Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

I remember there being a comic, released in the late eighties that dealt with the very end of the five year mission and included Commander Decker as part of the crew, and did in fact establish that he was Commodore Decker's (from The Doomsday Machine) son.

I can't remember what is was called though.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

I recall reading it in some compilation. They ended up going to Talos IV where the Klingons had taken over the planet.

I believe you are referring to "The Final Voyage".

The Final Voyage - Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

That's it! Thanks! I remember the cover and everything.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

And for those of you who never saw the cover...



And a peak inside...



It came out in 1986! Probably just before TNG debuted

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Oops, didnt't realize Britton left a link to the cover! Beat me to the punch!

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Oops, my bad again... TNG debuted in 87!

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Guys-

This is an interesting discussion about comics. So I started a new thread to focus on this topic plus the novels.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...iscussion.html

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

i just bought S1 BD for $10 less than what's on BB now . awesome deal i must say =).

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Where?

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Dang! Totally forgot to watch "The Cage"

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

It's airing this weekend Ric. And if you bought the S3 Remastered SD DVD, it's on there.

By the way, if you're interested, there's an interview with Mike Okuda on trekmovie discussing the remastered project.

EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Mike Okuda - Talking “The Cage”, TOS-R On Blu-ray & more | TrekMovie.com

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

amazon.com's marketplace. but i bought the copy... so it's backup to current price . u must pay attention as i always do. i get great deals. all my BDs are either 10 or 13 delivered. no more.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

I caught the broadcast of The Cage last night, it's run at midnight here in my area.

I had not watched any recent airings of TOS-R because the DVD's came out and the episodes aired are so cut up!

I had not known that my CW affiliate finally is broadcasting Star Trek in HD, probably 720p. Perhaps it was only The Cage. What a surprise! It looked great! I'll compare it to The Menagerie in the blu ray TOS S1 set.

I was not surprised it was edited, but I was surprised how much they cut! It was very well edited. I lost count as I stopped paying attention, but they cut the jump to warp factor, after they beam down, they cut the singing flowers, the fight on Rigel with the warrior, and many little snippets along the way. Amazing! I feel bad for those first time viewers.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Nelson,

I feel your pain! The last two remastered syndicated versions that I attempted to view -- "Doomsday" and "Catspaw" -- were so cut-up that I couldn't stand it anymore! That's when I caved and purchased the Second Season DVD Remastered set. (It helped that Costco had the set on sale at a great price.) Really, the only way that Star Trek should be viewed at this point is via the new Blu-ray set!!

Of course, I realize that you viewed the syndicated iteration of "The Cage" just to see what the "Newbies" experience might be. It probably won't phase them too much since they are weaned on a faster paced show. But they'll be *shocked* at what was cut out if they ever get around to purchasing the series.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Yes Joseph, I wasn't planning on watching it, but I was curious. When it was in HD, it sucked me in and I decided to watch more because it looked so good!

I realize of course that The Cage had to be cut down in order to fit within a 60 minute block of time, so that brought closer to 50 minutes. The commercial blocks were not that long.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Nelson,

Thanks for the information on this wonderful episode. I own four copies (b&w, color, extended, etc.) of The Cage! Personally, I like the extended footage version -- the one hosted by Gene Roddenberry that came out several years ago. Besides the additional aliens footage, we have the original (I think) voice work done for Meg Wylie et al. that is IMO far more menacing (and equally incongruous since a male is matted aurally over a female visually) than the voices that eventually made the cut; and the wonderful segment -- missing in at least one of the versions -- of the assimilation of the Enterprise's data. That segment really makes the scene much more understandable when experienced in context (i.e., when it is not omitted).

BTW, whenever I watch The Cage, I wonder what ever happen to jackets that the away team wore? You don't see them again until (I think) The Wrath of Khan. I really liked that look.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

In the original Cage, the voice was originally done by the guy who played Commodore Mendez, Malachi Throne. When he came on to do the Mendez part in The Menagerie, they electronically stepped up the Keeper's voice track to make it higher pitched in the scenes used in that show.

In the first versions of The Cage available on video, it was assumed the voice was redubbed and not processed and they left the additional lines of the keeper unprocessed to match it (so he switched occasionally from a higher pitched voice to a lower one).

In these remastered versions, they have processed the remaining lines to match the Menagerie version. Though I wish I could hear the entire thing with the unprocessed voice track as they had originally intended for The Cage.

When I saw that The Cage was in a 1 hour time slot, I knew it would be minced

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Sure Scott!, Though I'm not sure what I did!

I am not that fully versed with the differences of the black and white/color hybrid version over the full color version. I always watch the full color version. Yesterday I did play the remastered DVD of the Cage and I did hear the unaltered voice of the keeper in one short clip.

I didn't think there was any difference in the content between the all color version found in the late 80's and the older black and white/color version. I have the laserdisc of both versions at my finger tips. The black and white/color version on LD is dated 1986. The full color LD is dated 1989. The liner notes say the lost color footage was found in 1988 and used to create the restored full color version.

The "extended version" therefore is a bit confusing for me. As I don't watch both versions that much. But I thought the extended was just marketing terms used to differentiate the black and white/color version with the Gene Roddenberry intro.

