CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › CHUD.COM Main › Star Trekkin'
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Star Trekkin' - Page 2

post #51 of 742
12/27/08 at 9:55pm
Great idea for a series. Not to be a dick (though I'm sure you'll think I'm being one; lord knows tone is hard to read on a message board), but I'd be very VERY impressed if you see this through to the end. CHUD running features have a tendency to wither and die before their time.
Reply
post #52 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:02pm
What a great idea. If your prose is any match for Litmus's graphics, we're in for a real treat.
Reply
post #53 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:18pm
AS per a book deal, My year of the flops became one with 100 plus entries. If you go in depth with everything, you could do that.
Reply
post #54 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:22pm
i'm so jazzed about this series, SO JAZZED!
Reply
post #55 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:31pm
I predict "The Enemy Within" will be one of the top 3 entries in this series. An embarrassment of riches.
Reply
post #56 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:37pm
I've never actually seen much of the Original Series (I grew up with the Next Generation), but this really makes me want to Netflix the show and watch it along with this series. Can't wait!
Reply
post #57 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:43pm
Looking forward to this -- I like it when Devin lets his hair down and just enjoys something.
Reply
post #58 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Incorporeality View Post
I've never actually seen much of the Original Series (I grew up with the Next Generation), but this really makes me want to Netflix the show and watch it along with this series. Can't wait!
That's probably a spectacular idea, if you're able to watch them in order (and confirm that Devin's write-ups will be in order). Maybe try to watch the episodes right before reading the articles.
Reply
post #59 of 742
12/27/08 at 10:50pm
Yeah, thought about that too. I only saw about half of the original run. But i can't remember them (maybe 5 or 6). But i can't keep up with watching a series! Look at my Bond progress! I've only watched 13 films in more than 2 months!
Reply
post #60 of 742
12/27/08 at 11:19pm
Cool. I was just going to start a thread entitled "Convince me that Star Trek is NOT the worst shit ever." This series should serve that purpose nicely.
Reply
post #61 of 742
12/27/08 at 11:33pm
I hate you Face Man.
Reply
post #62 of 742
12/27/08 at 11:46pm
Devin you magnificent bastard. Awesome idea and you're (obviously) the perfect staff member to tackle it.

I swear, right here and now, if this becomes a book I will be purchasing it. Actually, I've always promised myself if any of you publish a book I'd buy it.
Reply
post #63 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:04am
Really looking forward to this, but I guess this means that your Apes retrospective is no longer happening. Kept expecting it to pop up any day. Someday, yes?
Reply
post #64 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:11am
Thread Starter 
It'll happen. This series is structured so that it's easy for me to get ahead of myself. Once I get back from Sundance I should be able to focus on other big projects.

I'm waiting to do APES until I can see the CONQUEST director's cut, as well. I don't have Blu-Ray.
Reply
post #65 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:18am
Good. I'd honestly hate to see you write less general content.
Reply
post #66 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:22am
Conquest is more like a "restored from director's notes", Touch of Evil-type reconstruction, at least it feels that way. But if this is in fact a print of a J. Lee Thompson cut from 1972, his decision to roll what I believe is a piece of music from the 1968 film over the end of this film becomes less a clumsy patch and more cheesily brilliant. (Unless I'm completely misremembering, but it feels completely alien next to the weirdo-jazz score much of the film has).
Reply
post #67 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:31am
"You see? That is just like you, Hairy. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you."
Reply
post #68 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:39am
Count me in as super excited to see this get rolling. I've always been a fan of Trek, but have only really ever seen the movies and then a few dozen episodes from various Trek series that aren't the original series so this will be a great bit of geek education for me.

ETA- I would also happily purchase this or any other compilation of writing that CHUD staffers would put in book form.
Reply
post #69 of 742
12/28/08 at 12:44am
I think we're going to see some geek stratification in these threads. Lots of us not bitching too hard in the Abrams threads, lots of us who haven't had the bug rekindled yet- could probably talk pages and pages on original Trek. Embarrassing the shit out of ourselves in the process. I recently recognized the Andorian ambassador from "Journey To Babel" (the one who played Barlow in 'Salem's Lot) on a tv show out of makeup. Reggie Nalder. Stop looking at me.
Reply
post #70 of 742
12/28/08 at 1:16am
No finger-pointing here. When I was a kid, I had the blueprints, the medical manual, and the concordance. My big parlor trick in high school was that I could walk in the room, see ten seconds of Star Trek, and name the episode.
Reply
post #71 of 742
12/28/08 at 1:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
No finger-pointing here. When I was a kid, I had the blueprints, the medical manual, and the concordance. My big parlor trick in high school was that I could walk in the room, see ten seconds of Star Trek, and name the episode.
People exist that can't do that?
Reply
post #72 of 742
12/28/08 at 2:01am
Thread Starter 
I have the first four done. I'm terrible at withholding, though - I just want to link them now. I guess this series will teach me control.
Reply
post #73 of 742
12/28/08 at 2:01am
I could pick my nose with my tongue.
Reply
post #74 of 742
12/28/08 at 2:34am
i never "got" star trek and cant sit through anything involved with it, but I will attempt to read this if only to support the idea in hopes of an eventual Magnum P.I. retrospective.
Reply
post #75 of 742
12/28/08 at 3:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
Litmus, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the new effects. I haven't seen anything jarring yet - all very respectful, but I haven't seen every one, and might have deleted a couple ("Catspaw", "Turnabout Intruder", etc.) off my DVR without watching.
It would probably be more fun and beneficial to go into these details as Devin unveils each new entry in his series. But I have to say that AICN (shockingly!) did a pretty good job with their shot comparisons back when they did them. Not to derail whatever path Devin is going to lead us on but perhaps we can do an informal Enhanced vs. Original sidebar with each new episode.

