Positives in the Remastered episodes?

[Turk Thrust]

I was thinking about re-watching the Remastered and wondered which bits people feel have redeeming qualities? Not necessarily better than the original episodes, maybe just interesting new inclusions. I will start with:

The little bit of music at the start of Kryten is quite atmospheric.

They made Rhyl look vaguely pleasant in Better Than Life.

Topic

[Doomitron]

They’d probably just edit out the lines where they say that.

[Professor Flibble]

I’ve still not actually sat down and watched an episode of Remastered. I think I saw one or two episodes repeated years ago, but generally all of my knowledge of it comes from documentaries and clips. So I knew about the model shots being replaced but I didn’t know for a long time they actually replaced some of Goodall’s music.

I never like when Goodall’s music is replaced because it’s the sound of the show. There are only one or two exceptions to that, the JFK assassination music in Tikka to Ride I genuinely thought was a piece of Goodall music for years (can’t believe he originally wanted to score the scene with an Indian cover of the Red Dwarf theme.)

Ouroboros and Duct Soup though have really nice unused pieces that I’m baffled went unused, the original music for Kryten’s vision particularly. 

[Turk Thrust]

One thing about the Remastered ship is that it doesn’t make sense in the context of VIII, because the reason the ship looks like that in VIII is because the nanos rebuilt it to its original, pre-budget cut specifications. Assuming they’d remastered everything in the end, do you think they would have re-redesigned the ship for VIII and made it even more absurdly big, or would they have just ate the nonsense continuity?

The text track on the Bodysnatcher doc mentions this and says that it wouldn’t have been a problem because all of the specific changes that they list happen within the ship.

[Professor Flibble]

Oh, of course, the thread’s supposed to be about positives.

Well, it gave us an excuse to have another I-VIII style DVD release, and kept the Red Dwarf fanbase going for just another year before Back to Earth was announced.

[Podey]

The text track on the Bodysnatcher doc mentions this and says that it wouldn’t have been a problem because all of the specific changes that they list happen within the ship.

Not so sure about that…

[Podey]

Regarding the pencil redesign, I do wonder how much hate it would have gotten had they been able to use the model that they build but which was too big to film rather than the not-quite-good-enough-yet CGI version. I think the model looks pretty good, personally from the BTS footage and the logic of it being longer certainly makes sense… I guess I kinda see it as the ‘Infinity Welcomes…’ version.

[Warbodog]

The Infinity ship is described as a “clenched fist” clutching a huge shuttlecock, so I just think of the squat model (though I had to imagine all the interiors as an episodes-deprived child).

[cwickham]

Doug has said he never intended the Remastered episodes to replace the originals, I don’t think he ever planned to reconcile VIII using the same ship.

[Dax101]

Yeah, he says they were not meant to be a replacement, but i ain’t sure if that was the thought process at the time. Remember, things change. Doug would say today that he always planned to make a new series after Series 8, when in an interview in 2002 he claimed he wanted to move away from the show and concentrate on movies. having time to reflect helps change someone’s perspective. The remastered wasn’t loved by fans, and I wonder if, at the time they remastered the shows, did they think the fans would love the remastered? or did they always know it might not go down well with them? If they didn’t know that, why did they make such an ambitious change to them as if they really were fixing them?

Plus, for a few years, they stopped showing the original versions, and anytime footage was used in another show, it was always the remastered stuff.

I kinda feel bad for the people in other countries who got the remastered 1,2 and 3 and the original 4,5,6,7 because there is a really weird inconsistency there for them now. They set out to fix it for other countries, and they left it weirdly messy.

[Podey]

The Infinity ship is described as a “clenched fist” clutching a huge shuttlecock, so I just think of the squat model (though I had to imagine all the interiors as an episodes-deprived child).

Oh really? I could have sworn I remember it being described as long and consisting of different architecture styles from the decades it took to be built, though maybe I’m conflating stuff Doug has said about the concept with the novel.

