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Star Trek TV Show


JSngry

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The 'revitalized color' version that's out now is a bit much to me; it's like watching those early colorized movies of Ted Turner's.

So those are not the original colors just cleaned up? They're actually altered?

Not knowing the original, I have to say that I love these colors, but also getting the whole digital "tampering" thing, that's kind of a drag as well.

The version of Star Trek you're watching on Netflix are the blu-ray special edition versions with the replaced special effects. They retain the original intent of the fx from the series, but they have all been redone using CGI. All the outer space and planet shots have been replaced, they also replaced some of the horribly bad matte paintings from the original series. This was mostly done because the nature of how these FX were done at the time would have made the scenes with effects look far worse than the scenes without when it comes to picture quality. Most people don't even realize it's CG because they kept the "late 60s cheesy look" so it would match.

Probably worth mentioning that the physical blu-ray discs give you the choice of viewing the eps with the original SFX or the redone versions. Having read various analyses of the changes, I understand why they felt it was necessary to redo them, and the enhancements aren't as frequent or numerous as one might expect, but more often than not when I pull out the blu-rays I've wound up watching the original versions as those are the ones I grew up with.

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I've seen the episodes with the original effects many times, over a 30+ year timeframe. I enjoyed watching the redone version, it makes it a slightly different experience and I think they did a very tasteful job. I bet many people don't even notice the difference.

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Remember first seeing Star Trek in Singapore sometime in 1966 or 1967. As I recall there was only a limited amount of US TV on British TV in the 60s whereas the English language channels in Singapore were largely American imports - Lost in Space, the Time Tunnel, F Troop etc all come to mind. As an 11 year old at the height of the Space Race, this was gripping viewing.

Don't think it got to British TV until 1969. We were back in the UK by then but I don't remember watching it. The space bug had clearly passed.

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... where the good guys find themselves in danger and KIrk extricates everyone safely (except the one extra you don't recognize who beams down to some planet and gets killed in the first act) ...

This plot trope was riffed on by a long-forgotten comedian on an episode of SNL (if you don't know the reference, you should know it was a black comedian using the N-word so no one batted an eye):

"Spock, analyze!"

"That nigger's a cube, captain. We better not mess with these people, they got Johnson and he was the fastest one we had."

Anyone else remember this?

As for the series, I was a fan but way too young to see it first-run so this division into quality-of-seasons just doesn't compute for me.

Never gave a bleep for the subsequent series; I saw the first re-boot movie and definitely enjoyed it but haven't seen the second.

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I've seen the episodes with the original effects many times, over a 30+ year timeframe. I enjoyed watching the redone version, it makes it a slightly different experience and I think they did a very tasteful job. I bet many people don't even notice the difference.

I can tell the difference immediately. Just doesn't look right to me in juxtaposition to the rest of the show, so I watch the original version.

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So, ooops, on Netflix, if you watch in sequence, they show the first pilot as Episode 1. Part from the obvious cast differences, it's good enough viewing. Pretty good overall, actually. And it never aired on NBC.two-part "The Menagerie" episode, and uh-oh, once Spock gets to court marshall, it becomes obvious what they're doing, just getting some mileage out of the pilot footage. And Kirk's prologues to each act sound like a carnival barker or some such.

This one time I wish I'd watched the pilot last, because then I could enjoy this as originally aired, and other than the stone face man in the beepy box (which is,like, Hanna-Barbara brought to "life"), I think it would have worked just fine.

Can't complain, though, just wish the sequence was different in Netflix, that's all.

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I have to confess, I never understood the general dissatisfaction with the early Next Generation seasons.

Really? I could understand someone taking a contrarian position on season 2, which has its moments, but season 1 is mostly bad-to-terrible. Though the episode where they land on planet-80s-health-club and Wesley gets a death sentence for stepping into a flower-bed is a must-watch.

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By the way, I'm well aware that I may be the only person on Earth who feels this way (or even worse, will now be contacted by other fans of the first season who turn out to all be serial killers or hedge fund managers), but I just can't see the problem with it. I suppose it's possible that I was still too much the fan, but considering my reaction to the movies (They ALL stunk except for that one. You know which one.) but still, maybe I was seeing something that wasn't there rather than just not noticing the problems others see.

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BBC America is running The Next Generation. A few days ago I watched a few early episodes from Season1, and I thought they are pretty bad, although mostly watchable. I concur that they show improved after the first season, although I remember being really happy to watch them when they were originally on. Too much of young Wesley saving the day though.

The 4th or 5th episode is truly dreadful and racist to boot, with a colony of all dark-skinned people, and two women fighting over a man, etc.

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Jim, that yoeman you mentioned, Janice Rand, she was only in the first season of the original series. Then the whole idea of Kirk having romantic urges towards his hot female yoeman was tossed out the airlock, thankfully.

And thankfully, the series went on to include Barbara Luna, France Nuyen, Yvonne Craig, Sherry Jackson, Nancy Kovack, Marianna Hill, Sharon Acker...

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"This Side Of Paradise"...am I supposed to pull for Kirk? If so, I'm gonna have to do so on something other than "our duty is to destroy paradise because paradise is for lazy people who don't more than perfection"-ish logic. I mean, I can pull for a man who is stuck and does what he has to do to keep going, but somebody who thinks it's his duty to break shit just to give his inner repairmen a gig, not so much.

If there's an obvious attempt at stirring ambiguity in this episode, I guess I missed it.

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