But I'll just say that if the Enhanced CG team had merely provided faithful recreations of the original FX shots, there wouldn't be much to discuss...and fortunately for this series, they took some significant creative license and there is plenty to discuss.

A minor example, from THE WAY TO EDEN:

Reply
post #76 of 742
12/28/08 at 3:07am
Hopefully this series can shed some light on the Trek fandom and show me why the show is so highly regarded, seeing as I nearly wanted to beat my face in while watching the episode called "The Arena" a few weeks ago.
Reply
post #77 of 742
12/28/08 at 3:16am
Well, this might be the moment when Devin finally goes completely insane.

The most unfortunate thing is going to be the months long wait until you reach the fifth movie. There'll be entries where all you'll be able to say is "this is what makes Star Trek for me" and entries where you'll go "this is what makes me hate myself for liking this show", but Final Frontier is either going to be an epic surprise or the angriest, most swear-filled and funniest rant against a movie we've ever heard.
Reply
post #78 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:12am
I'm pretty stoked for this series. Can't wait for it to start.
Reply
post #79 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:37am
Awesome

I am also a OS newb. TNG was my bread and butter growing up, but I do love catching an episode here and there.

Maybe this will encourage me to check out the OS as well.
Reply
post #80 of 742
12/28/08 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Litmus Configuration View Post
A minor example, from THE WAY TO EDEN:
Well, changing a ship we only ever see in this one episode, so that it no longer resembles an origami fortune teller, gets a pass from me. Especially if Charles Napier, Space Hippie, is still inside that ship. Had they started dicking around with Romulan Birds of Prey or Klingon ships (I know they rightly swapped out one Klingon model for a Romulan Bird of Prey in "The Enterprise Incident"), I'd be less happy.
Reply
post #81 of 742
12/28/08 at 11:56am
That ship from "The Way to Eden" was just a re-used model from "The Tholian Web". A lot of the FX are like that -- taking something that was stock or re-used footage and creating something new.

And what I like about the new shots is how well they ape the style of the original effects. They don't stick out like they did in the Star Wars special editions. They look like what the crew could have done back in '66 with time and a real budget.
Reply
post #82 of 742
12/28/08 at 1:06pm
In case people might want to watch along at home but don't have the DVDs or Netflix, IMDB has what appears to be every episode of the original un-remastered series available to watch for free here. I had actually just started to watch the first season only about 2 weeks ago and have been greatly enjoying it. I'm sure this feature will just help me enjoy it even more, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Reply
post #83 of 742
12/28/08 at 1:36pm
This is great timing for me, because I'm just getting around to watching the original series for the first time ever, thanks to a friend who's loaning me the DVDs. As I mentioned in the Dr. Who thread, I have a really high tolerance for low-budget production values if I can see solid writing peeking out from underneath, so I've been finding it pretty enjoyable (though I'm told the first season, which is all I've seen so far, is the best).

Question for people who have seen the revamped edition: did they alter the cheesy low-budget Klingons in "Errand of Mercy" to look like something more than dudes with fake tans?
Reply
post #84 of 742
12/28/08 at 1:42pm
Amusing pics, but Devin without chest hair is like a day without sunshine.
Reply
post #85 of 742
12/28/08 at 1:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Prankster View Post
Question for people who have seen the revamped edition: did they alter the cheesy low-budget Klingons in "Errand of Mercy" to look like something more than dudes with fake tans?
Nope, and from what I've been hearing the greasepaint and eyeliner is really jarring in high def. I'm okay with that.
Reply
post #86 of 742
12/28/08 at 2:02pm
I had a magazine that listed every Trek episode, and gave a brief description of each. It was very clinical, and wasn't very interesting. I'm sure this series will put it to shame.
Reply
post #87 of 742
12/28/08 at 2:22pm
It was probably EPI-LOG. That was the entire point of the magazine - episode guide for different genre series. I have the issues that covered Wiseguy, Dark Shadows and Kung Fu.
Reply
post #88 of 742
12/28/08 at 2:39pm
I like how this whole thing starts on the very weekend I finished boxing up all my old toys for sale. And then I totally geek out over this. It's like that "one last cigarette" thing except with me not growing up.

