Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far (1 Viewer)

[Cinescott]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg
Personally, I would just love to see a pristine print of The Motion Picture in 35mm on a big screen in a great theater known for outstanding presentation quality. That in and of itself would be mindblowing since I've never had the chance to see it on the big screen.

(By the way.. I'm a lot more forgiving of technical flaws in older special effects than I am for newer films -- the fluttering matte lines, which have always been visible to my eye, that kind of thing, to me has a certain charm that makes it forgivable in a way that bad CGI isn't. I'm generally way more impressed by the kind of effects done in The Motion Picture than I am in the latest superhero movie or whatever. There's something I can appreciate and maybe just my brain perceives on a different level when I know that people actually built models, figured out which lenses to shoot them with and with what film stocks and camera systems, at what speeds, and all that stuff. They still feel more "real" to me. I don't know if that's fair to newer films, but that's how I feel. Actually, in terms of digital effects, I really felt that the new Star Trek movie had some of the most impressive digital effects I've ever seen. In that movie, everything seemed "real" to me in a way most digital stuff doesn't. My guess is that comes from the combination of using anamorphic lenses, which isn't done too much anymore, and building all of the imperfections and quirks of those lenses into the effects shots. I know a lot of people didn't love the shaky-cam approach to some of the scenes, all the lens flairs, that kind of thing, but the way it was evenly applied to both the live action and special effects footage made it all seamless to me in a way that most CGI isn't. As good as the Avatar effects were, I thought Star Trek deserved the visual effects Academy Award that year.)

Yes, this is so true. There's art in CGI for sure, but consider what had to be "worked out" to make movies like TMP or Star Wars or Close Encounters or the original Superman to make them look as good as they did. Extensive model work, lighting, cameras, actually flying objects through physical space, smoke rooms to create density, etc., etc. This was special effects work by the seat of your pants. Computers weren't much more advanced than an IBM 386 (pre-pentium chip), so they couldn't have been able to handle much. If there's an obtrusive matte line or a slight imperfection somewhere, consider how many elements were done right. It's mind boggling.

I have an almost nostalgic affinity for not cleaning up some of this stuff. If it's blatant (like Superman's blue suit turning green against blue screen), then fine. Clean it up. But if it's a stray line or a small cloud passing in front of a space dock girder, that's not going to "pull me out" of the movie. People are so spoiled by effects today that many don't realize how good some of that stuff was. Blu-ray has brought many more of these imperfections front and center, but most don't bother me at all. This is what was out there those many years ago; clean the dirt off the print and let it be.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

Originally Posted by Douglas Monce

Able and Associates never actually go to the photography stage. They did build the model of the Enterprise.

The main issue with the combination of Dystra's work and that of Trumbull is that Dystra's team was shooting VistaVision, and Trumbull's was shooting 65mm. Often they were composting 65mm shots of the ship, on top of VistaVision shots of the Viger backgrounds. For some reason these shots are exhibit more grain than those that are Vista on Vista or 65 on 65.

Doug

Yes, now I understand what you meant.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Cinescott
If there's an obtrusive matte line or a slight imperfection somewhere, consider how many elements were done right. It's mind boggling.

I have an almost nostalgic affinity for not cleaning up some of this stuff. If it's blatant (like Superman's blue suit turning green against blue screen), then fine. Clean it up. But if it's a stray line or a small cloud passing in front of a space dock girder, that's not going to "pull me out" of the movie. People are so spoiled by effects today that many don't realize how good some of that stuff was. Blu-ray has brought many more of these imperfections front and center, but most don't bother me at all. This is what was out there those many years ago; clean the dirt off the print and let it be.

Exactly. I agree completely. I remember when I got TMP on Blu-ray when it came out, and I was just blown away at how good it looked. I always liked the effects but they really came through looking beautiful on the BD. I can see the imperfections that others have noticed (I always noticed some of the matte lines being a little fluttery, even when I was watching it on video...it's just always been part of the film to me), and I can also understand why people might wish to have them fixed - but I would say that at least from my point of view, not one of those minor flaws has ever taken me out of the film. The artistry in that movie is incredible... probably even more so when you consider what a race to the finish line they had at the end there. Every time I've had a chance to explain to someone how those kinds of effects were done before CGI vs how they're done now, there's always this look of astonishment on their faces that I love seeing.

