Original Star Trek Getting CGI Makeover

Tony Pascale writes "Star Trek is the latest sci-fi classic to get the CGI 'special edition' treatment. According to rumors picked up by TrekMovie.com, CBS and Paramount have been secretly working on a new version of Star Trek: The Original Series for HDTV. The shows will feature the original episodes with brand new state-of-the-art CGI visual effects, including a a redone title sequence (with re-recorded music). The effects are likely to be limited to the space scenes and not effect the live action scenes, so Edith Keeler will not shoot first. The HDTV Star Trek series will begin broadcasting this fall just in time for the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek."

City on the Edge of Woodspock

[eldavojohn]

The effects are likely to be limited to the space scenes and not effect the live action scenes, so Edith Keeler will not shoot first.

It's true that Edith Keeler will not shoot first [wikipedia.org], however, let's just say that when Dr. McCoy "accidentally" injects himself with an overdose of cordrazine his trip down to the planet is a little bit more like the 60s. If-ya-know-what-I-mean.

Obligatory

[BVis]

NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo!

Re:Obligatory

[PinkyDead]

I never trusted CGI... and I never will. I can never forgive for what they did to Star Wars!

Want it to go opposite direction.

[sgant]

I'd like to see them digitally put cigarettes INTO all the scenes. Of people holding a ciggy now and then. Put nipples poking through the fabric on all the females. Digitally place the twin towers in the city-scape scenes when they go back to old New York...even though they weren't even built. Why not? They're removed from everything else, let's add them in now.

Things like that. Let's do something COOL with the technology.

Re:

[gatzke]

That is what wikipedia says anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-generated_im agery [wikipedia.org]

Plus CGI reminds me of SGI. They once were pretty sweet...

Re:

[ronanbear]

Maybe this isn't for the original fans. Maybe this is intended for the current generation of TV viewers who have been groomed on better special effects and for whom the original is absurd and the experience is marred. Sure the untouched Star Wars had more charm and was the version that we all remembered and liked but aside from the Han shooting first it was just compensating for a lower budget and inadequate special effects. People who only saw Star Wars for the 1st time 5 years ago are likely to get a bett

Re:

[BVis]

Maybe the current generation of TV viewers deserves something original rather than a rehash of a forty-year old series. Maybe fans of the original series don't like being told the series that they knew and loved is now considered broken because it's too old.
Maybe the cheesy effects were part of what made it great. (See old Dr. Who episodes for a better illustration.)

Next thing you know, they'll want to go back and "fix" The Wizard of Oz because the effects are too "primitive" and the studio "wants to upda

Re:Obligatory

[crawling_chaos]

Come to think of it, they'll have an easier time with those because the directors are dead and can't object to their masterpieces being whored out to line the studios' pockets.

Wait, I thought copyright protection was evil and that an artist really should have no control over his work once he releases it? Or are mash-ups and re-cuttings only fair when they are posted to YouTube instead of released on DVD?

Re:Obligatory

[arth1]

One thing is whether the artist should have control over his works.
Another thing entirely is whether the marketing company should have these rights.

In some countries, certain rights of the artists are inalienable. I think this is a good thing.

Re:

[!the!bad!fish!]

Maybe the cheesy effects were part of what made it great. (See old Dr. Who episodes for a better illustration.)

The current series of Dr. Who is just as "great".

Re:

[arodland]

2001 has always been broken. Man, I don't know how people stand Kubrick at all. The book had me hooked from the beginning, and turning pages straight to the end, but the movie was agonizingly slow, had no sense of narrative, and on the whole just didn't make a bit of sense. There's something wrong with that picture. I thought books were supposed to be boring and incomprehensible, and movies were supposed to be shallow but action-packed ;)

Re:Obligatory

[Scrameustache]

Maybe the current generation of TV viewers deserves something original

They deserve a swift kick in the groin, is what they deserve.

Gorram sports and "reality"-TV watching maroons... Why in my day [we apologise for the curmodgeon, your regularly scheduled thread will now resume]

Re:

[operagost]

Hopefully they at least upgrade the analog, mechanical chronometer on Spock's console.

