So I’m a purist at heart. I don’t order toffee raspberry fusion sorbet chip cheese cake. I don’t even order cherries or strawberries drizzled on my cheesecake. When I order cheesecake, I expect cheesecake, dammit!’
I was aware, of course, that at some time in the not-so-distant past, Paramount or CBS or whoever owns the IP rejiggered the Original Star Trek episodes to have New! Improved! Non-Embarassing! Special Effects!
To which I said, “Feh!” The grainy, repetitive, matte-composite miniature FX of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS to its friends) were part of the classic charm, as much as Shatner’s waistline battles and Kelley’s problems pronouncing alien names.
Flash forward, and I’ve decided that Katherine, the Daughter of My Loins, needs must be initiated into The Order of the Trek. If only so that I can say, “He’s dead, Jim!” and not have her look at me as blankly as Mr. Spock would.
I picked up a Blu-Ray of Season 1.
And we watched the first episode (which, annoyingly, is not “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” but the air broadcast first ep “The Man Trap“).
So, several years later, what do I think of the FX (which can now be toggled between Old and New with the Angle button on the Blu-Ray player, if only our remote had such a button)?
Well …
Okay, there’s no question that the Very Many Shots of the Enterprise orbiting M-113 are crisper and prettier and more geoplanetary and less repetitive than the original TOS. Applause and huzzahs.
On the other hand, the ship simply doesn’t look like it’s in orbit. It looks like it’s powering around the planet, and the angles (and engine sound) are off.
There’s a single non-orbital rejiggered FX shot, panning across the ruins on the planet. And, honestly, it looks like crap. I have no idea (since I didn’t go back and check it out) what the TOS shot was, but even with it being clearly sound-stage, it would have looked better.
And, yeah, I guess they had to replace the opening credits Enterprise-swoosh with a CG version, but it just doesn’t feel right. Except they imitated the font, which rocks.
Outside of the FX shots, the print (on the Blu-Ray rendition) is incredibly sharp. That makes the scenes where Kirk’s close-ups are in a vaguely soft focus vs. McCoy’s every-wrinkle-and-blemish close-ups in sharp focus all the more obvious, but overall it’s a Good Thing. The color saturation has also been punched up from the Saturday afternoon Channel 13 rerun quality. So, overall, it looks pretty darned good, even if all the phaser optics and shape-shifting scenes clearly go to a freeze-frame.
As to the episode, it’s the (network-dictated) monster-of-the-week, rendered more poignant by the script making it clear that the Incredible Salt Vampire is the last of its kind, but the Enterprise crew being willing to hunt it down and kill it.
Katherine’s comment was that it was “too geeky.”
Well, we’ll see what she thinks about “Charlie X” …
I like the new SFX, they really help with the show IMHO, especially considering I thought they were horrible back when *I* was a kid.
Yeah, I understand the reason for doing it, though it seems like an endless chore to figure out which FX to tweak over the decades.
Plus, to my mind, the actual Enterprise shots, even the stock footage, are iconic, and this loses that sense. It may be net, better, but not without consequence.
Hate to say it, but this was back to molasses load times.
Suddenly I realize Arthur grew up with reruns of TNG, and may never have seen TOS. Maybe I should correct this–but yes, I’ll take that cheesecake plain.
Speaking of real cheesecake, I order from the Carnegie Deli twice a year: Kurt’s birthday and Father’s Day. I think I ordered once for T-Day. Worth the cost of shipping!
Hey! I think we’ve got a second 6″ cake in the freezer. Must think of a reason to bring it out.