I was browsing around on Slashdot this morning, and happened upon this little blurb by Tony Pascale.

“Star Trek is the latest sci-fi classic to get the CGI ’special edition’ treatment. According to rumors picked up by TrekMovie.com, CBS and Paramount have been secretly working on a new version of Star Trek: The Original Series for HDTV. The shows will feature the original episodes with brand new state-of-the-art CGI visual effects, including a a redone title sequence (with re-recorded music). The effects are likely to be limited to the space scenes and not effect the live action scenes, so Edith Keeler will not shoot first. The HDTV Star Trek series will begin broadcasting this fall just in time for the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek.”

WTF?!?!

Why in the he|| do some people think that it’s necessary to screw with a time-honored classic?  Just because new technology has become available that could make old effects look better does not mean that you should mess with an old favorite.  By all means, use that technology from this point forward (especially if it makes the effects better and cheaper).  I’m all for that.  However, do NOT ruin that which has come before.

By adding “new effects” into an old movie or television show you are altering the artistic vision originally set down by those who created it in the first place.  Yes, some of those effects may look a bit cheesy by today’s standards.  However, there was probably a lot of time, thought, and sweat issued to make that original special effect.  By overlaying a CGI effect in it’s place, you’re basically tossing all that effort into the bin.  If I had created a piece of art that was well liked… and that artwork were suddenly tossed aside because someone else could have done what I did “better” (which is a relative term in my judgement), then I can honestly say that I’d be very upset.

For too long, I have watched people ruin old classics.  I’ll site two examples.

• Ted Turner spent many years adding sickened shades of color to old black-and-white MGM, Warner Bros., and RKO classics.  I never liked colorization.  I always found it very distracting from the films.  The off-color complexions that the colorization process gave to the actors always seemed to make them look like jaundice was setting in.
• George Lucas felt it was necessary to tweak the original Star Wars trilogy, and then he used the excuse that he could not accomplish his original vision with the technology that was available at the time.  OK… whatever.  I did like the addition of the verbal confrontation between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt in “A New Hope”.  However, it was a piece of the film that was actually missing from the original release, so I could accept it.  However, I felt that Lucas was disrespecting the original body of work with some of the other bits that just did not need to be changed.  I’m only going to say this once… Han shot first!

Leave the old classics be!  Just because you can do something does not necessarily mean that you should do it.

Would you give eyebrows to the Mona Lisa?  No.
Would you add a heart-tugging step-father-and-son moment to Shakespeare’s Hamlet?  No.
Would you replace the Shroud of Turin with an Iron-On Transfer on a piece of stain resistant polyester?  No.

If it isn’t broken, then don’t fix it!

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