Is it just me or does Season 4 look a little different?

[Cryogenator]

I read that the cold opening to the first part of "In a Mirror, Darkly" was shot on 35mm film so as to match the scenes from First Contact.

The first three seasons can be rescanned in native 4K, but the fourth season can only be upscaled from 1080p.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They switch from film to digital, due to budget cuts. The budget was halved from $1.7M to $800k per episode.

It's not a coincidence that everything looked cheaper in S4. It was and had to be.

Also the reason for the multi-part stories. Get as much as possible from every set/prop they had to build. Because they could only afford half as many.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I read that the cold opening to the first part of "In a Mirror, Darkly" was shot on 35mm film so as to match the scenes from First Contact.

The first three seasons can be rescanned in native 4K, but the fourth season can only be upscaled from 1080p.

All four seasons are on Blu-ray (I have them), is that not good enough?

Also the reason for the multi-part stories. Get as much as possible from every set/prop they had to build. Because they could only afford half as many.

Back in the day some 20 years ago, I remember reading or watching that they didn't want to try to "out-do" S3, and they didn't want to go back to episodic (S1-2), so they wanted to do something in between. What we got was a mix of 2 and 3-parters with a few one-offs mixed in. Given the show was pretty much done at this point, worked for me.

 

[Cryogenator]

All four seasons are on Blu-ray (I have them), is that not good enough?

Certainly not for the first three seasons, since 1080p Blu-ray is only, at most, a quarter of the full resolution of 35mm film, and even the fourth season could benefit from an upscale. Plus, all four seasons could benefit from an HDR regrade, but 1080p Blu-ray is limited to SDR. New CGI to replace the muddy PS2 cutscene-level graphics would be great, too, as would stereoscopic conversion and open matte presentation.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Certainly not for the first three seasons, since 1080p Blu-ray is only, at most, a quarter of the full resolution of 35mm film, and even the fourth season could benefit from an upscale. Plus, all four seasons could benefit from an HDR regrade, but 1080p Blu-ray is limited to SDR. New CGI to replace the muddy PS2 cutscene-level graphics would be great, too, as would stereoscopic conversion and open matte presentation.

Do you really think the show would go 4K and all the CGI be re-done? I don't see anyone making money off this.