravenous hunger for all the bells and whistles that DVD and production improvers wish to release their movies with—or, as in this case, re-release…all this may be, as far as I am concerned, the inevitable outcome of what-next-to-do-to-improve-the-sales-of-this-and-that. And why not? People buy it because they like it, and because the makers that make it love to go to work, so it isn’t just about the bottom line. There are enthusiasts at both ends, Trekkers all. And God be with you.)) But here it is, and I think this is the larger issue…All technology fails. It can, for instance, become useless. Or It can fall out of general use and become obsolete. Let me put like this: if you think this is the ultimate act they can do to TOS, think again. TOS will be revisited for even better improvements in a few more years. Digital restoration will itself one day be absolutely left behind for, say, ultra-restoration deluxe. Call it what you will. All changes fall into obsolescence for greater changes. WAITING FOR THE BIG IMPROVEMENT The DVD revolution itself is entirely too short-lived to be taken seriosuly for too much longer. We who enjoy DVDs as a medium—we who really enjoy ANY medium except raw, transferable data—must inevitabley acknowledge this. The use of a medium is even now going the way of the hadrosaur: extinction. On the timeline of technological improvements, the DVD itself has been steadily waning. Those among us who own vast collections of DVDs must come to terms with this. We must accept the inevitability of technical (and technological) obsolescence ,as surely as those sorry, saddened souls who bought and owned massive collections of VHS, knowing–KNOWING–it was the ultimate expression of technology. It is almost completely pointless to provide, purchase, support, and make gifts out of any medium, over and over, for $10-$30 apiece, assuming we are savvy shoppers, which your typical Trekker often is, no matter what bells and whistles are invented… Read more »

Adam, you write like a Vulcan at 6 years, 362 days.

wow……………………….that was the longest posting i have read here…………….i just lost 8 minutes of my life

#7, you’re a better man than I.

Wow, and I thought I was long-winded… gotta get some oxygen. Can’t think… hazy… gonna… uhhhhh. Bam!

Adam — since you seem to be living in a vacuum, do a search on “HD DVD” or “Blu Ray”.

the voiceover in that promo is funny. Is Khan REALLY “evil beyond imagination”?

I thought Ted Kaczynski was in jail.

Galaxy Class Beautiful looking???? The uberlong poster lost me with that comment

can posts be deleted?

Shades of “Galaxy Quest”, Batman!

I forget which politician said this, but he was SO right:
“Be sincere, be brief, and be seated.”

Chris, it’s FICTION.

Wow… was that even on-topic?
Anyway…Adam … you really…REALLY gotta give up the coffee and the thesaurus, man.
I agree Enterprise 01 through E are beautiful each on their own merits.

Star Trek.com says, about the Botany Bay:

According to Mike Okuda, “You can’t see it in this image, but the top of the ‘conning tower’ now has a tiny circular docking port, very similar to those used on the real-life International Space Station. The docking port was added at the suggestion of a former NASA engineer who noted that a spacecraft built in 1996 would probably have included such equipment to dock at the station.”

Greg Cox, by the way, has a series of novels, “The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh,” which neatly ties in the Eugenics Wars with history as we know it.

Slightly off topic, but if you haven’t read the “Khan” series by Greg Cox that Ian mentions above… you have to. Cox ties all the ST universe together in a fun way, and creates a very believable story line about Khan and the Eugenics Wars.
And Josh, you wouldn’t like it…too many TNGDSPVOYENT things that you detest.

Thank you for this comment, Lao3D

12. Lao3D – November 17, 2006

I thought Ted Kaczynski was in jail.

I was pretty happy with Star Trek on a 9″ black and white screen awhile back…

and the Galaxy Class blows compared with the original NCC-1701…

and maybe someday the technology will exist to instantly edit your manifesto down to the essential points…

We shouldn’t be to harsh on the galaxy class, as we are near the holidays and it did look very much like a strange overly bright neon lighted christmas orniment. Very festive for the season. Plus they were brilliant enough to have children on a flag battleship. Seriously though all the next Gen era ships look completely ridiculous, especially Voyager. The E isn’t too bad though

“which neatly ties in the Eugenics Wars with history as we know it.”

