I knew nothing about this effort until three days ago, when I landed on this site. I was thrilled, until I saw the first ‘enhanced’ Trek last night. Being an avid TOS fan (I’m 44 years old, and watched them first in the early 70s while in first-syndication), here’s my take:

When George Lucas chose to redo the first three “STAR WARS” movies with new effects, he did so in the spirit of ‘finishing’ the movies in the way he would have done it had the tech been available in the 70’s and 80’s. He also took the opportunity to ‘add’ some scenes to improve the overall product. If Roddenberry were still around and were ‘directing’ this effort, I think the addition of such scenes would be very appropriate, and all enhancements made would become ‘canon’ due to its creator’s tinkering.

But Roddenberry’s dead. So the issue, in my view, is whether or not enhancing the show’s effects will be accepted as ‘canon’ without the creator’s input. When Lucas did Star Wars over, the fan base largely accepted the enhancements, proven largely by box office receipts and DVD sales. However, with no Roddenberry involvement, and with so much fan disagreement over the new Trek effects, I suspect this will be controversial for a long time and will make the entire effort potentially apocryphal.

In summary, I would say the new efforts are — to quote Nomad — in ‘ERR-ROR, ERR-ROR, MUST AN-AL-LYZE ERR-ROORRR…”

Well, his wife endorses the project saying that he would be all about the future - updating it for todays audience. I don’t think that we should trash the originals, but lets not forget that we live in the here and now.

Most of us don’t read ancient texts in their original languages…we read a translation. Sometimes even an adaptation.

People riff on pieces of art all the time without destroyng or replacing the original - how many take on the “Mona Lisa” have you seen? How many different adaptation of Romeo and Juliet?

Star Trek isn’t a religion, no matter what Futurama says, I say as long as you are honoring the intent of the story - go for it. Change all you want.

Daniel — Well said!!

I think these new enhancements are great and I look forward to watching Star Trek every week again like I did in the 80’s. The new shots are very well done, however, I don’t think they are taking adavantage of the new technology at their disposal in other scenes. While we are surprised by great shots(like the science station at the beginning of “The Naked Time”) other opprotunities are being wasted. When the Enterprise has to cold start the engines they should have done an exterior shot of the Enterprise with a subtle warp effect going on outside the ship. Spock does say the Enterprise is travelling faster than their instruments can register. Seems to me a good opportunity missed there IMO.

In future episodes I am also hoping that when Kirk and company are on a sound stage during planetary scenes they add clouds and other features to make it seem more real. Many times it is painfully obvious they are on a stage.

Furher, the folks doing the work on these new shots are doing a good job of keeping loyal to the original show almost to a fault. While I like the original, they need to add much more new shots of the Enterprise. What is the point of remastering if they simply regurgitate all of the same angles we’ve all seen a 1000 times. Get more creative!!!

I read a book about the production of the original series that was written either during the production of season 3, or right after. I can’t remember the title because I read it about 15 years ago. Anyway the producers, perhaps even Gene himself, talked about how if you where traveling at near the speed of light that the stars would appear to cluster together. I am guessing that is why the time travel effect was produced the way it was. (well that and budget). So I suspect that the effect was not changed in the re-mastered version because it is based on real science, (of the 60’s that may or may not be applicable today).

re:Lance

I read the same book, a great read.

On the original series they even had a physicist on staff to review the scripts to make sure it was at least possible. A lot of TOS was based on real science, something they got away from in Voyager and DS9 and that star wars never attempted.

The Making of Star Trek (ISBN 0345340191)

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Star-Trek-Stephen-Whitfield/dp/0345340191

Largely, this was another wasted effort. Main problems:

No improvements in the external shots of the ship.

When the Enterprise was falling unpowered toward the planet, the speed of the ship (as demonstrated by the speed of the planet’s rotation on the viewscreen) was much much too fast. This simply makes no sense and is contrary to basic physics.

The time travel effect was virtually nonexistent. Why bother?

Long as they are sticking slavishly to the original shots, PUT THE RED AND BLUE STARS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is what was shown contrary to basic physics EricB?
If anything the new shots reinforce “basic physics,”
The planets mass was decreasing, causing increased rotation. From the birds eye view of the Enterprise’s perspective, this would appear as though the surface was zipping by faster and faster, not to mention the Enterprise was slowly getting closer to the planet, which would dramatically increase the appearance of relative speed.

The Okuda’s did their homework.

I loved The Making of Star Trek, I still have a reprint from the late 80’s around somewhere.

I’m glad to see someone else is missing those beautiful colored stars. If you are going to struggle to keep the stars in the same positions…as was quoted many times prior to the enhanced versions hitting the airwaves… at least have courtesy to keep their color…their presence simply looks good….if anyone on the project is reading this….please put them back.

I actually prefered the old analog chronometer to the new pixie bulbs! I’m also glad they kept the creepy blood drops the same. Liked the planet exterior and Scotty’s phaser beam was about right for an IR blaster.

However, a closer look tells me the ship’s exterior paint must return to the glossy, light “sky blue” of the original. The flat haze gray of the CGI just doesn’t do it for me. According to the colors I saw, the hull and the bridge seat-backs ought to approximate each other.

And yes, bring back the colorful stars!

