Return of the Hamster News Posted by Ian Symes on 24th July 2005, 15:02 Tikka To Ride: Re-Mastered, then. Fuck me, that was unexpected. TOS has got a habit of making my jaw drop to the floor on a regular basis, and this was no exception. Perhaps surprisingly, this news has not been with rabid anger, in the way the original batch of Re-Mastered were. The reason for this is the difference in intent behind them. Fundamentally, they were both done because the original effects were, rightly (VII) or wrongly (I-III) deemed rubbish. But the difference is that Tikka: Re-Mastered isn’t designed to replace the original version; it’s merely an interesting glimpse of what could have been. If the DVD only included the new version, there’d be uproar, but nobody at GNP is that stupid. As for the new effects, rather boringly, I’m reserving judgement. There’s elements of the stills that I think are good and bad, but I’ll save my opinions for when I’ve seen them properly, on the DVD. Bet you can’t wait.
It obviously all looks a hell of a lot better than the original VII ep. Which means there’s actually a *reason* for it this time round. With the first three series, you were replacing great effects with stuff that wasn’t as good, so there wasn’t much point. As for how the effects look… they look better than either the original Re-mastered, or even VIII. I’ll reserve judgement until I see them moving as well, although I doubt I’ll prefer them to physical models. But that’s not really the point when it comes to most of VII. Not to mention a DVD budget… And good on GNP for paying for this themselves, as the DVD budget wouldn’t stretch to it. Excellent.
“If the DVD only included the new version, there’d be uproar” I, for one, wouldn’t be arsed. I’d be quite happy to never see the VII CG again. But, of course, it would be breaking the ‘as broadcast’ policy.
Can anyone put up captures of the original Tikka effects (for the moments illustrated above) for comparison? I’m without access to my VHS tapes.
That’s pretty pretty please. And because I can’t remember which aspects of the stories those moments are illustrating.
On this subject: it’s interesting that people have attempted listings of the differences between original episodes and their remastereds (did this go any further than The End?) – perhaps a side-by-side image comparison feature would be rather more completable?
TOS called that feature “fixed effects” – are these the original effects revisted and rendered better, or are they brand new ones with brand new models? What do people know?
