Space 1999

Good Choice!  I Picked up this series and the Outstanding WWII Documentary Series The World at War for 30 Bucks each during a Dee Dee's Sale a couple of years ago!

Space 1999 is awesome.  I picked up the complete series(the old huge boxset) years ago, along with Planet of the Apes tv series.  2 of the best purchases I have made on dvd.

Now if we can get the Logan's Run tv show on dvd, I'll be all set!

I still enjoy watching I have the original release, then they repackaged it into slim cases which is the set you bought. The transfers are ok but not the newly remastered ones that are overseas now. Those are supposed to look stunning. I enjoy both seasons with a preference to the first season, but the 2nd season is fun in a more goofey way.

Logan's is available on Itunes I've Downloaded several episodes. Thing holding it up is probably MGM Does not want to spend the money to remaster it, the episodes on Itunes are not remastered and look pretty bad, still I would take those on disk over nothing at all.

Not being a blu owner yet, the news earlier this year that this was coming out only on blu just about devastated me. It's okay, though, I'm cool with it now.

 

  

I think I like the region 2 cover art (below) better.

 

Edited by SWFF - 10/7/10 at 8:06am

It will be interesting to see how they are presented. As it seems very likely that the releases will be produced by Network here in the UK (as was done with The Prisoner) then they won't be mercilessly contorted into widescreen but will be pillarboxed.

 

Space: 1999 had - in my view - some of the highest visual production values for a TV show ever. The effects shots manage to look stunning even to this day and to my eye often look superior to the CGI fests that are now the norm, with starships that look "hard and gritty" rather than "exotic and weird cos they can be with huge fleets cos we can cut and paste". The Eagle Transporter looks gorgeous.

 

It is one of my favourite shows of all time. At least the first season is - there's an indefinable, unique "feel" to the whole thing, a sort of "otherworldliness" - in a way it manages to capture the lonliness that accompanies the latter half of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It really doesn't matter that the stories have dodgy science (although, in the end, it's every bit as plausible as Star Trek's endless round of techno-gobble-de-gook that thinly disguised equally dodgey science).

 

The less said about the horrible second season the better though. The whole thing was ripped to shreds for "popular consumption" meaning that "science fiction=monsters+romance+token alien crewmember). Everything manages to look way cheaper, tacky, with horrib rubber monster suits worthy of Lost In Space, naff sets, awful stories. Even the effects suffer.

Yes, the first season is the best. The only episodes I like in the second season is the two-parter, THE BRINGERS OF WONDER. Favorite first season episodes: FORCE OF LIFE, THE TROUBLED SPIRIT, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, SPACE BRAIN, and the best episode ever to feature a hell of a monster, DRAGON'S DOMAIN!

 

Love all the episodes, actually, but those above stand out like nobody's business.

 

 

The episode you mention is Devil's Planet and is from the second season.

 

Star Trek didn't restore it's effects shots - it re-created them via CGI. Those are not the originals at all - they look that good because they were newly created in high definition specifically for releasing Star Trek to high-def broadcast and disc.

 

The non-effects parts are still the original, which because it was made on actual film, was suitable for hi-def.

 

Similarly, Space:1999 was made on film, so it will look every bit as good.

 

They won't be re-engineering the effects with 2010 CGI though. But, they don't need to. Space:1999's effects were vastly superior to Star Trek's - the latter's (especially of spacecraft) looked extremely dated (and didn;t look all that good even by the time the show was ten years old) because of the techniques used to do them. They were good for their time of course.
 

 

Indeed they did. Although, alongside praising the restoration work that was done on the latest releases, we also should question as to why the previous releases were so poor. The past DVD releases showed a shocking amount of dirt and film damage - and not just on the effects shots (which are a special case due to the techniques used to make them) but all over the place.

 

With a sure-fire moneyspinner like the Star Trek franchise, it's not as if there wasn't the budget. The cynic in me says that they knew the releases would sell no matter what, but that they were eventually forced to spend money in order to be able to sell the show for HD broadcast and disc.

 

The new release of Space:1999 should look as good. The Special Edition standard def DVD of the show from Network looked very good.
 

Dragon's Domain? Yeah, I would have to say my ut-most favorite. When I saw it as a kid, it creeped me out. Still does, a little, when ever I watch it. I think it was how the thing killed. It sucked you into it's mouth, consumed you, or did whatever it did, and then spit your remains back out. And the design of the creature is extremely Lovecraftian. You still never saw the entire thing, too. A very bizarre and cool design.

Yeah that's a great episode, the graveyard of spaceships looks fantastic and so does the Probeship (with it's Eagle type command module).

