Lucas McCain

Are the season sets of the original Star Trek in those brightly colored cases the shows with the "new, updated, special FX"? I keep seeing how they are coming out with HD versions with the updated effects and I just wondered if the normal DVDs have them also? I don't have an HD or blu-ray player so I would just be getting the normal DVDs. Anybody know?

stinkeye

The original sets do not have the enhanced CGI episodes.

Shannon Nutt

The HD DVD release of Season 1 (with the enhnaced episodes) are flippers, with the DVD version of the shows on one side...so if you REALLY wanted them, you could always pick up that...although it's a pretty expensive set! (Maybe you'll be able to find it cheap now that HD DVD is dead).

Lucas McCain

Will they be releasing the new CGI sets in a normal DVD format anytime soon? Or just in Blu-ray or something?

If not, will I be satisfied with the current sets? Do the effects look TOO outdated?

Nickofdoom

They are outdated, but I think that is part of the charm of the series. I've seen a few of the new, updated episodes, and they are just not the same.

Gerry P.

Agreed. No bowdlerized episodes for me.

Boba Fett

I was surprised to see (not on this site, but a few others) the people who complained about the Star Wars SEs praise the CGI additions to Trek.

sracer

Probably because the CGI in Star Trek is limited to refreshing the special effects scenes that already existed.... not creating new scenes simply to include the new CGI. (at least I don't think they added any new scenes)

I'm not crazy about the CGI in Star Trek:TOS. Yes it may LOOK better, but it doesn't FEEL better. (if that makes any sense)

Chew

I've been watching all of the Enhanced episodes in syndication and think they've been a nice upgrade. It always takes me out of the episode seeing what's been done (i.e. it's a little distracting), but the enhancements are always honoring the original without being "Lucas flashy".

milo bloom

I was at a Star Trek convention, I believe it was Fall of 2006, while these were still in the works, and one of the people working on this was a guest speaker, and the first words out of his mouth were "This is not 'Greedo shoots first'. "

That put a lot of people in that room in a better frame of mind right off the bat. Of the dozen or so episodes I've seen with the new CGI, I have to agree. The scenes on Vulcan for "Amok Time" are a major change, but unlike Lucas', they are completely keeping with the tone of the episode. They even threw in a shoutout to the animated series, with the arial shot of the circle-city of Shikar (sp).

It's the attitude: Lucas has always stated he was never happy with the original FX, the Trek team has always approached it with the idea of "how do we smooth out these FX so they're not so jarring to modern day viewers?".

Dr. Forrester

This is how I feel as well. The new effects are much, much less jarring than other notable examples *cough*Lucas*cough*, but part of the charm of the original series was the homespun SFX. They might be considered quaint today, but the effects fit perfectly into the overall aesthetic of the show

Part of the joy of watching older films is to be transported back to another era of media where filmmakers had to find creative solutions that made use of the best tools available at the time. To me, regardless of how antiquated a technique might be considered today, if it's visually striking and works for the production, that works just fine for me.

milo bloom

I'm kind of two ways about that, I enjoy seeing handcrafted models, and don't even mind seeing the strings every now and then, but when they have to optically print the effect onto the film and it creates excess grain, then that's what throws me out of the mood.

I guess a good compromise for these new Treks would have been to use models, but do them against bluescreen so you don't get the excess grain. Best of both worlds and all that.

Walter Neff

Why can't they just leave the original episodes alone? They are what they are, and were made when they were made. Just appreciate the show for what it was -- outdated special effects, Shatner's goofy overacting, low budgets and all -- and stop trying to make it into something made in 2008. Why is this such a hard concept?

Josh Z

I understand the indignation, but having watched the entire "remastered" first season, the changes were all tastefully done and did serve to make something that had grown old and familiar seems totally fresh and new again.

Don't knock it 'till you try it.

indy81

They can talk all they want about making the old effects more palatable for contemporary audiences, but the main reason they had to update the effects was because many of the old effects were unwatchable in hi-def. In other words, it seems unlikely that the original versions will ever be available in HD.

bloopbleep

believe I understand and love the original show but stuff we enjoyed even 10 years ago just won`t fly with todays generation. example I was watching 1933 classic King Kong with my 9 year old son, he made fun of it , called it play dough kong,I tried to watch Godzilla movies from the 60`s and he asked how I could watch man in rubber dinosaur suit step on train models(boring).
when I was nine the stuff looked good but its considered corny and boring nowadays. same thing with the adventures of superman or old Tom Baker Doctor Who`s. I love the shows but to someone younger it`s just dull. when young people see Shatner fight the Gorn it`s just laughable nowadays.

brisco32

[QUOTE=bloopbleep]I was watching 1933 classic King Kong with my 9 year old son, he made fun of it. I love the shows but to someone younger it`s just dull. [QUOTE]

My daughter at 8 didn't have the slightest problem with King Kong or Star Trek. She did find Doctor Who cheesy but enjoyed it anyway.

sracer

Hold out for the colorized CGI-ified version of CITIZEN KANE.

bloopbleep

[QUOTE=brisco32][QUOTE=bloopbleep]I was watching 1933 classic King Kong with my 9 year old son, he made fun of it. I love the shows but to someone younger it`s just dull. my son watched the pete jackson KING KONG version and the new bbc Doctor Who on scifi first,so that probally was the reason. he does love Star Wars especially the original trilogy. for some reason original Star Wars Trilogy dated better than Star Trek TOS.

bloopbleep

no I am holding out for the colorized CGI-ified version of Casablanca(my all time favorite movie). maybe they will update it with robots and space guns. lol.

Gerry P.

Star Trek looks like a tv series from the 1960s, which is what it is.

bloopbleep

to think that star wars came out only 9 years later though. circa 1977.

The Cow

I thought the original star date was 1312.4 or sometime near that

taffer

Yes, but Star Wars was a movie. Star Trek was a TV show. Big difference.

Movies always tend to have much higher budgets than TV shows. Plus, TV shows, with their already smaller budgets, have to divide the budget over a multitude of episodes. If the TV show season is twenty episodes at half an hour each, then that is ten hours of total time that has to be budgeted. A movie budget is used to make a single two-hour movie, not a multitude of episodes.

bloopbleep

yeah but Star Trek the motion picture came out in 1979,2 years after Star Wars and he called that boring and cheesy.