Star Trek remastered- your opinions

[Toban Kal]

The original has it's charms. that is certain. there is no denying that. But I've seen an episode in original and remastered. and God help me I have to lean toward the remastered.
the original looks dated but by giving it that cgi update, so the planets look like planets and not blue/gren/red balls painted on the film cell and the Enterprise looks like a big ship made of metal and the detail of everything has been greatly improved so they look real and not painted bubble wrap.
I guess I've been spoiled by the cgi effects of the later series.

But I also have to say that even though they've given everything a CGI update, it still looks like the creatures are of the time. so the planet killer for example, looks like it was made with a lot more zero's on the budget and not just a tube of painted bubble wrap.

look:

Original

Link
Remastered.

They just look so much better.

When I finally get TOS on DVD I'm going for the remastered edition.

 

[Tan Ru]

I love the unmastered (is that even a word?) TOS as well as the remastered.

I just wish the TOS-R DVD's had proper English subtitles. What strange thing to leave out of the package......... Nice going CBS, you knuckleheads!

 

[Nick Ryder]

Honestly for YEARS I've said that if you updated the graphics and cleaned up the film on TOS it COULD stand up to more modern Treks (hammy/cheesy acting notwithstanding of course...). Especially after Enterprise came out and everyone was practically having seizures over how 'detailed' it was compared to TOS and everything should look smooth as silk. Then we see our first glimpse of the Remastered TOS in the Mirror Universe 2 parter from Enterprise and I have to say, the ship stands up.

Now having watched most of the remastered eps and then going back to the original, the older versions just seem very... crude. Like TOS was 'pre-vis' version and TOS-R is the 'polished and ready for mass audiences' version. Sure it has its charms, if you like the old school effects, but even the picture quality is 100% better. Its sharp, the colors are crisp, the audio sounds wonderful and pays homage to the original series without 'rewriting' canon. It feels like it just FITS more with the rest of Trek now. Granted you still can't remaster away some of the hammy dialogue, or weird costumes, or playdoh 'food', but at least it LOOKS prettier.

 

[RAMA]

The original has it's charms. that is certain. there is no denying that. But I've seen an episode in original and remastered. and God help me I have to lean toward the remastered.
the original looks dated but by giving it that cgi update, so the planets look like planets and not blue/gren/red balls painted on the film cell and the Enterprise looks like a big ship made of metal and the detail of everything has been greatly improved so they look real and not painted bubble wrap.
I guess I've been spoiled by the cgi effects of the later series.

But I also have to say that even though they've given everything a CGI update, it still looks like the creatures are of the time. so the planet killer for example, looks like it was made with a lot more zero's on the budget and not just a tube of painted bubble wrap.

look:

Original

Link
Remastered.

They just look so much better.

When I finally get TOS on DVD I'm going for the remastered edition.

Obviously the remastered versions are better. Anyone who doesn't prejudge it based on being a purist (read:biased and close-minded) is going to come to that conclusion.

RAMA

 

[Semah]

I enjoy them a lot. It's like the old series has a fresh coat of paint on it.

 

[gottacook]

I've only seen the syndication versions, but I agree with all the positive comments here. The new establishing shots (the approach to the arena in "Amok Time," Flint's compound in "Requiem for Methuselah") are great. (And in the latter's end credits they finally correct the spelling of Rayna to match that seen at the end of act 3.)

My only nitpick concerns a few fanciful ship maneuvers, such as near the end of "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" when Miranda and Kollos are about to debark. But in general (and especially considering the time and money constraints) the team deserves kudos. Or, I guess, kudoi (plural).

Although I'm not in a big hurry to do so (I still have no Trek series DVDs), I knew I'd someday want to purchase this set in some form or other when I saw that the first shot of act 1 of "Metamorphosis" - just a planet hanging in space, filling the center of the screen, with episode title and author quickly superimposed - was unaltered except for new planetary details. I always loved the elegance and simplicity of that opening, and the TOS-R team understood what made it special and retained it.

 

[trevanian]

The original has it's charms. that is certain. there is no denying that. But I've seen an episode in original and remastered. and God help me I have to lean toward the remastered.
the original looks dated but by giving it that cgi update, so the planets look like planets and not blue/gren/red balls painted on the film cell and the Enterprise looks like a big ship made of metal and the detail of everything has been greatly improved so they look real and not painted bubble wrap.
I guess I've been spoiled by the cgi effects of the later series.

But I also have to say that even though they've given everything a CGI update, it still looks like the creatures are of the time. so the planet killer for example, looks like it was made with a lot more zero's on the budget and not just a tube of painted bubble wrap.

look:

Original

Link
Remastered.

They just look so much better.

When I finally get TOS on DVD I'm going for the remastered edition.

