Big 'Star Trek' news!

[MisterCat]

Check your local listings, folks!

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Star Trek gets digital makeover

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/]BBC
NEWS[/url]

Last Updated: Friday, 15 September 2006, 13:33 GMT 14:33 UK

Star Trek gets digital makeover

Star Trek fans are being given a chance to see the final frontier as never before with the broadcast of a digitally enhanced version.


The series has developed a worldwide following

All 79 episodes of the original 1960s series have been given a makeover with visuals and sound being updated.

Computer graphics replace model spaceships, backgrounds have been made more realistic and even Kirk's famous introduction has had a digital polish.

The new-look series will be shown in the US this weekend.

John Nogawski, president of CBS Paramount Domestic Television, said: "Nothing really has changed except for the fact that it's just prettier to look at.

More dynamic

"Right down to placement of stars, it is being re-simulated to be exactly what was there in the first place."

The new computer-generated graphics were created with measurements taken from the original model of the craft now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Visual effects experts said the ship now flew "more dynamically."

The new broadcast is part of events to mark the series' 40th anniversary.

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Here are the initial broadcast data for the Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., area:

Station: KPDX MNT
Channel: 49

Station: KPDX-DT MNT
Channel: 49.1

Star Trek
09/16/2006 10:00 PM, 1 hr

Balance of Terror

Kirk matches wits with a Romulan Commander (Mark Lenard) as the Enterprise chases a cloaked Romulan ship, which destroyed four Federation outposts, into the Neutral Zone. Centurion: John Warburton. Decius: Lawrence Montaigne. Yeoman Rand: Grace Lee Whitney. Stiles: Paul Comi. Spock: Leonard Nimoy. Kirk: William Shatner. Uhura: Nichelle Nichols.

Cast & Credits: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Mark Lenard, Paul Comi, John Warburton

Sci-Fi/Other
TVPG, English

Star Trek
09/17/2006 10:00 PM, 1 hr

Miri

Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Yeoman Rand arrive on a planet resembling Earth in the 1960s and discover it has been ravaged by a genetically engineered virus that kills adults and extends childhood. Many of the children who appear in this episode are William Shatner's, Gene Roddenberry's and director Vincent McEveety's actual children. Miri: Kim Darby. Jahn: Michael J. Pollard. Fat Boy: John Megna. Kirk: William Shatner.

Cast & Credits: William Shatner (Actor), Kim Darby (Actor), Michael J. Pollard (Actor), John Megna (Actor), Grace Lee Whitney (Actor)

Sci-Fi/Other
TVPG, English

<---- This emoticon is the wrong "star" but it's the right genre.

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[ScarletBea]

I saw the original series way back when, when it was new.
Nowadays, I much prefer Voyager and Deep Space Nine, and would only look at the Original Series in a 'funny' sort of way.

A bit like 'Space 1999', hehehe
(gosh I'm old...)

[mijj]

I dont see the point of digitally enhancing the original series .. except maybe as a marketing gimmic to generate interest.

I dont like the upstart new versions of Star Trek at all. (i.e., those versions not being the Original.) The new ones seem to abandon the idea of sci fi story telling and settle for soap in space with special effects dolloped all over the place.

<slaps new upstart versions of Star Trek>

[andy o]

I saw the original series way back when, when it was new.
Nowadays, I much prefer Voyager and Deep Space Nine, and would only look at the Original Series in a 'funny' sort of way.

A bit like 'Space 1999', hehehe
(gosh I'm old...)

Though Voyager and DS9 are technically better, Star Trek is the standard that ALL sci-fi shows asspire to be.
God bless Gene

[mijj]

it shock!s me that anyone could regard any but the original series as good.

all the recent ones are dusty, unimaginative dreary plods. None seem to be written by anyone that respects sci-fi as a medium for exploring ideas. All the later star treks seem to be written by Soap writer rejects. .. they made the mistake of thinking star trek is about personalities and social behaviour - it's not .. it's about ideas that could only exist in a sci-fi setting. What they've done instead is take mundane stories and dress everyone in masks and give them guns that go "zap" instead of "bang".

[MisterCat]

I fully agree with you, mijj, that the original Star Trek television series dealt with ideas to a much greater extent than have that franchise's subsequent feature films and television series. Mind, the main characters from the 1966-69 Star Trek have become icons nonetheless. But, as you implied, it's as if all viable ideas were used up during the original series (which of course they weren't) and what we've gotten since then are mere regurgitations accompanied by slicker production techniques. In theory there's still plenty of room for imagination when it comes to potential future science-fiction television series, but everything corporation-wise has been reduced to ironclad money-making formulae from which the exploration of new ideas is perforce excluded.



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