Star Trek Continues (the series)

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by JRM, Oct 18, 2014.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Haaaarible color and the worst toupees in the history of anything. Couldn't make it 2 minutes in.
     
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  2. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    As a surprise parting gift to everyone, the STC people announced download links to get all 10 of the episodes. They are presented as high quality BluRay iso files - four discs, about 90GB total.

    All for free, as Paramount insisted when these fan made shows got shut down.

    I think I got all 4 downloads in their entirety, but i am not sure without a checksum. Can anyone else who also gets them share their byte total? STC VOL1 BR shows as 24,799,150,080 bytes, STC VOL2 BR shows as 22,565,355,520 bytes, STC VOL3 BR shows as 24,661,131,264 bytes, STC VOL4 BR shows as 22,641,049,600 bytes. That's from a Mac's Info panel (right click on each folder > get info).
     
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  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I saw that and thought, "oh... that can't make Viacom's lawyers happy."

    One thing that did impress me about Star Trek Continues was that the music wasn't terrible. I think their mixes suffer a bit because the dialogue is a little bit too buried. Also, this guy Vic Mignogna stars as Capt. Kirk and produced the show and edited the show and wrote some of the music. He's got a great resume as a voice actor, but I didn't buy his voice as William Shatner's. There's a point where you feel like it's just an extended SNL sketch.
     
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  4. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Almost a shame they felt they had to do the Enterprise, as opposed to another setting. Took a lot away from the story, naturally. I thought I'd just about gotten over the stilted Animated series, then the credulity-defying net productions came along...
     
  5. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    ^^ Yeah that's why I jumped on the download immediately. Have to assume a large corp won't honor its word.
     
  6. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    That's the one thing that bugged me too. I mean, he obviously went to great lengths to mimic Shatner's performance (especially in the early episodes), from appearance, grimaces, mannerisms, walking gait, etc, but as soon as he spoke, the illusion was broken. All he had to do was to speak in a lower register (as Michael Dorn did with his Worf character), and it would have been near perfect.

    A digital download isn't really prone to missing data (damaged packets are automatically retransmitted through the download protocol), so unless you had a dropped connection during the download, I wouldn't worry about the data integrity.
     
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  7. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    Thanks, that makes me feel better. jDownloader reconnected automatically a couple times over the night. It probably got it all - the file does not show as ".part" as it would otherwise - but, I'm just not as confident as I would be if it had been one uninterrupted download.

    I plan to extract the episodes from the iso when I have time, rather than making myself a BD-R. I have most of them from Vimeo already but these will be higher quality.
     
  8. greelywinger

    greelywinger Osmondia

    Location:
    Dayton, Ohio USA
    I've never been big on torrent downloads. Got the episodes from YT. What's interesting to me is the behind the scenes footage & bloopers. I assume that these are only the episodes. Is there a difference in picture quality between the DVD & BR downloads.

    Darryl
     
  9. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    The BluRay files are 1080 whereas the DVDs, being a format from before high definition even existed, are only 480. So yeah, a massive difference in quality - DVDs should have been discontinued 20 years ago.

    And the BluRay files include the bloopers and behind the scenes footage. I assume the DVD files do too.

    YouTube and Vimeo also have the episodes in either 720 or 1080, but YouTube reduces the quality of the picture and the sound in order to make them easy to stream, which is why it was so nice that the high quality BluRay files were released for free. People who have large home theater screens will notice a difference. Others, not so much.
     
    MikeInFla likes this.
  10. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC
    I think its important to evaluate STC in the spirit of which it is made: To give devoted Star Trek fans of the original series the one thing they never got: More Episodes!

    I'm a huge fan of STC continues because its made with a lot of Love, and thats obvious. just take it for what it is and dont obsess on anything. Enjoy it....thats why they made it!!!

    PS....the quality of the Blu Ray files is stunning. I'm playing them on my Samsung QLED TV
    and it is like they are in my living room.
     
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  11. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC
     
  12. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC



    Hi Mark.....can you expand on what you dont like about the color? Im playing the blu Rays on my Samsung Qled set and they look fantastic to me.
     
  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yeah, the pictures on Star Trek Continues are inconsistent and too bright, lot of bad matching shot-to-shot. Numerous weird lighting decisions and odd camera angle choices. To me, this is what happens when fans try to imitate union crews and fall short. I get that it's just an amateur thing for YouTube.
     
  14. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC


    Thanks Marc. See, I look past all that because this is, after all, a fan based project, and I'm just thankful its as good as it is. The "Bridge" of The Enterprise that they built is pretty impressive.
     
