Your Calls: CGI Made it Better, CGI Made it Worse.

[ZapBrannigan]

I can't give a blanket endorsement of the 2006 TOS-R fx. But I like a lot of them.

If there's enough interest in the topic, maybe we suss out a consensus on some of the episode calls. Which shows engender the most agreement? Here are my votes to start us off:

CGI is Better:
• The Corbomite Maneuver: trying to escape cube, and tractor beam fight with Balok's vessel.
• Mudd's Women: the asteroid field and Mudd's ship.
• Charlie X: we see the Antares.
• The Conscience of the King: cool new angles of the ship in orbit— a modern facelift.
• Miri: the planet looks more realistic.
• Court Martial: the Enterprise shows storm damage and the ion pod's blown socket.
• Tomorrow is Yesterday: CG reveals how we head to sun at warp 9 and not get there.
• Operation: Annihilate!: satellite deployment, very cool.
• The Cloud Minders: Stratos looks marvelous.
• Wink of an Eye: Scalosian city skyline looks real, where before we had a dim painting.
• Is There in Truth No Beauty?: rendevous with Medusan ship.

CGI is Worse:
• Balance of Terror: CBS Digital's first effort, and the Enterprise doesn't look real enough.
• Shore Leave: orig was a rare case of orbiting right to left, and TOS-R switched it back!
• The Ultimate Computer: starships too far away at vital times; I miss orig shot flying in formation.
• The Trouble with Tribbles: orig shot approaching K-7, and orig K-7 itself, were fantastic.
• The Lights of Zetar: orig was just right, more isn't better.

Tough call, both fx are great:
• Space Seed
• The Galileo Seven
• The Alternative Factor: that phaser shot, such a Kodak moment!
• The Doomsday Machine: maybe it's nostaligia, but I love the AMT Constellation.
• The Immunity Syndrome
• The Omega Glory
• The Tholian Web: orig fx were Emmy-nominated.

 

[Tosk]

I personally think the Doomsday Machine was a huge improvement. I was never a fan of that half-finished starship. The shots from the rear always took me out of it.

Personally, I think if we discount actual shots of the Enterprise (the nostalgia is real!) then most of the TOSR updates work quite well. For the most part they help to tell the story that tiny bit better.

Funnily enough, the early attempts at the CG 1701 remind me very much of the way the "old" ships looked on Picard. They all have this "bare metal" grey/dull silver look to them instead of looking like the ship was painted a subtle blue and/or white. I find it less appealing.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

Call me nostalgic, but I prefer the recycled shots that open Way to Eden post-credits and when they enter the Neutral Zone.

I also prefer the recycled shot in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield when Scotty says "And at warp ten, we're going now here mighty fast." to the newer, although more realistic shot.

Zetar TOS-R was terrible. The problem was, they had to replace the Zetarian space shots, which of course didn't match the interior shots. But adding effects over the original opticals ..eurgh!

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I think, and it’s just me, that overall the CGI is not an improvement.

I can see the merit in doing it and I’ll even concede that at times it is very well done.

I just like to watch archive TV ‘as it was’. Warts and all. A straight-up remaster of TOS is good enough for me and if I have the option to watch it as it was, then I do.

 

[Metryq]

Without pegging specific episodes, the scene extensions ("matte paintings") were a major improvement, while the space shots tended to suffer. The silvery, shiny-hulled Enterprise looked like early videogame graphics. Of course, there were exceptions on the space shots. I won't get into the "realism" argument here, as TOS always had a stylized look. And the soft-lit shadows and matte finish Enterprise hull were part of that style. (Specular mapping the "aztek" was okay, even though the original model did not have it. For comparison, the Star Trek Continues renderings blew away the TOS-R work. STC maintained the TOS styling of light, color, etc.)

One episode I will underscore as suffering CGI was "The Doomsday Machine." I've seen other CGI renderings of the DDM, and all the firey yellow-red plasma-field effects of the interior look worse than a '90s videogame. While the original had its drawbacks, something about the original plasma throat had an "organic", "photographic" look that was scary and dangerous.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

For me there’s a pleasure in looking at old SFX and marvelling at how inventive creatives could be back then with basically string and tape.

