Star Trek season 2 (remastered) (1 Viewer)

[Ockeghem]

I was going to try to one-up Joseph, telling him that I walked around with a hand-held tape recorder and VHS player and taped several outtakes during the original filming of TOS, but I decided that that was a bit of a stretch.

Carabimero,

BTW, I believe I read recently that the missing music from The Fugitive is being planned to be released as replacement music for the third season of TOS on future Blu-ray releases. Okay, not too funny.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Good point. I'd be curious to know how significantly better the show COULD look in HD, and maybe it's not that big a difference. I just finished watching The Invaders in SD on my Blu-ray and some episodes looked so good (upconversion?), it was like high definition.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I have a Toshiba A2 the original HD/DVD S1 and Now S2 on SDDVD. The Second season do look very good Upconverted, but they do look a bit more grainy than I remember the S1 looking. S1 in HD is a noticible difference, it's just very clear an Sharp.

I bought these because it will be along time before I buy the BR even thou I own a PS3, I'm sure the BR will be at least double the price and I'll wait for awhile after release to get them cheaper.

 

[jim_falconer]

We are pretty close in our fanaticism of TOS...besides most of the ones you mentioned, I also purchased the laserdisc set in the early 90s (which, I was very sad to see, were NOT remastered...basically the same blurry VHS image on laserdisc).

That said, I'm still getting this lastest version. It is jaw-droppingly good!

 

[Michael Rogers]

The additional stuff I remember the most is from the Galileo 7 preview clip where they had extra dialog from Commissioner Ferris, a shot of Yeoman Mears reacting to the creature pounding on the shuttle craft roof and finally a deleted shot of fire through the shuttle craft windows.

In The Cobromite Maneuver they had Balok say (the line seemed spliced together from different takes) "You know have one minute" in the preview. Some of you know about the blooper where in the actual episode Sulu mentions they have one minute left and then he grins and says "I knew he would". They were supposed to have Balok say that they had one minute but it was forgotten. I am wondering if the line was lost between the people doing the preview and the one doing the soundtrack of the episode.

There are other things I remember Kirk's "How careless of your wife to let you go out that way" line from City On The Edge Of Forever before it was looped. Shots of the witches from Catspaw and Apollo from Who Mourns for Adonis in front of a black background before they were superimposed over backgrounds.

The Return to Tomorrow robot was shown in the actual Return To Tomorrow but this is usually cut from TV (I think it was shown differently in the trailer). But the guy playing the robot was in a famous clip from the Star Trek blooper reel. He is shown pulling off the latex makeup (with some difficultly) and some other guy (a stagehand) comes and starts to help him saying " Well son, you wanted show business? Well goddammit you got it..." and goes on mumbling while helping the guy pull off the latex. The robot guy was amused.

The blooper is around one minute into this You Tube posting of Trek bloopers

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Thanks for the feedback, Dave. In that case, I believe the Blu-rays will be 'the final frontier' for me purchasing TOS. And I'll wait until they're all out and on sale. By that time, adding in my aging short term memory loss, it will be like watching the series for the first time.

 

[Nelson Au]

I'll add my two cents regarding the high def version of the first season and I agree, overall it is sharper. However for me, it's not that much sharper. Where I really notice it is the new CGI ship sequences. They have grain or noise added to soften them up to match the film, but it looks really clean.

I just did an A/B comparison of Charlie X because it had some great close-ups of Charlie's tunic he wears towards the end. The fabric of the tunic has a wavey pattern imbossed or weaved into it and it wasn't till I got the HD-DVD that I could see that. I also look at the skin textures on Nimoy and Shatner's faces. On both the HD and SD verisons, I could see the same about of detail. That speaks to the quality of the transfers on the SD side.

One caveat is that my monitor may not be able to fully display all the detail as I am watching on what is probably considered an old plasma display! It's a Pioneer plasma, 50" and 1080i I bought for X-Mas 2005. I am watching via HDMI. I'd love to upgrade to a newer 1080p display eventually. I'd be curious what others are watching these on as I honestly don't see a huge difference between HD and SD on Charlie X. I'm sure you guys with newer displays can see a bigger difference.

