The Movie Itself: Our Reviewer's Take
When I first heard that 'Star Trek: The Original Series' would be undergoing a 'Star Wars'-style complete digital makeover, in which all of its 1960s model and miniature special effects would be replaced with modern CGI, frankly I was appalled at the news. I outright despise the tinkering that George Lucas has imposed on 'Star Wars', and refuse to watch those movies in anything other than the original theatrical versions as I first saw them. And now the same was going to happen to 'Star Trek'? Doesn't everyone realize that its datedness is a big part of the charm and appeal of 'The Original Series'? The miniskirts and crazy costumes, the chintzy sets, goofy monster makeup, and hambone theatrical acting, these are all things to cherish. 'Star Trek' is a product of its era, and should remain so.
But then a funny thing happened. Images from the new "Remastered" versions of the episodes were released, and they didn't look so bad. Statements by those implementing the changes (including renowned 'Trek' experts Michael and Denise Okuda, writers of many 'Trek'-related books and the pop-up trivia tracks accompanying earlier DVD releases of the shows and movies) actually made some good, valid points about the work they were doing and the need for it. So now we have it, the complete first season of 'Star Trek', episodes dating from 1966 to 1967, here revamped, refreshed, and revitalized. And you know what, I think it's great. Despite my skepticism, I've officially been won over.
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Here's the difference between the revised versions of 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars': The people updating 'Star Trek' aren't trying to change everything. Although the prints have been cleaned and the visual effects modernized, there are no goofy flying robots buzzing around scenes just to show off, no crappy deleted scenes that should remain on the cutting room floor needlessly reinstated, and no significant alterations made to the plot or the fundamental personalities of the characters. This is still 'Star Trek' as Gene Roddenberry envisioned it in the 1960s. The material has been treated with absolute loving respect and even reverence; it's just been spruced up a little to brush away the cobwebs of age and of the severe production limitations faced at the time.
So what exactly has been done to the show? Most obviously, almost every single space shot involving grainy stock footage of the Enterprise model dangling on wires in front of plastic schoolroom globes has been replaced with a fresh digital rendering that orbits credible-looking planets. It's still the Enterprise we know and love, recreated down to the last detail (even the silly glowing orange tips on the warp nacelles), just cleaner and less obviously toy-like. The shots run the same length and usually retain the same content and composition. The impulse to add stuff to shots or to make everything look sleeker and flashier has been largely resisted, and the restraint is often admirable. Many of the original effects, like the cartoonish phaser blasts and shimmery dissolves, haven't been touched at all, and many that were cleaned up were designed specifically to go unnoticed. The old matte paintings in the background of shots are sometimes tweaked a bit, but they still look like matte paintings. The aliens in ridiculous costumes haven't been digitally wiped out and replaced with complex CGI creatures, even when that might have been for the best; he may now blink, but the Gorn is still just a guy in a bad rubber monster suit. When the Enterprise jumps to warp speed, it cruises through the shots with the same movement it always did; no one has tried to add in the slingshot warp effect used in 'The Next Generation'. The work of the original artists has been respected. The intent isn't to change the show, but rather to restore it. This is what the producers of the series would have wanted it to look like if they'd had the budget and the technology at the time.
That being the case, occasionally some major alterations do creep in. Sometimes they're necessary, such as replacing a matte painting in 'The Menagerie' to correct a continuity error concerning the scene's time of day, but sometimes the digital artists are a little overzealous in wanting to wow a modern audience. On some alien planets, wide establishing shots have been inserted where previously we saw only close-ups and medium shots. This is helpful at times, but unnecessarily distracting at others. In some instances, the new visual effects are too ambitious in scale and detail, and look out of place mixed with the cheapie physical sets and props (the contrast is especially jarring in 'The Galileo Seven', where elaborate shots of the shuttlecraft flying through a beautiful green ion storm cut away to interiors set in a small room with blank gray walls and a handful of plastic chairs). There are also a few cases where the new effects just look a little video game-y, but those are fortunately rare and certainly no cheesier than the originals.
What surprised me the most about the Remastered 'Star Trek' is how well the majority of the new footage blends right into the old. While the differences stand out in a few occasions, in most others the transition is amazingly seamless (a claim that cannot be made about the revamped 'Star Wars'). The new effects serve to pull you into the stories and the universe Gene Roddenberry created, not knock you out of them. I must admit that I'm a lot more impressed than I expected.
As for the show itself, 'Star Trek' remains a nearly ideal blend of campy fun, exciting adventure, and surprising intellectual depth. Really a series of morality plays, psychological character studies, and philosophical treatises set within an outrageous science fiction backdrop, the show may be remembered most for its Technicolor sets and costumes, William Shatner's hammy charisma, and its goofy alien monsters, but the material thrives on the strength of its writing and the chemistry of its cast. There's good reason it has so far inspired five spin-off series, ten feature films, and undoubtedly more on the way.