Other popular enhancements:

Replace communicators with Mototola Razr v3 Verizon Media Edition

News ticker on bottom of view screen

Red and yellow alerts replaced by green, blue, yellow, orange and red (don't worry, we'll never see green or blue)

Tribbles replaced by next-generation Furbys

Enterprise limited to Warp 2 due to concerns about "galactic climate change"

The Klingons shoot first

Re:Obligatory

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

KHHHHHHAAAAAAANNNNNNnnnnn!

Re:

[wolfemi1]

I think you mean: KHAAAN [khaaan.com]!!!!!

Re:Obligatory

[BVis]

Because new things aren't guaranteed box office. Rehashing previously marketable ideas is far safer.

After all, it's about money, not entertainment.

But don't blame the Hollywood establishment, blame the viewing public for paying over and over to see the same hackneyed ideas and insultingly shallow plots.

Re:Obligatory

[hoggoth]

> the same hackneyed ideas and insultingly shallow plots

Hey, I for one enjoyed "Spock's Brain"!

"'Brain' and 'brain'... what is 'brain'?!"

Re:

[hoggoth]

Some of my favorite quotes come from the worst episodes of Star Trek.

"'Brain' and 'brain'... what is 'brain'?!"
"Ooooh the eggs... the children... the eggs... the children..."
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!"

Re:

[lgw]

"The Gamesters of Triskelion" had the best hat rack fighting in all of SF! And the uniforms shrunk whenever they were washed, so you could tell how far into a season a show was by how high the sleeves rode, and whether Uhura's skirt covered her panties at all.

BTW, the "quatloos on the newcomer" line didn't actually appear in the episode. There was bidding "for the newcomers" at one point, but IIRC you never heard the Providers betting on the outcome of the games.

It's Dead Jim

[tuzzyfoad]

...

Re:

[hcdejong]

...but not as we know it.

Going Boldly

[EnsilZah]

Star Trek, going boldly where they've gone before because they can't come up with anything new.

KHAN

[legoburner]

Cool, now I can hear KHAAAAAAANNNNN!!!! in glorious 5.1 surround sound.

Whoops.

[porkchop_d_clown]

That scene wasn't in TOS.

Re:

[legoburner]

Ah crap, my Trek-fu is weak. I am more into NG anyway :P

Re:

[AdamThor]

> That scene wasn't in TOS. I think what you mean is: "That scene didn't use to be in TOS."

history repeating itself

[motorsabbath]

Morons. Guess they didn't learn from the Star Wars debacle. Never, ever, ever fool around with the originals.

Re:history repeating itself

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Morons. Guess they didn't learn from the Star Wars debacle.

I'm guessing they learned that fans will line up to be fleeced even while they complain about the originals being spoilt.

*sighs* if people put their money where their mouth was, we wouldn't have to put up with this shit.

Re:

[Sancho]

I know a lot of people (myself included) who refuse to purchase Star Wars until the originals are released on DVD. It looks like that's going to happen soon, but not in a particularly satisfactory way.

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

The original unaltered trilogy is being released on DVD in the next few weeks. However, I'm curious about your "not in a particularly satisfactory way" comment. What do you mean by that?

Re:

[saboola]

George Lucas made a ton of cash from re-releasing the original trilogy in theatres. What exactly do they have to learn from "the Star Wars debacle"? Oh, thats right, there's a ton of money to be had in re-releasing old stuff with new graphics.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Chanc_Gorkon]

AMEN TO THAT! WTF is with paramount? I would LOVE to have all of the TNG and even TOS on DVD, but I AIN'T paying 115 a pop per season! That's outrageous.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:history repeating itself

[supabeast!]

"Guess they didn't learn from the Star Wars debacle."

Do you mean the Star Wars debacle that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales and sold tens of millions of videocassettes and DVDs? If they're going to learn anything from that, it's that pissing off whiny SciFi geeks is an easy way to get free publicity.

Re:

[Canthros]

Unless you are a king hell dork, I think the enhanced special effects mostly went over well. Speaking as a dork, anyway, the only complaints I had surrounded things that were changed in the plot of the films.

Not wholly true

[SuperKendall]

I have to say that while most special effects enhacements were good, the one thing I really didn't like was the ring explosions around both Death Stars. It was right around the time that particular effect was all the rage in games, and it leaked into my movies... it's a sphere, make it explode like a sphere. To me the original explosions seemed more real.

