Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. The Remastered "What Are Little Girls Made Of" airs this weekend Preview courtesy STARTREK.COM (note updated station/air time guide)
CBS just sent over this new matte painting for the opening scene of the remastered "The Man Trap" (click to super size)
Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. The Remastered "The Man Trap" airs this weekend (note updated station/air time guide)Preview courtesy STARTREK.COM
Last week Toshiba announced a deal to get a free phaser remote control if you purchase Star Trek: The Original Series – The Complete First Season [HD DVD] and any Toshiba HD-DVD player. Toshiba has now provided us with some more details on the promotion. Toshiba Director of Business Development Louis Masses tells TrekMovie.com that they are "very excited and very proud to be associated with Star Trek." Details below…
Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. The Remastered "Conscience of the King" airs this weekend…preview courtesy of STARTREK.COM (Also note the updated station/air time guide)
Star Trek Remastered was back this weekend with a fairly effects heavy episode…
UPDATED: CBS has provided TrekMovie.com with four five high res images from "The Galileo Seven’ Remastered episode…including an exclusive shot. UPDATE 2: Now there is also a video preview (see below)
The first season of Star Trek: Remastered in syndication is now complete so TrekMovie.com is taking a look back at how the show performed. If you can remember back a year ago, the remastered Star Trek The Original Series actually took the place of Star Trek Enterprise which had just completed its first (and now only) year in US broadcast syndication. In the last year TOS-R averaged a 1.27 household rating (based on 48 weeks of data available), which is a slight decline from ratings for Enterprise the year before. However TOS-R was third-highest rated Science Fiction & Fantasy series for the last year, which is a an improvement in ranking over Enterprise. Details and Charts below.
Yesterday at the CEDIA video industry conference in Denver, CO. Toshiba (along with CBS) announced a special promotion for the upcoming release of Season 1 of Star Trek The Original Series digitally remastered for HD-DVD. If you buy the box set and a Toshiba HD-DVD player you will get a free ‘phaser’ remote control for your HD-DVD player (pictured right…larger version below). It seems that Toshiba are doing everything they can to pull out a win in this format war. Just a few weeks ago they ‘talked’ Paramount into going HD-DVD only and now they are touting Star Trek as one of the big exclusives for the HD-DVD format. They are so into Trek that Toshiba employees dressed up in Trek uniforms at the show (more details on the promotion and images below). UPDATE: Toshiba has sent TrekMovie.com exclusive shots of the phaser (see below)
The weekend of September 15th marks the beginning of the second ‘season’ of the syndication of Star Trek Remastered. Apparently with the new season also comes new affiliates and air times for many cities. A quick look at the top 10 media markets shows that the TOS-R is changing affiliates in three of them (see chart below) and in other cities (such as Sacramento) it is changing times. In the cases of the two biggest markets (New York and Los Angeles) along with changing stations the show is finally moving out of the graveyard shift to a more reasonable 11pm. So do not assume that TOS-R will be where or when you have always watched it…it is important for you to check your local listings for the weekend of the 15th. More info below
The 8+ minute video preview (below) of the Season 1 Star Trek TOS Box Set in HD-DVD has been shown by CBS at some recent cons. It shows some of the cool HD features, previews of the Billy Blackburn behind the scenes footage as well as a glimpse at unseen effects. Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames.
It is finally (almost) here. Season One of Star Trek: The Original Series digitally remastered on combo HD-DVD/DVD disk is available for pre-order on Amazon.com (CLICK HERE). The Amazon price is [UPDATE: $129.99]…which is a bit more palatable (retail price is listed as $199.98 and was previously reported to be $217.99) and Amazon lists the release date as November 20th. UPDATE: Paramount has released interior and exterior box art (see below)
TV Shows on DVD has revealed the interiors to the upcoming First Season of Star Trek The Original Series on HD DVD/DVD combo. Each of the 10 disks comes in a sleeve with a description of the episodes and features on the disk. Bear in mind that the disks are double sided (DVD on one side, HD DVD on the other)…so there is no artwork on the disks themselves.
CBS has released the new schedule for the second syndication season of the remastered Star Trek: The Original Series. All of the remaining 40 episodes (including the original pilot "The Cage") will be aired between mid September and next August. The first episode to air will be the Spock centric "The Galileo Seven" on the weekend of September 15th – which will certainly have a lot of shots of a digital shuttle craft. This will be followed by four more episodes from the original first season of TOS (as expected due to the CBS team having to finish up for the season one HD DVD release in November). "The Ultimate Computer," the most effects laden episode for the upcoming season, will air in the 2nd weekend of February (just as "Doomsday Machine" was in the first syndication season). The project will come to an end on August 2nd 2008 with the airing of (fittingly) of the final TOS episode "Turnabout Intruder." Full schedule available at the TrekMovie.com TOS-R Season 2 Episode Guide
Billy Blackburn spent three years as a background player on Star Trek, playing Lt. Hadley (pictured right) along with a number of other characters. Blackburn appeared in 61 episodes of the series and while he was there he shot some 8mm and Super 8 home movies. Blackburn ended up with a little over an hour of behind the scenes footage which has kept in a box for forty years. Some clips were used in a BBC documentary a few years back and it was the YouTube version of those that got the Trek Remastered producers interested. It turns out that Ryan Adams who works on the Trek Remastered project is Billy Blackburn’s neighbor. After watching the clips on YouTube he went to over to Billy’s house and asked if they could take a look at the stash…and now they are on the new HD-DVDs. I had a chance to chat with Mr. Blackburn at Comic Con.
