[Infowarrior] - Original 'Star Trek' returns to TV with digital facelift

[Richard Forno]

'Star Trek' returns to TV with digital facelift

By Reuters
http://news.com.com/Star+Trek+returns+to+TV+with+digital+facelift/2100-1026_
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Story last modified Fri Sep 15 06:21:06 PDT 2006

Four decades after Capt. Kirk and crew zoomed off at warp speed to "the
final frontier," the iconic sci-fi series "Star Trek" returns to broadcast
television this week with an extensive digital makeover.

CBS Paramount Domestic Television, a unit of CBS, is digitally remastering
all 79 episodes of the original series to enhance the show's 1960s-era
visual effects with 21st-century computer-generated graphics.

Digitally created images will replace the miniature-scale models used for
exterior shots of the various spacecraft on the show, including Kirk's
Starship Enterprise and the enemy war vessels of the alien Klingons and
Romulans.
Star Trek auction

Shots of distant galaxies and planets also will be touched up with computer
graphics to give them greater depth. The flat matte paintings used as
backdrops on the surface of the strange new worlds visited by the Enterprise
crew will be digitally enhanced to add texture, atmosphere and lighting.

Moreover, the music and sound for the show's opening sequence have been
rerecorded in state-of-the-art digital stereo, and William Shatner's classic
38-word introduction, beginning with "Space, the final frontier," has been
digitally remastered.

CBS Paramount says the makeover is intended to enhance the show's visual
appeal while staying true to the original look and feel of the series.

"Nothing really has changed except for the fact that it's just prettier to
look at," John Nogawski, president of CBS Paramount Domestic Television,
said in a recent conference call with reporters. "Right down to placement of
stars, it is being resimulated to be exactly what was there in the first
place."

Visual effects producer David Rossi said one subtle change avid fans may
notice in the opening sequence was in the flight of the Enterprise,
recreated as a computer-generated graphic with measurements taken from the
original model of the craft now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington.

In the original sequence, the ship's flight path seems to shift slightly to
the left and right, a flaw in perspective caused by limitations in the
physical length of the dolly track used for the camera shot. The digital
rendering creates a more realistic perspective.

"We smoothed out the motion of the Enterprise. It flies more dynamically
now," Rossi said. "It occupies real space. It doesn't look like a model
anymore."

In honor of the series' 40th anniversary, the remastered episodes will begin
airing on Saturday on more than 200 TV stations across the country.

It will mark the first time in 16 years the original series will be seen in
U.S. broadcast syndication, though it currently airs on the cable network
G4TV and will begin running Nov. 17 on cable's TV Land channel.

Conceived by author Gene Roddenberry, "Star Trek" debuted on Sept. 8, 1966,
introducing TV viewers to a 23rd-century team of space explorers led by
Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk, the Enterprise commander and an interstellar
Lothario.

The series co-starred Leonard Nimoy as his stoically logical first officer,
the half-human, half-Vulcan Mr. Spock, DeForest Kelley as the cranky ship's
doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy, and James Doohan as trusty chief engineer
Scott.

Running on NBC for three seasons, "Star Trek" was canceled in 1969 due to
mediocre ratings. But it developed a strong cult following in reruns that
helped establish the show as a pop culture staple.

Shatner and Nimoy insist the series endures because its visual effects were
secondary to transcendent themes dealing with social justice, race relations
and even Cold War tensions.

"Shows about explosions and special effects, go away," Nimoy said in a
recent interview. "We didn't have a lot of production values. It all had to
get into your head somehow and resonate somewhere. And I think that's why it
survives."

Shatner, who jokes he doesn't watch "Star Trek" reruns anymore because "the
aging process is so painful," added that fans saw past the "cheesy costumes,
and the bad sets and the ill-gotten special effects" because of the show's
substance. "It's almost like theater of the mind."

Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.