#remastered versions

[worldsfastestbear]

For some reason this one popped into our head while we searching for that second cup of coffee. It sounds much better in this remastered version, instead of the fake stereo original.

[staringdownabarrel]

I know a lot has been said about the TOS remasters and how the original series didn't really benefit from them, but I feel like in some ways, it didn't really suffer from them, either. Even when I saw the original versions of the episodes when I was a kid, it always looked a bit cheap by modern standards. Like, you could see the stunt mat shaking when Kirk and Spock got thrown into the dungeon in Errand of Mercy, and you could see the zipper on the back of the Gorn costume in some of the shots in Arena. Stuff like that wouldn't necessarily happen as much in a more modern show; bad '00s television CGI isn't really going to make that look any cheaper.

Really, I feel like in a lot of ways, The Next Generation benefited a lot less from being remastered than The Original Series. At least in my mind, TNG never really looked as cheap by modern standards as TOS did. There weren't any moments where they accidentally broke the paper-thin walls behind them or accidentally ripped a costume like in TOS, and while the special effects had become a little bit dated, you sorta expected for television effects to be worse than film effects back then.

In some ways, TNG was actually hurt by being remastered, because I think some of the main sets look cheaper in the remaster than they did in the original version. In some remastered episodes, you can see the black tape they'd sometimes put on the consoles on the back of the bridge to keep the studio lights from glaring too much, while you couldn't see that in the originals, for example. You can see the screws holding the console screens down as well, which you weren't really meant to see in the original episodes. Stuff like that makes the show seem cheaper, even though some of the stock footage of the ship flying by looked a bit nicer.

I get why I tend to see more posts about the TOS remasters--I follow more TOS-centric blogs, and I think the remastering tends to be much more noticeable in TOS in general--but I still feel like the TNG remasters were a lot worse just because of that.

Really, I feel like the shows that would benefit the most from being remastered are Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Some of this is just because of the big fleet shots in DS9 and how they were reusing shots from previous battles in What You Leave Behind, but some of it is also because of episodes like DS9's One Little Ship or VOY's Macrocosm where it had just become possible due to CGI having become more affordable on a television budget, but still looks extremely dated by modern standards.