/dev/null/kevin

I watched the new and CGI-improved Star Trek episodes this weekend.  For the most part, I was happy with the results as there were many rumors of them being horribly "Lucas-ified."  CGI Spock ears and Jar Jar Binks, y'know.  But none of that came to pass.  As promised, the main changes were to external scenes, or to the bridge viewer.  Nothing was really added or removed, except mistakes, and the CGI itself isn't so good that it looks out of place.  If they had CGI technology in 1966 it would have looked like this.

There were two updated episodes shown this weekend, "Balance of Terror," which is usually listed in the top 3 of best episodes, and "Miri," which isn't.  Ever.  "Balace of Terror" was a very good choice for a first episode since it is an excellent episode and it features lots of exterior space action.  The internal shots, while not changed, also look really good as they have been processed for Hi-Def broadcasts.  The new shot of the phasers firing is particularly nice since they added reflection off the Enterprise's hull (Yes, they look like photon torpedoes, but hey, they were learning back then).

A couple of things actually weren't better.  The Romulan plasma torpedo looked both better and worse.  It looked more "realistic" (for something that doesn't exist), but also looked more out of place.  Also, the Romulan ship going in and out of cloak looked really bad.  I liked the old way of it fading out (becoming more transparent).  The new way has it disappearing from the outside in.  Maybe I'm just used to the old way, but I didn't like it.

The second episode on this weekend was "Miri" which is not a great episode (actually, it sucks) and didn't feature many scenes that qualified for updating.  The opening shots of a duplicate Earth looked good, and that was about it.  "Miri" contained another not-so-good "improvement" -- the hand phaser's sound and visual were both worse.  In a word: wimpy.  It's not quite "Han Shot First" but it's certainly annoying.  "Bonk Bonk" on the "gr'ups" who made that change.

Much was made of the remastering of the opening score and Shatner's opening monologue.  I didn't really notice anything.  Sorry, Cap'n.

Finally, these syndicated episodes are still cut and trimmed like the original syndicated episodes.  i.e. lots of abrupt and inappropriate transitions.  I would hope that the DVD versions contain the full-length versions.

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September 18, 2006 12:02 AM PDT Permalink | Comments [0] |