HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One - Page 4

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Why do you insist on painting these as mutually exclusive?

Now we can get and enjoy both.

Wrong again. I, and other posters here, grew up with the original series.

I respect your viewpoint. Please don't belittle those of us who do not share yours.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Oh don't get me wrong. I'm sure a lot of older fans love the changes too. But IMHO that's just a convenient side-effect. Paramount did this to boost interest for their new film, oh and maybe to "prepare" fans for the effects changes necessary to bring TNG/DS9/VOY into HD. Nothing more. I'm mean it's not like there were petitions DEMANDING these changes to be made, is it?

I'm off now to watch The Dambusters in colour! :-)

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Enjoy!

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

oops double hit.

BTW The Menagerie on the disc looks much better than the theatrical presentation I saw.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I was going to post a reply to John, but I already gave my opinion on the other Star Trek thread to John's identical comments posted. Suffice it to say, the show is ready to entertain another few generations with a beautiful restoration of the film elements, irrespective of the new CGI.

John you're entitled to your opinion! I totally understand it and I agree to certain aspects. And I am more then willing to admit that I could be naive to think that this Remaster was originally done for posterity, then profits. Though it likely a delightful bonus for CBS/Paramount. More likely CBS at this point!

I agree Lou, I have not seen the entire Menagerie yet, but I did see the teaser and the first act and it's amazingly better! One thing I did look, probably too closely at is the rotoscoping work done around Pike's head and Kirk's head when they are in front of the windows. I can see an edge where they cut out the old footage. It's not obvious, nor distracting, just a curiousity for me. It works remarkably well!

I did see the documentary, Spacelift, on the remastering of the series. I thought that Roddenberry's son, "Rod", who did the intro at the Menagerie screenings was supposed to be on the DVD. I have not seen it yet, and expected it to be here, the contents of that documnentary are in this one. Still more extras to look at! Not that it's a big deal if his intro is not in the set, it's a curiousity because the theater I saw The Menagerie at didn't have the sound working for the first 1/3 of the doc.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Okay there is another thing they would do, and I have no idea if this is what you are seeing either. They would sometimes change a medium shot into a close up by cropping the shot in the optical printer. Of course then it would get REALLY grainy because not only is it at least 2 generations away from the negative, but its also a blow up.

Again this may or may not be what you are seeing.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

To be perfectly honest I think the majority of the reason for the effects changes is because the original effects shots would have looked abysmal in HD. The original effects were a compromise even at the time. They frequently had to use stock effects shots from older episodes because they couldn't afford a new shot. Half the time the matte lines don't match up, and the grain is so large it looks like it was shot in super 8.

Of course another major motivation is they think these will sell. What better motivation could there be? Frankly I love the new effects and think they have been done with good taste for the most part. Its interesting to go back and look at the original versions for nostalgia sake, but I doubt that I will ever be watching them again other than just to compare.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

That's the line being used, but having recently seen The Menagerie on the big screen and the HD comparison between the original effect and the new CG effect, I can say that the original effect held up just fine with that level of scrutiny.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Yes but once the show got into weekly production, they weren't nearly as careful with the effects shots as they were in the pilot episodes.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I can well believe it!

And none of the reasons speculated at thus far explain why they re-recorded the title music...? Unnecessary tinkering of the first order.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I believe the re recorded it because all of the original music was recorded in mono. (or at least mono stems are all they have left) They have been doing a fake stereo image on the music for the DVDs up till now. I think they wanted the title music to have a some what more spectacular recording. I'm not sure I agree with this choice, but the recording is so close to the original in terms of performance that it doesn't bother me.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Thank you. EXACTLY!

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

What the heck everyone, were getting Star Trek in High Def finally. I just wish the price lands back on Earth sometime.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

What was shown was an effects shot from the weekly series.

The re-recorded main title is a curiosity since the main titles sound fine in 5.1 on the current DVDs.

