The DigitalBits review says that's still included, probably for posterity.

So, what is going to happen to shots of all-CGI stuff from the original production? The 'Crystalline Entity', for example, is an early all-CGI creation from the first season. Will that be just 'restored,' or completely re-created?

http://i.imgur.com/vzIOg.jpg

In those situations, Rich Little will be playing the part of the digital effect.

Seems to be a film element, the shot looks exactly the same on the blu-ray (all the lit windows and everything). It's a little darker (not so blown-out), but definitely the same footage...
There's even a tiny negative hair on one frame... Definitely from film.

Someone mentioned the cage thing that Q uses on Farpoint was a CGI effect, is that right? It looks almost exactly the same on the Blu-ray. They didn't improve it, they just re-made it (if it was something they had to re-create, not sure about that...)

My guess is that if they have to re-create it, they will re-create it to look exactly like the original, just HD (or as close to exactly as they can get it). They desire is not to be 'updating' things, just make them HD.

Q's forcefield. So they recreated it.
I'm wondering about the reconfigured "phaser energy beam" that emanates from the bottom of the saucer rather than a phaser strip to deliver energy to the Farpoint creature: a CG video effect that would have to be replaced anyway...

Well, the entity was pretty low rez, even for SD. I hope they fill it out a bit otherwise it'll look just awful in 1080p.

Hey, don't be hatin' on the Space Snowflake! :p

I was almost as devastated as picard, when that woman destroyed the crystalline entity. :p It was interesting when they tried communicating.

That episode was stupid because of they were like "I wonder if it's a mindless killer or it's intelligent and we can communicate with it" which is a continuity screwup: in Datalore they heard Lore speaking with the entity (Data and Wesley)! :angry:

Didn't they mention that fact in the episode? Man, I'm gonna have to watch that episode.

Suppose that won't be a 'secret' for long anyway... That's the change I was talking about earlier that I haven't seen a screen shot of yet... It's been fixed. :cool:

I just wonder what the general consensus will be on that... Should they fix a few obvious mistakes like that, or leave them as-is so HD generations can enjoy The Nitpicker's Guide as well... :D

I don't give a damn about the nit pick stuff, i think the bird of prey just is in a different perspective, the original looks the same as the HD one to me, though i could be wrong :D

I just hope for DEAR GOD that they re-do the Ceti Eel shot in TNG, Wrath of kahn which was done 5 years previous looks tremendously better than the shot from TNG (i know big(er) budget film vs tv episode) but now they've got a chance to change it

now i dont meen re-do the shot completely but the damn Ceti Eel looks soooo super low budget claymation 1970's to me in its general look and especially in its movement so i hope they take the old one out and put a new one in that moves fluidly and looks real(er)

i dont know if it was done in CGI but i just hope they re-do it



also, very happy they removed the stupid post production purple haze (and not the good Hendrix kind) and went with the natural look

no interlacing lines (yay), also not noticing the red shift in the faces either, but im not anal

from the screenshots, it looks so purdy, but i want to see screenshots comparing the upconverted scenes (from sins of the father) in 1080 vs the sd ones in 480 to see how well they upconverted

I wouldn´t call it "incredibly" soft, but some of the shots look like some of the cameras either were a bit out-of-focus (look at Beverly on the right on the shot where they are preparing for dinner) or it has something to do with the lenses they used for certain wide angle shots. It´s certainly not a fault from the transfer itself, this is as good as it gets and seems very truthful to the source. It is so truthful in fact that you can see every tiny bit of detail in these. If you cannot see it, it´s not been captured on the film elements, either. It would have been a major letdown if they had sharpened it up. Thank god they didn´t.

They did an awesome job on this, IMHO. The hard work everyone put into the Makeup and costumes back then - only now I can really appreciate how good they really look. That SD transfer finally is a thing of the past, it´s a rather cloudy mess compared to the breathtaking original.

I simply cannot wait. I want DS9 next! Seeing all these Jem`Hadar costumes and masks, all the ship models and all the planets in it´s original glory. Man, that would be a real treat.

Is it? You know, I loved what they did with TOS, and loved even more the fact that you can still see the originals, through seamless branching, on the same discs. However, in this, they are changing stuff (much more subtle, but changing nevertheless), and I don't know whether or not we will have the original, as SD as it is, as an option. I hope they bother to do that, in order to preserve history.

If not, the attitude is not way too different from George Lucas's towards the original Star Wars movies. He changes stuff and, if you want to see the films as they were originally shown, you have to go back to VHS, LD or some half-baked DVD version...

Of course, Lucas's concept of remastering is much closer to screwing it up for the future than the one applied to TNG. However, the attitude is not much different.

Again, make no mistake: I love what they're doing with this stuff. Breathing new life, really. It is a new show, that can find a new audiences today, in syndication, in full hidef glory. But I'd love to see history preserved, preferably without having to keep my old clunky DVD collection...

Those messed with my head. I thought I was crazy, like "Did something change on those?" In my defense, I first saw it in the top quarter of the Worf picture. :D Awesome job on them.

The SD transfer may be complete, but it´s quality doesn´t even do the original elements justice and it´s certainly doesn´t do the peoples' hard work justice that invested so much time in it. Maybe I should have added that I like what they are doing and I like what I´ve seen so far. That could change, however, if they mess something up. But I trust them, because everything I´ve seen so far of the transfer speaks for itself. It´s beautifully done.