I’d rather have an alternate universe with an all-out war rather than covert stuff. :P

I wonder if the CGI version will surpass the awesome origonal shot of the two ships as the Ent pulls away from the BB, after Khan ditches it. That is an incredible-looking sequence already.

I really enjoy the tv promos, but it bugs the crap out of me that the announcer always calls it “Star Track”.

I’m more annoyed that he refers to the ship as Enterprise and not the Enterprise.

Thanks Star Trek:Enterprise, not!

-cs™

Thanks for putting that in my head

I don’t know what the overall effects are going to look like in this episode, but the pic of the Bontany Bay looks great!

I’m hopeful about this one.

Yeah, the Botany Bay looks good… any chance of Chekov being slight of handed into a background scene? ;)
And Adam, come on, if I want to read a book, I’ll read a book! ;) And though I never “loved” the Galaxy Class Enterprise, it certaintly didn’t suck.

Some of you are just so close/small-minded its sickening.

Jon

And then again some of us have superior intellects capable of entertaining a veritable plethora of notions at once multi-faceted yet consistent with plausibility.

Your point is?

Personally, I love the D. Probert’s original design (not the “we need to see more out of scale armor plating” Greg Jein version) is a great sculptural design with terrific curves. I like that it was such a departure from the flying saucer and three tubes design yet still instantly said “Enterprise”. I sure hope that by the time humans can travel the galaxy we’ve achieved such “form over function”.

Shatner’s acting in “Space Seed” was one of his finest performances throughout Star Trek. He and Montalban made great adversaries. Of course, TWOK makes this episode more interesting after the fact, but still, I absolutely love this episode. TWOK was on TV Land last night, of all places! Space Seed and TWOK broadcast on the same weekend? Oh yeah!

Shatner always rose to the challenge of a great script. It was really only some of the clinkers that gave rise to his hammier style.

If that shot of the BB is any indication, I’m going to love this week’s remastering. Not only does the ship look great (as much as we can see of it at least) but that rich, dense starfield looks so much more to my liking than some of their earlier efforts. It may be less accurate but it looks so much more like TOS to me!

Hello #5 Adam A. Ward

I think most of us REALISE that there can, and perhaps will be more improvemants in a few years time…I’d PERSONALLY like to see most of them done over the NEXT couple of years, as opposed to MANY years down the line…

I’d like to see them on the first batch of High Defintion DVDs, not the LAST set before Holovision or whatever…while my eyes still focus…

Can’t wait for this one. The “Botany Bay” was one of my favorite TOS ships, and “Space Seed” was one of my favorite first season episodes. I just hope the edits for syndication aren’t TOO brutal.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with the tractor beam. Of course, originally, there was nothing visible, but I’m sure CBS Digital will add something.

I get frustrated with there always being new versions of old things coming out all the time, begging for my dollar. Star Trek Remastered would be an exception to that. I like how it is being redone with respect for the originals, but with high quality, cleaned up images.

I just got the first half of the second season of ‘Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea” and one of the extras has a surface take of the Seaview moving toward the camera (in high quality). It lasts for over a minute, an extended version of the show’s ‘beauty pass’ of the Seaview.

I think it would be great to see such an extra on a new HD release of Star Trek. ….The Enterprise just flying past the camera in an extended version or versions of shots we see in the episodes.

And with the Botany Bay shots, too. Ok, now I’m on topic. :)

#37 I hope they DON’T add a tractor beam. I like that it’s this invisible beam (like a transporter beam) that has no emitter. I don’t wanna know where it comes from, I don’t wanna see it defined, I don’t want a beam just to add a beam. I got so tired of TNG tractor beams BLECCHHH. Invisible is the way to go! Yes I realize that there was a very bright light cast on Captain Christopher’s plane, but that’s cause he was looking right into an emitter! Pfff, EVERYONE knows you never look directly at an emitter!