[Professor Flibble]

The only updates I want for Red Dwarf are reedited versions of Series VII and VIII with the CGI totally substituted for new model shots, the film filter on VII removed (idk if they’d have to go back to the raw material and rebuild it from scratch), and a lot of Howard Goodall’s unused music in VII restored in place of the library music. For VIII…god knows what they’d do for the music, just reuse some of his stuff from previous series? I can’t imagine they’d be able to afford him to do a new score for Series VIII. Unless they could, idk. But even with all the shit that, if removed, would basically amount to excising entire episodes, at least they’d look and sound more like normal Red Dwarf.

And a laugh track on Back to Earth. Well, two versions. One with a laugh track throughout, and one with a laugh track that stops when they’re in the “real world” and returns when they wake from their hallucination. 

[Turk Thrust]

Not so sure about that…

True.

[Turk Thrust]

Doug has said he never intended the Remastered episodes to replace the originals, I don’t think he ever planned to reconcile VIII using the same ship.

Yeah, as DAX101 posted, Doug can say that now, but I don’t think that’s how he and Ed felt at the time.

Even on the commentaries, Doug says that he thinks the look of the Remastered episodes is much better than the originals (he was probably talking more about the color and film effect than replacing the models)..

[Rushy]

Had nowt to say about Confidence & Paranoia. 

For Me2, I really liked the more dramatic version of the radiation leak flashback (minus the CGI flames). 

Danny’s posh delivery of “I’m coooourting.” is brilliant

I love that Lister is just randomly up at 5 AM. It’s those little bits of verisimilitude that make the early seasons. 

Rimmer Prime could probably go sleep in a third bunkroom and it’d be less embarrassing. Specifically returning to Lister is such a child-like seeking of comfort. 

What’s the point of that Taj Mahal vindaloo advert?

They make a point of saying that Rimmer doesn’t like films, yet he chooses to sit there in the cinema anyway. Another example of him clearly wanting to hide near Lister.

“And you let me stand here and bare my soul??” Craig’s grinning “Yeah” is one of his all-time greatest line deliveries. 

[Dave]

What’s the point of that Taj Mahal vindaloo advert?

Just a parody of the cheap local ads you’d get in British cinemas of that era. I remember ads that were very similar. 

[Rushy]

I need to know why Doug loves those two fly-by musical cues so much. I need to know. 

Thought it was an editing error in XI/XII, but the overuse of them in Remastered has proven me wrong. It’s some strange obsession, and I must uncover the truth. 

[Rushy]

Just finished Kryten, and noticed that the starscape he flies off to (great new ending btw) is the one from the Series V credits. 

[Jonathan Capps]

Yeah, as DAX101 posted, Doug can say that now, but I don’t think that’s how he and Ed felt at the time.

I seem to remember that they were already saying this in the very early 2000s, but I can’t remember if that was in a TOS post, a conversation with Andrew Ellard at DJ or one of his comments on here.

But by then the whole endeavour had stalled and the original versions were already coming out on DVD, but I do not think it is at all unreasonable that people worried the remastered were going to replace the originals at the time, and I’d be surprised if that wasn’t their very original intention.

[Warbodog]

Yes, it was a real concern. I was following the DVD news on TOS and had to assure another fan at school that they weren’t going to be the remastered versions, like he’d assumed and that had made him not interested. That’s why the covers said “The Original Series”/”The Original Second Series”/”The Original Third Series” which probably looked nonsensical without the context (switching to “The Entire Fourth Series” after).

[Professor Flibble]

That’s why the covers said “The Original Series”/”The Original Second Series”/”The Original Third Series” which probably looked nonsensical without the context (switching to “The Entire Fourth Series” after).

Huh, I never knew that.

[Professor Flibble]

Just finished Kryten, and noticed that the starscape he flies off to (great new ending btw) is the one from the Series V credits. 

I’d heard not so long ago that they were done by Sid Sutton, the one who did the 1980s Doctor Who starfield title sequences. I mean I’d always wondered because those glowy stars are identical to the 80s Doctor Who ones.