Not to mention the lens flare. Lot's 'o lens flare! Get some better coatings on those virtual lenses, boys.

Re:

[FinchWorld]

To be fair some parts of the orginal starwars was better for the updating, though I the rest of it wasn't. The cockpits in Ep V, for example, were transparent at times (Mostly Hoth part), in the newer ones thats fixed and Lukes speeder in episode IV had the "force field" blur removed under it.

So, basically...

[Wilson_6500]

They had the CG Enterprise left over from... Enterprise, and wanted to get their dollars back out of it?

And so while ship-scale phasers will be beautiful, hand phasers and transporters will still look like cotton candy?

interesting idea, my favorite ...

[boxlight]

This is an interesting idea. My favorite bits from the later Star Trek series were the times they showed the original enterprise in re-done FX -- the DS9 "tribbles" episode, the "mirror universe" episodes of ENTERPRISE.

I love the original series as is, but this would be a neat reason to re-watch them.

boxlight

Re:

[The_REAL_DZA]

...this would be a neat reason to re-watch them.

 
You need a reason (besides "it's on")!?!?

Apocolypse Trek Redux

[spyrochaete]

So what are we going to get? Shockwave ring around explosions? CGI Scotty the Hutt animations showing his haggis-worn bulk? Spock shoots first?

Screw CGI updates. Practical effects FTW.

Kilt

[EnsilZah]

Maybe they'll give scotty a CGI kilt.

Re:

[Angostura]

Really bumpy foreheads for TOS klingons, perhaps.

Old news, surely?

[clickclickdrone]

I downloaded a sample CGI demo from some company about 5 years ago that was supposed to be a 'what if' they were doing. It had the TOS titles redone in their entirety in CGI and a separate scene getting similar treatment.
It looked fine but really, why? I LIKE the way the SFX clips of the Enterprise are complete with nose hair, fluff and other sundry gunk. It's supposed to be like that!

New Voyages did it.

[Rob T Firefly]

New Voyages, [startreknewvoyages.com] the fan-film continuation of TOS that's running with the tacit approval of Paramount and which has Roddenberry's son as a consultant, has done some neat things with CGI in the original Trek universe.

That said, though, I really hope they won't try to replace the originals like when Red Dwarf tried to. It's an interesting novelty, but it's not worth trashing the original for.

And in another 10 years

[Frumious Wombat]

They'll redo them again, except this time in 3d. Finally, you, the audience member, will personally feel and understand what the Crewman in the Red Shirt went through every week.

Although I do look forward to the re-mastered space hippies. :~

Remakes?

[pikakilla]

Instead of spending money on remastering startrek, why not spend the cash on producing a new, good series? Yeah, seeing TOS in new, 3d graphics is appealing, but i would much rather see a new show of the same quality of TOS but with the new eye candy.

Re:Remakes?

[Jerf]

Because the evidence suggests that they are incapable of a good new series.

Stop Complaining

[thebdj]

This might actually not be a horrible thing. The effects in the original were bad at times and I am willing to except that; however, Star Trek is turning 40 and with that age come a great many people who have probably never seen all of the Original Series (or maybe not even parts of it). The only Trek even fewer may know is those two most recent atrocities. Instead of complaining, this about how this could possibly turn Star Trek on to a whole new generation of people.

So long as the effects changes have no real impact of the story or the idea of the show I do not see a huge problem here. If the shows old film is getting cleaned up too, then that is also something to cheer about. I personally would feel better knowing that they are actually caring for the old film and not letting it just rot in some warehouse.

Re:

[clickclickdrone]

>a great many people who have probably never seen all of the Original Series
Might not be such a good thing - without the rose tinted specs, the original series was pretty suspect. In the UK, they showed it again after TNG was about 5 years in and we were all pretty steeped in TNG fluffy-trek (I sense you feel sad) with Picard being a nice gentle sort of guy with a tea fixation.
The first episode of TOS they showed (order? we don't need no steenking episode order) had Kirk, McCoy and a bunch of red shirt

Easily explained.

[porkchop_d_clown]

Picard was French and British. Kirk was American. What did you expect?