#5, have you thought about the wonders that await you on Tantalus V? Ask me how!

Bring on Khan baby!!!

By the time the last of the HD DVD’s come out for Trek, there will be at least fifteen new versions of Star War complete with ASCII Blu-Ray Versions, and the unseen first cut of the original Star Wars.

I’ll admit, I’ve never bought any of the DVD’s I just watch and enjoy them when they are on, and I’m enjoying the Re-mastered ones as well, but I won’t even consider buying these until I see “Mudd’s Women”, this episode will show without a doubt which way the tide is going to go on these. If McCoy is still smiling in his lab, when he’s suppose to be in the transporter room, then I’ll wait for the RE-RE-mastered versions.

I think simple fixes to the flubs they have made because of time or continuity issues can and should be fixed. I have no idea how they would do that with “Charlie X” and the tale of the tunic, but I would like to see them try.

So far I think they have done a reasonable job, and the best part is they can admit when they make a mistake, such as last week’s warp wipe fiasco, although it could become like “Law & Order’s” chung-chung, just use a warp wipe between scenes.

I always like the “Space Seed” and I’m looking forward to watching it, I’m hoping the blurred throw down in the engine room was just for the tease and not actually going to be used.

I can’t wait!

I want them to add CGI seatbelts onto Khan’s people in the cryo chambers on the Botany Bay. You know, like Chekov discovered in THE WRATH OF KHAN. Then, I want them to do a CGI version of Khan swiping a seat belt buckle and slipping it into his pocket as a souvenir.

Oh yeah. No TNG-style tractor beams!

No visible tractor beams, please—–

and no Chekov insert—–

and NO SOUP FOR YOU! COME BACK, ONE YEAR!

Well, I don’t know why there is this animosity toward visible tractor beams.

I mean, even Daren Dochterman’s “Doomsday Machine” FX had a visible beam.

Seen episode — No visible Tractor Beam.

Visible tractor beams always seemed cheesy to me. Even Daren’s. I’m glad to hear that “Space Seed” doesn’t have one.

#45, Zzzzzzzz enough with the references to the 3 minutes of work this guy did lol. He did a test the way he wanted to see the opening of doomsday machine. Now y’all talk about him like the only guy who should do this. I went to his blog or whatever and it’s worse than here lol. It’s obvious he thinks he should be doing this, his site is just a bitch-fest. No one has to agree with everything Okuda and CBS are doing, but at least reviews like the Sternbach one are balanced and tempered. Even when Daren compliments them, it’s delivered by backhand lol. (Anthony, nice job getting Sternbach! Please more professionals!)

Everyone talks about reverence and stuff, but oh, add a tractor beam, that’s cool. LOL it just goes to show that it’s not about reverence, it’s all about what people wanna see personally. And personally, NO TRACTOR BEAMS OKUDA AND CBS, PRETTY PLEASE!!

Oh hey look, I’m standing on a soapbox. How’d that get there lol?

Holy crap, can you imagine when they do Doomsday Machine?! LOL this board is gonna “flare up like an exploding sun within minutes!”

if they do a tracter beam it shoud be green and yellow to be like john deer

re post 48…

I’ve been reading Daren’s blogs too… To be honest, I think the stuff he’s done out of nothing more than a desire to do it, is much better than what I’ve seen from CBS digital…

Of course we now have more variety of effects shots in TOS, but we really don’t have BETTER effects. They’re just not that good, and I think a lot of people are really disappointed.

I’d point you all to Battlestar Galactica for quality digital effects (albeit, stylistically very different) shots on TV as an example. There is no point in tackling this project if it’s not going to be top of the line work. At this point, after seeing a fair sampling of the work done by CBS Digital, I think it would have been better to just clean it up, do the high def transfers and leave the rest alone.

(In case anyone isn’t in the know… Daren’s team did the TMP special edition effects.)

Doug