The Silver State Chronicles

I expected a lot worse.

Paramount got around to releasing some promotional material for the new enhanced Star Trek. Based on those clips, it looks like it could have been a lot worse. While I am still against this in principle, the enhancements don’t seem too intrusive to me. I’ll have to watch a few episodes to be sure. In the meanwhile, here are some video previews.

The first video is a 3 minute promotional film that explores the digital cleanup of the film and the transfer to HD. Some of the split screen comparisons looked exaggerated to me but it does look nice. The new FX look pretty good but the fact is that it’s just not the same, but I was fearing worse. One particularly annoying thing is the announcer, who seems to think the series is named ‘Star TRACK.’ Oh well, you can’t win them all!

Next is a short video on the re-recording of the music. It does seem fairly authentic, but I have to admit it kind-of creeps me out to see the female vocalist there. I always new the original theme had a female vocalist but it was better left to the imagination.

Last is a short piece on the digital cleanup of the original films.

It’s worth the 6 minutes to take a peek at these videos. I was very curious about the ‘enhancements’. This sneak preview hit the spot!

Going back to where no man has gone before!

Looks like the original Star Trek series is getting a special effects makeover to appeal to a whole new generation of young video game zombies!

The press release with all sorts of details is reprinted at the end of this entry. I can’t say I am happy with this: I like the originals just the way they are. Paramount has figured out that they can keep tweaking and repackaging the same old stuff and people will keep buying it. Just greed at work here.

Also, something that hasn’t been broached yet is what will be edited out of the original series. Late 1960s tv programs were formatted for fewer commercials than the 21st century television world. While I am sure the packaged DVD version will have no substantive edits, the televised version will almost certainly have scenes cut to fit into the 44 minutes of modern 1-hour programs.

Wait and see.

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