And in terms of traditional, non-CGI effects, to my eyes, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (my all-time favorite film) looks more convincing to me than any modern, state-of-the-art CGI outer space film I've ever seen. In 70mm, it feels like you're in outer space watching it. (No coincidence that Trumbull worked on both 2001 and TMP.) That's a moviegoing experience that's never been topped for me. I really wish I could have seen some of my other favorites from that era on the big screen, like Superman: The Movie. Maybe one day.

 

[Cinescott]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg
Exactly. I agree completely. I remember when I got TMP on Blu-ray when it came out, and I was just blown away at how good it looked. I always liked the effects but they really came through looking beautiful on the BD. I can see the imperfections that others have noticed (I always noticed some of the matte lines being a little fluttery, even when I was watching it on video...it's just always been part of the film to me), and I can also understand why people might wish to have them fixed - but I would say that at least from my point of view, not one of those minor flaws has ever taken me out of the film. The artistry in that movie is incredible... probably even more so when you consider what a race to the finish line they had at the end there. Every time I've had a chance to explain to someone how those kinds of effects were done before CGI vs how they're done now, there's always this look of astonishment on their faces that I love seeing.

And in terms of traditional, non-CGI effects, to my eyes, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (my all-time favorite film) looks more convincing to me than any modern, state-of-the-art CGI outer space film I've ever seen. In 70mm, it feels like you're in outer space watching it. (No coincidence that Trumbull worked on both 2001 and TMP.) That's a moviegoing experience that's never been topped for me. I really wish I could have seen some of my other favorites from that era on the big screen, like Superman: The Movie. Maybe one day.

I saw both Star Trek: TMP and Superman: The Movie when they were released theatrically and I can assure you that the effects created a lot of excitement in the 70s. They were both great movie going experiences (I envy your 2001 experience) and they're great on video too. The whole "you'll believe that a man can fly" marketing thing really worked. It was complete suspension of disbelief and it was fun.

Star Trek: TMP did huge box office when released and many loved the film, including me. I had grown up with the television show and to see the characters again in a feature film was very exciting. I often think of how perfect the opening effects sequence is, with the Klingon cruisers firing on the V'ger cloud. It holds up to anything created on computers and was 10,000 times harder to do. I went through that sequence the other day frame by frame and even that holds up to scrutiny. Many of the critics panned the slow pace, but it's the one Trek film that dares to be great, to try and actually show what the future may be like. That's what has kept me a fan of the film all these years. Yes, Shatner has some poor lines. Yes, Persis Khambata is a bad actress. The movie's pluses far outweigh those minuses, though. I think the director's cut and the theatrical edition both have their strong points. For me the DC's strongest improvement is the Vulcan sequence. That's the only brief part that draws me out of the theatrical edition. Vulcan has no moons? Well, apparently it does. Hard to believe that one slipped by, especially since it was such a major point in the series. The rest is pretty darned good on either version.

So many love to pan this movie that it's become a cliche. That's too bad. I think if people would actually get over themselves that they could enjoy it. Imagine none of the other Trek films ever made existing yet. Imagine all the built up demand for a movie to be made and finally imagine the excitement that surrounded this release. It was pretty amazing.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Cinescott
I saw both Star Trek: TMP and Superman: The Movie when they were released theatrically and I can assure you that the effects created a lot of excitement in the 70s. They were both great movie going experiences (I envy your 2001 experience) and they're great on video too. The whole "you'll believe that a man can fly" marketing thing really worked. It was complete suspension of disbelief and it was fun.

Star Trek: TMP did huge box office when released and many loved the film, including me. I had grown up with the television show and to see the characters again in a feature film was very exciting. ..... Many of the critics panned the slow pace, but it's the one Trek film that dares to be great, to try and actually show what the future may be like. That's what has kept me a fan of the film all these years.

There are a couple 70mm prints of "2001" that were struck for the year-2001-rerelease and occasionally they still make the rounds - I don't know where you live but I imagine if you just keep an eye out, eventually it'll come somewhere near you. And as for Superman, "You'll believe that a man can fly" may be the most awesome tagline I've ever seen on a movie poster - now that's a great poster, the S shield in the sky with those words underneath it. I used to have that poster and it got destroyed in a move; I really need to get another copy of it one day and get it framed or something. The first time I ever saw Superman was as a kid, on broadcast TV with my parents (or rather, a VHS they had taped off the broadcast), and even with crappy LP-speed recording, commercials, pan and scan... I believed a man could fly. Then somehow I hadn't seen the film again until the original DVD came out.. and it still held up completely, was somehow even better than I remembered.

