2006-09-01

Frak!

Read:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Insider/default.htm?rmDate=08312006
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/23775.html

And so . . .

Now what? Which version is canon? Do I have to toss all my old analyses featuring TOS? Hell, I still haven't caught up regarding the DVD editions of Star Wars!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

MY EYES!! G2K why must you link things that will hurt my ability to understand this debate!! IT BURNS!

No seriouslly, this created all sorts of issues.

I doubt they will ruin it too much... who knows, they might actually do a good job. For right now I'm going to say, for my personal veiw of ST canon, that as long as it doesn't seriouslly contridict something that was long since established (for example, if the tribbles became lizards suddenly), that we just accept it.

At this point, the owners of trek are allowed to do with it as they please... and that, sadly, includes rewriting the vision of one great man... who knows... maybe they will really do a good job though... *prays*

Anonymous said...

Until we get confirmation one way or the other, I'd say the new visuals override the old ones because they are doing what Lucas has done. They couldn't do what they wanted or could have done with 60's tech, so they're going back and doing what they can with 21st century tech. However, any changes to time length or dialogue cutting (making the scene last a shorter time) wouldn't override the length it was originally at. From the sound of it, it seems that won't be an issue, but just in case...

Anonymous said...

So does that mean we'll have intruder ships out of range yet still well within eye sight ala Falcon chasing a TIE in Star Wars? I mean, for example, all we knew about the Gorn was perhaps a faint star representing a Gorn vessel, a couple of battles (including Kirk's confrontation with the Gorn ship's captain), and Slar from IaMD fame. Although that doesn't mean the Enterprise's viewer screen in "Arena" [TOS] couldn't be magnified to show the vessel in full detail... We've seen other examples in Star Trek lore that has view screens capable of doing so...

I personally just hope the new graphics don't make Matt Jefferies roll in his grave as far as how the Big E is depicted. It would look neat, don't get me wrong, but... *shrug*

Sincerely,
Another Anonymous

Author said...

The big thing I see happening is range changes. Part of why ST2 was so different for Trek is that the ships were fighting at close range in the Mutara Nebula . . . it was intensely dramatic, even outside of Trek-only contexts.

But that was intentional. In the video "Inside Trek", IIRC, someone who worked on ST2 (the name Joe Johnston comes to mind though I'm not sure if it was him) spoke of how these starships should've been shooting at each other from way, way outside visual range, but someone (Meyer perhaps) wanted them toe-to-toe. The whole reason for the nebula's existence in the story was to bring them toe-to-toe.

But folks got used to that look, to the point that even in later-produced Trek situations where ships had no particular need to fight at spitball range they were doing so 'cause it looked cooler.

Now, I don't know for sure how Okuda & The Gang feel about such things, but since part of the point of the remastering is to bring TOS more in line with modern tastes, I have a bad feeling that we'll see some short-range battle stuff that wasn't necessarily short-range previously.

And I bet they'll also re-do the photon grenade effect from "Arena", probably dinking it down several notches.

And after all, if they're doing one of these a week instead of taking their time, they're going to have some of the same time constraint issues that any weekly production will have.

But oh well. Maybe it'll be cool.

Author said...

IMDB says Joe Johnston was Star Wars-specific, so I don't remember who it was I was thinking of. I'll see if I can dig up the video.

Author said...

I'm sure the stories won't change, though of course that's part of what makes this a bit amusing . . . after all, certain story elements (like Bele's invisible ship and so on) were created entirely for budget/production reasons. And since they can't readily get the same actors to film new scenes, they're kinda stuck with what they've got.

One thing I saw mentioned was the event of Scotty cutting through a bulkhead to get into Engineering . . . they're adding the phaser beam that was missing before. So even silly plot points (just blow the frickin' door, or cut a more readily-cuttable shape like a square or circle) are staying in.

Anonymous said...

Part of my pessimism as far as range changes go didn't have to do with much of this Versus debate though, given how the debate usually pits late-24th century Trek and how your material seems to revolve around it in areas. I just thought Trek was a little unique, from the story to the characters to how space battles were done. Since I was a kid, part of why I liked Trek was the Starships. Although my taste has changed since I was a kid, I still like Trek for that reason (of many), and appreciate TOS more, even for how the Big E was portrayed. It wasn't Star Wars (or Star Trek II) with close-up action. Ships were going at amazing FTL speeds and not purely for travel. Matt Jeffries gave these classic, beautiful (sci-fi) ships power, as I believe Gene wanted them to have. And while ships in contemporary trek had power as well, we rarely saw them demonstrate it, given more sublight battles than FTL ones.

But that's how I feel. But another part of me would like to see how these re-done episodes could run against fan-made material, from fan films to any fan's remake of scenes in TOS episodes using CG (like in the following TrekBBS thread: http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5289277&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1 <-- Go to page 8 or 9 to see a nicely-done CG scene that seemed 1979-ish to me in ways... I think it's because of the angles we see the Big E in those re-done scenes).

Sincerely,
Another Anonymous

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they'll next think of trying to alter the rest of the frames to make it look more like it would be, if shot by modern equipment.

Author said...

According to recent reports, "Star Trek Remastered" is simply going to be using CGI to duplicate the original effects and correct a handful of blatant errors. As one of the people involved said,

:I don't think people are going to say, 'Oh my gosh, you destroyed it.' … It's just prettier to look at," he said. "Right down to the placement of stars, it's being re-simulated to be exactly what was there before."

So, there may be no cause for concern. On the other hand, since earlier reports emphasized that the ship would be moving more dynamically and so on, I get the feeling they'll be monkeying around a little bit instead of just using a usual two or three stock shots of the ship a la TOS pre-remastery.

Author said...

Well, maybe it won't be a total duplication ... and indeed some monkeying will occur (not that that's a bad thing). From a video at DarkHorizons.com, we have Dave Rossi:

"For the Enterprise, she deserves the best we can give her [...] There's three or four shots of the Enterprise orbiting a planet that exist in Star Trek, in the Original Series, and that's it. We're gonna add a few more. We're gonna give you shots of the Enterprise, angles of the Enterprise that you haven't seen before simply because they couldn't do the type of camera moves that we can do today. Nothing we do will ever change the dialog or mess with the story concept ... it's just a matter of saying 'wow, that's a really pretty shot of the Enterprise' [...]"