wtf is this shit?

Star Trek ... the Special Edititon?

Taking a page from Lucas and Spielberg's playbook on

how to repackage your own classics, Paramount and

CBS are re-mastering the effects in the original 79

episodes of "Star Trek." Gone is the model Enterprise,

a character in its own right, the matte painted backgrounds

and the 2-dimensional starscapes. The "cheesy" special

effects are being tweaked to give the show new life. It should

be airing on TVLand in November.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I don 't like it. Not one bit.

The effects might seems cheesy to those of us raised on

CGI, but for late 60s TV stagecraft they are excellent. And

that's not even the point. "Star Trek" rocks not because of the

effects but because the stories are so good. Each episode is

a like a classic play. They are classic theater pieces in which

the interaction between the characters is the focal point. It doesn't

matter that Frank Gorshin's half black/half white makeup job in

"Let This Be Your Last Battlefield" was just grease paint. The story

was still a biting condemnation of racism's insane destructiveness

and could not have been improved upon with 10 hours of latex

work and hundreds of gigs worth of computer aided graphics.

Would "The Balance of Terror" have kicked any more ass if the Romulan

ship interior HAD looked more like a warship bridge than a bunch

of guys standing around gray cube-shaped console with blinking

lights on it? Hell no, I say. Hell. No.

I've seen similar attempts to upgrade a classic sci fi show with "better"

effects. They did it to "Red Dwarf." You can only see the cgi versions

of the first two seasons these days. And you know what? It still looks

cheesy. Now the special effects just look like animated cheese. Thank

the Lord above I have copies of the original show to watch. Likewise, I

will always return to the un-futzed with episodes of "Star Trek" because

they will always be the best way to watch that show.

With that said, I'll check it out and if it makes me truly puke like no

man has puked before. Then I can poo poo it with authority.

Leave well enough alone dammit!

Beam me up, Scotty

James "Scotty" Doohan died Wednesday. I feel like an old friend I haven't seen in years has left us for the other side. Doohan used to resent the fact he had been typecast as Scotty, but later in life, he learned to embrace the fact that millions of Star Trek fans loved him and were inspired by his performance.

Star Trek is not just another TV show; it's art. The best kind of art. Star Trek makes those of us affected by it wish for a better world and in many cases actually strive for it. It is not socially retarded to be affected by art even if that art is considered less than high culture by snobs. For myself, I know that Trek is a common form of popular art but it isn't just mind candy. It is morality and ethics, respect and potential, wonder and mystery.

The actors who showed us these things are dear to us and rightly so.

We'll miss you Scotty.