I had to recite to myself the multiplication tables after watching “The Naked Time” last night... or else my emotions would have gotten the better of me.

 

This Trek Remastered thing is looking to be one heck of a roller coaster ride, and I mean that in a bad way.  My reactions are going up and down and up and down when I watch this stuff.  From pleased and satisfied to annoyed and frustrated.  What Trek Remastered (I think that’s what it’s being called now... but I have seen no other reference to it like this anywhere but on TrekMovie.com... ) is doing well seems to be all the “indoor” stuff... the planet location matte paintings, the chronometer, Scotty’s wall cutting phaser... but as always, the space shots have left me scowling at the TV.  With all they’re doing so right, why can’t they get it to look like Star Trek when they show the ship??  why, oh why?

 

What’s been wrong (and still is wrong) with the ship shots:

 

1. The color.  They’ve made it a neutral gray which they’ve often lit with “warm” lights... making it look a pale tan.  This got better over the last couple episodes... but it’s still way too dark.  The Enterprise should be a cool gray.  Much more blue than we’re getting.  I realize that a lot of the blue in the original show came from the ship being surrounded by blue light from the bluescreen photography, but this is one of the qualities of the shots in the original show... and it should be duplicated.  

 

2. The Engine Nacelles.  They just look wrong.  Still.  The “blades” of the fan in front they’ve made too wide.  They are missing the fact that this widening of the blades is in fact made from the motion blur of the shutter on the camera.  The real blades were much thinner, as you can see from the close up shots of the nacelle dome effects in Doomsday Machine.  (the shot “over the shoulder” of the Enterprise where it is towing the Constellation)...  The domes should not be orange.  They should be frosted white... and LIT from inside by the orange lights.  The domes they have now are very uniformly luminant... this is just plain wrong.  Real world objects do not behave like this... and it’s an immediate clue to “CG-ocity”... there are a few ways to do this effect correctly... apparently they have just given up and are satisfied with this cartoon look... or perhaps they are just content with this because it reminds them of the much more boring TNG nacelle cap effects.  Whatever it is, I cringe when I see it... cause I know it can be done better...

 

3.  The Stars.   TOS Stars are very distinctive.  They are big.  They are colorful.  There was a real intention to make space a colorful experience to match the very colorful interiors of the show.  Apparently all this is lost on the new versions... and the stars have become as drab as they have ever been.  It’s puzzling how with all the attention that has obviously been paid to some aspects of this endeavor, that simple things like color are ignored.  The base stars were definitely blue shifted... and there were the occasional red glowing stars... and of course the yellow stars are spotted here and there... plus, the definite presence of more saturated blue stars are completely ignored here.  This might have to do with the overall de-saturation of all the space shots... which, on the show was due mostly to the fact that the shots were duped so much on the optical printers... the saturation was lessened with every generation.  I think that this was not an intentional look... as was shown in the 3rd season when the images were much more saturated.

 

4. Lighting.  Lighting. Lighting.  The lighting on the original show’s effects was NOT flat.  It can sometimes be mistaken for that since in most shots the Key light (or brightest light in the shot) came from the same general direction as the camera.  This is different than TNG and later lighting where the brightest lights were placed TOWARD the camera, behind the objects.  Frankly, I can’t tell what the lighting scheme is for the new shots, cause it is wildly inconsistent and almost always “wrong” looking to me.  There seems to be no thinking about duplicating the lighting from the original shots... and the lighting they’re using certainly doesn’t make their model look good.  (and it doesn’t seem to be emulating the lighting on the planets either) It just seems haphazard...  and it doesn’t make the Enterprise look like a model... or real... (I’d be satisfied if it looked like an 11 foot model...)  It just looks flat, flat, flat.

 

5. Lenses.  Again, I have to stress the importance of using wide angle lenses on the enterprise... I’m not getting the proper “distortion” to convince me this is a real world object...  and while we’re at it... I’m not convinced that all aspects of the model are correct... looking at comparison shots of the Old shot and New shot together of the Enterprise flying away from us orbiting the planet, it is obvious that the rear engine “balls” are too small in the new one.  Nitpicking, yes... but when they said my mouth would water seeing the new shots, I want it to be true.

 

We are approaching the point where the look of the show will not be due to time constraints.  Where what we see each week is what is intended by the makers of the project.  I hope it gets better... I hope I hope I hope.  Maybe someone will take my “hints” on these blogs... maybe.