Merrick here...


...with a shot from this weekend's episode of STAR TREK REMASTERED.

It's "The Cloud Minders". This always struck me as STAR TREK's take on METROPOLIS: beleaguered workers on & beneath a planet's surface toiling for the detached & unsympathetic aristocracy living in a city that floats in the sky.

For the new iteration of this episode, the nature of Stratos (the floating city) has been significantly broadened via design changes, new angles, etc.

BELOW: a shot of Stratos as it appears in The Original Series -vs- the remastering. I'm told that if you look at the remastered image very carefully, you can spot the character Droxine (Diana Ewing) standing on her balcony. I've tried to find her and failed.

Before the comparison, I'll pass on a few more notes about the remastered image. They reflect the level of detail and dedication with which the remastering team approaches their tweaking of Original Series material.

Note that the image of the planetscape below is a matte painting based on the same photograph used by Cinema Research Corp, which did the original visual effects for the episode in 1969.

The original planet view was based on a photograph of the Hadramawt Plateau dry river basin in southern Saudi Arabia. The photo was taken by astronauts on the Gemini IV mission in 1965.

For the remastered visual effect, Dwayne A. Day of the National Research Council and John Hargenreder of the NASA History Office combed through NASA archives at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. to find the original photograph for the remastered visual effects team.

The distant mountains on the horizon are from a different photo, taken by astronauts on the International Space Station.

Here are the images...

Original

Remastered - CLICK TO EMBIGGEN

The "remastered" images above is a matte painting by Max Gabl, based on a digital model by visual effects supervisor Niel Wray.

HERE's a newly updated list of stations carrying the next wave of REMASTERED episodes.

Airtimes/stations may be in flux. If you've been watching these, be sure to check for changes in your area.

If you can't find a station near you, they can also be downloaded via iTunes and XBOX Live (where a number of episodes are available in High Definition - the series is not shown in HD by many, if any, broadcasters).

"Original" images from TrekCore

[[[e-mail Merrick]]]