That's why I love TMP - because it dared to be great, and if it didn't completely work, it reached for something that not a lot of films did (or do, for that matter). I always thought the slow pace worked well for the kind of story they were telling; I always thought the whole point was, here they are, and there's this thing out there that's bigger than anything anyone has ever seen, just unimaginable in scope and size and power, and they have to figure out how to deal with it. The long moments of staring at the screen in both wonder/awe and terror, seeing the noble and valient Enterprise crew at a loss, seeing all of their preconceived notions for how to deal with something completely useless in this situation... that's what makes it work. It doesn't quite feel like most of the Star Trek that came before or after, but there were at least a handful of original series episodes that were slower and more intellectual than action, where there wasn't so much an evil villain as much as a force that was beyond understanding. It's the kind of story they could only have told on the big screen. Additionally, that TMP came after the action packed Star Wars and the incredibly positive, mystical, almost happy-go-lucky Close Encounters (both of which I love dearly, just making a point of how tonally different they are), I think it was incredibly daring that Paramound/Roddenberry/Wise made TMP as they did. I wasn't around in 1979, but I imagine what the movie actually was turned out to be very different from what people expected to see. TMP was definitely a product of its time, but in a way it's also timeless - take out the uniforms and the haircuts and it doesn't really seem like it's from any particular era. It was a bold film to make. I'm glad that not every Star Trek movie was made exactly like TMP, but I'm really glad we have it. There's nothing else quite like it, and my appreciation for it only grows with each passing year.

 

[FrancisP]

Some of the problems with ST-TMP can be pointed to the mess they were in when Robert Able was unable to provide the required effects. That put them way behind schedule
and Paramount was locked into the release date. I don't think they had planned to use 2 special effects teams but they had no choice due to the number of effects shots and the
deadline they were facing. Even split up, they had to work around the clock. Some shots had to be dropped because there was no time. They just barely made it. Robert Wise had to hand deliver the print to the Washington, DC premier. They also had to rent a hanger and put the film cases in. As soon as the prints came out of the soup, they were put into the film cases wet and flown out to the theaters.

The normal procedure would have been to preview the film and then tighten it up. Then maybe another preview and more tinkering.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Some theaters in L.A. were getting only half the print for the first showing, the second half would arrive with in an hour or so. They would actually start the screening for the first showing in L.A. with out a complete print in the projection booth!
Doug

 

[benbess]

Ah, I was there opening night. There are good parts to TMP. I too think the director's cut makes it significantly better. But even the original has a lot of moments, even if the whole somehow doesn't quite make it. There's something grand about it though. I have watched it all told probably about 20 times in the last 32 years....omg, I can't believe it's been that long. When I ask my kids to turn off the TV, I sometimes say, Kirk style from TMP: "Viewer off!"

 

[Josh Steinberg]

32 years? Wow.. I mean, I know that intellectually.. it just, doesn't feel that old when watching it.

For all of the faults the film has (and what film doesn't?), "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" looks like THE FUTURE to me. That's a pretty cool achievement in and of itself.

 

[Nelson Au]

Love all the love for TMP! I hope the powers that be at Paramount know we love it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Nelson Au
Love all the love for TMP! I hope the powers that be at Paramount know we love it.

They did the Director's Edition in 2002 (I think that was the year?)... that's gotta count for something, right? If they really didn't care, the only Blu-rays we would have gotten would have been that 2/3/4 set they put out with the complete original films. Maybe more importantly... can we convince a local theater to find a print somewhere??

 

[Cinescott]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg
They did the Director's Edition in 2002 (I think that was the year?)... that's gotta count for something, right? If they really didn't care, the only Blu-rays we would have gotten would have been that 2/3/4 set they put out with the complete original films. Maybe more importantly... can we convince a local theater to find a print somewhere??

I get the feeling that the Blu-ray version of TMP out there right now was done to complete the boxed set. Even though I was able to get it separately, it wasn't easy. Paramount seems to have the attitude that it won't sell much on its own, but bundle it as part of an $80 set and it'll move better. It's funny how times do change, because in the early days of video, TMP was a huge deal. Big in rental and sales.

