diaries, triumphs, failures, and rants
- All
- Animals
- Books
- Chess
- Cigars and the Man-Grill
- Collaboration
- Doctor Who
- General
- Internet
- iPhone
- Java
- LDAP
- mac
- oneLiners
- onThisDay
- slamd
- Star Trek
- Sun
- Travel
Friday Oct 19, 2007
The Doomsday Machine: remastered with new graphics
I watched the classic Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine" in its remastered form last night. New opening, completely new CGI Enterprise, CGI Doomsday Machine. It was absolutely magnificent. Powerful acting performances from Shatner, Nimoy, and guest star William Windom had already elevated this episode above its Cold War mentality, the CGI is icing on what is already a good cake. Word - unsubstantiated rumor in other words - is that Windom improvised the entire sequence with Kirk at that first meeting. Here's a sample:
Capt. Kirk: "Matt, where's your crew? "
Commodore Decker: "On the third planet."
Capt. Kirk: "There IS no third planet!"
Commodore Decker: "Don't you think I know that?"
"The Doomsday Machine", "Balance of Terror", and "The City on the Edge of Forever" consistently rank very high in fan polls as favorite Star Trek episodes. The remastered Doomsday is well worth watching. "The Doomsday Machine" holds up very well for its age. Powerful story, incredible acting performances from William Windom and Leonard Nimoy, especially in their interactions. The music is also very engaging (so popular it was used over and over in the 2d season). One man's opinion: "The Doomsday Machine" should be in the top 5 of ALL Star Trek episodes, in any of the series.
Checkout the memory-alpha article for some good pictures, and side-by-side with the original transmission. Memory Alpha is one of the best fan-wikis around.
Technorati Tags: kirk, nimoy, tv, shatner, startrek, windom
Posted at 08:47PM Oct 19, 2007 by tgardner in Star Trek | Comments[3]
I gotta agree, those are classic episodes. Now I'm going to have to ILL them and watch them again.
Posted by Perley on October 19, 2007 at 01:23 PM EDT #
Dammit! They go and remaster TOS in HD after I bought TOS on DVD!
Oh well. I won't buy the remastered set on standard DVD.
I almost forgot about "Balance of Terror". That was an excellent episode.
The CGI does look like it improved "The Doomsday Machine". However, the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine" was actually an AMT plastic USS Enterprise model which was burned with a Zippo lighter. So it did not take much to improve on that.
Posted by Mark on October 19, 2007 at 07:47 PM EDT #
And the "doomsday" device shows up in in Star Trek: New Voyages also. See http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/. And again in one of the novels, I forget which. In the novel, it is revealed that the doomsday devices(s) were created by an alien race to combat the Borg!
Posted by tjg on October 20, 2007 at 07:53 AM EDT #