Someone has previously proposed to re-do, (cgi) the sfx for the original Star Trek series. Would you watch it? Would it enhance anything?

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That would be like beefing up old Godzilla movies with modern CGI. Part of the atmosphere and fun of these movies were the cheesy sfx.
Many super-smooth-sfx-movies proved, that sfx is not the thing that makes a good movie a good movie

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I don't recall that many grit-your-teeth SFX on TOS, but then I was practically weaned on it, so I'm not remotely objective. I'm inclined to think that 21st-century special effects would be rather jarring when combined with 60's-era sets and costumes.

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I suppose it depends on how well it was done. Surely the spacecraft exteriors would look better with modern CGI, but as ToSeek says, you'd still have the very retro-looking control panels and equipment. It would be pretty tough to CGI all that.

But some of the "moments" that grabbed me in the TOS could stand updating. For example, when the alien ship in "The Corbomite Maneuver" approaches, dwarfing the Enterprise, I was blown away. Now it looks a bit cheesy. I wouldn't mind seeing that (and a few other scenes like it) replaced with high-quality modern equivalents.

D'you suppose they could CGI-it out to widescreen format? (Donnie B. is enjoying his new 16:9 capability.)

(Donnie B. is also wondering when CGI became a verb.)

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"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

If the storylines and subliminal jokes are kept the same, I'd watch TOS if it were re-created with sock-puppets!

--hippie

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would it still have Kirk? yes? then no.

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Are we taking lessons from George Lucas now?
Did the original Star Wars get better because Lucas added more and updated CGI?. No, it added nothing to it, and in some places made it worse.

And to even think of doing this to the TOS is sacrelidge!! What would the late Scotty say to this? "Captain, the engines can't any more of this CGI"

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Lets facce it, it hasnt aged well.

The acting, effects and stories are all quite poor compared to what you would watch these days.

A remake wouldnt work either, as it has bascially been done (TNG).

Would like to see Blakes 7 get the treatment though.

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What you all fail to recognise is it's not about CGI, it's not even about SCI-FI.

The Spaceship is just a way of putting the characters into the storyline.

What's wrong with the acting and the stories? they are way ahead of anything I have seen in the last 20 years.

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The special effects are poor by today's standards, sure. But acting and stories? In your opinion, not mine.


Heh. I always get a laugh out of comments like that. Star Trek and Blake's Seven were both great shows. Blake's Seven borrowed a lot from Star Trek. They are hard to compare, because they had very different stories. But if you forced me to do so, I would have to rank Star Trek above Blake's Seven. Aren't opinions great?

As for CGI in Star Trek: It would be fun to see "Doomsday Machine" with CGI. There's are few other episodes that would be fun to see with modern CGI, as long as the original versions were still available. I absolutely don't want to see different actors doing the same stories. It would be horrible to see somebody try to take the place of Scotty, Kirk, Spock, McCoy ...

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The relationship between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy...that is the reason that Star Trek worked as far as I'm concerned. Recent attempts to duplicate that relationship have failed to live up to the original, IMO.

As far as "updating" the FX with CGI...what would be the "point". I like the original FX. I wouldn't mind if the "bleedthrough" (stars showing through spaceships) and the "matte outlines" were cleaned up a bit. But other than those particulars, I really see no need to "fix" something that isn't broken.

Yes. But I'd prefer Star Trek: Animated Adventures with modernized animations. The original ones were so crappy, it really hindered the show.

Definitely. And some of them were really good stories, too! I'm thinking of one that adapted one of Larry Niven's Kzinti stories into the Trek universe.

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"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I don't think that would add much to the show. Star Trek -- TOS is a classic and always will be. SF connaisseurs know that older classics are often lacking in the SFX department, but that it would be unfair to judge them by the standards of today. In any case, IMO, the strong point of Star Trek were always the ideas and situations, not the setting.

Now, the original Battlestar Galactica might be a different story...

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Nope, I wouldn't. I'd only watch it with modernized plots and accurate science... But then it wouldn't be Star Trek.

I agree, is there someone out there who wouldn't watch TOS unless they updated the effects. People either love it the way it us, or they don't, no matter how spiffy it looks.As I've said before, why do we need to keep redoing Star Trek, there is a ton of good science fiction out there waiting to be made.

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Oh come on...... PLEEEEEASE!!!!

The acting...?

Even taking TNG and Ds9, the stories and acting are far superior.

But when you add in other genre examples, Farscape Firefly Battlestar (TNG) TOS is panto by comparison.

When you think of West Wing, 24, The Sopranos and The Shield, TOS looks like a preschool play.

And the storylines from TOS were fairly reminicent of the first two years of TNG, which initself were the worst 2 years of its run.

I can see you are passionate about the subject, though. So please feel free to tear apart my argument with a reasoned counter.

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Every once in a while, in Star Trek -- TOS, there were small bits of malicious humour between Spock, McCoy and Kirk that I've never seen in later incarnations of the show. I'd call that good acting.

I see how you can be passionate about it, too, but I still think you've got something backwards in there.

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In your opinion. That's fine, everyone has an opinion, but don't expect everyone to share yours. I'll note that the "even taking" suggests you don't think much of TNG and DS9 either.

I had to look up "panto" - apparently suggesting a children's show? Well, Farscape was a fantasy show with muppets. Firefly was a Western. Although I sometimes watched Farscape, the stories and the characters didn't impress me much. I couldn't get interested in Firefly enough to watch more than two or three episodes. Better than Star Trek? In my opinion, not even close.

I like the new BSG, but it is different from Star Trek. Different, but not better.

That is all in my opinion, of course. I don't care if you agree.

So now you are going outside the genre?

What argument? That you don't like Star Trek? That's pretty obvious. You seem pretty passionate. My only "passion" is annoyance when people think everyone else should be expected to share their opinion.

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Maybe I think too much like someone who does theater for a living. But the joy of TOS for me is in the scripts, and the Kirk/Spock/McCoy ensemble, and the way they work like a well-oiled machine. No wasted parts, no excess lines or rambling sub-plots -- simple, economical story-telling.

When I think of TV I've seen since, only a few shows like Buffy, or SG-1, come up to that sort of graceful economy. Almost all the later generations of ST struggled to get a story out. Not to say there weren't good episodes of the later shows. Or bad episodes of TOS. And the depth of story and character explored in, say, Wiseguy really shows how much the hermetic 50-minute structure constrained the original Star Trek.

In any case, the SFX aren't an issue to me. With a few wincing exceptions they managed to avoid "look at me" syndrome, instead presenting the information needed then getting out of the way. I'll take that anytime over the long CGI extravaganzas that substitute for actual drama and conflict on the unlamented Enterprise.