Celebrating Forty Years...Like This?

This past Saturday saw the first broadcast of the "remastered" versions of the original Star Trek, with the first-season episode "Balance of Terror".

First off, let me say that I was truly looking forward to this project. I'm one of those people who looks at the effects from this show and thinks, what if this were done today? Well, it wouldn't have looked like this. There were a couple of issues I had, so let me tackle them one by one.

The CGI--I don't mind CGI. I have nothing against models, and I have nothing against computers. If it works, it works. And I'm sad to say that this CGI just didn't work. In the effort to remain faithful to the original look of the shots, the guys at CBS (which now owns the rights and is doing all this work) decided to make their all-too-obvious digital ships move EXACTLY as if they were the original models. The problem is, the technology of the day meant that the models couldn't really move all that much. It's possible for one's mind to accept that a brightly-lit model from the '60s won't do much on screen, but when one sees a CGI (and stuff that is as obviously CG as this was) one expects it to do something. Because these new effects are staying "faithful", they move just like the originals--static ships appear to zoom into the camera without changing angles, or "turn" without really doing so. Ironically, when the purpose is to stop the effects from looking fake, they end up looking even more fake; it all ends up making the original work look very sophisticated.

The Image Quality--This one is probably going to have to be blamed on the station I watched it on; these episodes are being shown through syndication, which means multiple channels can show them at times of their own choosing. I can't be sure if this is due to the work being done on the negatives (I truly hope it isn't) but it looked simply awful. The entire show looked as if it had a layer or veil of blackness put over it, making everything difficult to see and really darkening it up considerably. No way was this the "original intent"; colour was a novelty in the '60s and Star Trek was deliberately made with very bright primary colours. Also, some of the reds and purples in the episode had bleeding at the edges, and all skin and facial tones had a tinge of redness to them with actually served to take out some of the life in everyone's faces. But like I said, this could be the broadcast and not CBS.

The Editing--This one is definitely the broadcaster's fault. Once again, syndication means that stations have the freedom to cut and trim episodes to fit in more commercials. I'd say I only saw about forty minutes of the episode; it was just plain gutted. It felt like I was watching a summary of the story rather than the actual thing. Somebody made some very random and unbelievable edits, leaving out important information needed for later on in the plot.

So those three things basically combined to produce a very disappointing experience. I didn't cry, but I did almost turn the TV off. That is not a good thing. Especially with the uncertainty surrounding the future of the original versions; CBS has not been forthcoming, saying only that they will "continue to be available on DVD and on some channels". Yeah, today. But what about tomorrow? If a better job had been done, I wouldn't be so worried. As it stands, I'm very apprehensive.

Be seeing you,
Steven