  15. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    I agree on that point, it looks good to me too with great sets and costuming, lighting (with the soft focus female closeups and male closeups in semi-shadow and brighter lit around the eyes). The sound effects are also great.

    However, where I feel the production falls down is in the acting department with some truly awful performances (Vic is pretty good) and also poor scripts for the most part. I get it's a fan production, but they got so much right with the visuals and the soundscape, that they should have put more effort in acting lessons for some of the crew, at the very least.
     
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  16. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    This is true. Vic and Todd Haberkorn were the only professional actors in the bunch, as far as I'm aware.
     
  17. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC

    Well, sure, that would be the ideal, BUT, I think some of you guys are forgetting that this is a fan production, and unless I'm wrong, everyone is working pro bono. Its really not logical (pun intended) to have expectations of professional anything, including the acting. Actually, I dont think the acting is really that bad. Right off the bat, Vic Mignoga and Michelle Specht (hubba hubba) are excellent, in my opinion. What they are doing, acting wise, is difficult......they cannot create the character thru themselves as the original cast was able to do. They have to play to a specific, preconceived character.
     
  18. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC

    LOL......Mark....have you compared the STC toupes to the Star Trek movies with the original cast toupes? STC is at least 3 notches better.
     
  19. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Well, it can't be me, since you quoted me acknowledging 'I know it's a fan production'! :)

    I disagree. If it was a high school cosplay production, then I absolutely wouldn't have high expectations. However, everything about the way this production looks and sounds, screams attention to detail and high standards. So when the acting and the scripts fall way short of similarly high standards, it's very noticeable (the acting made me wince many a time - Grant Imahara, I'm looking at you, but others too).

    Maybe it's just me, but poor acting just takes me out the story being told and it's something I cannot grade on a curve. They obviously wanted to do this and for people to watch and a big part of watchability is competent acting (more so than fantastic sets).

    Scripts are also important, but they haven't really been that good, with one or two exceptions. I couldn't finish the second parter of the last ep because part 1 was so awful...

    I didn't hate it at all, despite my critique, it's just that it could have been much better given the effort put in production values and Vic's very good Kirk performance.
     
  20. BIGGER Dave

    BIGGER Dave Forum Resident

    I think they used what they had, meaning they had people that were able to reasonably simulate the sets, and they were able to procure decent costumes. Maybe they weren’t able to find the best lighting people (without paying for pros with money they didn’t have), same for writers and actors. For a low no/low budget project, I think they did a good job considering what they had (and didn’t have). Just because they got lucky with the sets, doesn’t mean I’ll fault them for what they weren’t able to achieve. Again, this is a no/low budget enedevour, can’t compare it to a major studio production with budgets in the $Millions.
     
  21. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC





    Deesky: LOL...its funny (well, to me, anyway) that your complaint is that the acting on STC isnt that good. My man, its wasnt that good on The Original Series either!!! look at how much many critics have taken shots at Shatner and Deforest Kelly over the years for their Star Trek performances. So viewed in that context, I cant fault the crew of STC.



    Plus......look, the whole point of STC was for the creators and fans to share a nice Star Trek, TOS experience. I think they have achieved that mightily.
    I, for one, give them a ton of credit for their effort.[/QUOTE]
     
  22. sgtmono

    sgtmono Seasoned Member

    Agree almost 100%. I was blown away with the visuals. Not only did they recreate the sets and costumes from TOS better than anyone else ever has, but they even got the lighting and camera angles correct to capture that 1960s TV look. And the fact that some of this stuff is a little "imperfect" only adds to the authenticity.

    BUT, all of this is pointless if you have poor writing! The acting for me was fine, but here I was craving clever, thought-provoking scripts in the vein of D.C. Fontana or Harlan Ellison. Instead we got mostly stale ideas and plots that just left me not caring what happened next for the most part.

    If the intent was to make a virtual "4th season" of TOS, then they were as successful as humanly possible when it came to visuals and music, but seemed to not even try in the content/writing department. :(
     
  23. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC


    Sgt Carter: I understand your thoughts, and while maybe the writing wasnt "spectacular", for me they did really well.
    I also agree with your post that they were as successful as humanly possible when it came to visuals and music in recreating TOS.
     
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  24. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    I just watched part of the first episode after this thread alerted me to the existence of this project, and I’ve often wondered why the official Star Trek franchise has never pursued this concept: i.e., recreating the look and feel of the original series. There was a magic in the technical limitations of the sets and special effects of the original series that no amount of CGI has ever been able to match.
     
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  25. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC





    Spencer Tracy: Thats what I have been saying for years. Every ST creation since has been done "modern". They should do exactly what STC has done. There is baby boomer nostalgic magic in the brightly lit, 1960s Star Trek.
     
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