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(Michael Urban) wrote in message news:<ch4uh6$as4$>...

> They used to show good film prints of the episodes at science
> fiction conventions. When projected onto a large screen, things
> like the wood grain on the bridge set became visible. That simply
> wasn't how it was made to be seen.

On the original DVD releases you could see air bubbles in the stickers
that look like monitors around the upper edge of the bridge. One of
the "Next week..." trailers had Spock falling backwards and his hand
actually went through the wall of the set.

Con wrote:
>>>...where is The Cage? Easter egg?
>>
>>And no, I'm not sure why, either: the first season seems like a more
>>logical place to put it.
>
>
> My own educated guess is that the disc set for the 3rd season will
> have more "room" for such extras, since that season was several
> episodes shorter than the 1st two seasons. Also, we are lucky if we
> do get "The Cage" at all... let's not forget, that episode was
> technically NEVER actually broadcast in its entirety. It is not an
> official episode of the Original Series at all. Sorry, it's true!
>
> Con
>
>
Well, you're not wrong, but...pilot episodes do get included with many
DVD packages, even if they weren't ever broadcast. It is not uncommon.
The pilot gets included so we can see what they used to sell the
series to the network. The Gilligan's Island pilot and the Munsters
pilot each even had different actors playing some of the key roles. It
was nice to see what the producers originally thought would be good, and
what changes were made when the series was actually picked up. The Star
Trek pilot had the same situation, with only the character of Spock
being retained. Some pilots are included with longer "director's cuts"
which also were not broadcast, but again we get to see what the
producers would like to have broadcast. Malcolm in the Middle and
Freaks and Geeks are two shows that come to mind.

I agree with you that there will probably be more room on the third
season, but I think it would have been more logical to put "The Cage" on
the first season DVDs.

jayembee <>
> "Con" <> wrote:
> > Also, we are lucky if we do get "The Cage" at all... let's not forget,
> > that episode was technically NEVER actually broadcast in its entirety.
>
> Yes, it was. It was "never actually broadcast in its entirety" *on
> NBC*, but it's been broadcast in syndication. Hell, I taped it off of
> Boston's WLVI about 10 years ago. It played as part of their regular
> cycle of STAR TREK reruns.



Bzzzz...wrong answer. (1) The Cage is about 1 hour 15 minutes long,
so what you see is an edited version, and therefore NOT broadcast in
its entirety.

(2) The Cage was "lost" through the 70s & 80s, and not part of 70s/80s
syndication runs. As I recall the first time *anyone* saw the show
was circa 1991 & some of it was just still photos due to missing film.



The Cage is a relatively new addition to the Star Trek series, and
therefore considered a "bonus" by the long-term fans, because it never
aired during the 60s, 70s, or 80s.

Troy

"Bob Flaminio"
> Personally, I'd've much rather that they order them in production order,
> and have "The Cage" as the first episode, "WNMHGB" as the second, Balok
> on the third, and so on -- but no one asked me .



I agree! It seems strange to see Dr. McCoy in that salt creature
episode, and then suddenly everything changes in "Where No Man"... the
doctor is different, ship is different, uniforms different, even Spock
looks younger (and smirks!).

It's strange.

If aired in production order, you can rationalize that "Where No Man"
happened about one year earlier before a ship-wide retrofit.

(Michael Urban)
> Joshua Zyber <> wrote:
> >"James Evans" <> wrote in message>
>
> >> What happened here? Some of the effects scenes look
> >> terrible. They are all jumpy and grainy like the crappy local
> >> broadcasts I used to tape off Channel 46 years ago!
> >
> >That's inherent to the source. It's the best they could do on a small TV
> >budget back then.
>
> Small budget, and no expectation of high-quality viewing.




I STRONGLY disagree with that excuse. I have DS9's "Trials &
Tribble-ations" on DVD, and the way they cleaned up the
Kirk/Spock/Scotty film is *amazing*. It looks like they just filmed
the stuff yesterday. You can even see a coffee stain on Spock's
shirt.