Now, as far as preserving goes, I actually like you´re idea. That could technically be dealt with, if they include a second stream on the blu-ray with the unaltered stuff upscaled but also missing footage (frames).

Btw, I don´t like your Lucas-comparison at all. What Lucas did was not only altering the characters' behaviour themselves, but also destroying his own original work and hunting everyone who liked the original. I am a supporter of the original Star Wars, not the altered one.

It just amazes me that TOS (21 years older) has more detail and on a show that was made in a shorter time with less money

im saying the clips in general look soft, the movies have a lot more detail to them to where i could see facial textures (pores and such) and textures in clothes, in the show i can see faces much clearer but they all pretty much look flat with grain (and no im not confusing grain with detail, i know the difference) and clothes look pretty flat too, you can basically tell what kind of materiel their made out of but no threading or stitching

maybe its just the camera/lens they used and it is the most detail w're going to get (i hope not for when this gets a 4k transfer) but i was truly expecting more - ill reserve definitive judgment until after i watch the sampler

on what you said about hard work on makeup, that dosent apply to warf's in S1 lol (it looks bad >.>)

i also want DS9 in HD but i could give 2 fracks about Voyager honestly (though i wouldn't mind Jeri Ryan in hd -drool-)

what are they really "changing"? from what i've seen the stuff is the same just re-composited or redone when needed but not changed to the point that putting in the "original" effects wouldn't be possible because these are the original ones (original as possible without putting in the truly original sd effects)

I think film (and maybe laserdisc) are the only "original" versions of star wars, but i don't really care at all about star wars (not a fan at all) but he's said that all his changes are to make it the way he wanted it to look originally, its just that now he's able to do that

Exactly!

You know what? I don't mind the Special Editions of Star Wars. The only really controversial one was the whole Solo-Greedo stuff, and I think Lucas screwed up with this. Everything else was OK by me, even though it seems silly most of the time and it does not makes the movies better (or worse, for that matter).

What I don't like AT ALL is the fact that Lucas doesn't want us to see the original versions. That is the whole problem, for me.

And that's where I see a similarity between this TNG release and Lucas's Star Wars releases. They don't preserve the history of these pieces, in the sense they're not making the original available -- whatever bad state it might be.

As I said before, I understand Lucas's changes to Star Wars are completely disrespectful of the materials, whereas TNG looks a lot more like "restoration" than "change". However, when you begin to see subtle, but artistic changes, to the original, that's what worries me.

For instance, the changed bird of prey in the "Sins of the Father" capture. I think it is wonderful they bothered to replace that in order to show it "face-to-face" with the Enterprise. Beautiful that they are taking that kind of care, making it better, and so forth.

However, the original shot, "wrong" as it was, was like that for a historical reason: they were saving money at the time by using stock footage of the bird of prey from the movies. So, when you "erase" that from history, you're depriving movie historians of asking themselves "why is it that this stuff looks slightly wrong?"

In that sense, it is not different from the Star Wars affair.

Remember: those new masters is what is going to stay in the long run. Our DVDs will all burn out with time, and there's no original film reel for the TNG episodes (it was finished in video, so that they have to rebuild the whole show from the ground up now). That's why I think it should be wise to have the original stuff, when it was not possible/they chose not to use it, even in SD, with seamless branching, in the BDs.

The best way to preserve a thing is to make several copies of it. I don't want to depend on some old analog video masters deep into some vault at Paramount to ensure people will be able to accurately describe how this show was made a few decades from now. Besides, I think it is emotionally important for the fans to keep the original nearby (and that is, I think, the main reason for all the anger concerning Star Wars revisionism).

Having said all that, I'd like to say the jury is still out on that matter. "The Next Level" is just a sampler, and I wouldn't expect it to have this aspect of preserving history. However, I hope they squeeze the originals in when they produce the season sets...

Cheers,
Salvador

Oh, GTFO, all this "historical" bullshite, its being remastered under the supervision of the people who made the fx, so when they fix things like the bird of prey's angle their admitting they made a mistake and are fixing it to the way its supposed to be/the way they want it

the "changes" are so minor most people wont notice them, but their being changed for a reason and to put the sd effects on the bd instead of hd versions is beyond stupid, if you mean to have the OPTION to show the orignal sd instead of the hd, i dont mind

the hd versions arent ruining the episodes or really effecting them at all besides being eye candy

Well, it seems George Lucas made Star Wars as well. And it was crapped upon with his supervision as well. :-P No matter to me if Chaplin himself lifts up from the grave to write and record dialogue to all his silent movies, I'd still want the preservation of the original versions.

And of course I'm suggesting the presence of the originals in SD as an OPTION (through seamless branching). As I said twice before in my posts (and people seem to prefer not to read these parts), I *absolutely f*cking love* what they are doing with the show, in terms of the subtle changes and corrections. That is one of the things will make me rewatch the whole shebang and anticipate each and every release.

However, I think the originals should still be available, as it was done with TOS.

Don't get angry, folks. At least we're past aspect ratio discussions... (by the way, the original aspect ratio was a good call!)

Cheers,
Salvador