That said, I'm fucking stoked! Litmus, if I PayPal'd you a bunch of money, will you Photoshop Devin into a scene from every episode??
Reply
post #89 of 742
12/28/08 at 3:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Eaton View Post
That said, I'm fucking stoked! Litmus, if I PayPal'd you a bunch of money, will you Photoshop Devin into a scene from every episode??
Why, yes. Yes I would!

ETA: Re: the whole Enhanced vs. Original thing, I wonder what the debates have been like in some of the hardest of the hardcore Trek forums. My problem with some (not all) of the new shots isn't so much the redesigning going on but rather the lack of texture, resulting in kind of a too-clean synthetic amateur vibe. But none of it is really worth going to war over, in my opinion.
Reply
post #90 of 742
12/28/08 at 3:57pm
I find this whole thing kind of interesting in that Trek was the bottom of the heap for nerddom for many years. Now Star Wars has sunk in everyone's estimation...is Trek becoming (nerd) cool again?
Reply
post #91 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:13pm
Star Trek is the bedrock of nerddom. Whether it's cool or not is irrelevant.
Reply
post #92 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:25pm
The people behind the new enhancements have said that by updating the effects, they were hoping to be able to give new viewers a chance to get into TOS by getting past the clunky production values and limits of technology. Perhaps that's true for the guys who did their best on a minimal budget to put the remastered shows together, but for Paramount it's just suckling at the "SE" tit.

Personally, it drives me buggy! Just like with the Star Wars SE's, the new marginally OK CG effects will become just as dated as people think the old ones have, only without the stylistic synergy the original shots had with the rest of the show. Secondly, if you can't get past the effects... fuck off! You probably don't have the imagination to get what the stories are about anyways.

Remake movies and TV shows as much as you like, but for the love of god leave film and television history alone.
Reply
post #93 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:28pm
Thread Starter 
I find the huge majority of updated FX to be fine.
Reply
post #94 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by devincf View Post
I find the huge majority of updated FX to be fine.
Here's a question for you Devin- would you say the new effects enhanced your enjoyment of the show in any way?

Cause the rational for it baffles me. They're picking one element of the show and updating it, yet everything else about the show remains the same. The music, the lighting, the costumes, the props, the direction; it all comes from an aesthetic that a viewer is either going to buy into or not.

You're not going to have sex with that girl you think is ugly just cause she had a boob job.
Reply
post #95 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 11thIndian View Post

You're not going to have sex with that girl you think is ugly just cause she had a boob job.
That's the reason 90% of women get boob jobs. And it works.
Reply
post #96 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:42pm
Thread Starter 
Speak for yourself.

I understand that the FX looked particularly bad in HD. Not just because of fakeness (and I never found the FX TOO fake. Models always look better than CG as they age) but because of film quality, and how they were shot.
Reply
post #97 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:50pm
What's interesting is that for TNG, DS9 and (I believe) VOYAGER, they're going to have to update all the standard-def VFX for HD as well, and I think those enhancements will be even more ripe for controversy given how comparatively recent those original effects are, even if they're perhaps not as beloved as TOS.

For me,-- and this applies to STAR WARS and any other VFX upgrade project as well -- I'm not opposed to updating the effects, especially if it's for a newer higher definition format. It's the creative alterations that a new team applies to the work of the original craftsmen who were involved in the project's inception that are to be scrutinized if you care about these things. (I do.) I don't find too many of the TOS Enhanced shots to be worth getting riled up about but I bet there are serious TREK fans who've deconstructed the hell out of them and I wonder what the verdict was or is.
Reply
post #98 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:54pm
My mistake for tying my argument to anything to do with manbooblust!

With the FX shots having to go through an optical printer a half dozen times, it's no wonder they're in rough shape. Even big budget movies from the time see an increase in grain and contrast during opticals [fades included].

I guess I'm just sad that the art has to come to the viewer instead of the viewer coming to the art. It's the same damn reason kids these days won't watch black and white movies- they're not seeing enough of them on TV before they're programed to think that it means there's something wrong with it!
Reply
post #99 of 742
12/28/08 at 4:59pm
The spinoff shows are going to take a lot more work to make it to HD. At least TOS exists in 35mm: although TNG etc were shot on film, the finalled episodes were edited and composited in standard definition video. They'll have to go back to the negatives and recompile everything, not just the FX.
Reply
post #100 of 742
12/28/08 at 5:01pm
It certainly is a sticky issue for Paramount. All that TREK product, suck at SD! Imagine the cost of recreating the FX for the later seasons of DS9. Ah, the yin and yang of digital post. Makes things a million times easier, but you're fucked for the future!
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: CHUD.COM Main
CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › CHUD.COM Main › Star Trekkin'