In Further Star Trekery...

Sweet mother of Kahless, there's going to be a TNG special edition! By TNG I'm referring of course to Star Trek: the Next Generation. If you didn't know that you should stop reading right now because it's going to get pretty nerdy from here on out.

How nerdy? Well, this was a TV show where Mr. Data once played poker with
holographic versions of Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Sir Isaac Newton, so pretty nerdy.

"Ladies..."

Still with me? Good. According to this story on Trekcore.com and this one on TrekMovie.com, CBS Paramount is remastering TNG for an HD Blu-ray release kind of like they did a few years ago with TOS (sigh...The Original Series). Even more awesome is that the transfer will require new special effects shots since the original effects were done on video. Unlike the later Trek spin-offs, some of TNG's special effects haven't held up so well, so this is pretty exciting news for loosers-er, uh...fans like me.

100's of man hours went into digitally
enhancing Kirk's doughy physique.

Now you might recall that I am very much against the 'improved' Star Wars movies and you're probably calling me a huge hypocrite. Well stop. First off, I can't actually hear you. Secondly, I can explain. It's not that I hate change, it's that I hate changes that make something worse. When they remastered TOS, the changes were pretty subtle and never obtrusive. The physical starship models were replaced with computer renderings, some of the crappier optical effects got re-kagigered and new shots were created only in instances where Desilu cheaped out:

That green blob? Yeah, that's the
budget-conscious version of...

...this badass Klingon warship.
Anyone want to complain?

Yeah, a musical number staring Alf is
just what Return of the Jedi needed.

The TOS fancy editions are just classier than what was done to Star Wars. There was never a Greedo-shoots-firsting or a digital Jabba. If Lucasfilm went back and painstakingly re-created the original special effects work that made the holy trilogy so awesome, I'd be plunking down the Imperial Credits for the new Blu-rays right now. But they didn't. Instead, they just crammed as much CG crap as they could into what were once classics thus ruining them forever.


Then as a final screw you to the fans, they refuse to release cleaned up versions of the untouched theatrical releases. So that's it, Star Trek gets a nice visual upgrade and Star Wars is now officially full of Dewbacks and Boba Fett is from New Zealand. Sigh. Advantage: Trek.

It would be like this.