 

My other fav episodes are

 

Breakaway (a stunning opener episode)

 

War Games (fantastic effects and the use of the beautiful Mark IX Hawk fighters)

 

Black Sun

 

Collision Course

 

The Last Enemy

 

Force of Life

 

Voyager's Return

 

End of Eternity (the idea of an immortal sadist is great)

Richard, if you are a cynic, sure, you'd think CBS made the effort to remaster Star Trek TOS for more profit making. While it could indeed have been the case, back in 2006, the people responsible for the idea of the remastering project said the point of it was to preserve the series in HD and to make it the best it can be. Once the film elements were up to standard, they felt the original optical effects did not live up to the beauty of the live action. So they called in a few Star Trek experts who had worked on past productions to see if they'd work on producing the remastered CGI effects. At first they thought that was a crazy idea. How can you alter a classic like Star Trek. But they saw the potential there for a new version.

 

But to the point, I was at a Star Trek 40th Anniversary convention in 2006 and they provided clips and we were amongst the very first to see it. They said the intent was to celebrate the 40th Anniversary and to preserve the series for the 40th, and as part of that, to begin new syndicated broadcasts that provide a HD version for stations looking for HD material. There was no mention of selling them on DVD or high definition formats at that time. They said they had no plans to sell it. It wasn't till later that they came out. And yes, they probably saw that there was a demand for it after they started airing. (The irony is that no one at the time was prepared, at least my local station, to accept a HD file the way CBS was going to send it out to stations. So here in my TV market, which is a huge one in the SF Bay Area, we got it in standard def! I think the case was the same for Los Angeles too?)

 

But back on Space: 1999. I think I prefer the Region 2 cover art for the blu ray set! It's much more iconic of the series. 

 

Yeah, Richard, END OF ETERNITY is another excellent one! That was another episode that mde you "think." Love how they got rid of him; Koenig essentially "kicked his ass off the base." I don't see any other way you could have dealt with him, too. The dude definitely had a head full of bad wiring. The "model airplane bit" still gives me pause when I see it.

I look forward to revisiting those episodes you guys are discussing. I tended to like other 1999 episodes and those didn't resonate with me as well. So I have not watched 1999 in a while in anticipating the BD release.

This is what is needed for a good many shows. As time goes on and audiences get more used to seeing images in high def, it is going to be a necessity for programs to update their images. A show like Star Trek TOS will survive, and Paramount CBS did a great job of transferring it to HD. Star Trek TNG is badly in need of such an update if future generations are going to take note of it. (Rumor is CBS is working on it.) So, upgrading S:99 is a good sign for that show's longevity.

 

Yeah, I think it's probably the most chilling of all the episodes - Peter Bowles is great as Balor and the concept of an immortal psychopathic sadist is excellent.

 

Also Balor's fate is pretty chilling - to be locked away for all eternity, alone (the novelisation expands on the idea, in that the Alphans note that the painiting - which we later find out are depictions of the crimes - are not created in the asteroid. "No pigments, no paints, in fact, nothing at all" which leads them to wonder what sort of people could inflict such a punishment. Of course we later find out that the Progons couldn;t do anything else, as the immortality was irreversible).

 

The end sequence indicates that the prison asteroid recaptures him, because it - like Balor is effectively immortal as it can regenerate.
 

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For the "evil that men do" concept, for lack of a better term, yeah, it is the most chilling. Monster-wise, hands down, DRAGON'S DOMAIN. As for the supernatural, THE TROUBLED SPIRIT, troubled me greatly when I saw it. And, the most oddly fascinating, that sorta delves into the vampire mythology, FORCE OF LIFE. I was shocked to see how Alan's laser blasted all the skin off Anton's body at the end of that episode.

There has been one report on another forum that the U.K. Network DVDs will play in a player set to Region A, with the person inferring that the discs are Region A B. I'm wondering if there's anybody in the U.K. with a region A player who can confirm this.

Interesting that the set can play in Region A or B.

 

BTW, I checked the listing in Amazon for Space and it will be released November 30th, delayed from November 2.

I was hoping that the studio would have done something with the wires. In some of the shots they are present.

And that scene was edited-down because it was seen to be too gory! There's at least one still that survives of a much bloodier Koenig than we saw in the finished episode.

There still isn't a satisfactory confirmation on Region A compatibility. Just the observations of one person (a guy named Indiana Jones on other forums). Before I put down the dough for the Network set (which comes to over 100 of my Canadian dollars), I need rather more than anecdotal comment on Region A compatibility. 

 

A&E keeps delaying its release. Now Dec. 14. At this rate, it'll be well into 2011 before the A&E sets come to blu light. 

Why not send Network an email and ask? Unlike some some companies, they tend to answer their mail.

More reports are coming in that the Network discs aren't region-coded. The bonus discs (DVDs) are in PAL, however. Don't know if they're Region 2.