I keep hoping the follow-up JJ Abrams movie will spin a lot of renewed interest in the original cast movies and cause Paramount to do whatever's necessary to get the director's edition of TMP out there. I still find it hard to believe what little foresight Paramount had to only master the new effects in low resolution. How much more expensive could it have been to go all the way rather than half way? I know Robert Wise had a small budget, but how small was it? $50? There's this perpetual image in my mind of Robert Wise standing over a few geeks on computer terminals saying "that looks good, yeah." The new effects don't involve a lot of screen time at all, nor are they particularly detailed, so I can't imagine they took an inordinate amount of time. It seems the biggest changes were in the editing room.

I wish I knew exactly what would be involved to get the director's version up-to-speed for Blu-ray. Anyone on the inside know? Any industry professionals with a firm grasp of the technology care to chime in on this one?

 

[Nelson Au]

Yes, TMP seems to have become the On Her Majesty's Secret Service of the Trek series. Not the most mainstream popular, but well regarded by the hard core-ish fans.
Scott, I remember in 1980 seeing how TMP was a very expensive and popular early laser disc at the stereo/video gear stores!

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by Nelson Au
Yes, TMP seems to have become the On Her Majesty's Secret Service of the Trek series. Not the most mainstream popular, but well regarded by the hard core-ish fans.
Scott, I remember in 1980 seeing how TMP was a very expensive and popular early laser disc at the stereo/video gear stores!

Me too. I remember watching that first battle of V'ger with the Klingons in 1980 on laser at a dept store. It's one of the best parts of the movie imho!

 

[Cinescott]

Originally Posted by Nelson Au
Yes, TMP seems to have become the On Her Majesty's Secret Service of the Trek series. Not the most mainstream popular, but well regarded by the hard core-ish fans.
Scott, I remember in 1980 seeing how TMP was a very expensive and popular early laser disc at the stereo/video gear stores!

Yes, I remember going to the video stores in the early 80s and seeing it prominently displayed on the shelf as a major new release and people loved it. It's been on Beta, VHS, CED (remember that?), Laserdisc, DVD (multiple versions), and now Blu-ray. I've owned more versions than I care to admit, but I am a self-proclaimed hard-core fan of TMP. The Blu-ray is tremendous, definitely better than this film has ever looked in the home. I'm happy with it. However, to have the DE as a companion piece on the shelf would complete everything.

One part of the whole TMP experience that strikes me is the overture. When was the last film anyone saw in the theater with an overture? For me, the last one was a theatrical revival of "Lawrence of Arabia" in 1989. 22 years ago! The whole overture process is a great way to get an audience pumped for a film. Keep the curtains closed, play a couple of minutes from the soundtrack, then open the curtains and hit them with the titles and music. Maybe the MTV generation no longer has the patience for that, but it was a pretty cool way to introduce a movie and it still works to this day on video. Jerry Goldsmith's score was perfect for TMP and influenced every "Trek" score that followed. I had the vinyl "album" years ago and almost wore it out.

 

[Kevin EK]

A few corrections:

The Director's Edition of Star Trek TMP was released to DVD in 2001. I believe the work was done between 2000 and 2001.

The revised material was not done in high definition because it was cheaper to avoid that step. Unfortunately, now Paramount will need to spend more money to redo the work for a Blu-ray release - although not as much as it cost to render everything in 2001, since it's already been done. As I've said before, this will cost up to the tens of thousands, but they'll make that back in sales fairly quickly.

It's interesting that there is one shot in the Blu-ray of the theatrical cut of TMP that incorporates a change from the DE - a correction to the color of the deflector dish. This is the kind of thing that tells me it won't be that big of a scenario to get the DE ready for Blu-ray. It just will take a small amount of time and money which was not applied toward the initial Blu-ray set. (The generic menus on all of the Blus are a big indicator of how rushed and limited the project was.)

As for the changes in the DE being "fanboy" decisions, it's unfortunate that some have come to that opinion. Based on Robert Wise's own comments, it's clear that the editing choices were his decisions. Some lines were dropped because they were placeholders, and others were dropped because he felt they didn't work. As for the sound mix, I enjoy both the pass used for the theatrical cut and the corrected one in the DE. Once I heard the DE mix, I understood what Wise was talking about when he expressed his frustration that he never got to do a proper mix for the original release.