I think there is someone here who really knows the differences. I may have to play these versions and see for myself! I believe he was disappointed that a third version has not been released. I recall reading this in Trekweb. Further study may be needed. But as far as I know, there is two versions going back to 1986 and then 1989 that was available to consumers. Perhaps the third version is the full black and white Gene Roddenberry copy that he used to show during his college tours, and I did see that way back in 1979 or 1980.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

The black and white version was simply the personal print of the final cut that Gene Roddenberry had. The color final cut of the pilot was given over to the editors when they were assembling "The Menagerie". They discarded the footage they didn't use for "The Menagerie" (or at least didn't care what happened to it, it was lost for a while).

The print shown at functions that GR went to was his personal print of the final cut. Come the 1980's, Paramount wanted to release "The Cage" in video. So, they did a composite of the available color footage from The Menagerie filled in with the black and white scenes from GR's personal print of the discarded color scenes.

Then, by accident, the color scenes were found (the story is floating around the web somewhere) but they had no soundtrack. The only available soundtrack remains from GR's personal print.

They later made the color version of The Cage available on video and they had a syndicated special to show it. I think that there were initially a few seconds of footage they either weren't able to recover or if they did it was in poor shape because there is a weird reuse of footage after Pike says "They can't see through hate". But (I have to look at it again) I don't remember the version on the remastered set having the repeated footage.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

I wish the Patrick Stewart intros from the original tv showing were included. (There were also interviews with the cast.) It only saw release as part of one of the TOS Japanese Laserdisc box sets.

Ockeghem, the away team jackets first resurfaced in TMP.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Are you talking about the interviews and wraparound material created for the Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition?

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Thanks Michael, that's how I understand the history of the Cage too.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

No, but Paramount needs a spanking for not forking over for those!

I refer to the syndicated special that aired in fall 1988 where "The Cage" was shown in it's entirety on tv for the first time. The special also promoted the second season of TNG, which hadn't started yet because of a writer's strike.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

As long as I don't have to hear the Nichelle Nichols story about Martin Luther King again!


Apparently I missed that one. I do know of the one with Gene on the set doing the wraparound for The Cage was on the season set.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Michael, Silverwook,

Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.

Speaking of electronically stepping up, I like how Crater's voice was slowed down in The Man Trap after he is first hit with a phaser. It's quite noticeable, and returns to normal after the effects of the stun wear off a bit. I find that segment to be wonderful -- it speaks volumes with regard to the detail that was paid in that part of the episode.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

I saw the syndicated version last night. I was surprised to see the date stamp on the episode was 1964 -- I didn't realize it went back that far.

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Man, I just loved that shot that zooms right into the bridge from space. Seamless!

Re: Star Trek TOS Special Edition Starts Sept 16th.

Random observations from a good friend regarding The Cage and other aspects pertaining to the remastering effort....

In the past my one "complaint" about the remasters has been how much story gets cut out to make way to display the enhanced visuals. This is due to the fact that more time is alotted for advertising than was the case when the episode was first made. That gripe holds for this episode perhaps more than any other. The whole scene of the recreation of the fight on Rigel VII was cut out. The scene outside Mojave, Arizona was severely shortened. In the end, this is one reason why I think that I can eventually justify acquiring a boxed set of the remastered episodes. To combine the story with the enhanced effects seems worth it to me.

In seeing what was cut, I realize really just how "cerebral" this pilot really was and how little of it was devoted to visual effects. This is true for a good many Trek episodes, and is my leading theory as to why we really only got about two seasons worth of broadcasted remasters.

I would have to watch the remastered "The Menagerie" to be sure, but I think we saw the same opening scene here. The one where the approaching Enterprise comes into view and we get our first glimpse of the bridge by peering in through the bridge dome. In the original it was not possible to create the effect of coming in through the top precisely. Instead we got a side view as the camera closes in, not bad for a television show from 1964. The remastered effect tried hard, but what you get is what looks like a flattened side view that is then stretched out to normal. Sort of misses the mark still, but a good try to clear it up.

I am glad they did drop the one cringe worthy scene I mentioned earlier on and instead gave us an exterior view of the ship approaching Talos IV. One very nice fix was when Vina and the illusory survivors vanish. In the original you get this blurring, wavy effect when Vina disappears and the survivors and their camp just "pop" out of existence. The remaster duplicates the effect of Vina's disappearance with the rest of the camp.

As has been common, beam weapon fire has been among the most frequently cleaned up effect. Also true here, however I was surprised that the effect of the phaser "cannon" firing on the Talosian elevator only seemed to do this with the beam and not with animated "flash" effects. Should they have tweaked that? I don't know, but the fact that they did not suggests that it was a hard effect to improve upon and that the skill of the animator(s) of that original scene was top notch (for some reason the animation always makes me think of "Forbbiden Planet").

Another well done effect was the scene towards the end where the Talosians are scanning the Enterprise's data banks. In the original you had only b/w pictures and graphics. This time they interspersed color images, a nice update.

Lastly, the scenes we did have of the Enterprise moving through space were, in the original, clearly a model most of the time. One that often looked very plastic and did not seem to line up right some times. The digitized space scenes really are a good deal easier to look at, even though I personally don't mind the primitive effects all that much. I have been and will be fine with watching these shows in their original form.

All in all I have to hand it to the people involved in remastering Star Trek. They have done it with respect and kept the integrity of the series intact. It has been a joy to watch these enhanced episodes with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm that harkened back to when I was a kid and watching them for the first time.