The Menagerie, as screened theatrically, also featured the audio mistake that was on the first DVD, where Pike and Spock handle the singing leaves. They're supposed to stop singing. This was fixed for the SD season 1 box set from a few years ago. I think the re-mastered episode went back to the old version.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

The documentary in the box set describes the remastering process and covers the music issue. No reason other then wanting to spruce up the series to modern standards. The idea was to go to the film negatives and clean-up and restore the film elements. They then thought they could recreate, using the original Alexander Courage scoring notes, the music with a similar band of about 25 to 29 muscicans as originally done and re-record it with modern recording equipment. They found the original recording of Shatner doing the Space: The Final Frontier monologue and infused that into the remix. So the sole reason was give the show a new shine, visually and audibly too.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Maybe. Last night I watched What Are Little Girls Made of?, Miri and Dagger of the Mind on disc 3 and did not notice it again, but I wasn't looking for it either.

As for the other debate going on all I'll say is I've said right from the start that this set should have also included the original unaltered versions in HD. It doesn't, so one has to choose to either buy it, rent it or pass on it. I chose to buy it and feel no need to justify that decision to anyone else.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Oh, no doubt, Paramount really screwed this set up.

I see what they were out to do....they wanted to release this
set as one "sku" so that sDVD and HD-DVD owners could both
benefit on these new modified transfers.

The problem is, sDVD owners are paying waaay too much to
own this set and HD-DVD owners aren't getting the benefit of
having the original unaltered versions of these episodes in HD.

You are correct in that Paramount should not have gone the
combi-disc route here and offered both versions for HD-DVD owners.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I have a little voice in the back of my head telling me this isnt the last word on this release. I bet we see it again. But in my perfect world they would use seamless branching to give us both versions, and it wouldnt be on combo discs with semi cheap packaging.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Paramount should have released this as a SD set and an HD set, I think in that way the price could've been lowered on the HD set, they could've avoided Combo's and all the possible problems, and they could've sold alot of SD sets. Now that being said. They were'nt going to release the Original Episodes in HD. In fact the reason for this redoing of the Special Effects was specifically for releasing the series in HD (oh and to sell the sets again to the same people who bought them the first ime, hey I'm not that Naive!) but when going from a Pristine Cleaned Up , HD Live action footage, to the Dirty, Matte line encrusted Original effects it was just way too jarring. So it was never Paramounts intention to release the originals in HD, those sets stand as a very good representation of the original non altered series.

I wish paramount would release newly remastered Next Gen and DS9 disks, I look at some of those today on my "Next Gen" hardware and quite frankly they are tough to watch, DS9 is a Compression nightmare, TNG have some awful Video scan lines, yuck.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

So, here's my perspective.

I watched these shows on NBC. I bought the ORIGINAL VHS tapes, the original DVDs, and I have some episodes on 16mm. I've been a fan forever and quite frankly, I hated some of the silly effects shots, even as a kid. Green planets, purple planets, the ridiculous shimmying Enterprise during the sligshot sequence. They always bugged me because they could have done so much better, but who knew the show was going to last this long?

Enter CGI. Now they can fix the shots, and they did, and I'm DAMN happy with the results. I can put aside my silly prejudice towards the original effects and just enjoy this for what it is.

As for "the effects don't make a difference to the story", they most certainly do! The CGI team has done a great job at FIXING stupid things we saw in the original series. Double flybys, effects that made no sense, and the biggest problem I always had with the show: reused footage.

This thought that they redid these effects for the Playstation generation is partially correct, but not in the vain that it was stated. The effects looked like ass. There, I said it. They were poor and inconsistent by today's standards. Watching the show in the 60's was one thing when the show wasn't meant to survive, but now that it has after 40 years, you NEED to fix it up or it will be scrutinized and laughed at. Science fiction is part of today's culture and you can't get away with green planets anymore.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I don't think this set is overpriced. When it came out I paid $100 for a single movie, Silence of the Lambs LD, then paid $100 for a single SD DVD season of The X-files. You get more for your $ on this set comparatively.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

The combo decision is an interesting one, at least in hindsight. Given Paramount's shift to HD DVD-exclusive, it's obviously in their best interests to promote that format, and what better way than to use a stealth maneuver to get HD DVD discs into the hands of Trek fans, especially while prices are dropping. Whether they were already thinking of going HD DVD exclusive when they announced this set, I don't know, but given the present state of affairs there's a strong incentive for them to at least test the waters of whether this will work to increase acceptance of the the HD DVD format.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I'm kinda happy I'll have the SD versions because then I can get them to my portable devices, something I could not do with the HD Version.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I am on the fence for these being combos. Personally I will benefit from having the SD version because I only have the one HD player in the HT room and I will likely watch them on the TV once in a while and on the road. I certainly wouldn't buy the set twice.