Back to Season Two, yes, as with Charlie X, there is a bit of film grain. I just saw Who Mourns For Adonis. I was struck here by colors still. When we see Apollo and Carolyn together, you can really see the make-up on Michael Forest, he's painted to look dark while Carolyn was more natural skin toned. What I really noticed about Leslie Parrish was the color of her blonde hair. It really looked golden, like it was colored, which I'm sure was common for actors then.

One other anomoloy occurred with WMFA, you can see a short cut when Apollo is about to zap Kirk and Carolyn intervenes, the color shifts towards yellow for a bit. Must have been the source material. It's like the restored sequence in Hitchcock's Vertigo, when Madeline is flashig back to the day of the murder and she starts to pack and writes the letter to Scotty. That scene was had a similar color shift as Mr. Harris didn't have very good materials to restore.

One last thing, it's a good thing I saw WMFA as I saw a problem with my disc. The picture started breaking up and pixelating. I found the disc has a scratch on it! This is the first time I have seen a problem on a Paramount DVD. And I've spends thousands of dollars on Paramount discs!

I wonder if it's because of CBS taking over, or just one in a million. I'm off to excahnge it now.

 

[RickER]

Nelson, CBS Paramount can be hit or miss for me. I had trouble getting good sets of Perry Mason season 2 vol. 1 and 2. Both sets bought months apart had scratched discs. Same with Mission: Impossible season 3. The common thread linking all together? "Made in Mexico" in little blue letters on the shrink wrap. In all 3 examples, and i could name more [*cough* Twin Peaks *cough* the bane of my CBS DVD experiance]...i had to cobble together a good set.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks for the insight Rick. Yep, this set was also made in Mexico.

I just exchanged mine and got the last one at my local Best Buy. This one has a case where they didn't fully assemble at the factory as the cover hinge pins were not engaged. Fortunately when I got it home, I was able to snap it together, no troubles so far. All the discs look okay from a visual inspection.

I hope Paramount CBS has somebody going to the factory to deal with the quality issues. This must be costing them some dollars.

By the way, regarding the actor in the plastic make-up who was the android body in Return to Tomorrow, the Billy Blackburn extras has some more info about that. He was the guy under all that goop. The Blackburn films are really cool and he has some really great stories about those days on the set. One shot shows him standing in front of the set pieces back stage for Zephram Cochrane's house and some show him in make-up and wig from The Apple as one of the Val people.

 

[Ockeghem]

Michael,

Really? I don't recall seeing it in the episode. I will look for it in the DVD versions I have. Nice tidbits, there.

One of the more famous cut scenes is the cave scene between Kirk and Spock in And the Children Shall Lead. The televised versions I have seen over the years cut out Kirk's overwhelming feelings of anxiety; we usually cut to them (Kirk and Spock) coming out of the cave. There are most likely others as well.

BTW, I own the Blooper reels of both TOS and TNG. Good (and fun) stuff.

 

[Carabimero]

I sometimes worry that if I had the complete set of R-TOS, I'd never watch the original versions anymore, and I love them. Maybe a balance for me would be just having episodes like DOOMSDAY MACHINE remastered.

 

[Nelson Au]

Sorry if I sound like a broken record.....

I'm keeping every incarnation of TOS I have purchased. The LD's, the first DVD 2 eps discs, Season Box sets and the new Remastered sets.

For casual viewing in my home office, I still look at the first DVD's because they don't require anywhere the load times with all the fancy menus. And I look at the box sets on the HT every now and then.

And the main reason I look at the old sets, the remastered episodes are edited. They are the full episodes, not edits per se. But the addition of the CGI effects at times required the removal of a few frames of live action when there are dissolves into the new CGI effects. For example, at the end of Errand of Mercy, Kor says it would have been Glooorious. There's a dissolve to the Enterprise in space and you loose a bit of his evil grin. Same with the end of The Changling. After they beam Nomad into space and it blows up, there's a short bit as the scene dissolves where you see Shatner turning to the camera and raising his hand and perhaps speaking to the director. It's gone now.

For The Doomsday Machine, they re-ordered the scene after Decker knocks out the guard and steals the shuttlecraft, the new CGI shuttlecraft is seen launching and an exterior view of it leaving the Enterprise is added. Listen to the sound effects, as they didn't alter the sound track, they don't match the new effects.