Although it took a little while to find its footing, this first season is arguably the show's best, and contains many of its most iconic episodes. 'Where No Man Has Gone Before', 'The Naked Time', 'Mudd's Women', 'The Corbomite Maneuver', 'Balance of Terror', 'Space Seed', 'Devil in the Dark', and 'City on the Edge of Forever' are just some of the gems found here. Sure, there are a few clunkers like 'Shore Leave', 'The Galileo Seven', and the finale 'Operation: Annihilate!' that even the best special effects updating in the world can't rescue from their inherent cheesiness. Even these turkeys have been lovingly restored with the same care and attention as the season's finest. They're mercifully few in number, and nowhere near as bad as the way the show would fall apart in its third season.
The film purist in me likes having the old versions of the episodes around, but the 'Trek' fan in me had a blast watching the new ones. It truly felt like discovering something special for the first time all over again. 'Star Trek' is classic television, and these newly Remastered episodes breathe fresh life into a series that had grown a little too comfortable with familiarity over the years.
The HD DVD: Vital Disc Stats
'Star Trek: The Original Series – Season One' comes to HD DVD in a 10-disc box set from Paramount Home Entertainment. The packaging has a funky design vaguely reminiscent of a Transporter deck. It looks interesting on a shelf, but truth be told the plastic shell, the cardboard box sleeve inside, and the plastic disc trays are all rather flimsily constructed. Little plastic pieces of the tray were already rattling around inside the shell by the time I opened my set for the first time, and one disc had popped off its hub and gotten scratched.
Also in the box are five "Data Cards" that list the episode and bonus feature contents of each disc.
All 10 discs are encoded in Combo format, with HD DVD on one side and standard DVD on the other. In a marketing first, the Remastered versions of the episodes are only available in this box set. No comparable release for just Standard-Def DVD is available at this time. The discs contain only the Remastered episodes on both sides, not the original versions with their 1960s special effects (those are already available on DVD, but not on HD DVD).
The episodes are presented in their original broadcast order, which causes a few minor continuity problems, such as Dr. McCoy's presence in the first two episodes 'The Man Trap' and 'Charlie X', followed afterwards by the actual pilot episode 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' with a different Chief Medical Officer (Dr. Piper). To make matters more confusing, the disc menus number the episodes in their production order. Thus, Disc 1 contains episodes 6, 8, and 2. If you wish to watch the episodes in production order, you have to sort that out by reading the "Mission Stardate" trivia notes on the included Data Cards. However, it should be noted that this box set does not contain the first produced pilot episode ('The Cage' starring Jeffrey Hunter as Capt. Christopher Pike) that was rejected by NBC. If Paramount follows their DVD release pattern, we can expect that episode at the end of the eventual Season Three box set.
The Video: Sizing Up the Picture
Befitting a television series produced in the 1960s, the 'Star Trek' HD DVD transfer retains the show's original 4:3 aspect ratio, encoded on disc with pillarbox bars at the sides of the 16:9 frame. This includes all of the new visual effects footage, which was technically rendered at a wider 16:9 ratio but is center-cropped to 4:3 here. In fact, in preparing the Remastered episodes, the studio struck three separate High Definition transfers: one at a consistent 4:3 ratio (the version available in this box set), one that varies between 4:3 for live action footage and 16:9 for visual effects (XBox Live users may have downloaded episodes in that format), and one with all of the live action footage cropped and stretched to 16:9 (reportedly, that one will be released on HD DVD in Japan). As far as I'm concerned, the 4:3 version is the most appropriate and the only one worth considering.
It should go without saying that the quality of television broadcast (not to mention the TVs themselves) in the 1960s was nowhere near the standard available today, and even the show's syndicated broadcasts over the decades have rarely captured the vibrancy of its original photography. By the time the series was released on DVD, the episodes there already looked significantly better than anyone had ever seen them before. The 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfers in this HD DVD set take things to the next level, revealing a world of detail that viewers in the 1960s could scarcely imagine was available. The High Definition imagery is clear enough to resolve the powder of the actors' makeup, the hairs on Shatner's chest, and the pockmarks of George Takei's bad complexion. Ironically, the seams in many alien costumes and the frayed edges of the Starfleet insignia on Kirk's uniform expose budgetary limitations previously hidden by less-detailed transfers.