Re:

[clickclickdrone]

>Kirk was American. What did you expect?
At least the Enterprise wasn't armed with 'Democracy bombs'.
As an aside, I can highly recommend Shatners last CD, it's actually rather good. None of your 'Mr Tamborine Man' stuff, this is a fine album of poignant songs about life, love and fame. It's worth it just to hear the cover version of Pulp's 'Common People' but the rest, all original material is great.

Re:

[jedidiah]

The effects sequences were fairly irrelevant in Trek. The major problems were cheap costumes, cheap sets and cheap makeup. The parts of TOS that could seriously use a makeover are the parts where you've got people onscreen. There's also another problem. Since the space shots were so expensive in those days they really weren't focused on much. That leaves the possibility that there will be an interest in putting in more effects than they have time for and they already cut stuff from the original to get

It's worse than that; they have to cut runtime.

[AJWM]

That leaves the possibility that there will be an interest in putting in more effects than they have time for and they already cut stuff from the original to get it into an hour runtime as is.

No, not an hour runtime -- unless you're counting commercials. The thing is, back in the 60s they didn't show nearly as many minutes of commercials per hour as they do now. It has become very obvious as various TV shows are released on DVD -- more recent ones run to about 42 minutes per show, from 10-15 years ago it

And in other news...

[Recovering Hater]

...It has been reported that famous Hollywood producer and director Steven Spielberg has begun work on updating the groundbreaking summer blockbuster "Jaws". Inside sources confirm that Spielberg will be replacing the old scenes of the shark and also any scenes of yellow floating barrels with new and improved CGI versions of the shark. According to insiders "This will blow away the old version". It has already been acknowledged that the original version was not his original "vision" of the film. Spielberg has stated that the only reason the shark was not in most every scene was because of all the mechanical failures. But now with the miracle of CGI we will finally be able to see his original "vision". Spielberg also confirmed that all the original negatives of the 1975 classic will be destroyed after the new original is released.

Re:

[MikkoApo]

... Late breaking news about the updated "Jaws":

Famous Hollywood producer and director Steven Spielberg will include a new crew member to the enhanced version of the "Jaws". "Jar Jar" will be a computer generated addition to the fishing boat Orca. Spielberg said 'Jar Jar will give a much needed contrast between the updated action scenes in the film' and promised that the film would be suitable for wider audiences.

Re:

[unitron]

"...will include a new crew member to the enhanced version of the "Jaws". "Jar Jar" will be a computer generated addition to the fishing boat..."

If we get to see him devoured by the shark, then it's all good.

Re:And in other news...

[GundamFan]

That's funny I was under the impression that all the blood and violence would be edited out and the shark would be replaced with a Radio taped to a flashlight.

This new 8 disk box set will include the new 20 minute feature and 5 days of Spielberg rabling about various topics.

Crushed childhoods not included for those under the age of 25.

Re:

[Frobisher]

Real sharks would be more scary than CGI ones. This scene from Attenborough's Planet Earth [youtube.com] proves that.

Re:And in other news...

[Digital Vomit]

In addition to this, the new CGI shark will have a frickin laser beam attached to its head.

Insider sources claim that a Special Edition of this re-release is also planned in which the laser beam will be replaced by a walkie-talkie.

In a word, why?

[Billosaur]

Once again, technology triumphs over common sense -- did anybody ask the casual fan if this was a good idea? Why is it necessary to somehow "fix" things that aren't broken. The Original Series does not need Next Generation-like effects; it will lose all its charm and character, not to mention the historical context. It was a 60's show -- making it look like something from the turn of the new century destroys its technical merit for being ahead of its time in the 60's. The Star Trek franchise continues to si

Re:

[irving47]

You could probably consider the release of those clips a few years ago with snippets of the Doomsday Machine a test balloon to see what our reaction would be... It's not going to change anything. I look forward to seeing what they do with The Enterprise Incident.

In short, because we can.

[hey!]

Which is not a good reason to do anything.

I recently rented the remastered DVD of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", which to this day is one of the great science fiction movies of all time. What makes it a great science fiction movie? It is credible. It presents the story in a way that compels you to believe it on some level.

