Are you acclimated to Star Trek: TOS Remastered? (1 Viewer)

[BobO'Link]

The most important part of the remasters was that you still have the option of original effects or new effects. CBS didn't Lucas TOS and say "you get the remasters or go f**k yourself" and vow to never let them see the light of day again.

If you like the originals, you have them! If you want new effects, they're there! The only choice you have to make is which version you want to watch on the disc.

Careful with that statement. They *did* do a "Lucas" with the remastered DVD release. If I've read correctly, it has *only* the updated effects versions (don't know about audio). You have to spring for one of the BD releases to get a choice. That's why I waited until I got a BR player before (re)purchasing the set for the updated effects. I wanted the option of watching them remastered with original effect should I find the updated ones lacking.

 

[BobO'Link]

Just glancing over the posts, it seems the participants of this thread prefer original effects roughly 70% to 30% for the new effects.

Is it a fair generalization to make that lifelong fans who know the series well don't like the new effects as much as people who haven't watched the show much or maybe never until seeing the remastered versions?

That's a tough call. For the 50th Anniversary I watched a recreation of premiere night with my grandson. I told him what we were doing and asked if he wanted to watch with updated or original effects. He chose original prints to keep in the spirit of things. As the episode played I explained just *how* those effects were created. He was totally "wowed" and impressed by what he saw! Keep in mind that he says he "doesn't care for the show" but *will* watch the occasional episode with me.

As we've watched SF/Fantasy films, both new and "classic," he's been learning (from me) how "practical" effects are done. He recently commented that *he* likes "practical" effects more and thinks they just look better. He's developing a appreciation for the art that goes into creating those great visuals and learning that just about any old hack can create passable CGI.

 

[jcroy]

Anybody know whether the late-1990s dvd versions with two TOS episodes per disc, are worth looking into?

Back in the late-1990s I thought about purchasing them, until I came to the sticker shock realization. (ie. 40 discs x $20 per disc or $10-$15 per disc on sale).

 

[BobO'Link]

For sure. I'm sure the same is true for TNG on BD - that was a wonderful side effect, but I'm sure the real mission was to have the show HD ready so it would be viable for syndication and streaming for the next 25 years. I'm already seeing it among people my age and younger who simply won't watch SD content - if it's not in HD, they won't bother, similar to the way the previous generation might have avoided anything not in color.

I have also noticed some folks who are 10 or 20+ years younger than me, will also not watch anything that is in a 4:3 screen ratio. It is either 16:9 widescreen ratio (or 2.35:1 screen ratio for movies), or nothing.

You guys haven't met my grandkids. At ages 5, 10, and 13 they no longer care about screen ratio or whether a program is in BW or color. They choose based on how entertaining a program is to them. It's all how you teach them and just *what* programming you expose them to.

The 13 year old's favorite programs are Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy. Both 4:3 and BW. After watching the first color episode of F Troop and learning S1 is BW he wants to watch S1.
The 10 year old's favorite programs are Bewitched, I Love Lucy, and Dennis the Menace. She doesn't care if the Bewitched episode watched is color or BW but prefers the Tabitha years (because of Tabitha).
The 5 year old's favorites are The Flintstones, Batman, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. While they are all in color she doesn't care and will watch BW programs with us without comment.
All three *love* The Three Stooges and The Little Rascals, asking for them regularly. So much so that I purchased complete copies of both for them to have at home.

AND I've been introducing a younger co-worker (mid 20s) to *both* BW and 4:3 films. She once avoided anything *not* filmed in color. After watching The Wolf Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Day the Earth Stood Still she no longer rolls her eyes when I give her a BW film to watch. She's never balked over aspect ratio.

I just can't wrap my head around anyone rejecting a film or TV show because it's not HD, WS, and/or color!

 

[jcroy]

I just can't wrap my head around anyone rejecting a film or TV show because it's not HD, WS, and/or color!

I can't think of any obvious reason(s), other than extreme laziness and apathy.

