"Remastered" Trek
June 29th 2008
One of the saddest things on Earth is watching Hollywood reinvent and recycle a television series. They're doing it with the original Star Trek series, of course, but they've done it with everything from Get Smart to Battlestar Galactica, from Wild, Wild West to Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Almost always, the new versions don't hold a candle to the original, or worse yet, look like pathetic copies of them.
But in addition to the new reboot of the original Star Trek series, Star Trek fans are also being subjected to the "remastered" Star Trek with new special effects, and the fan boys are eating it up. So much so that various on-line resources are actually using the special effects as the official image of the object in question. Tonight, I was looking for a picture of the Eymorg spaceship. It's a dorky thing, looking very much like a spaceship from Lost in Space. But what I kept coming up with was the remastered Eymorg spaceship, along with statements of how "superior" it was to the original and how "ion drive" was a ridiculous statement. Later, I was looking for the picture of Flint's castle on Holberg 917G, and what did I keep finding? The remastered version, of course. The space yacht Aurora? Gone was the Tholian-reworking (hence our decision that the ship was of Tholian manufacture). Instead, there's a nice ship, but it ain't what I was looking for.
Now, I don't know if any of you have actually seen the "remastered" versions (they're run very late at night), but they're cut to hell. And some of the changes they make ruin the episode. From "Requiem for Methuselah," gone was the scene where McCoy tells Spock he feels sorrier for him than for Jim Kirk. Gone also are character moments. The whole thing is very revisionist, and it's disconcerting as to how many fanboys are suddenly making it seem as though the "remastered" versions are the only ones worth watching when nothing could be further from the truth.
Again, I'm repeating myself, but I have to ask: Why they didn't just do a new series with a new crew and ship? I guess I'll never understand...
Randy
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