The producer was Julian Blaustein. He says in an interview that he decided to do a sneak preview, a Hollywood practice that allows the filmmakers to find and tweak problem spots in a movie. Blaustein's biggest concern: Gort's knees. Gort the robot was just a very tall man in a foam rubber suit. It was very convincing, except when Gort walked away from the camera: the backs of his knees didn't look robotic, they looked like a man trying to walk in a stiff foam rubber suit. Every time he looked at a scene in which Gort walked away, it bothered him.

A few minutes into the movie, there is a scene where tank after tank skids around the corner, racing to confront the flying saucer. The audience reacted in a completely unexpected way to this: they laughed. Blaustein recounts sinking lower and lower in his seat until his eyes were level with the seat in front of him. He knew to the precisely how many seconds it would be until the audience would see Gort, and exactly how many seconds after that Gort would turn around and the world would see his cheesy foam rubber knees. If they laughed, he was finished: no Gort, no movie.

Naturally, nobody laughed. He found out later that the reason the audience laughed was the absurdity of confronting the advanced technology of the flying saucer with tanks and guns. Nobody every thinks Gort's knees are cheesy. Lesson learned: the audience will accept anything once you make them believe. Ang Lee did a movie of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility in which Emma Thompson played a character almost twenty years younger than she was when she made the movie. Lee managed this by avoiding closeups until well into the movie, after Thompson had managed to sell the audience on her performance.

So -- I'd conclude this. If a TOS episode works, it doesn't need CGI rework. The CGI work might help a less credible episode.

As a side note, Robert Wise, the director of The Day The Earth Stood Still, died last September. So far as I know this was not commemorated on /., which given the stature of the moview probably should have rated him an obit here. Robert Wise was also the director on a very different movie: Star Trek the Motion Picture. The commentary on TDTESS makes it clear why: Wise was originally a cinematographer, and as a director he studied each script and meticulously planned each shot before the first frame of film was exposed. On STTMP, he never had a full script. The script was being written as the movie was shot, and as he received more script he'd shoot some more. This accounts, I think, for the remarkable difference between the two films. TDTESS is notable for its brisk pace, strong characterizations, clean story telling and restraint (technologically and budget driven to be sure) in the use of special effects. STTMP is exactly opposite in each of these areas. Under the circumstances, it's remarkable that the film wasn't an utter fiasco. Robert Wise later did a Director's Edition, which I have not seen, in which he reportedly was able to impose some order on the film. This is regarded by some as the best of the film series, wheras the theatrical release version is widely regarded as, not the worst, but close to it.

It's worth noting that nobody says the special effects for the theatrical version were wanting. On the contrary, they were excellent, but there was too much of them and not enough story.

In a word: apathy. And hubris. Ok, two words...

[The_REAL_DZA]

Dude, they stopped asking (or caring) what we thought a long, LONG time ago. For proof we need look no further than the last several incarnations of the "Trek universe":

• The Next Generation - "Hey, what if we took them 'where no one has gone before'?"
• Deep Space Nine - "This time let's have 'em meekly sit beside this big barfhole in space waiting for something interesting/dangerous/humorous/easy-to-script to fall out of it. Oh, and we need a shapeshifter; the focus groups actually roused from the

Yay! Like StarWars and ET!

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm so excited, after seeing how the original George Lucas improved the original StarWars and ET by waving the magical CG wand at them!

Because this worked so well in Britain...

[hal2814]

I just hope the remasters are as good as the Red Dwarf remasters [wikipedia.org]. It was so good they put the unremastered ones on the DVDs instead of the remasters nowadays.

Red Dwarf Remastered

[oneiros27]

I picked up the first two seasons on DVD (region 1), and saw that it was the remastered, without the original model shots. (the campiness of the special effects fit the campiness of the rest of the show)

I haven't even bothered looking at which versions are on the later seasons. (hell, it'd cost 'em how much extra to put both versions on there? A few cents to press a disk, and some extra for a different container to fit 'em in?

Now, that's not to say that the remastered stuff wasn't funny in context w/ the

A proof of concept CGI update for TOS

[Pao|o]

From the early '90s, this is VERY rough proof-of-concept footage from when Paramount contracted Digital Stream to insert computer-generated effects into the original Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine". Nothing ever came of the project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HSYC6Wlbv8 [youtube.com]

Re:

[RembrandtX]

They should have used the CGI to put kirk's starfleet insignia back on the front of his shirt .. looks like the tape came loose, and it slid down to his waist.