 

[Pathfiner]

Re some earlier posts on this thread....

'The Doomsday Machine' is my all time Star Trek favorite episode too - closely followed by 'The Menagerie'

I find the 'new' version of DM to be generally much stronger re the overall sense of the conflict in space, the devastation of the planets and the hulk of the USS Constellation drifting in space...then 'lumbering' uneasily back to life, rocking visibly (while Bill Shatner falls about !) as she effectively comes back from the dead.....thanks to Scotty & his men !


one thing, however, that I felt wasn't quite as good as the original was how the planet killer 'died' - it just 'throws up' and rolls over...in the original version it's 'shattered' by Constellation's death throes salvo....and left hanging static and horizontal in space, to become a future relic of a famous space conflict that will become a Starfleet legend...

otherwise most of the re-staged effects are very good I feel, and the episode works on so many levels;

Spock and Commadore Decker's 'by the book' battle for command on the Enterprise bridge - which Kirk ends superbly with; 'Blast regulations...' (!)

Kirk & Scotty's own story over on the dead ship....coaxing it back to life to return to action and destroy it's killer (a poignant angle)


...plus the entire premise was thought provoking too.... of a Doomsday Device (as Kirk ponders; something like the old 'H' bomb) built as a bluff....drifting into our galaxy from somebody's war of 'countless years ago'...like an old WW2 sea mine or an unexploded bomb.... and the irony of using something like the old 'H' bomb to destroy another such 'Doomsday' device.....

why this story never won a Hugo award is beyond me - maybe they felt Star Trek had already won enough ??

William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForrest Kelley, James Doohan, plus guest star William Windom ALL get the oppertunity to act well and leave their mark on the story while there is almost NO 'padding' at all...it's straight into the mystery, then onto the starships and bridge command conflicts from the word go...building to the nail biting climax of the episode (Scotty to the rescue again !)

pity the next episode; 'Catspaw' was so awful....!

 

[Carabimero]

Anybody know whether the late-1990s dvd versions with two TOS episodes per disc, are worth looking into?

Back in the late-1990s I thought about purchasing them, until I came to the sticker shock realization. (ie. 40 discs x $20 per disc or $10-$15 per disc on sale).

They are good with two exceptions: there's a sound cue missing from The Menagerie and a music cue missing from The Doomsday Machine. I had to buy the DVD season sets to compensate.

 

[Dave Jessup]

The two-per-disc releases also - if I remember correctly - dropped a scene from The Tholian Web. I kept a tape until the DVD season releases appeared. On the plus side for those: a simple menu that didn't take a long time to load up.

 

[Carabimero]

You could be correct about THE THOLIAN WEB but I don't recall it. Really sucked that I had to buy all 40 discs and then buy the season sets to make up for the flaws in the discs. And then buy the remasters...but I am done. Gonna live with what I have.

 

[BobO'Link]

I feel your pain... I purchased the entire series on VHS, watched it exactly *twice* before the DVDs came out. I didn't pick up the single DVDs due to the price (heck I'd paid ~$8/episode for those tapes and *that* was enough for a while). I waited until I got a "deal" on the tricorder package DVD seasons (I think I paid ~$30 for the set - new as CH DVD club enrollments). Several months back I purchased the BD set from Amazon Canada for ~$50 and snagged a DVD copy of the latest Complete Series remastered with updated effects set from Hastings for $6 (new). Yeah... I'm done.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I feel your pain... I purchased the entire series on VHS, watched it exactly *twice* before the DVDs came out. I didn't pick up the single DVDs due to the price (heck I'd paid ~$8/episode for those tapes and *that* was enough for a while). I waited until I got a "deal" on the tricorder package DVD seasons (I think I paid ~$30 for the set - new as CH DVD club enrollments). Several months back I purchased the BD set from Amazon Canada for ~$50 and snagged a DVD copy of the latest Complete Series remastered with updated effects set from Hastings for $6 (new). Yeah... I'm done.

