These Are The Voyages

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Get out the popcorn, people. Paramount has spent the past 2 years quietly remastering Star Trek: The Original Series for the 40th anniversary and given it the Star Wars Special Edition Treatment. That's right, no more cheesy shoestring SFX. Want to see the Doomsday Machine eat planets? Want to see the Gray Lady make mince meat of the Klingons? Who else rolls their eyes at those model shots of "Earth" hanging on the viewer? No more! They've been replaced with realistic CGI models that match our own planet. No people on those starbases? Never fear, there's been a population explosion. No moving clouds on the alien worlds? The wind machine has been rev'd up and the clouds have rolled in. Will they show Spock's Brain (we can only hope)? Will they replace two crewmen with Bashir and O'Brien in The Trouble With Tribbles (that'd be sneaky, wouldn't it)? Well, you'll be able to find out beginning September 16. No, not on DVD, but in syndication, just like the good old days when most of us saw it the first time. This is classic Trek, for the proletariat, not that upper crust, uberclass Trek Paramount produced later. So, it's time to relive your childhood in an up-to-date fashion. Go get the kids and show them that Trek was Trek before Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer knew how to fly. Oh, and they've not replaced any dialogue or acting, so Kirk is still as wooden as ever, but Janice Rand is still wearing the boots and miniskirt!

The report is at Trektoday:

By Michelle
September 2, 2006 - 2:57 AM

CBS Paramount Domestic Television has officially confirmed the planned release of digitally remastered high-definition episodes of the original Star Trek, with all new special effects and rerecorded music.

Michael Logan in TV Guide reported in the Insider column that on September 16th, the first of the Star Trek shows will return to syndication for the first time in 16 years, with computer-generated effects specially designed for this release. "We're taking great pains to respect the integrity and style of the original," said longtime scenic art supervisor Michael Okuda, who has worked on numerous Star Trek motion pictures and the spinoff series for nearly 20 years. Trek veterans Denise Okuda and David Rossi worked on the episodes as well.

"Balance of Terror", the first Romulan episode ever shown, will be the first of the remastered episodes aired; they will be shown out of order from their original sequence. CGI people have been added to largely empty ships and starbases, and a more detailed view of Earth from space replaces the original in "Miri." In addition, Alexander Courage's theme music has been recorded in stereo with new vocals, and William Shatner's "Space, the final frontier..." voiceover has been remastered digitally.

StarTrek.com provided more details, stating that the episodes would air on more than 200 stations and that the first batch were selected as fan favorites. The official site noted that the Enterprise and other starships originally filmed with models would be replaced by CGI-created ships, and the Enterprise and planets in the main title sequence are being given "depth and dimension." Graphics of the galactic barrier, alien planets and scenic backgrounds will also be redone.

StarTrek.com states that at the present time, there is no confirmation if or when the episodes might be available eventually on DVD or other formats.

Creation Entertainment has announced that at two upcoming conventions featuring Shatner (Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock), in Chicago and Sacramento, attendees will be treated to an exclusive sneak peek of the remastered episodes along with behind-the-scenes footage of their production.