Star Trek TMP DC, Voyager, DS9 and one reason for delay to high definition (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

I was doing some research this morning about CGI ships for a personal project I'm doing and came across an article that might explain one of the reasons for the lack of a release of Star Trek The Motion Picture Directors Cut in high definition with the revised CGI effects. The article also explains some of the challenges of releasing remastered high definition editions of Star Trek Voyager and DS9. So it was difficult to know where to post this as it covers the film and TV series on blu ray. If the mods want to move this, or integrate it into another thread, please do so. Also, not sure if this post is news to many people here. It was news to me. The article I came across is from all places, Memory Alpha. One of the companies that did the CGI work for Star Trek Voyager and DS9 was Foundation Imaging. What was informative in the article is that in the Wild West days of the 1990's for CGI work, this work was done by many small companies that popped up in Los Angeles to serve the film industry and studios as outside vendors. As productions changed how they chose to do the CGI, many of these companies either closed shop or were taken over by other companies. So for a production like Babylon 5, the producers decided to shift from using Foundation Imaging to doing it in-house. This left Foundation hanging and fortunately for them, Star Trek Voyager slowly integrated their help into their workload. However, eventually, Foundation ran its course and closed shop shortly after doing the 1999 work for Star Trek The Motion Picture. The bad news as a result of so many companies closing shop is that the hardware used and the servers with the digital files were sold and auctioned off. So not all the digital assets were backed-up or saved. And if they were saved, they were saved by the digital artists and they are probably scattered about or incomplete.Foundation did the work on the DC of Star Trek The Motion Picture. When Foundation closed shop, the assets were not saved by Paramount! Foundation Imaging and a company called Digital Muse did the effects for Star Trek Voyager and DS9 respectively. Those files are now scattered about and hopefully saved in the hard drives of those CGi artists. Obviously at that time, there was no foresight for cataloging the work or for backing up the work at the studios. They might have thought that was that and didn't consider future uses. This could be a real roadblock to remastering Voyager and DS9 and that's assuming that CBS are willing to even consider doing those two series for blu ray. Recent posts on the HTF indicated that CBS might feel there isn't a good market for Voyager and DS9. Crazy I know. So the CBS team and the Okudas and Doug Drexler of the Star Trek productions probably still know the people at these now defunct companies. So it might be possible for them to contact all these former Foundation and Digital Muse guys and collect all the digital assets. So it's quite a feat that the assets used for Star Trek The Next Generation were found and used or upgraded for the recent blu ray remasters, but it was done. So it's possible.For Star Trek The Motion Picture, the news has not been good. In 2006, according to the article at Memory Alpha, when Star Trek The Motion Picture was released on blu ray, along with the other Star Trek films, they were only of the theatrical cuts as we know. The article assumes that Paramount didn't have the digital assets. So we didn't get the DC with new effects on blu ray. However there was a surprise at the end of the article, one of the CGi artist came forward in 2013 and said he has all the digital models and related assets in Lightwave software, which was what they used for Star Trek The Motion Picture. So if they want to do the DC of The Motion Picture, his assets would save a tremendous about of time and cost to prepare that edition. I'm sure Daren Dochterman would be glad to also lend a hand and oversee the work to integrate those assets again in a DC of Star Trek The Motion Picture.If you want to read the article I read, which has more boring detail, here is the site: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Foundation_ImagingPerhaps some of the more informed members or members who work in the industry might have more insights. What is also interesting is how scattershot the effects work was done in those days. If the assets are not in the studio vaults, then the same problem exists for other series or films perhaps.