Remastered StarTrek

[Psygnal]

The original series of Star Trek had its ups and downs, but it really showed its age. Purists will claim that the shoddy - by modern standards - special effects are part of the charm. I'm a big believer in upgrades.

The digitally remastered Star Trek has a lot going for it if you're not too mired in the concept of being a die-hard purist. Many of the special effects and some of the audio has been revamped, and to quite good effect.

So far, all the space shots of the Enterprise orbiting planets is brand new CGI. The planets are crisp, clear and realistic, and the ship looks just fantastic. Not a plastic model on a bit of string.

Phaser shots have been upgraded, and they really do look the part now. I'm pretty impressed by that.

The let down is that they've mostly only worked on bits that they could edit in and out in place of existing effects shots. That's fair enough, but it would have been nice to have had some work done on the horribly fake planetary landscapes.

These, they have not changed. I'd have loved to have seen backgrounds that weren't originally there... or critters just being part of the environment... but they're untouched.

This isn't too much of a problem. I'm glad they didn't go the route of George Lucas and change stuff that didn't NEED changing... turning Mos Eisley into a clowniversity, for example... but a wee touch up here and there to hide the set wobbles and the styrofoam rocks wouldn't have hurt.

Sure... the Gorn blinks now... but how cool - and expensive - would it have been to have completely replaced him with a realistic CGI reptile?

In short, if you don't have the original series on DVD yet, I can recommend this collection. It's a nice, albeit minor, upgrade to the original series without losing any of the charm - in my opinion anyway.

Psyg'

[Bongo]

You wait. In the next 'upgrade', they'll make Kirk a SNAG who asks women to fill out a checklist of the places he's allowed to touch them, McCoy will behave more respectfully towards the biracial half-Vulcan science officer and Scotty will be replaced by a Homer Simpson-esque CGI comedy sidekick.

I'm not a big fan of revisionism (fuck off George Lucas, I don't give a crap about your 'original vision') or colourising black and white films. Having said that, it sounds like this is a better effort than I would have expected. I'm glad the reworked Star Trek is faithful the source and maybe young viewers will give it a chance that they wouldn't have before.

(TOS is still the best of the Star Trek properties, if you ask me.)

Bongo

[Psygnal]

I've watched a few more episodes, and I think they've done a great job.
The new CGI shots are 'the same shot' as the old ones, but with better graphics. That means, they've used new techniques to make it look better, but they haven't actually screwed around with camera angles and so forth.

I'm quite looking forward to "Who mourns for Adonais" to see how they handle the giant glowing hand that grabs the Enterprise.

Either way... it's subtle, rather than extremely overt, and I'm really quite enjoying it.

Psyg'