Do you really think that the SD only versions would be that much cheaper? Maybe $99 at the cheapest. Also I don't see the HD-only versions being any cheaper because you are paying the premium for HD. You almost are getting the SD for free because Paramount is hoping to induce enough DVD only owners to buy this set anyway, paying about a $30-$40 premium to be able to view HD in the future. TOS fans have always been willing to pay a significant premium for the show and is still way cheaper than when TOS first came out on DVD so Paramount's strategy seems like a reasonable one.

Sure I wish the set cost similar to other sci-fi season sets series which would be about $99 for HD and $59 for SD but that was(is) never going to happen.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Yeah I noticed the problem with the singing leaves too.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I don't think we are really paying much more than we paid for the SD season sets a few years ago. I think they were around $120 when first released.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Don't hold your breath for these. Post production for them were all done in 480i NTSC format. All post production would have to be re done from scratch for each episode for them to be presented in actual 1080 HD.

Doug

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

I just don't agree with this at all. I made a rather sarcastic comment earlier about watching The Dambusters in colour, but the point I'm making is sound I think. If Casablanca had been made now it would have been made in glorious technicolour. Does that mean the original version should be colourised? Or re-shot? The original Night Of The Living Dead was made in 1:33 aspect ratio. If it had been made now it would have been shot, maybe 2.35:1. Should the top and bottom of the picture now be hacked off in order to satisfy modern 16x9 displays? The original Twilight Zone's all look somewhat cheap compared to the big-budget TV productions of today, etc. etc.

What I'm saying is we should be embracing film and television the way it was originally made. Sure, we should present that vision as clearly, both visually and sonically, as possible but we shouldn't change the artistic results just because the technology of the delivery system has moved on, even if those results didn't quite match the artists's vision (when do artistic results EVER match the artists's vision?!)

Star Trek looks old. It was made in 1966-69, live with it! I'm surprised they didn't try and replace all the Klingons with CGI characters that more closely resemble their TNG etc counterparts. Those old Klingons are poor and inconsistent by today's standards!


This is how I would have loved the Treks to be presented:



SPECIAL FEATURES (Excerpt):
CGI Effects: The option to watch the story with seventeen of the original video effects sequences replaced by CGI versions.

The effects in Doctor Who make those of Star Trek look like 2001 in comparison - but bloody hell I love them that way. They're quaint and endeering and the other departments had to work twice as hard to make up for them. It's like Trek. Some of the acting is so unbelievably melodramatic that to make the effects look more realistic seems inappropriate somehow. Viva tacky sci-fi! :-)

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

You can't compare Star Trek to Casablanca. That's a stretch, and a long one at that. The black and white of the time doesn't distract from the storytelling. The effects in Star Trek DO. That's the point I was making.

Star Trek has the ability to live on because the stories are very good. The bridge set looks good even by today's standards, the costumes look good, the music is phenomenal, and although the effects were cool for up to maybe the late 70's, the fact is that they're old. Redoing Casablanca in color won't help it at all. Changing a green planet with a blue sky to a Class M planet makes much more sense. Using the same matte shots in several shows is now fixed. I found "The Doomsday Machine" to be a perfect example of how things can go bad because your brain is expecting one thing and shown another. Now they fixed it and the STORY makes much more sense.

And don't get me started on the images of Earth with no clouds. Even as a kid I knew it was wrong, but there wasn't much to go by in the 60's. Now you see these beautiful shots of Earth in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday". It grounds the show much more than if they kept the original shots in.

Re: HTF HD-DVD Review: Star Trek: The Original Series Season One

Frankly I never liked the new Klingons.