flipper wrote:

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:35:42 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:


flipper wrote:
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:58:00 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:


flipper wrote:
We can quibble about personal preferences all day long but the
fact of the matter is if you did a split screen of the two one
looks decidedly 'more modern' than the other.

Of course it does, but not better.

We're talking about a portrayal of the 'future'. Yes, more 'modern'
effects are 'better' for that purpose.

Newer methods don't necessarily look more real.

In the first place I said more 'modern' and it doesn't matter how
'well made' or 'realistic' a 1960's das blinken lighten mit switchen
worken computer prop looks as it's still a 1960's das blinken lighten
mit switchen worken computer and not, by modern standards, a very
'futuristic' looking device. I say by modern standards because what we
currently think looks 'futuristic' will, no doubt, seem archaic long
before the first warp nacelle is made.

You're myopically obsessed with what you deem 'glaring faults' but
blind to the whole.

The TNG ships have a cartoonish quality I can't explain. The fx are
inferior to the fx in movies of the 80's and 90's,

It's quite a different thing to make a weekly series than a feature
film.

and inferior to DS9 and
Voyager even when they were produced at the same time.

They were no where near the 'same time' in special effects years. TNG
premiered in 1987 while DS9 premiered in 1994 and Voyager in 1995.

Maybe TNG got better
in the later years and I'm thinking of how the earlier years looked,

TNG's first season was roundly criticized for both poor special
effects and trite scripts with clumsy allegories and dry stilted
dialogue but they improved considerably over the years.


TNG was more of a soap opera set in space, than a space opera


but TOS definitely looked better to me than early TNG.

There's no accounting for taste but I suspect you 'prefer' what you
were 'used to'.

And even if it did look better the
original should be left alone.

It would appear you have a hidden agenda clouding your judgment.

It's not a cloud - it's a separate issue. You could make fx in lots of
classic movies look more real, but shouldn't.

It clearly isn't "a separate issue" and, according to your logic, one
would never revisit a plot, or anything else, since, once done, it's
'inviolate'.

It's like colorizing Casablanca.

I understand how you could make the analogy but it doesn't hold for a
number of reason with not the least being 'colorizing', quite frankly,
stinks. There is also a 'creative' argument that the film maker
intentionally used lighting and other means to create mood and effect
particular to the medium.

Go ahead and clean up noise, and even clean up the rectangular glow of the
photomask around shuttlecraft, but let the engines sparkle the same way they
always did. Also let the planets look featureless and cloudy. It's not
unreal that way, and certainly doesn't look "bad".

You put your argument in deep do-do in now 'qualifying' which flaws
and failings you 'allow' to be improved.

Frankly, I agree that not every "oh wow that'll look cool" need, or
should, be done but while I also nitpick individual choices I am
willing to look at the whole result and not discard it simply because
not every last single jot and detail isn't the way I'd have done it.

That, btw, is why I wasn't inclined to get into a tit for tat over
'selected' props and effects.

Just to avoid misunderstanding, I never said TNG was 'better' than TOS
and, in fact, said that TNG, IMO, never reached the quality of TOS and
railed about 'Captain' Picard, among other things. To me the
characters and plot are much more important than, as one example,
whether the planet killer is CGI or remains a painted overlay drug
across the background with stars occasionally showing through the
"solid neutronium' hull.

The Doomsday Machine, btw, is another of my all time favorites with
what is arguably the best mental breakdown scene ever done by William
Windom portraying Commodore Matt Decker who's lost his entire crew.

DECKER: We tried to contact Starfleet. No one heard. No one! We
couldn't run.

KIRK: What happened to your crew?

DECKER: Oh, I had to beam them down. We were dead. No power, our
phasers useless. I stayed behind, the last man. Captain, last man
aboard the ship. That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? And then
it hit again and the transporter went out. They were down there, and
I'm up here.

KIRK: What hit? What attacked you?

DECKER: They say there's no devil, Jim, but there is. Right out of
hell, I saw it.

KIRK: Matt, where's your crew?

DECKER: On the third planet.

KIRK: There is no third planet.

DECKER: Don't you think I know that? There was, but not any more. They
called me. They begged me for help, four hundred of them. I couldn't.
I couldn't. (breaks down in tears)

Next best scene is Kirk countering Decker's order to turn and attack,
"not with MY ship you don't," and the subsequent show down after he
orders Spock to relieve Decker and assume command.

It's so 'Kirk'.

I think they did a pretty good job in the CGI remaster.

It is rather silly to argue, though, that Gene Roddenberry preferred
'outdated/primitive' special effects, or that he was trying to
'creatively' convey anything other than 'realism', and would chose
them over the newer, and especially so since he was involved in not
only the, for the period, 'modernized' TOS movies but was in control
of the creation and first season of TNG you are arguing is 'not
better'.

I don't think he would have exercised that kind of control over how fx was
done. I'm sure he paid more attention to scripts, and they stank in the
first season.

Seems you consider Gene Roddenberry not only useless for 'trek
universe imagery' in model and effects but a down right liability for
plot and script.

Did he undergo a lobotomy between TOS and TNG?

I think Gene would be tickled to death with the 'remaster' and,
besides, no one is talking about wiping the originals from history.
But, should any one try, fear not as I have a DVD set with which we
can foil their nefarious plot.

Recordings are nice, but broadcast is always the main medium of a TV show.
I have all kinds of recordings but I hate to think that any of them is never
going to be broadcast again. There's a sense of community when you watch
something and others are watching it too.

As Scotty remarked about using a keyboard, "how quaint."

Do you also whip out a 1967 color TV for the proper viewing
experience?


I could. I still have my parent's 1967 Motorola Quasar color TV.


I'm mostly kidding but it's also true that effects and things were
done with limitations of the medium in mind, you know.

There is another where she goes 'the other way' and that's Mirror,
Mirror where they show the alternate reality by the ship flash
flipping directions, ending in the 'other universe' reverse.

Nope. That's the ISS Enterprise. I said USS Enterprise.


Yes, I know. Same producer, same special effects crew, same model. A
rose by any other name...

The "model" and the "ship" are not the same concept.

I am aware of that but we were talking special effects, orbit
direction, and the fan mythology about planet rotation.