TOS Remastered: Disappointment in the Special Effects?

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

I mean, I know they are trying to keep the 'original' feel of the series, but come on. We should be able to see a Connie's full glory in the remastered version. Not only that, you can't even *tell* when the ship is at Warp or in Impulse. So what are you're thoughts on the SE?

[Reliant121]

i've not seen the remastered versions. Don't know where i would either.

[Sionnach Glic]

Personaly, I'm not too impressed by it.

[Teaos]

For something which is supposed to revolve around the special effects they are pretty average.

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye, mediocre at best. I knew we weren't going to see DS9 level effects, but I was expecting a bit more.

[Graham Kennedy]

I don't think they are supposed to "revolve around" the effects at all. The shows still revolve around the characters... just with better effects.

I've seen interviews with the folks who did it and they very, very much wanted to be true to what the series did. They said one of their main rules was that they were NOT going to stick in all sorts of snazzy FX shots that were out of place and out of keeping with the episodes. So for instance, yeah, you can't tell when the ship is at warp - because in TOS, you never could.

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

I don't think they are supposed to "revolve around" the effects at all. The shows still revolve around the characters... just with better effects.

I've seen interviews with the folks who did it and they very, very much wanted to be true to what the series did. They said one of their main rules was that they were NOT going to stick in all sorts of snazzy FX shots that were out of place and out of keeping with the episodes. So for instance, yeah, you can't tell when the ship is at warp - because in TOS, you never could.

How about battle scenes like we saw in later, hell the Prequel series then? Before getting into Star Trek, I kept hearing people say that Kirk and crew fought in Lightspeed. Couldn't tell because of the bad special effects. But now they can do real good ones, so they could stay true to a 1960's series? That...sounds pretty half-assed.

[Reliant121]

To be honest, if they weren't going to bother reworking it with decent SFX, they should have kept it as it was. Just improving the shots that were TOS taken is not really making an effort. for me, you either keep it the same, or completely rework it.

[Teaos]

Yeah what they did was pretty pointless.

[Graham Kennedy]

How about battle scenes like we saw in later, hell the Prequel series then? Before getting into Star Trek, I kept hearing people say that Kirk and crew fought in Lightspeed. Couldn't tell because of the bad special effects. But now they can do real good ones, so they could stay true to a 1960's series? That...sounds pretty half-assed.

How about them? The idea of this project was NOT to make TOS fit in with the other series. Nor should they have done that.

[Capt. Jethro]

The success of TOS was its stories, although the special effects were admirable for the era and budget, it was the stories that drove it. I like special effects but without a good story it is nothing but eye candy and the show dies quickly.

If I remember correctly when George Lucas redid SW 4,5 and 6 he said that it was because the technology wasn't available at the time to achieve what he really wanted. Still the same great story but snazzier FX, best of both worlds. After seeing some of the re-mastered TOS episodes I wish they would have embraced the concept that Lucas did.

[Teaos]

What gets me is that it wasnt some great moral decision to make the ship look no different while in warp than in impulse. It was that it was easier.

Now they can make the difference they don't? Stupid.

[Deepcrush]

I like the way they did the SE for trek. The first SE for Wars was good but then they got out of hand a few years later. I think its good that they fixed up the mirror mistakes but left the rest of the show alone.

[Graham Kennedy]

The success of TOS was its stories, although the special effects were admirable for the era and budget, it was the stories that drove it. I like special effects but without a good story it is nothing but eye candy and the show dies quickly.

If I remember correctly when George Lucas redid SW 4,5 and 6 he said that it was because the technology wasn't available at the time to achieve what he really wanted. Still the same great story but snazzier FX, best of both worlds. After seeing some of the re-mastered TOS episodes I wish they would have embraced the concept that Lucas did.

Funny, because I had the opposite feeling. Watching the remastered SW movies, some of the changes were good - the cloud city backgrounds in ESB with the walls replaced by open views were nice. But a lot of the changes really stuck out and looked awkward to me. I certainly watched the first one and literally sat there thinking "oh, that's changed... that wasn't there... that's original..." And it's not that I know the film so well I could tell the differences, it's that the new FX just looked different and didn't sit well with the old. Not to mention one or two odd cosmetic choices (Jabba less than half the size he was in ROTJ), or infamous changes to the story (Han fired first!)

Whereas I think the redone TOS looks exceptionally good. The new FX is integrated far better and looks far more natural to the story. In fact Ian and I often wondered if something had been changed or not, they were blended that naturally. There are a few things I'd have been tempted to do differently if it were me - proper firing ports on the ship, a few times where hand phasers fire funny beams or different coloured beams, that sort of thing. But Having watched season 1 I can't say I found a single change I didn't approve of.

[Captain Seafort]

Funny, because I had the opposite feeling. Watching the remastered SW movies, some of the changes were good - the cloud city backgrounds in ESB with the walls replaced by open views were nice. But a lot of the changes really stuck out and looked awkward to me. I certainly watched the first one and literally sat there thinking "oh, that's changed... that wasn't there... that's original..." And it's not that I know the film so well I could tell the differences, it's that the new FX just looked different and didn't sit well with the old. Not to mention one or two odd cosmetic choices (Jabba less than half the size he was in ROTJ), or infamous changes to the story (Han fired first!)

Or, for that matter, complete fuckups - Luke's green lightsabre in ANH for example, or the crappy quality of Greedo's potshot, regardless of the pros and cons of whether the change should have been made at all.