You can't go back to Eden...

[Sponge Bath]

Yeah, brother.
[queue groovy Spock harp jam]

*slams head on desk*

[Delphix]

I don't get the need to do this. People like the show as it is, why go muck with it? Same thing with Star Wars.

I was over at the starwars.com yesterday looking for information about the release of the unedited versions in a week or so. They have a side by side comparison of many frames they changed from the film. With something along the lines of "Many people don't realize the technical capabiltiy that went into this!"

Stop right there. I'm an engineer and I appreciate technical achievement as much as the next geek. But you're trying to SELL ME ON YOUR TECHNICAL MERITS?

Most people who don't like the edits don't like them for one of two reasons. 1) You're messing with something they remember and liked. This almost always pisses people off. 2) The CGI doesn't look right in the movie with late 1970s effects.

Star Wars was one of the highest grossing movies of all time without any mucking about. Star Trek is insanely popular. I think it's pretty arrogant to go messing with a historical show that's stood up for 30-40 years and expect people to like it (or not be outraged) because it's a technical feat.

I guess I better run buy a copy of the original series DVDs before someone at Paramount decides I don't have the privilidge to see them in their original form again. :-/

*beats head on desk some more*

Technical feats?

[The MAZZTer]

THESE [thedailywtf.com] are some impressive technical feats, as in the "what the HELL was the guy who made this smoking?!?!" kind of impressive.

The wrong approach

[sjonke]

They should be applying CGI affects to Leonard Nimoy's hair.

There's only one thing to say about this...

[wolf31o2]

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, this might actually be cool. If they don't change the charater acting any, and only focus on effects, it really won't harm the show. Of course, sometimes the 60's effects technology is what makes the show good, so I guess we'll just see.

Six Words Of Warning:

[Hellburner]

Do NOT fuck with the Gorn.

If I see anything other than that rubber suit with irridescent eyes that terrified me when I was eight, I swear I will burn my Starfleet Academy underpants.

I don't want to see any crap like that goofy thing wrestling with mirror-Archer.

And nobody crack wise about me burning the underpants with me in them.

"Can you fashion a rudimentary lathe?"

Re:

[stretch0611]

Actually, They already F**KED with the Gorn. The did it in the last season of Enterprise when they captured the Defiant in the alternate time line. The Gorn looked really cool.

Well, maybe...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

This would be a good chance to retcon the Klingons into Klingons that look like Klingons.

Re:

[Delphix]

This would be a good chance to retcon the Klingons into Klingons that look like Klingons.

Eh? No it wouldn't.

The difference was explained in Enterprise. There's a whole multi-episode story arc on it...

It wouldn't make any sense to retcon them since there being two different kinds of klingons is part of the story line.

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

What is this "Enterprise" you speak of?

Re:

[Chanc_Gorkon]

No, it won't. The Klingons in the original were just infected with a virus. I thought Enterprise explained that pretty well (rolling eyes).

The Changeling Special Edition

[digitaldc]

"Star Trek is the latest sci-fi classic to get the CGI 'special edition' treatment."
Rumours have it that the producers were a little upset about Kirk shooting his mouth off at Nomad and killing it with its own logic. After the Special Edition edit, Nomad is shown to self-destruct due to a hardware error and not by Kirk's cruel mind games.
Capt. Kirk: I am the Kirk, the creator?
Nomad: You are the creator.
Capt. Kirk: You could be wrong....
Nomad: Oh no, not again...my capacitors are leaking, and I feel a sudden power surge. Please hold on Kirk, I must reboot...
Cut to Nomad being beamed into deep space and exploding with a ring of fire.

JarJar the Hut?

[Carcass666]

It would be a pity if, instead of just using the opportunity to "clean up" some of the cheesier effects, if they instead used the opportunity to tweak the story line, insert new characters, added ridges to Klingons, etc. I don't say this as a "historical society of Star Trek" member or any such thing, it's just that such manipulation tends to stick out like a sore thumb and distract more than enhance.

Oh, wow

[Minwee]

This could be even better than the Japanese version of Red Dwarf.

Leave. It. Alone.

