From what I have seen of the Special Editions, I have approved of what they have done. But in Part 1 of The Menagerie, after the old Enterprise crew beams down to Talos for the first time, Spock notices the singing plants and smiles. In the new edition, this scene is GONE! This does seem sacreligious to me. Enhanced special effects are one thing. But altering history?
Tsk, tsk. This is kind of a “Greedo shot first” revision. The other Special Editions that I have seen didn’t attempt to meddle with the plots or the characters.
Starbase 11 has a Space Needle as well as a pink atmo. Bumbershoots should be fun there.
Are you sure this was an edit intended to alter history? It could simply be an edit designed to allow for more commercial time. All of the newer edits of Star Trek have scenes cut from them that the originals had.
My understanding is that the TV edits will be removed when the shows are released on DVD.
Any edits made in ST episodes were made by individual TV stations when Star Trek was first released to syndication. The remastered episodes are taken directly from the original films in Paramount’s vaults.
From startrek.com :
So the enhanced Trek episodes are all supposed to have their original footage intact. I too noticed the missing footage of Spock grinning and wondered what had happened to it.
The episode I think should have been enhanced however, is the original pilot episode “The Cage.” This is the story that was framed by Spock’s mutiny in “The Menagerie” and was shown just the other week on TV Land. The soundtrack in that episode was so noisy it could have benefited from a good digital cleanup. The hiss overpowered a good deal of the dialogue and music, as well as the sound effects.
THere is missing footage in Mirror. Mirror.
Are you saying that stations are currently supplied with unedited programs and are editing scenes to make room for commercials?
The enhanced versions are not removing scenes or clips or otherwise editing the footage. There were lines missing in all the episodes. If you watch the re-runs on G4 or TVland, and compare them to either the uncut versions on G4 or the DVDs, you’ll see that whoever made these edits, they’re the same across the board.
For example in Space Seed, when Khan has a knife to McCoy’s throat, McCoy’s awesome line about where to find the vein is cut in the enhanced version and the unenhanced version they ran on TVland. In Mirror Mirror, Spock’s explanation about how he could tell the difference between the landing parties was cut in the enhanced version and the G4 Star Trek 2.0 version.
In other words, the television edits appear to be uniform (whether be design or by coincidence). It sucks, but it’s necessary, because otherwise they would need an hour and 15 minutes for a single episode. The entirely uncut, enhanced versions will be available on DVD.
That does seem to be true. I have noticed the uncut episodes on G4 don’t tend to start and end precisely on the hour. It does seem they go a few minutes over 60 minutes in length.
Yeah, they tend to last 10 minutes past the hour.