Welcome to the 24th Century, Now in Glorious HD!

It's been 25 years since Star Trek: The Next Generation hit the silver screen to initially mediocre reviews. "There can't be Star Trek without Kirk and Spock!" they said. But after the first two seasons, TNG finally got its 'space legs' and became one of the best Trek incarnations of them all. Now, us Trekkies have the opportunity to see TNG receive a similar remastering/high-definition conversion treatment as the Original Series did back in 2006, but in a manor that I think preserves the original show even better.

Earlier this year, CBS brought on-board several important members of the old TNG production team to bring the classic series into the 21st century, most notably, Doug Drexler and Michael and Denise Okuda. The team is now using modern technology to not only convert the show to HD, but also show off the highly-detailed Enterprise-D miniature like its never been seen before. For the Original Series, the old, grainy model shots and special effects footage was, as Okuna put it, "reinvented, [using modern CGI], pulling you out of the show". This time, the remastering will be 100% true to the original; the only difference: it'll look like the show was produced yesterday.

The Next Generation was originally recorded using natively-high definition 35mm cameras and with highly-detailed miniatures and then-state-of-the-art visuals, which grew much more complex as the series progressed. In fact, the visuals for the pilot "Encounter at Farpoint" were provided by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the same company that created the revolutionary effects for Star Wars. All live-action and model footage was then transferred to standard-definition video tape for editing, with a significant loss in quality. However, since SD was truly standard TV quality back then, no one worried about the quality loss.

Today, the difference is quite clear:

The original SD shot ("Farpoint")...

...and the recomposited HD shot.

Currently, a team at CBS Digital is pain-painstakingly reconstructing each episode from the original elements in exactly the same arrangement as the originals. The already-high definition live-action footage will be combined with newly recomposited VFX footage, both of which were preserved almost in their entirety by the studio. Elements such as starfields, planets, phasers, transporters, and shields will be recreated in CGI, since the original effects only exist on SD video tape. In the rare case that model footage is missing elements, deemed of too poor quality, or can't be located all-together, those shots will also be recreated in CG, matching the originals exactly.

At the same time, CBS Digital has also been known to correct minor VFX and 'equipment visible' errors, but these corrections are not always consistent throughout a given episode (hectic production schedule, anyone?). For instance, in "Farpoint", the Enterprise was shown firing its energy beam from the location of the Captain's Yacht (coincidentally, the same place Kirk's Enterprise fired during in the Original Series), rather then the 'correct' location along the lower phaser strip. The HD version corrects this error and is also a complete CGI reconstruction since the original shot was missing elements and deemed unusable:

Original VFX Shot ("Farpoint")...

...and its corrected CGI counterpart.

Many planets are made to closely resemble the old ones, but without the blurriness or distortion typical of planets early in the series. Thus far, many of the worlds in Season 1 are much more faithful recreations then the totally redesigned ones used in TOS-R. In the case of Ligon II in "Code of Honor", the original planet map was actually scanned and digitally wrapped onto the surface of the CGI planet, creating an almost perfect duplicate. Although this isn't always the case, it shows how meticulous the production team is when it comes to recreating elements as close to the originals as possible:

Original planet model ("Honor")...

...and its CG counterpart

In the case of live-action footage, it is generally left unaltered. However, due to the much higher picture quality of the original negatives, the footage looks crystal-clear. Compared to the originals, which actually look faded and unclear in comparison, the picture is far sharper and the colors vibrant and really well balanced. It really does look like the footage was filmed yesterday! What if live-action footage is missing? In that case, the team resorts to up-converting SD video tape footage to fill this void. Thus far, there has only been once instance of missing live-action footage (a brief 13-second clip from season three's "Sins of the Father"), but that missing segment was recently rediscovered. The team plans to reinsert that footage into "Sins" for the Season 3 Blu-ray release.

The Enterprise away team ("Justice")...

...and the same shot in HD.

With the overall sharper picture quality, many previously-blurry background details have become quite visible, which isn't always a good thing for the production staff. for example, some previously-unclear computer graphics, which were sometimes filled with production in-jokes or incorrect information (mainly because such things wouldn't have been visible when the show originally aired), had to be fixed by the remastering team. A few examples include a graphic depicting the wrong version of the Kirk's Enterprise ("The Naked Now"), an on-screen Captain's Log that was simple a mirrored image ("The Battle"), or a family tree filled with the names of the production staff and dates that didn't match spoken dialogue ("The Neutral Zone").

The movie-era Enterprise...

...replaced by the correct TOS version.

In addition to the amazing picture quality and visual effects, the soundtrack has also been converted to 7.1 surround sound. Unfortunately, just six days after the release, customers began reporting sound problems with three discs in the set. CBS later put out a press release stating that some episodes of season one "inadvertently had their front channel designations incorrectly mapped, resulting in an undesired playback experience when listening to them in a 7.1 or 5.1 Surround Sound environment". To correct this, CBS has set up a program to replace the damaged discs free of charge.

Initially announced late last year (November, 2011), a Blu-ray sampler pack containing the episodes "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Inner Light", and "Sins of the Father" was released on January 1, 2012. Before season one was released, two special episodes ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Datalore") were shown theatrically on July 23rd. The complete first season was released on July 24, selling over 95,000 copies in the first five days (US sales only)

Recently, it was announced that season two is due to be released on December 4th, and will also contain extensive bonus features. Besides these bonus features, the set will included an extended cut of the fan favorite "The Measure of a Man".

Finally, pending the success of the TNG remastering, CBS has expressed their willingness to do the same with DS9 and Voyager...

Although I'm not yet convinced that Blu-ray is the wave of the future (I've yet to see anyone with a Blu-ray player..), I am quite impressed with the extensive work CBS has done on a 25-year-old series. It still amazes me that we can take something made over two decades ago (and even something made 40+ years ago) and use modern technology to make it look like brand new. One can only wonder what these shows will look like in another 20 years...

For complete coverage and continued updates on the TNG remastering project, make sure to check out TrekCore, one of the greatest sources of Trek multimedia on the Internet. Also, huge thanks to the folks at TrekCore for the amazing screencaps and much of the information found in this article. Additionally, don't forget to visit the 'Observations' index of Ex Astris Scientia (EAS) for detailed information on exactly what was done in each episode.

Until next time, live long and prosper :)