They could have/should have down the same with the TOS DVDs
(especially for the $120 pricetag).


Troy

in article , Troy Heagy at
wrote on 09/21/2004 04:39 PM:

> (Michael Urban)
>> Joshua Zyber <> wrote:

>>> "James Evans" <> wrote in message>

>>>> What happened here? Some of the effects scenes look
>>>> terrible. They are all jumpy and grainy like the crappy local
>>>> broadcasts I used to tape off Channel 46 years ago!

>>> That's inherent to the source. It's the best they could do on a small TV
>>> budget back then.

>> Small budget, and no expectation of high-quality viewing.

> I STRONGLY disagree with that excuse. I have DS9's "Trials &
> Tribble-ations" on DVD, and the way they cleaned up the
> Kirk/Spock/Scotty film is *amazing*. It looks like they just filmed
> the stuff yesterday. You can even see a coffee stain on Spock's
> shirt.

They probably had the advantage of a very good print of the TOS stuff and
beefed it up with the CG recreation of the original ship and K9 station.
I've only seen it once when Spike reran it and you see a lot less of the
original footage than you think you do. And some of it I think features
elements from other episodes such as where they drop Sisko in at the end
talking to Kirk. I'm not geek enough to know what episode that's actually
from.

> They could have/should have down the same with the TOS DVDs
> (especially for the $120 pricetag).
>
> Troy

One of the things that makes some restorations possible is having the
original camera negatives and FX elements to rescan at hi-res and clean it
up, recomposite FX if necessary and either master that for DVD and/or output
it back out to film. In the case of Trek I seriously doubt they took good
care of the original elements. The original blue-screen elements of the
original model are probably long gone and even the model has been through so
much it doesn't look like it did in TV days anymore.

There were stories of GR raiding the archives after the series was over and
looked dead forever to cut up prints to sell as little mounted cels through
his Lincoln Enterprises thing. I'm not optimistic that there are but a
handful of 35mm prints of the original episodes in existence. The cost of
restoring 60 some odd hours of footage the series probably adds up to
digitally would be astronomical even now.

There's a profile of the place that has a G5 Mac server farm that did the
restoration of the original SW stuff tonight on G4/TechTV's "The Screen
Savers" so I'm interested to hear if they give financial figures on what
that cost.

I'm sure there are enough fans out there that would love to fire up
Lightwave and Alias and Maya and such to make new improved effects that
matched or improved original FX stuff that's missing like Lucas did (and got
criticized for mostly unjustly).

I've seen a lot of fan rendered 3D models that look as good or better than
the stuff from "Trials & Tribble-ations" if Paramount insists on being cheap
should think about tapping for any future HD-DVD release of TOS. I'd love to
work on some stuff like that.
--
"Now, Marge, it's not our place to judge.
That's the job of an angry and vengeful god..."
-- Homer Simpson

In article < >, Troy
Heagy <> wrote:

> jayembee <>
> > "Con" <> wrote:
> > > Also, we are lucky if we do get "The Cage" at all... let's not forget,
> > > that episode was technically NEVER actually broadcast in its entirety.
> >
> > Yes, it was. It was "never actually broadcast in its entirety" *on
> > NBC*, but it's been broadcast in syndication. Hell, I taped it off of
> > Boston's WLVI about 10 years ago. It played as part of their regular
> > cycle of STAR TREK reruns.
>
>
>
> Bzzzz...wrong answer. (1) The Cage is about 1 hour 15 minutes long,
> so what you see is an edited version, and therefore NOT broadcast in
> its entirety.
>
Ah, the real reason the first pilot was rejected: Roddenbury couldn't
bring one in at the right time

(or is that longer version made up of cut footage tossed back in just
because it no longer had to fit a timeslot?)