[Penguinisto]

Cripes - half the fun of watching old sci-fi (hell, half the fun of reading it too) involves the whole attempt at special effects given for that period in time. It gives an intelligent viewer as much insight into things at that time which are incidental --but just as important-- as how they thought about the future. The visuals are a vital part of that. Sure, it's cardboard and glue (and small plastic models on fishing line), but that's just as important to the stories, written right at the same time, as the story itself.

Seriously - leave it alone so that anyone in the distant future who stumbles across it can actually learn about the ones who wrote it. While Trek isn't exactly a classic like, oh, something by H.G. Wells, it may someday become something akin to a classic, given its popularity. We can learn a lot about Wells' time and society from our century-plus future vantage point by reading the stories and seeing period sketches and prints illustrating it, if possible. Sure, it's not exactly eye candy, but it's worth it.

/P

Too much volence...

[a_nonamiss]

Hopefully, they will digitally edit out all of the phasers and replace them with communicators. That could show our youngsters today once and for all that violence isn't a solution to our problems. Maybe while they're at it, they could change Kahn into a gelatinous alien blob instead of a human actor. That would be much better, too.

Re:

[jellomizer]

Dont they use comunicators as phasers in some of the eposodes already. Sometimes they have phasers that look like guns and other times they pull out their comunicator and fire it. They seem to work better though, they always seem to vaporize the victem, vs. the other wich seems to be ineffective on everything.

Yes.

[porkchop_d_clown]

There are a lot of glitches like that. I can remember watching the series as a kid, and noticing that the producers couldn't tell the difference between a communicator, a tricorder and a phaser, and that they couldn't remember the difference between photon torpedos and ship's phasers, either.

replace sound stages with rich backgrounds

[peter303]

One of the chinziest things about the ST was these planet surface scenes
on a sound stages with cheap plaster rocks and coloured lights. They
could matt out the actors and superimpose a richer appearing planet surface.

All right. . .

[Bastian]

. . . who let George sit in Gene's chair?

In the words of...

[Digital Vomit]

In the words of "ensign Ricky": Aw, crap.

Noooo!!... ohhh who the hell cares??

[Zerbey]

I mean, why not... let's be honest you WILL watch it just for curiousity even if you hate it. At least it's not Enterprise.

HDTV Star Trek sounds cool to me anyway.

Makeover vs New Stuff

[VincenzoRomano]

I fear there is no option nowadays.
It's much easier and better to remake special FX in an old good movie/serial than producing new ones with higher quality (in the contents I mean), as we've seen in Star Wars episodes 4 to 6.
Wolrd is getting worse.

won't work

[hcdejong]

What annoys me about TOS is the way the technology looks outdated even by 1990s standards. It'd take an awful lot of CGI to fix that.

Question

[danpsmith]

Will they use the technology to turn all the phasers into walkie talkies?

More CGI!

[transami]

Dissapointed. When I first read the headline I thought they were going to give every shot a CGI look and feel. Now that would be cool! A syntho-platic looking Captain Kirk grabbing the shoulders of a hot syntho-plastic alien chick. I'll watch!

Come up dudes, get your imagine on!

Additional Star Trek CGI ideas...

[LibertineR]

These are for TNG, IMHO the best series of all the Treks:

How about some CGI boobs for Tasha Yar to go with that smokin ass?

Can they CGI Troy looking like she can actually walk in heels without tripping?

CGI Force Fields that if touched more than once, start burning off fingers.

Can we get a CGI of Wesley Crusher's head flying off, thanks to Worf's Batlef after fucking up the Enterprise computer once again?

CGI Borg sex! "Can you assimilate THIS, baby?"

CGI Data killing everyone in a cyber-dream: "Why the fuck do I keep saving these people, when they never let me drive the ship?"

CGI some sweaters for the crew that dont require constant readjustment.

Please, PLEASE CGI Picard kneeing Dr. Crusher in the groin for disobeying orders. I would PAY to see that.

Next thing you know...

[Richard Steiner]

Next thing you know they'll be colorizing old black-and-white movies!

Oh, wait...

Re:

[sholden]

They already have.

Re:

[GundamFan]

Can they edit out Wil Wheaton?

Interesting... put Wesley Crusher into TOS digitaly and then digitaly remove him... You may be on to something there!

:-)