With that said, the show's style does at times limit the amount of detail visible. Every single close-up of an actress, for example, was photographed in soft focus. The difference in focus between the male and female actors may not have stood out as much in Standard Definition, but here is almost comically apparent. In addition to its fresh telecine transfer, the show has had much of the dirt and age-related defects from the source elements digitally erased. Not everything was cleaned up, though, and there are quite a few surprising instances of visible dirt and damage. Still, it's much cleaner than we've ever seen it before.
'The Original Series' is famous for its garish costumes and sets, and the purity and almost surreal vibrancy of colors in the new transfer far exceed that of the prior DVD releases. The yellowish tinge of Leonard Nimoy's makeup in the early episodes is much more obvious here than it's ever been before (the thinking at the time was that Spock's green blood would leave his skin with a jaundiced look, an effect that was toned down as the series progressed). Contrast has also been digitally tweaked to enhance black levels and depth, effectively highlighting the show's expressive lighting schemes but also sometimes leading to crushed shadow detail.
On the downside, the show's photography is frequently grainy, sometimes quite a bit so, and the grain is not always adequately digitized or compressed. It appears that noise reduction has also been employed to tame the worst of it, a process that softens detail at times and can cause its own artifacts. Viewers with keen eyes will notice posterization and pixelation problems in a number of episodes, notably on the doors behind Kirk and Spock in 'The Naked Time' around the 40 minute mark. A first instinct may be to blame the AVC compression, however the same artifact is present (though less visible due to the lower resolution) at the same spot on the DVD side of the disc. Whatever the cause of this problem (likely aggressive noise reduction or digital recoloring), is part of the master, not something specific to the HD DVD encoding. For what it's worth, the same scene in the pre-Remastered 2004 DVD set does not show any pixelation.
Nitpicks aside, 'Star Trek' has never looked this good before. It's not perfect, and some episodes look decidedly better than others, but overall the High-Def transfer certainly brings a whole new life to the series.
The Audio: Rating the Sound
The show's soundtrack is offered in either Dolby Digital Plus 2.0 or lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 formats. The TrueHD track is set for a much lower volume by default, and will require significant amplification. If listening through TV or computer speakers in a basic stereo configuration, the 2.0 DD+ track may be better suited. In a proper surround sound listening environment, the TrueHD track has clear advantages.
As with the updated visual effects, the purist in me takes issue with the show's original monaural soundtrack being remixed to stereo or surround. Fortunately, those qualms were put to rest as soon as I heard the results. The mixers have been very careful not to lose the flavor of the original sound. Each episode remains primarily anchored in the front soundstage, with few gimmicky or inappropriate surround effects as have plagued some other 5.1 remixes of previously mono tracks.
The show's theme has been freshly recorded from a new orchestration and sounds wonderful. The Enterprise now whooshes from the front speakers to the back during the opening credits, and in many episodes there may be one or two instances of obvious movement in the rear channels, but generally speaking dialogue and most sound effects remain in the center channel, with the musical score spread out to a mild stereo dimensionality. The audio is clean and clear, if not particularly aggressive in envelopment or dynamic with bass. This may not be an auditory powerhouse like modern feature films, but the soundtrack is appropriate and respectful of the original material. Even so, I find it inexcusable that Paramount didn't find room to include the original mono tracks at least as a supplement.
The Supplements: Digging Into the Good Stuff
The box set contains a mixture of bonus features, some new and some recycled from the 2004 DVD release of the pre-Remastered first season. We'll start with the content carried over from the DVDs, all of which is located on the Side B (the standard DVD side) of each disc.
The Birth of a Timeless Legacy (24 min., SD) – A look at the origins and development of the series, from its two pilot episodes to its many budgetary and production problems. Shatner, Nimoy, and other cast members are interviewed (separately), along with vintage clips of Gene Roddenberry.
Reflections on Spock (12 min., SD) – Leonard Nimoy reminisces about his famous character, and the controversy that surrounded his "I Am Not Spock" memoir.
Life Beyond Trek: William Shatner (11 min., SD) – Recorded in 2003 (prior to his current stint on 'Boston Legal'), this interview finds Shatner discussing his passion for raising horses. There's not much relevant to 'Star Trek', or particularly interesting for that matter, in this piece.
To Boldly Go… Season 1 (19 min., SD) – Nimoy, Shatner, other cast members, guest stars, and show producers look back on key episodes of the first season, including 'The Naked Time', 'Arena', and 'Space Seed'. Production difficulties are once again covered, as well as the actors' approaches to their characters.
Sci Fi Visionaries (17 min., SD) – A tribute to the quality of the show's writing, and the potency of its science fiction concepts.
Preview Trailers (times vary, all SD) – On the DVD side of every disc, each episode contains its original TV trailer. The footage is generally in very poor condition.
HD Bonus Content: Any Exclusive Goodies in There?