Robert Wise was not standing over a few fans at their computers just nodding at their changes. According to the people who actually did the work with him on the DE, he had a lot of notes of the things he wanted done. When they would finish work on a sequence, they had to essentially project the work on the wall of his office as he wasn't going to watch things on a Moviola. Also, keep in mind that when a director is supervising editing on a movie, they usually don't sit in the room the whole time. The director normally comes in to look at scenes with the editor, gives a bunch of notes and leaves the editor to make the changes. You repeat that process a few times for each scene and you have a completed movie.

It's true that they were in a situation with the release of TMP where they rented a soundstage at another studio (I think it was MGM or Warner Brothers) and lined up all the cans of the completed reels of the movie, with indicators of what theater/city each print was to be sent. There's a famous photo of this that's included in the edited documentary on the DE DVD. As I understand it, there were theaters that indeed received incomplete prints on opening day, and started the first screening without the final reel. I don't think it was as much as the second hour - but I do think it was a matter of that last 10 minutes, which is the final can you can see they're waiting for in that photo.

There is one sequence in TMP that uses the work of Robert Abel and Associates - that being the wormhole - which involved a tremendous amount of frame-by-frame animation. It became clear that the company could not get the rest of the film done in a timely fashion, which led to them being let go and Douglas Trumbull being hired to get it done. When it became clear that even his company couldn't do all those shots in the 7-8 months they had left, Trumbull got John Dykstra's Apogee to split the workload. One of the major costs of TMP was the rushed post-production, with effects teams working 24 hours a day for months to get all this work done in time for a December 1979 release. There's an interesting interview with Richard Taylor you can find online where he goes into detail about the work that RAA did for the movie, including a lot of the basic design work. Andy Probert started with that group and then transferred over when Trumbull was handed the reins - and Probert would go on to do major design work for TNG.

There never was an Admiral Nogura scene filmed, to my knowledge. That scene only exists in Gene Roddenberry's novelization. (And that book was another source of conflict - since the script was really written by Harold Livingston, who felt he should have been given the opportunity and the check to do the novelization.)

When TMP came out, there were a lot of people who really, really wanted to like the movie. It was the first real Star Trek episode since the series was cancelled 10 years prior. Even the animated show wasn't much of a salve for most of the fans - it was a Saturday morning cartoon, not a full series. I remember being impressed with the scale of it at the time - the TV show blown up to the size of a Motion Picture - but I also remember being quite bored with the endless effects sequences. David Gerrold has made some interesting comments about how much the fans worked to find things to like in the movie, until the second film came out and went over a lot better. Granted, from the second film onward, the movie series never really had the sense of scale that the first one did, but the films moved a lot faster and more efficiently. Ironically, JJ Abrams' film is the first one since TMP to have a larger sense of scale - it's just that the constant shaky-cam and the bizarre scripting make it very difficult for me to watch or enjoy.

One other thing: Star Trek TMP has only been released on standard DVD once, to my knowledge - that being the Director's Edition.

It was certainly released multiple times on videotape and on laserdisc - in that there was the original theatrical cut released to tape and disc in Pan & Scan format, the longer TV cut released to both in Pan & Scan, and then a widescreen version of the theatrical cut on tape and laser. When it came to DVD, Paramount went through and released all of the movies done to that point in movie-only editions with only a trailer as a special feature. When they got to TMP, more effort was put into the disc and we were finally able to see a true Robert Wise cut. Following that DVD, we got the 2-disc editions of all of the films, and the rest is history...

 

[Brian Borst]

Originally Posted by Cinescott
Yes, I remember going to the video stores in the early 80s and seeing it prominently displayed on the shelf as a major new release and people loved it. It's been on Beta, VHS, CED (remember that?), Laserdisc, DVD (multiple versions), and now Blu-ray. I've owned more versions than I care to admit, but I am a self-proclaimed hard-core fan of TMP. The Blu-ray is tremendous, definitely better than this film has ever looked in the home. I'm happy with it. However, to have the DE as a companion piece on the shelf would complete everything.

One part of the whole TMP experience that strikes me is the overture. When was the last film anyone saw in the theater with an overture? For me, the last one was a theatrical revival of "Lawrence of Arabia" in 1989. 22 years ago! The whole overture process is a great way to get an audience pumped for a film. Keep the curtains closed, play a couple of minutes from the soundtrack, then open the curtains and hit them with the titles and music. Maybe the MTV generation no longer has the patience for that, but it was a pretty cool way to introduce a movie and it still works to this day on video. Jerry Goldsmith's score was perfect for TMP and influenced every "Trek" score that followed. I had the vinyl "album" years ago and almost wore it out.

