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

[Osato]

Jr, you have so much to say about B5 that I think a separate thread would be in order. It would also get attention from B5 fans who don't or won't bother with a Star Trek thread.

+1
I keep checking the new posts thinking it's Trek related.

 

[jcroy]

At this point I don't think I have much more to say about B5, after revisiting season 5.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Season 5 never happened. That is all.

Also this thread seems to have been completely derailed.

 

[Carabimero]

Here's a question. Are you acclimated to TNG-HD? Some of the effects were changed (the crystalline entity, for example). Me? I watch TNG-HD almost exclusively, but am glad I have the original DVDs.

 

[jcroy]

At this point I haven't been able to figure out easily which parts of the ST:TNG hd versions differ drastically from the original sd versions, from watching them in daily reruns. (Besides the clearer looking hd video)

I would have to see explicit before-and-after sd vs hd pics to notice the differences in the redone fx.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Here's a question. Are you acclimated to TNG-HD? Some of the effects were changed (the crystalline entity, for example). Me? I watch TNG-HD almost exclusively, but am glad I have the original DVDs.

Yeah, for me, that was easy. Going from fuzzy over-the-air syndication broadcasts and overly compressed cable reruns in SD to the HD versions was so night and day that I never looked back.

 

[Carabimero]

Yeah, I know the question was rather silly, but I was just trying to get the thread back on some semblance of ST and acclimation....

 

[jcroy]

I never had any of the TNG dvd season sets. (Only the TNG era movies).

So most of my reference points for sd vs hd, are from the daily TNG reruns I have watched for many years.

At this point the only way I would be able to notice anything in the redone fx (from casual viewing), is if it looks drastically "new" and out of place from the late-80s -> early-90s type fx. As far as I can tell from watching some of the TNG season 1 blurays, it appears the redone fx attempts to replicate the older 80s/90s style fx.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Also this thread seems to have been completely derailed.

I'm lurking here, fellas.

While the thread has gone off the rails a bit, I decided to let the discussion go since it was mostly dealing with changed fx in sci-fi TV shows.

If the OP--who keeps asking new questions and keeping the discussion going (sometimes in new directions)--wants me to rein things in, just say the word, Alan.

 

[Carabimero]

Mike, thanks for the offer.

If you want to change the thread title to something like, "Are You Acclimated To Altered Versions?" I'm okay with it. That topic does seem to have legs.

If not, I'm happy to leave the thread as is and see what becomes of it. It's kinda nice when there's a thread that's a catch-all within a certain category.

 

[jcroy]

If you want to change the thread title to something like, "Are You Acclimated To Altered Versions?" I'm okay with it. That topic does seem to have legs.

(Jumping the gun).

In a more general sense of "altered versions", there's the never ending issue of music replacement.

I'm of two minds about this issue. For episodes I have watched many times previously, a different piece of music would seem jarring.

On the other hand for stuff I have never seen before or which I don't remember much about, most of the time I wouldn't notice much. That is, unless the replacement music sounded completely out-of-place, such as music which clearly sounds "modern" in an older catalog tv series from decades ago (for example).


One prominent case I'm aware of are the region 1 Quantum Leap dvd season sets. In this case, I didn't really watch Quantum Leap in its first-run back in day and never watched the reruns. So I wouldn't know which music has been replaced on the dvds, unless somebody pointed it out to me. Even after watching through the entire Quantum Leap series once on dvd, I couldn't immediately detect any obvious "out of place" sounding music.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Yeah ... I'm the same way with music replacement.

For example, the replacement music in "The Fugitive" was horrific to me since I was so familiar with that series. (Thankfully, CBS has since fully restored the original music for the current economical complete series sets available on Amazon.)

OTOH, I was not familiar at all with the first five seasons of "My Three Sons" and actually enjoyed the first two seasons I purchased. After all, the familiar theme music was still intact, and I thought the individual eps were very well produced and provided more entertainment value than the subsequent seasons which followed. Of course, I'm sure the near 100% replacement music would render these releases as garbage for somebody more familiar with the series.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I see the Crystaline Entity thing as a "no choice in the matter" deal. The original effect was early CGI and probably didn't have a film element (at least in the case of Datalore, not sure about Silicon Avatar) so CBS Digital had to make one from scratch. Naturally that's going to be different being higher quality and in a different framerate from what we had in 1987.

EDIT: as for replacement music, that's just cheapness and laziness on behalf of CBS. Happily they've gotten over it but its looking like its too late for Tales from the Darkside to get a corrected release.

 

[jcroy]

EDIT: as for replacement music, that's just cheapness and laziness on behalf of CBS. Happily they've gotten over it but its looking like its too late for Tales from the Darkside to get a corrected release.

I'm guessing most movie companies largely don't care anymore correcting music issues in older releases, especially if the season sets have already been dump bin fodder for a long time.

In the case of "Tales From The Darkside", this would be another show where I probably wouldn't immediately notice the music changes on dvd. I didn't follow it regularly back in day during its original first-run. Offhand, I can only recall one episode where I can remember the story, albeit vaguely.

