Deep Space Nine Watch/Re-watch (No spoilers)

[DaveSumm]

Yea, if you've seen The Captains you can see why a contribution from Avery Brooks probably wouldn't make a great deal of sense.

[The Mother of The Others]

Spoiler

 

Nana and the ferengi both looked at the feelgood federation as a bunch of dips and because i agreed this made ds9 the most enjoyable trek.   She made the show real for me all by herself in a way berman's other projects weren't.   (What star system did her career fly off to?)  And the small talk between the characters is 500% better than Babylon 5's, though both shows get high marks for big issues they tackle.  B5 reaches deeper into the pleasure center of the brain during those seasons cited on the previous page, a deeper sense of grand mystery to the cosmos, while trek characters are always annoyingly on top of things ("we've got jargon for that.")   Just now the Heroes & Icons channel replay of DS9 dominion war was totally an event for me , the show is still "solid" seeming as if it held up all these years and maybe i appreciate it more now whereas b5 today would probably come off as more of a leaky ship.   But it did deliver, oh my.

[Mladen]

To continue on what @The Mother of The Others said

I believe that this was the first time we have seen that it is not just roses and unicorns in Federation. The outsiders on the Station provided much needed external POV on Federation but we have actually seen the members of the Federation doing many questionable things. In comparison to the ideals that Kirk and Piccard embodied, Cisco had to deal with much uglier side of the supposed Utopian planetary system. I adore the scene when Cisco is remembering how he draw the Romulans into the war. It just showed us that even the best Captains are not above getting their hands dirty when you need.

[GrimTuesday]

On 2/12/2017 at 3:02 PM, Risto said:

To continue on what @The Mother of The Others said

I believe that this was the first time we have seen that it is not just roses and unicorns in Federation. The outsiders on the Station provided much needed external POV on Federation but we have actually seen the members of the Federation doing many questionable things. In comparison to the ideals that Kirk and Piccard embodied, Cisco had to deal with much uglier side of the supposed Utopian planetary system. I adore the scene when Cisco is remembering how he draw the Romulans into the war. It just showed us that even the best Captains are not above getting their hands dirty when you need.

I think that is partly because of the differing nature of Cisco's assignment than Kirk and Piccard. The latter two were captains who could just drift in, cause a little chaos and swan out after they did what they were there to do. Cisco as what really amounts to being a military governor of a frontier outpost has to deal with the darker realities than the captain and crews of a ship that while being part of a larger system, is relatively self-contained and mono-cultured in terms of their perception of both their government, and their duty. Cisco has to confront the shadowy, less than utopean aspects because he can't just fly off on an adventure.

[Werthead]

Sisko, people. Sisko.

[mcbigski]

Yes not the liquid crack from my misspent youth.

[Mladen]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Sisko, people. Sisko.

Jesus... Yeah... It's the same in Serbian, I just supposed for some reason it is with C. Thanks  

[felice]

On 12/02/2017 at 4:42 AM, Werthead said:

Ira Steven Behr has crowdfunded a new DS9 documentary.

They're planning to include HD clips and CGI in the documentary if they reach their final stretch goal (another $100k); not quite a full series remaster, but it will be nice to see.

[SerHaHa]

Shame that the DS9 BluRays didn't happen, or at least haven't happened yet.

The documentary looks interesting.  I wonder what has happened with Avery Brooks, I remember some of the interviews he did regarding his direction of the "Stars" episode, and how frank, articulate, and engaging he was - my favorite actor in the series, and he seemed everything I would have hoped he would be in reality.  Then "The Captains", and some other recent public speaking events - wth, is he on the drugs or something now?  Seems very unbalanced, scattered, and somewhat crazy.  Damn shame, whatever is going on, I hate to disparage him in any way, especially since I suppose it could be some sort of mental illness. 

It's great to see Shankar move on to such a great product as "The Expanse", not since DS9 has a sci fi production captured my attention so much.  I find myself thinking about Expanse when my mind is drifting throughout the day, much like it did 20 years ago now with DS9. 

Considering DS9 wasn't shot in widescreen or HD, anyone know the associated costs with making BluRay content with shows like that from the same era?  I know Stargate Atlantis was probably shot in a manner which makes it simpler and/or cheaper to produce BR, but it sure is frustrating to see it available in BR and DS9 not.  I guess Stargate SG1 isn't available either in BR, another series I'd love to add to our 400 disc BR changer unit.

[Werthead]

Quote

Considering DS9 wasn't shot in widescreen or HD

It was shot on 35mm film, which produces a resolution of about 4K. The problem was that it was mastered, with visual effects generated and added, on videotape. To produce a HD image, they'd have to do what they did for The Next Generation: go back to the raw film negatives, re-scan the right takes and then recreate all of the visual effects (phaser blasts, transporter effects, Odo's morphs) from scratch and recombine them.

Or, in other words, they would have to re-edit every single episode of the series in the same way they edited each episode in the first place (which took about 50% of the production time and around a third of the budget for each episode). It's fairly straightforward, but time-consuming and expensive. But it looks absolutely amazing.