Obviously the remastered versions are better. Anyone who doesn't prejudge it based on being a purist (read:biased and close-minded) is going to come to that conclusion.

RAMA

No, it's that the remastered looks like concept art, not a physical representation of reality. That's what wrecks it.

The top looks like a fair to poor model comp, but the bottom belongs in the TAS universe, not the TOS one.

 

[Toban Kal]

No, it's that the remastered looks like concept art, not a physical representation of reality. That's what wrecks it.

The top looks like a fair to poor model comp, but the bottom belongs in the TAS universe, not the TOS one.

I believe that their intesntion was to try and stay true to the hand-made quality of the original series. making everything look like models, but more expensive and better quality ones. they just gave them a bit of an update and fresh look.

Maybe they look how GR would have wanted them to look if he'd had the budget.

And if they had made the aliens all shiny and new with CGI then the plywood sets of the interior enterprise would have looked even worse.

 

[Toban Kal]

If you look at the remastered photo of the planet eater, it still looks like a model but one that had several zero's added to it's construction budget.

 

[Noname Given]

Overall I like it a lot. They did a great job on The Doomsday Machine; and while I thought parts of The Ultimate Computer were below my expectations (I would have rather seen a more indication of the heavy damage to the U.S.S. Excelsior that what we got which was just the ship drifting off at an odd angle into deep space); and the Klingon D7 disruptors from Elan Of Troyius were way too 'Ghostbuster Slime Like' (only way I can describe them) compared to the original version - which I thought were some of the best effects TOS did - especially the long shot with the D7 firing a clearly definied multiple disruptor bolt burst (and I have a soft spot for the epuisode too as it was the first 'first run' Star Trek episode I caught on NBC in 1969 at the age of 6; but again given the budget and time constarints, a good respectale job, that I hope gets released on the Blu-Ray so I can purchase it too. (I already own all three seasons of the original TOS on DVD).

 

[trevanian]

No, it's that the remastered looks like concept art, not a physical representation of reality. That's what wrecks it.

The top looks like a fair to poor model comp, but the bottom belongs in the TAS universe, not the TOS one.

I believe that their intesntion was to try and stay true to the hand-made quality of the original series. making everything look like models, but more expensive and better quality ones. they just gave them a bit of an update and fresh look.

Maybe they look how GR would have wanted them to look if he'd had the budget.

And if they had made the aliens all shiny and new with CGI then the plywood sets of the interior enterprise would have looked even worse.

There IS a guy out there who has done cg ent tos that actually LOOKS like good model shots, but it ain't the CBS group ... their stuff does NOT look hand-made, unless it is a hand-drawn cartoon.

 

[USS Mariner]

No, it's that the remastered looks like concept art, not a physical representation of reality. That's what wrecks it.

The top looks like a fair to poor model comp, but the bottom belongs in the TAS universe, not the TOS one.

I believe that their intesntion was to try and stay true to the hand-made quality of the original series. making everything look like models, but more expensive and better quality ones. they just gave them a bit of an update and fresh look.

Maybe they look how GR would have wanted them to look if he'd had the budget.

And if they had made the aliens all shiny and new with CGI then the plywood sets of the interior enterprise would have looked even worse.

There IS a guy out there who has done cg ent tos that actually LOOKS like good model shots, but it ain't the CBS group ... their stuff does NOT look hand-made, unless it is a hand-drawn cartoon.

Meh, Dochterman's stuff still looks dodgy to me. Nicer, but not by much.

 

[A beaker full of death]

While some shots looked terrific, it tended (like all modern Trek) to treat these massive ships as if they were little racecars.
And I HATED the lines they drew in for phasers and tractor beams. Totally unnecessary.
That said, I'm glad they didn't go as far as they might have.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I liked the remastered version, and it definitely did look better - certainly more "real" than the original (all things being relative ).

That said, I already own the originals in several formats and I just don't like the remastered ones enough to spend money on them. Everything about TOS that matters to me is contained in the original episodes.

 

[trevanian]

I believe that their intesntion was to try and stay true to the hand-made quality of the original series. making everything look like models, but more expensive and better quality ones. they just gave them a bit of an update and fresh look.

Maybe they look how GR would have wanted them to look if he'd had the budget.

And if they had made the aliens all shiny and new with CGI then the plywood sets of the interior enterprise would have looked even worse.

There IS a guy out there who has done cg ent tos that actually LOOKS like good model shots, but it ain't the CBS group ... their stuff does NOT look hand-made, unless it is a hand-drawn cartoon.

Meh, Dochterman's stuff still looks dodgy to me. Nicer, but not by much.

Not him (Dochterman does good funny movie poster spoofs though.)