PARADISE LOST: LOVING THE ALIEN After watching last weekend’s ‘remastered’ version of “This Side of Paradise,” it’s not hard to imagine how Philip Kaufman got the idea to cast Leonard Nimoy in his 1979 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of the most underrated genre films of the 70’s (re-issued in a the new Invasion of the Body Snatchers DVD (Collector’s Edition) next month and definitely worth buying, BTW). Re-imagined as a paranoid sci-fi film noir, Kaufman’s film is sheer genius (which doesn’t taken anything away from the original which is also a superlative film) which managed to showcase Leonard Nimoy in a role that we seemingly had not seen him in before in which he goes from an emotional psychoanalyst to a cold, logical pod person in a heinous corduroy suit transformed by alien spores. It was while watching “This Side of Paradise” again that I realized what a debt of gratitude this wonderful episode owes to Jack Finney’s classic “Body Snatchers” tale, but not in a goofy, body switching piece of sci-fi theatrics like The Next Generation’s “Power Play” in which Data, Troi and O’Brien go all Kryptonian on the crew of the Enterprise D, but rather using the body snatching motif to illuminate character nuance.
As previously reported TOS-R made its debut in Japan (starting July 21st). This is first place to show the remastered Original Series outside the USA and it appears that the Japanese are also the first to see TOS-R in 16×9 widescreen. Here are some comparison images live action shot USA v Japan
Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. The Remastered "This Side Of Paradise" airs this weekend…preview courtesy of STARTREK.COM
I had a moment to have a chat with some of the CBS team behind the TOS Remastered project at Comic Con about what’s next (after TOS). David Grant tells TrekMovie.com that they have "had discussions" to bring Star Trek The Next Generation onto high definition. They have also created an HD test for one episode. One concern is the visual effects which were were done in video and therefore more difficult to translate to HD. The team are seeing if the effects can be ‘upresed’ or if they need to be entirely redone (as they did with TOS). Ryan Adams says "that is part of the tests that we are trying to massage and figure out." No decisions made yet on if, when or how, but TrekMovie.com will keep an eye on this exciting potential project.
CBS has released details for the upcoming 1st season of Star Trek: The Original Series digitally remastered for HD-DVD: Disks: 10 (box)Format: HD-DVD Combo (double sided w/ HD-DVD on one and standard DVD on other)Sug. price: $217.99 [oh my]Release Date: November 20, 2007HD Features (include) a "Starfleet Access” interface picture-in-picture video commentaries, comparisons of re-mastered vs. original effects, encyclopedic information (science, life forms, technology), episode trivia and more on seven episodes. in-depth tour of the starship Enterprise documentary on making of remastered Trek behind the scenes footage (also on regular DVD side) [related story] more details below…
“What does God need with a starship?”–James Kirk, “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” I know, it’s off the map to mention “Star Trek V” in a review of a TOS-R episode, but in watching “The Squire of Gothos,” I couldn’t help but replay the moment from the 1989 movie through my head where James Kirk faces down a God-like being with some healthy skepticism. Captain Kirk does not suffer deities kindly, especially those who abuse their power. Be it an Ancient Greek god or a super-computer, there is a recurring theme that comes up throughout The Original Series and it is best summed up by Mr. Spock in this very episode: “I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.” Fellow Trek fans, this is the sort of stuff that elevates Star Trek above your average science-fiction fare. “The Squire of Gothos” is vintage Trek.
Everyone knows that this week’s comic con in San Diego is going to be a big moment for Star Trek. The two biggest news events will be on Thursday the 26th.[all time PST] Thu 12:30 – 1:30 TOS-R on HD-DVD: All about new Remastered Trek on HD DVD. Thu 1:30 – 3:30 Paramount Presentation: Covers multiple Paramount films including Star Trek and 1-18-08. JJ Abrams to attend with other producers…Trek expected to be last TrekMovie.com will report from both as soon as possible…so keep checking back. Later on Thursday I will also be a panelist on a Geek Monthly.com Star Trek Panel. Plus there are other Trek related panels & events (details on all Trek events below)
CBS Digital Executive Producer Toni Pace has a new article at DigitalMediaNet where she gives some behind the scenes insights into the Star Trek Remastered project. She says that so far been over 1,800 shots to do and that the project "cannot be done without advanced technology that can track and manage the information on each shot.": To that end she has created a special database to track each shot. Pace goes into detail on how this database is used. For those interested in this kind of thing check it out Digital Media Net, but bear in mind it is written for post production professionals.
The Enterprise meets another superbeing…but this one is a real snappy dresser. Preview | Episode Info | Show times
Preview for this weekend’s remastered episode "Squire of Gothos" is finally up at STARTREK.com. Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. There is a also a new "Squire of Gothos" desktop (not a new digital shot) Preview courtesy of STARTREK.COM
Trouble brewingThe Enterprise takes aboard a passenger: Charlie Evans. He’s spent his life in isolation, never met a girl, and doesn’t know how to dress. So of course he’s one happy fanboy when he finds himself aboard the Starship Enterprise. He develops what’s politely called a “crush” on Janice Rand, snubbing all the other hotties on the ship. It must be her unpredictability that he finds so arresting; she’s offended when he slaps her butt yet when he somehow impossibly jams a playing card down her cleavage she’s charmed and impressed.