I'm part of the MTV generation, and I would wish the overture was employed more often. Even the main titles with score seem pretty rare these days. Even Tim Burton, who always had these, didn't include one with Alice in Wonderland, which is bad, because Alice's Theme would be perfect over the main titles.
Then again, too many movies have bad Hans Zimmer-clone type music, which I think, doesn't need too much attention.

 

[SilverWook]

Considering TAS had all the voices of the original cast, and scripts written by many a TOS scribe, it felt like the fourth season to me, and still does.

The making of TMP book does mention a set was built for the scene where Kirk gets his lady back. Does anybody know why we still haven't seen all of the scrapped V'ger spacewalk footage? About the only thing on the DE DVD was a lighting test of an empty spacesuit on wires. There are stills to prove they did shoot some of it at least. Do they have to cut Nimoy and Shatner a check or something?

 

[benbess]

Good news for Trek fans. Looks like TNG has a good chance of going HD. My favorite of the next gen shows is actually Voyager, so I'm sad they seem to be passing on that one for now...But TNG is a very, very close second. And if they make big bucks on that, and I think they will, perhaps they'll reconsider.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

from thedigitalbits.com
Finally today, we've got a little something for you Trekkies. Consider it very Rumor Mill-worthy, as nothing has been officially announced (though that may change soon - more in a minute). But a lot of you have been asking us if Star Trek: The Next Generation - Remastered is ever going to happen. We've mentioned previously that tests on the feasibility of the project have been on-going at CBS for some time, and one of the key concerns has been cost. (Click here and scroll down a bit.) Well, today we've got an update for you...
As some of you may be aware, a few months ago Netflix signed a non-exclusive deal with CBS allowing them to digitally stream the entire Star Trek library to their customers, along with popular ancillary titles like MacGyver. Well, that arrangement definitely tripped our sensors. Not only is that financial incentive for TNG Remastered to move forward, but the fact that J.J. Abrams' big-screen Trek sequel is likely to start shooting in September (for theatrical release next year) provides a sufficient marketing/cross-promotional incentive too. So after several months of looking into this, our industry sources have finally begun hinting that TNG Remastered IS moving forward and that Netflix (and possibly Paramount's Epyx cable channel, which has a strong relationship with the streaming service) may be the first place you'll finally see it - in HD - starting sometime in the fall. Meanwhile, SD TNG episodes will begin appearing on Netflix in July. Trek Movie posted this a month ago:
"Netflix confirmed they will be streaming every episode of every season for all five live-action Star Trek series: the original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. TOS, TNG, Voyager and Enterprise will all become available on July 1st. DS9 will launch on October 1st. TOS and Enterprise will be available in HD."
While Deep Space Nine and Voyager are unlikely to generate the kind of revenue to justify a Remastered redo effort (and Enterprise is already available in HD), we believe a high-definition film scan of The Next Generation is very likely in the cards for the entire series run, along with the requisite digitally-upgraded effects. Of course, in addition to syndication and streaming, the end result of all this might be a Next Generation: Remastered Blu-ray release down the line. So if all goes well, you could be spinning Picard and Data on disc in glorious HD by this time next year. In any case, we'll post additional updates on this as they come in. Our best guess: Watch for official news to break at Comic-Con in July.

Bill Hunt, editor
The Digital Bits
The Digital Bits

 

[Kevin EK]

I believe the scrapped TMP spacewalk was considered to be of terrible quality - so much so that they rethought the whole thing and made it a solo Spock thing. I'm fine without seeing those lost takes - there's plenty of scrapped footage from a lot of movies that we wouldn't really want to see...

I'm going to wait and see what really happens with TNG and the other shows. I wouldn't be surprised to see HD broadcasts of the various series without any remastering. I still think a remastering job on TNG would be a massive thing - easily three or more times the cost of what happened on TOS. I can't imagine they could foresee enough of a revenue stream to justify that kind of cost. Most Trek fans already have the DVDs of the TNG season sets, each of which cost a pretty fair amount. Asking the fans to dip again on 7 seasons would be a big gamble.