> (2) The Cage was "lost" through the 70s & 80s, and not part of 70s/80s
> syndication runs. As I recall the first time *anyone* saw the show
> was circa 1991 & some of it was just still photos due to missing film.
>
It only existed in full in B&W. First version I saw inserted color
footage from the existing two part episode (too lazy to look up the
name).

--
Chris Mack "Refugee, total ****. That's how I've always seen us.
'Invid Fan' Not a help, you'll admit, to agreement between us."
-'Deal/No Deal', CHESS

On 9/21/04 8:19 PM, in article 210920042119066833%, "Invid
Fan" <> wrote:

> In article < >, Troy
> Heagy <> wrote:
>
>> jayembee <>
>>> "Con" <> wrote:
>>>> Also, we are lucky if we do get "The Cage" at all... let's not forget,
>>>> that episode was technically NEVER actually broadcast in its entirety.
>>>
>>> Yes, it was. It was "never actually broadcast in its entirety" *on
>>> NBC*, but it's been broadcast in syndication. Hell, I taped it off of
>>> Boston's WLVI about 10 years ago. It played as part of their regular
>>> cycle of STAR TREK reruns.
>>
>>
>>
>> Bzzzz...wrong answer. (1) The Cage is about 1 hour 15 minutes long,
>> so what you see is an edited version, and therefore NOT broadcast in
>> its entirety.
>>
> Ah, the real reason the first pilot was rejected: Roddenbury couldn't
> bring one in at the right time
>
> (or is that longer version made up of cut footage tossed back in just
> because it no longer had to fit a timeslot?)
>
>> (2) The Cage was "lost" through the 70s & 80s, and not part of 70s/80s
>> syndication runs. As I recall the first time *anyone* saw the show
>> was circa 1991 & some of it was just still photos due to missing film.
>>
> It only existed in full in B&W. First version I saw inserted color
> footage from the existing two part episode (too lazy to look up the
> name).



"The Menagerie"




Neal
--
"If morons could fly, it'd be pitch black." - Anonymous

(Troy Heagy) wrote:

>jayembee <>
>> "Con" <> wrote:
>> > Also, we are lucky if we do get "The Cage" at all... let's not forget,
>> > that episode was technically NEVER actually broadcast in its entirety.
>>
>> Yes, it was. It was "never actually broadcast in its entirety" *on
>> NBC*, but it's been broadcast in syndication. Hell, I taped it off of
>> Boston's WLVI about 10 years ago. It played as part of their regular
>> cycle of STAR TREK reruns.
>
> Bzzzz...wrong answer. (1) The Cage is about 1 hour 15 minutes long,
> so what you see is an edited version, and therefore NOT broadcast in
> its entirety.

Bzzzzz...not wrong. What I taped ran 70 minutes, plus or minus (not
including commercials).

-- jayembee

Elvis Gump
TROY:
> > I STRONGLY disagree with that excuse. I have DS9's "Trials &
> > Tribble-ations" on DVD, and the way they cleaned up the
> > Kirk/Spock/Scotty film is *amazing*. It looks like they just filmed
> > the stuff yesterday. You can even see a coffee stain on Spock's
> > shirt.
>
> They probably had the advantage of a very good print of the TOS stuff and
> beefed it up with the CG recreation of the original ship and K9 station.
> I've only seen it once when Spike reran it and you see a lot less of the
> original footage than you think you do.


(sigh) The *point* is that they DID clean up the TOS actor footage to
"just filmed yesterday" quality, and they COULD do the same thing
again for the DVDs. But they are either too cheap or too lazy to do
so. (Probably the former.)

Paramount is charging $120 a season & should have plenty of money in
their pocket to do clean-up work. There is no excuse for them to
produce pristine Kirk/Spock/Scotty footage for the DS9 episode, but
grainy/dirty prints for the TOS DVD.




If the film is of inferior quality, I might as well just stick to my
VHS collection. No reason to upgrade to DVD if the product is
grainy/dirty and not improved.

Troy