Is there any basis to that? I tried looking it up to no avail.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yes, it was a real concern. I was following the DVD news on TOS and had to assure another fan at school that they weren’t going to be the remastered versions, like he’d assumed and that had made him not interested. That’s why the covers said “The Original Series”/”The Original Second Series”/”The Original Third Series” which probably looked nonsensical without the context (switching to “The Entire Fourth Series” after).

I’d never noticed that before. Stop opening my eyes to decades old Red Dwarf things. 

[Technopeasant]

I recall PBS playing Red Dwarf 1 Remastered around 2003 or so. I did like the cat evolution chart.

[International Debris]

The originals went out of print on VHS and the versions that were shown on TV for a while were the Remastered ones, so it certainly seems like they intended to be the definitive versions of the episodes.

[Warbodog]

The originals went out of print on VHS

It seems they were supposed to be replaced with “The Complete Series 1” etc. double-video sets around the same time, like the Smeg Ups/Smeg Outs pack, but they got cancelled, likely due to the Remastered project. A shame, because those would have been my top priority as a teenager, but in their place I got to become over-familiar with Bottom, The Young Ones and Reeves & Mortimer on video instead.

[Turk Thrust]

It’s interesting that a couple of notes for the possible Series IV Re-Mastered (which obviously didn’t happen in the end) were to get the Transmogrification machine and Talkie Toaster to sing the closing theme for DNA and White Hole respectively.

It might have been fun if they’d asked David Ross to sing the theme for Mechocracy. 

[Moonlight]

I was waiting all of XI and XII for them to fuck with the credits music and they never did. Twentica, at least if it wasn’t the series opener, was begging for a 20s jazz remix.

[Dax101]

Wasn’t there something where Doug didn’t use a lot of Howard’s music for XI and XII.

[Doomitron]

Is that why Goodall didn’t come back for Promised Land?

[Rushy]

I seem to recall someone saying that Goodall was very ticked off and embarrassed

[Dax101]

I remember that being speculated at the time to be the case. But its possible Doug just went for someone else because they were cheaper. Making the most out of the budget.

[Moonlight]

Howard didn’t even release his XII score because so little of it actually got used.

[Professor Flibble]

Did he do any new cues for the Red Dwarf establishing shots? 

[Dax101]

I imagined he would have if he had been asked. But why would you when you can just use the nostalgic ones.

[Rushy]

I imagined he would have if he had been asked. But why would you when you can just use the nostalgic ones.

Not just nostalgic, it’s always the same two cues in both Remastered and XI/XII. 

And yes, Goodall did compose new cues, you can hear them on the XI soundtrack on Youtube. 

[Ian Symes]

I remember that being speculated at the time to be the case. But its possible Doug just went for someone else because they were cheaper. Making the most out of the budget.

I doubt Paul Farrer would be much cheaper, given his CV. Even if he is a colossal bellend.

[Turk Thrust]

Was watching the text track for Re-Mastered again, and I’d forgotten that they’d discussed the possibility of having Norman record new opening gags for the Series III episodes. They forgot about it when they decided to not use a lot of the new Norman stuff they’d shot for Series 1, but what a bizarre idea.

[Unrumble]

Was watching the text track for Re-Mastered again, and I’d forgotten that they’d discussed the possibility of having Norman record new opening gags for the Series III episodes. They forgot about it when they decided to not use a lot of the new Norman stuff they’d shot for Series 1, but what a bizarre idea.

Would be especially bizarre if Re-mastered had actually become the de facto way of showing series I-III, even more so if it was your first experience watching the show.

“So, Holly became female, but appears to switch back in order to deliver those opening gags… is it because no-one thought women were funny in 1989?”

[Dave]

Or go the whole hog and replace Hattie outright with Norm in III.

[tombow]

They could have totally replaced Hattie’s Holly with Norm, including a refilmed Ace intro with a wigged Norm as Mellie

[Unrumble]

[Dave]

[Technopeasant]

[Dave]

[Rushy]

Removing the music from Rimmer’s dream (in Thanks for the Memory) is up there in the top five weirdest changes

[Nick R]

Not just nostalgic, it’s always the same two cues in both Remastered and XI/XII. 

[Author]

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