[RedEyedGhost]

52 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It was shot on 35mm film, which produces a resolution of about 4K. The problem was that it was mastered, with visual effects generated and added, on videotape. To produce a HD image, they'd have to do what they did for The Next Generation: go back to the raw film negatives, re-scan the right takes and then recreate all of the visual effects (phaser blasts, transporter effects, Odo's morphs) from scratch and recombine them.

Or, in other words, they would have to re-edit every single episode of the series in the same way they edited each episode in the first place (which took about 50% of the production time and around a third of the budget for each episode). It's fairly straightforward, but time-consuming and expensive. But it looks absolutely amazing.

Do you know how well the Next Gen BRs have been selling?  If they're not selling well, then there's really no way they pay for it on DS9.

[felice]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Or, in other words, they would have to re-edit every single episode of the series in the same way they edited each episode in the first place (which took about 50% of the production time and around a third of the budget for each episode).

Redoing the editing would be a lot easier and faster than the original editing, though, since all the creative decisions are already made. No need to decide which takes or camera angles to use, how long each shot should last, etc, and no design work to be done on special effects; it's just a big jigsaw puzzle. And modern computers are a couple of hundred times more powerful than what they had when they finished making DS9, so re-rendering CGI at 4 times the resolution should cost a fraction as much as the first time around, even with more detailed models and textures. Still a big job, certainly, but I think they'd be crazy not to do it.

[SerHaHa]

I've read varying reports about TNG BD sales, Werthead probably has the most accurate info, he's a repository of Trek info.  The last bit I read was that the TOS BD sales were disappointing, which I find...disappointing, considering how excellent they were.  There are some Netflix regions(countries) that stream TNG in the "new" versions, in the Super HD bitstreams on those Netflix regions, TNG looks absolutely fantastic streamed.

[Werthead]

Quote

Do you know how well the Next Gen BRs have been selling?  If they're not selling well, then there's really no way they pay for it on DS9.

They did reasonably well and made a profit. Seasons 1 and 2 sold about 300,000 apiece, but there was a drop-off after that. This appears to be because international broadcasters and streaming services were suddenly given access to the HD versions, so canny fans knew they could save quite a lot of money by just waiting a few months.

Apparently the total series remaster cost $20 million. The sales of Seasons 1 and 2 alone certainly made that up, and the profits for Seasons 3-7 plus what they got in new streaming deals would have added a fair bit to that.

However, CBS had much higher hopes for the series, based on the performance of TOS. That was unrealistic: TOS cost a lot less to upgrade despite being older (the original series had its effects done optically on film, and had few enough effects shots that redoing them all from scratch in CG was quite easy) and it launched a lot earlier, pre-streaming, and was publicised better, along with a complete series box set being released very quickly after the original release. It took 2 years for TNG to get a complete-series blu ray box set release in the USA, which was insane.

I can see CBS hesitating over DS9, but I think it will ultimately be worthwhile for them to do it. Voyager, unfortunately (fortunately?) I think is unsalvageable because the sheer volume of CGI that needs to be redone from scratch is prohibitive.

[LongRider]

On 4/26/2016 at 5:59 AM, Corvinus said:

I finished it. I kept meaning to come here and express my thoughts in more detail, in particular about the last 3 seasons, but I just haven't had the time. I could tell you now that it's in my top 5 sci-fi series. I would like to explore Babylon 5 next, which I watched a bit of as a kid, but unfortunately it's not on Netflix and Amazon charges for it, and I don't know if it's worth it.

Check your local library, they may have B5 on dvds for loan. 

[Martini Sigil]

what I loved most about DS9 --other than how Quark stole every scene he was in-- was that it was the only Trek series that expanded the core group to include some really well-written ancillary characters, like Garek, Wynn, Martok, Nog, etc... the villains had depth, especially Wynn & Dukat  

[GrimTuesday]

8 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

what I loved most about DS9 --other than how Quark stole every scene he was in-- was that it was the only Trek series that expanded the core group to include some really well-written ancillary characters, like Garek, Wynn, Martok, Nog, etc... the villains had depth, especially Wynn & Dukat  

Don't forget everyone's favorite power hungry crazy eyes Gowron.

[Denvek]

So I've been rewatching DS9, and I thought after watching the first episode of Handmaid's Tale last night some Star Trek would cheer me up. So I watched the next episode on Netflix and it's the f***ing Bell Riots.

DS9's 2020s look a lot closer to what reality's likely to be than TOS's 1990s.

"How could they have let it get this bad?"

"I wish I had an answer."

[Martini Sigil]

The heroes and icons channel plays every Trek series between 8 pm and 1 am... DS9 is on at 10 PM... 

[RedEyedGhost]

11 hours ago, Denvek said:

So I've been rewatching DS9, and I thought after watching the first episode of Handmaid's Tale last night some Star Trek would cheer me up. So I watched the next episode on Netflix and it's the f***ing Bell Riots.

That's some bad luck right there.  

I've been slowly working my way through again as well.  Mid-way through season 3 right now.  I love this show so much.

I watch The Captains a couple of weeks ago.  That was certainly interesting.