 

[BobO'Link]

Here's a question. Are you acclimated to TNG-HD? Some of the effects were changed (the crystalline entity, for example). Me? I watch TNG-HD almost exclusively, but am glad I have the original DVDs.

For me it's a no-brainer - Yes!

I've never been much of a TNG fan and it's only been within the past 12 months that I broke down and purchased the DVD seasons. That was mainly because I owned sets of *all* the other series and being a completist in many areas felt I "had" to finally own that one as well. I purchased the repackaged individual seasons, new or used, any time I found one for $15 or less as that seemed a fair price. I'd been slowly working my way through the seasons and had gotten up to S6 when Amazon UK put the entire region free BR set on sale for ~$66 US (shipped). I then looked at some comparison screen shots and a few short videos showing the differences in the two releases. That sold me and I ordered a copy. The increase in overall quality is absolutely wonderful, better than the quality bump TOS received, which says a lot as, on DVD, it looked worse than the original TOS releases. It's so much better that I doubt I'll ever watch the DVDs again. I don't notice updates/changes to visual effects as I've never seen any episode enough to know and would have to watch side-by-side or use a reference to know what's been changed. So... for me it makes no difference at all with the tipping factor being the significant bump in overall image quality.

 

[Lord Dalek]

In the case of "Tales From The Darkside", this would be another show where I probably wouldn't immediately notice the music changes on dvd. I didn't follow it regularly back in day during its original first-run. Offhand, I can only recall one episode where I can remember the story, albeit vaguely.

Well in this case it wasn't helped by the fact that you could find off airs with all the original stock music intact on YouTube at the time.

 

[jcroy]

Over the years it never occurred to me, to check youtube for old tv shows.

Back then I was mostly searching for and watching really dumb "jackass" style videos on youtube.

 

[BobO'Link]

Music replacements for me tend to run to the "Was the music part of the story or just a "dead air" filler. For shows where the music was a integral part, WKRP, The Wonder Years, My Three Sons, and others it *must* be there to properly appreciate the program. Frankly, most TV shows have musical queues which often are as recognizable as the theme songs. If those are missing it's no different than if a song is substituted with something generic. If I've never seen a program before and music/queues are substituted I'll likely not notice *unless* the substitutions are not fitting with the time in which the program was produced.

I own, but have yet to watch, S1 of Quantum Leap. I have no idea how I'll feel about the music substitutions as I don't remember just how integral the changed material was to the production. I also have only seen it during the original airings and a few episodes on occasion when I'd catch it channel hopping.

A few months back I got a deal on S1 of Happy Days and went into the viewing with a bit of trepidation due to the reported music changes. I didn't notice anything that pulled me out of the program or seemed "off" so, at least for me, it works. But then it's not a program I'm intimately familiar with or know that well. I saw it in first run and would catch it occasionally in re-runs but it just wasn't one I tried to watch on any kind of regular basis.

I also didn't notice anything awry/odd with the music changes in Northern Exposure. I only knew about them having read about the issue going in. It's one I watched during the original airings and semi-regularly during its syndication run. If the music was changed for syndication I never noticed as I recall it only occasionally being tied to dialog. It's possible those segments are intact but I do not know.

I've never seen The Fugitive other than a few snippets of episodes during the original airings. I was too young or my sister and I watched something else (probably the latter as we had to agree on what to watch on the single set). I don't know if I'd have noticed the music changes or not. But... when I purchased a copy of the newly repackaged Complete Series set I *did* call to get a replacement *because* of known music issues with early pressings of that one. I then called for replacement discs on the *replacement* set (the original "Most Wanted Edition") I was sent. Had those replacement programs not existed I doubt I'd have noticed or cared but since they did I took advantage of them.

I also know there are some musical queue changes in The Beverly Hillbillies but nothing has jumped out as being painfully obvious.

BUT - I *did* notice the changes in WKRP, especially the ones that destroyed a joke or gag. I still enjoyed the program but the "wrong" music *did* have a impact on the program.

I suspect I'd feel the same about The Wonder Years had it come out with music replacements. It, too, is a program where the music was as much a "actor" as are the people.

Are there any other programs which have wide-scale music/queue changes?

 

[jcroy]

Are there any other programs which have wide-scale music/queue changes?

Offhand, I can only think of one: Beavis and Butthead.

In most of the previous dvd sets (and vhs releases as well), it is largely absent of the rock videos with Beavis and Butthead's running commentary typically trashing the videos. Without the rock videos + commentary, most episodes feel somewhat more "flat" and not as exciting to watch.

 

[Oliver Ravencrest]

A few months back I got a deal on S1 of Happy Days and went into the viewing with a bit of trepidation due to the reported music changes. I didn't notice anything that pulled me out of the program or seemed "off" so, at least for me, it works. But then it's not a program I'm intimately familiar with or know that well. I saw it in first run and would catch it occasionally in re-runs but it just wasn't one I tried to watch on any kind of regular basis.

Season 1 did a great job on keeping the music but season 2 is really bad. I think they probably removed about 90% of the music and replaced it with bland, generic stuff. They even replaced Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock with the theme song they used for season 3 onwards.