TOS is great ‘cause it’s 60s sci-fi with money thrown at it. When I first went through it in the early 00s I was constantly amazed by how well TOS held up visually.

 

[Dukhat]

I remember when they first started doing TOS-R, and my feeling about it at the time was excitement. As time went on, my excitement turned to disappointment with the changes they were making to the original VFX. I felt like they were going too far with their changes, or making unnecessary changes just for the sake of change (did the Gorn really need blinky eyes?) For example, the changes made to the Tholian ship were clearly influenced by the Tholian ships from ENT, and it was this kind of thing that made me feel that TOS-R was more about trying to update the look with 'modern' influences instead of just making new FX but trying to faithfully copy what was there before. The great thing about TOS was the simplicity of the designs. Once you start adding things that weren't there originally, or making changes to make a '60's show more inline with a 2000's show it was never meant to resemble, it takes away from the uniqueness TOS had for the last 50+ years, and it loses something in the translation.

However, the one place where TOS-R shines is the overall HD quality of the episodes. The sharpness and colors look great.

 

[drt]

For example, the changes made to the Tholian ship were clearly influenced by the Tholian ships from ENT, and it was this kind of thing that made me feel that TOS-R was more about trying to update the look with 'modern' influences instead of just making new FX but trying to faithfully copy what was there before.

Agreed.

I basically have two issues with the CGI:
1. It was done on the cheap and looks like it now.
2. It was made to make TOS fit in better with the later series, instead of letting it stand on its own.

I will say, I did like how they took the spinning asterisk light effect of the "Journey to Babel" Orion ship and made it look like it was made from odds-and-ends you'd commonly find in the sixties. We had a lamp with bulbs inside of amber spheres that look exactly like what was on that ship.

 

[BillJ]

Worse.

 

[Warped9]

Overall: worse. Their whole agenda was to make the show’s fx more in line with the later series. It always look like two disparate productions spliced together, which it is.

And most of it was change for change’s sake.

 

[Shawnster]

Adding the phaser effect when Scotty is cutting into engineering in "Naked Time" was unnecessary. I preferred the original with just the sparks flying at the cut mark. I didn't need to see the beam and thought the idea of a fine focused cutting beam setting was brilliant

 

[BillJ]

Adding the phaser effect when Scotty is cutting into engineering in "Naked Time" was unnecessary.

That was the one that actually pissed me off. The original made the tech seem like it was magic, something a very advanced society could pull off.

 

[Kor]

Yes, visible cutting beams are such a primitive throwback to the 20th century:

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Kor

 

[BillJ]

I think the biggest travesty of the TOS remasters, was that the original film elements for the special effects no longer existed. Meaning they had to go the CGI route, unlike most of TNG.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Never cared for the CGI in the Remasters. Poorly done IMO.

 

[Tosk]

I just like to watch archive TV ‘as it was’. Warts and all. A straight-up remaster of TOS is good enough for me and if I have the option to watch it as it was, then I do.

That's why I have little gripe with TOSR. If it was the only version available I'd be livid, but when the original is preserved alongside it, s'all good.

 

[StarCruiser]

Like most - very mixed.....

Some of the new effects are decent but, even those are often 'disconnected' by the contrast with the interior and surface shots in a given episode.

Some of the new effects are so bad as to be ... almost ... laughable.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

That's why I have little gripe with TOSR. If it was the only version available I'd be livid, but when the original is preserved alongside it, s'all good.

Sometimes it rankles me. I live in Vietnam, where fantastically all of Star Trek has stubbornly remained on Netflix. TOSR is your only option there.

However, as you say, alternatives exist.

 

[feek61]

It would be interesting to also include your age along with your preference because I suspect most of us older fans who watched the original or early syndication runs generally prefer the original effects but I would like to confirm my theory!

I for one dislike the whole concept of the remastered effects. If they were going to do anything to improve the original effects the most they should have done is to remove matt lines around the ships, and other small things to correct some minor flaws. To recreate shots is akin to "fixing" the Mona Lisa or some other historic piece of art.

I am 63.

 

[Warped9]

I’ve seen fan work, that truly respects the original creative intent, that makes TOSR look like garbage.