New to the HD DVD are the following:
Starfleet Access – Functioning nearly identically to the U-Control features on selected Universal discs, Starfleet Access is an interactive Picture-in-Picture (or more accurately Picture-outside-Picture) functionality that accompanies episodes 'Where No Man Has Gone Before', 'The Menagerie Part I', 'The Menagerie Part II', 'Balance of Terror', 'The Galileo Seven', 'Space Seed', and 'Errand of Mercy'. Various icons will appear in the black pillarbox bar to the right of the series picture, broken down into categories such as Genesis, Federation Files, Environments, Technology, and Life Forms. When selected, the show will shrink down into a smaller box and shift to the left of the screen, while interviews, VFX comparisons, and trivia are displayed on the right. As with U-Control, the amount of manual interaction required by the viewer becomes quickly frustrating, especially when content from multiple categories overlap at the same time. The Genesis category contains the most useful information, consisting of interview footage from the cast, producers, writers, visual effects artists, and 'Star Trek' experts Michael and Denise Okuda. The stream of material on the first episode 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' is nearly constant, but unfortunately appears more sporadically in the following episodes. Despite some hiccups, this is for the most part an interesting and welcome feature.
Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century (20 min., SD) – An overview of the Remastering process, from telecine transfer to digital cleanup, coloring, re-recording of the theme song (clips from this circulated on YouTube earlier this year), and of course the new visual effects. Altogether pretty fascinating.
Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories (14 min., SD) – Supporting actor Blackburn is seen in a great many 'Trek' episodes as the dialogue-less ship navigator Lt. Hadley, as well as numerous other non-speaking roles including crew members, Red Shirts, crowd extras, and costumed aliens (he was the Gorn!). In this interview, the actor shares his remembrances of the production and his 8mm home movies shot on the set.
Kiss 'N Tell: Romance in the 23rd Century (17 min., SD) * – An amusing look at the progression of Capt. Kirk's overactive love life. Shatner jokes around about the hardship of kissing so many beautiful women. Romance storylines for Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura are also highlighted.
Trekker Connections (4 min., SD) * – A pointless trivia game in the vein of "6 Degrees of…" The feature isn't even interactive. Lame.
Star Trek Online Game Preview (3 min., SD) – Equally lame, an extended commercial for the multi-player online role-playing game.
Interactive Enterprise Inspection – Somewhat better, this visual tour of the Starship Enterprise's exterior allows the viewer to select which parts of the ship to visit, presented with or without an audio "data track" explaining the purpose and function of each section. The computer graphics are nicely rendered in High Definition, though there isn't really a whole lot of information here that Trekkers won't already find familiar.
Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier (90 min, SD) – This History Channel documentary was originally aired in conjunction with a massive 'Star Trek' memorabilia auction. The piece affords many associated with the franchise an opportunity to reflect on 40 years of 'Trek', though for some reason absolutely no one seems to remember the animated series from the '70s. We also get a close look at many terrific props and models used in the various series and movies. This is an enjoyable feature, but it should be mentioned that it focuses more on the 'Next Generation' years than it does 'The Original Series'.
* Note that technically the "Kiss 'N Tell" and "Trekker Connections" featurettes first appeared on a promotional bonus disc included with purchase of the 2004 'Star Trek' Complete First Season DVD set at Best Buy Stores.
The Cutting Room Floor: What Didn't Make the HD DVD?
Not carried over from the 2004 DVD set are the pop-up trivia text commentaries for episodes 'Where No Man Has Gone Before', 'The Conscience of the King', and both parts of 'The Menagerie'. That content has been largely replaced by the new Starfleet Access features, at least as it pertains to 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' and 'The Menagerie'. However, 'The Conscience of the King' has no comparable coverage in this set.
Also missing is a photo gallery and various easter egg clips about the making of certain episodes (if those are hidden here, I didn't have the patience to locate them).
Easter Eggs
No easter eggs reported for 'Star Trek: The Original Series - Season One' yet. Found an egg? Please use our tips form to let us know, and we'll credit you with the find.
Final Thoughts
Almost all of my concerns about the Remastered episodes of 'Star Trek: The Original Series' were put to rest when I finally saw how tastefully the visual effects changes were implemented. There is a world of difference between the loving care taken to restore this classic TV series and the tacky desecration that George Lucas imposed on his 'Star Wars' movies. I went in with skepticism, and came out a believer.
The High Definition transfer has a couple of faults, but is by and large a joy to behold. The supplements sound more impressive in volume than many of them wind up being in content, but the Starfleet Access feature available on seven of the episodes is pretty nifty. With a list price of nearly $200, the HD DVD box set may unfortunately be priced out of the reach of many fans and casual viewers. For those who love 'Star Trek', it's worth the expense.