The guy I mean is named Scott Gammans. NOT his thing on the web that revisits DOOMSDAY MACHINE (that is way OTT), but he has other stuff on youtube that really captures the enterprise from TOS in both lighting and apparent size (as in, how big the ship appears as it comes to camera, something the TOS ship manages to do better with than the -d in TNG, where you can always tell how big the four-footer is in a flyby, because you can see how the camera is only just missing the surface.)

I had a link on my old computer, if I find it again I'll paste it in this thread somewhere.

EDIT ADDON: http://www.livevideo.com/video/spockboy/CDDCCB2CDE5949B6AEBF0BC2AF8632EE/gammans-enteprise.aspx

most of that stuff comes closer to the right feel for TOS than any other cg I've seen. I'm assuming with enough resources, he could make it so good that MOST of my objections to CG would be removed (and that is saying a helluva lot.)

 

[Captain Randy Hall]

The original has it's charms. that is certain. there is no denying that. But I've seen an episode in original and remastered. and God help me I have to lean toward the remastered.
the original looks dated but by giving it that cgi update, so the planets look like planets and not blue/gren/red balls painted on the film cell and the Enterprise looks like a big ship made of metal and the detail of everything has been greatly improved so they look real and not painted bubble wrap.

I guess I've been spoiled by the cgi effects of the later series.

But I also have to say that even though they've given everything a CGI update, it still looks like the creatures are of the time. so the planet killer for example, looks like it was made with a lot more zero's on the budget and not just a tube of painted bubble wrap.

They just look so much better.

When I finally get TOS on DVD I'm going for the remastered edition

I have liked the Remastered version, even though a friend of mine said the new art is like "painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa."

I appreciate the fine line the "remasterers" had to follow: enough to make it look as if Trek was being produced today, but not so much that they were unrecognizable.

And for the most part, the R retreads do look great. As a huge fan who got into Trek in the 1970s, I still love the original, but I have to say that the new effects are worth it. After all, you can still go out and buy the non-remastered ones on disc.

A slight diversion here: Years ago, while I was still in college, I came across the first Star Trek Concordance, and I knew that no one would get one for me as Christmas approached. I decided then and there to buy a "Christmas Gift for Myself" and bought the book.

With the holidays coming this year, I decided that it was time for me to buy a set of the Classic Trek DVDs. I could have gone with the original set, but I heard that all three seasons were now available with remastering.

Again, it's not like you can't go out and buy the originals if you must. But I find the changes to be true to the spirit of Trek, and I can always go out and buy the originals.

And that's the truth.

 

[NCC621]

And I HATED the lines they drew in for phasers and tractor beams. Totally unnecessary.

In which remastered episode did they "draw in" tractor beams? I must have missed that one.

 

[Warped9]

The main problem I have with TOS-R is that the new f/x stand out like sore thumbs from the remaining live-action footage. They look like contemporary cgi f/x rather than state-of-the '60s feature film f/x which is what a proper enhancement would have looked like. And if you think that '60s state-of-the-art wouldn't have been up to the task then I refer you to check out 2001 and Planet Of The Apes (both from 1968) and even Forbidden Planet (1955) which were prime examples of that era's state-of-the-art.

As is TOS-R looks like two disparate productions spliced together, which, of course, it is.

There have been occasional things done in TOS-R that I thought were nice and/or interesting, but I won't pay for it unless or until they end up in a remainder bin somewhere.

And I HATED the lines they drew in for phasers and tractor beams. Totally unnecessary.

In which remastered episode did they "draw in" tractor beams? I must have missed that one.

"The Naked Time" I know for certain. And I think "Space Seed" as well.

 

[Outpost4]

In The Naked Time, CBS Digital put in the missing phaser beam when Scotty is burning through the bulkhead. I think this was appropriate. Its missing was a mistake originally. They definitely did not put in the tractor beam in Space Seed, or any other episodes. Of this I'm certain. Showing the tractor beams in later generations of Trek is a pet peeve of mine and I would have noticed if they had been added to the remastered episodes.

You can argue against the remastered episodes for many things, but don't blame them for things they didn't do.

And as long as we're at it, look at the color correction in the following screen caps. Unless the walls of the Enterprise were painted purple for this scene, the remastered episode is clearly superior. The new prints are stunning.

CBS Digital stubbed their collective toes badly a few times in remastering Star Trek, but I'll blame those mistakes on the speed they had to get them done and their limited budgets, two constraits that have always been constants in television production and probably always will be.

Original:

Remastered:

 

[trevanian]

And as long as we're at it, look at the color correction in the following screen caps. Unless the walls of the Enterprise were painted purple for this scene, the remastered episode is clearly superior. The new prints are stunning.

Original:

Remastered:

Jerry Finnerman used a ton of color gels on the series to make stuff pop and/or look different. Since that was the first time they even got near engineering in the series, it could be that 'deck' was going to be purple to differentiate it from the others, and they didn't follow through on it. I think the purple is correct.