That last purchase seems a little redundant - the BD set includes both the original and remastered versions. Any chance you could get a refund?

 

[Carabimero]

Yes, I not only recorded all 79 episodes on audio cassette tape before VCRs, I recorded all the episodes on VHS, then bought the factory VHS, then bought something called VCDs off eBay of the 40 disc set before buying the 40-disc set and then the season sets and then TOS-R.

 

[KPmusmag]

They are good with two exceptions: there's a sound cue missing from The Menagerie and a music cue missing from The Doomsday Machine. I had to buy the DVD season sets to compensate.

Did the release of City on the Edge of Forever in that DVD series have the original music?

 

[BobO'Link]

That last purchase seems a little redundant - the BD set includes both the original and remastered versions. Any chance you could get a refund?

LOL! With Hastings bankrupt there's no chance of that. I only picked it up because it was *very* cheap. I'll either flip it on Amazon for a small profit or, more likely, gift it. I'd give it to my son or oldest grandson but both claim to not like the program.

Yes, I not only recorded all 79 episodes on audio cassette tape before VCRs, I recorded all the episodes on VHS, then bought the factory VHS, then bought something called VCDs off eBay of the 40 disc set before buying the 40-disc set and then the season sets and then TOS-R.

Wow! That's a lot of versions! I'd have recorded it off air myself but by the time I got a video recorder no one was airing or syndicating it in my area. That's the only reason I sprung for the factory tapes.

 

[Carabimero]

Did the release of City on the Edge of Forever in that DVD series have the original music?

The factory VHS had changed music but the single disc was correct, as are the season and TOS-R sets.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

The factory VHS had changed music but the single disc was correct, as are the season and TOS-R sets.

Both VHS versions had changed music? Black cover and blue cover?

 

[Carabimero]

I don't know about that. I only had one VHS tape version with the funky music, black cover.

 

[jcroy]

On the topic of "acclimation" in a more general sense, one could also ask about other tv shows which had dvd (or bluray) versions which were somewhat different than the original first-run broadcasts. Two cases which come to mind are Stargate and Babylon 5.


In the case of Babylon 5, I never watched the original episodes during their first-run broadcasts in 4:3 aspect ratio (during the mid->late 1990s). I only saw the pilot movie back in the day, which I didn't even remember the show's name at the time. It was only a few years ago when I watched the dvd version of the pilot again, that it jogged my memory and recalled that long ago sci-fi tv movie from around 1993.

Excluding the pilot, I only saw Babylon 5 from the 16:9 widescreen dvd versions which are the only versions I ever knew. I don't know if "acclimation" is even the correct word to use in this context.


In the case of Stargate SG-1, I never really watched it back in its original first-run. I only first really watched it on dvd, which were in 16:9 widescreen with the commercial pauses completely removed. (ie. Entire episodes were completely seamless). Back in mid-2011, I was obsessively watching the SG-1 dvds a lot.

Years later when I came across Stargate SG-1 reruns on basic cable, it turns out the earlier seasons were originally done in the 4:3 aspect ratio, along with pauses to insert the commercials. At first I found it jarring to watch these earlier seasons in the 4:3 aspect ratio. But I eventually became "acclimated" to them after watching the daily reruns over the past few years.

 

[Carabimero]

I have never seen SG-1 except for my DVDs and pretty sure I never want to see them any other way.

 

[BobO'Link]

Same here. I never watched SG-1 during the original airings. I only picked it up during a 50% off sale at foxconnect because it was as cheap as the complete series but in better packaging and I'd read good things about the series. I *had* seen, and liked, the movie but just couldn't see it as a series. I've only watched 3 seasons so far but am finding it better than I expected.

I watched Babylon 5 during the original run and had a hard time getting used to the WS version simply because it was done so poorly. I'm rather used to it now but would love to see it get the remaster job it deserves and sorely needs. From what I've read about what was done with the original release it truly wouldn't take much to fix it and do a proper WS release.