The Enterprise hull was never blue–although I definitely thought it was as a kid and painted my first AMT Enterprise model kit glossy duck egg blue. The blue color was the result of the white-painted ship and the optical compositing of the period–and the problem everyone’s having with these orbiting shots is they were all originally filmed using the early “pre-production” version of the 11-foot model, which had a paint job that was either white or very very light gray that read as white onscreen. While the production version with the ball-shaped rear nacelle caps, spinning warp drive dome effects and “grayer” paint job was employed by early in the first season, most of the orbital shots we’re used to seeing–like the ones in the title sequence–were of the earlier model, so it simply looks “wrong” to see the orange engine light effects and darker paint scheme in these shots.

“Naked Time” was a bit of a disappointment after “Devil in the Dark”–there were well-done shots overall but again the approach is quite conservative. In this case the promo shown last week was almost deliberately misleading, with streaking light effects added to shots that suggested we were going to see some wild effects for the cold start/time warp sequence. The additions are all right but it’s frustrating to see no improvement in the ship shots, especially after the nice final shot last week. I wonder if they haven’t trapped themselves now in that they’ve now established the look of the Enterprise in these opening episodes and they’re loathe to upgrade it dramatically in order to maintain consistency.

And yes, please bring back the color stars! I wonder if this was a second season innovation; my memory is failing on that score. But even if it was, if you’re going to be fixing “continuity errors” like Scotty’s missing phaser beam, you might as well make the stars consistent…

I can almost guarantee the original ship was never white… they would have blown out the film stock with pure white and that much light that needed to be pumped on the FX set… even the earlier 3 footer was painted at about 40 percent grey. (you can see the actual color on the record cover for “Mr. Spock’s music from outer space” record album.) This isn’t the look they should be emulating… as I’ve said countless times before in person and in print, they should be trying to make the ship look as it did when it was its best: the Third Season. It looked big, and blue. lol

More on my blog. www.trekenhanced.com

The colored stars were shown in the first season. I re-checked the orginal Balance of Terror on DVD and there are clearly blue and orange stars in many of the space shots, as well as the viewscreen shots of space. I really hope they correct this BIG problem!

Enjoying TOS-Redux so far but wishing they would go a bit further “reimagining” the space scenes. Showing me a shot for shot remake is just wasting my time. I want a crisp, dynamic Enterprise with smooth camera moves. If I want to feel the camera “dolly” in or slide past the model off-axis (ie looks like the ship is skidding”) I’ll just watch the original. Doing those kinds of moves too faithfully is plain stupid and maintains the “dated” look of the show. I thought the point here was to update it so the “kids” would watch it?

RE: Color of the Model. Model building fanatics have examined the orginal at the smithsonian and pronouced it’s color to closest to “concrete gray”.
http://culttvman.com/what_color_is_the_classic_ente.html

This has been debated over and over… the ONLY section of the Model in the smithsonian that has the original paint on it is the top of the primary hull. The rest was re-painted by Ed Miarecki in the early 90s. (some, including me, think that this paint job was a little “extreme” in its weathering.)

I think that the conservative approach CBS is applying to the episodes is appropriate for the conservation of the piece of modern mythology Trek has become. I also think that the digital tinkering perpetrated on the Star Wars films served as a shining example of how NOT to do it right.
No, Trek Remastered isn’t perfect, (those pesky nacelle domes, and why stars the size of headlights??) but it could be a lot worse. (Or, Daren, as you know, a lot better!)
PS- Curious that I originally had the #2 post- and it somehow got deleted. So much for freedom of speech.

I just wonder if it would have killed them tho put in ONE shot of the ship exterior as it plowed through the upper atmosphere in low orbit, flames playing at the edges of the shields?

Just one lousy shot.

I’m glad daren agrees with my eyes and pronounces the Big E: blue! Haze gray is wonderful if you’re trying to hide your shilouette on the horizon of the North Atlantic but I don’t know why that color would make sense in space.

For example, I saw an Apollo-Saturn Ib spacecraft on the pad in Florida in 1975. I have the distinct memory that it was semi-gloss white with black detailing. Gosh it was beautiful. I can only imagine what a Saturn V looked like! Similarly, the Trek Enterprise is a pride and joy to be seen, not camoflaged against the sky.

By the way, it occurs to me the only colors that cont are those that we saw on the tube. B&W era actors would shock you if you saw their make-up in its true colors!!!

The hull color of the Enterprise is camouflage grey.

The Enterprise appears light blue, green, or violet because of the mood lights.

If you are going for accuracy over aesthetic sensibility, the grey being used is correct and appropriate.

Here’s another vote for the 3rd season look! I remember watching the show back in the early 1970s and noticing at a tender age how great the ship looked in The Tholian Web and Last That Be Your Last Battlefield. In the latter they got in tight and pivoted the shot, really creating a sense of mass in the old girl. And yup, she was a beautiful blue.

And another hear hear for the sad look of the old model in the Smithsonian. It is in better shape physically than it was years earlier when it was strong up above a stairway there with the holes in the unfilmed side for the cabling duct-taped over, but the weathering they later applied is way too extreme, especially considering that we’ll never see the model under film lights again.

Thanks for this website, and for the great comments from the various posters.

Okay, before anyone flames me, I meant LET That Be Your Last Battlefield!

The way the E looks in the museum is just pathetic. Why haven’t the legions of trekkies risen up and demanded that it be fixed? It doesn’t look “weathered” to me…. it looks like someone tried to paint on the kind of crap that you see on the ship from the latest series. Gross. And it never occurred to me while I watched every episode a dozen time over the last 40 years that the Enterprise was anything other than white, until I found people debating it on this site. Maybe the model was greyish or something, but on screen it was clearly a white ship. You guys are weird. Blue?