Same thing goes for the music, usually a majestic swell of music is heard when you see the Enterprise after a disolve from live action, it didn't match for The Changling after Nomad is blown up as they disolve to the new effects sooner then the original timing. This can't be helped since they are working with uneditable material. A price is paid for the new CGI. I just wonder why they couldn't have maybe added a few still frames or slow down the live action just at the dissolve point. I'm sure they tried, but maybe it just didn't work.

One last thing I like about the original DVD's and DVD box sets, the original titles music is there. And I liked the 5.1 remix as you hear the Enterprise swoosh over your left shoulder and right shoulder! The new version sort of loses that.

 

[Michael Rogers]

I'm considering backing up via DVDshrink without the menus because they can be a pain. Not as much of a pain as Sony's work on Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie where you go through t he menues and have to look at a F****** FBI warning (more than one screen) when you press play on an episode. Plus I have an older DVD player that when you stop an episode and start it again it plays from the start and if it plays from the start the FBI warning is shown again (this is not a problem in more recent DVD players which usually start back up from where the show left off).

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Nelson,

I had already decided that I'll be keeping my original TOS DVD season sets. These sets represent the TOS that I grew up with. And, anyway, it'll be a lot of fun to pop the original eps into the player and then compare them with the "Remastered" versions. My brother -- a very casual TOS fan -- has not seen *any* of the Remastered eps yet. That's why I'm *sorely tempted* to purchase this set and then invite him over for a "Doomsday" experience!

 

[Nelson Au]

Breaking news, Holy complete series, Batman!:

Star Trek Remastered to be released as a complete series pack including all 3 seasons. Likely available November 18th, same day as the third season box set release date. Pre-order price is $201.99 at Amazon.

It's not clear if the first season will be SD discs only or include the HD-DVD hybrid discs.

If you're waiting, you might want to wait for this to get you through till the Blu-rays come out. The package saves you a few bucks over buying separately.

As reported at trekmovie.com: CBS Announces Trek Remastered Complete Series DVD Set | TrekMovie.com

It was inevitable. Resistance is futile!

edit: Joseph, just saw your post. I agree that the original discs definitely are the defacto representation of TOS as broadcast. Until then and/or unless the blu-ray sets include the originals.

 

[RickER]

I had 30 of the 40 volumes. I skipped a few, mostly 3rd season discs. No way was i gonna own Spock's Brain or Way to Eden. But i sold them after i bought all 3 season sets, when Amazon had them for $35 a season. Yea, the menus are a PITA, but it saves 3 feet of valuable shelf space. I wont sell those even after Remastered TOS comes to Blu. I still love 75% of the original effects, just the way they are. Many times the original looks better than the GCI version. Doomsday Machine being the bright spot on the Remastered version. the big selling point of me for the Remastered TOS, is...well...the remastering of the film elements. Your pics show how nice a job they did Nelson. Paramount does a great job of making 40 year old shows look like they were made last year! Hawaii Five-0 being another great example!

 

[Michael Rogers]

When they were coming out on VHS I only got a few key episodes. When they were on the 2 to a disc DVD, I held out for a long time (hoping for season sets) but started to get them little by little. I had completed getting the first season and a couple discs from the second when the season sets were finally announced. I got the season sets and now are getting the remastered sets.

 

[troy evans]

As far as owning Trek episodes, when released on VHS I bought my favorites of what was available as the different series came out. When the dvd sets came it was a must buy. Although, when I was a kid my parents bought me this little hand held viewer that you would put these round little cartridges in. It was battery opperated and it would play these edited down versions of popular movies, cartoons and tv shows. It was like these actual little films inside the cartridges. One of the coolest toys I ever had. I had a few different TOS episodes like this. And just for the record, I'm not talking about the little red ViewMasters with picture discs. I had those too, however.

 

[troy evans]

For me the only stand out between the sd and HD of the first season is the HD special features. Now, some of them were very cool. I agree with Nelson, that even though the HD may be sharper, the sd is very close by comparison. If the Blu-ray release does some cool features, I'm all over it. If it just releases a Blu-ray version of the content that already exsists on the current season 2 release then I'll pass. The complete series set coming is very cool, but, are we really surprised? I wonder if they will include any bonus goodies in that release? I don't mind buying Trek over again for some reason as long as some neat stuff gets included.

 

[troy evans]

Nelson, let me know when you get around to disc 5 of this set. I want to get your opinion of the DS9 episodes PQ. It surprised me.