I love Star Trek and I would call TNG my favorite series (DS9 had individual episodes that were better than the best of TNG but also lower lows. TNG was much more consistent). I have all 7 seasons on DVD. I also have the 4 episode HD disc they released last year. I would love to get season 1 on Blu Ray. I really would. The clips I have seen look amazing but really, did they have to price it 2.5 times more expensive than other season box sets? Why do they always bleed the Star Trek fans (I know the answer, because they’ll pay it)? But still, they know almost everyone buying this is re-buying it. Couldn’t they price it more reasonably?
I really want to get this…I guess I will wait until it becomes part of the remainder bin (or it’s available on Netflix streaming).
I’m curious- How much did they ‘gussy-up’ the SFX for the Next Gen Blu-Ray? For the original Star Trek they just completely replaced all space scenes because the old optical printing methods (while cutting edge in the late 60s) would not hold up to HD.
But ILM did the effects for Next Gen and I always assumed they used a combination of models, some rudimentary CGI, and instead of optical printing (i.e. taking pictures of pictures) they composited all the different layers digitally. Do the effects look radically different in some cases? Or just cleaned up?
It’s actually a very impressive and unprecedented process - and one that makes the high cost understandable, if still hard to stomach for those of us with limited disposable income. In short:
-TNG was originally filmed on film rather than video, such that the original footage is extremely high resolution and was “low-rezzed” for television broadcast.
-All existing releases (VHS, DVD, etc) are based on that compressed TV broadcast version.
-For the new Blu-ray, CBS went back to their film archives and had a team meticulously reconstruct the show shot-by-shot using the original film stock.
-In addition, the visual effects had to be completely recomposited from their source elements (beauty pass, highlight pass, reflection pass, etc).
-Lastly, the CBS team redid some of the effects in CGI similar to what they did for TOS (mostly background planets, but some foreground elements like the Crystalline Entity as well).
This website has some before-and-after pictures. It’s absolutely stunning stuff - check out the difference between this DVD shot and the same shot from the Blu-ray version. Keep in mind that, although the background planet is a new CG element, the Enterprise is actually the original filmed model (albeit with the various passes recomposited digitally)!
I hate myself a little but I went and ordered it…I get that they put a lot of work into making this look good (and frankly that was how I rationalized it to myself) but they changed that same price for all the seasons of every Trek series.
Ah well, at least I get some awesome looking TNG out of the deal
