Since my local ABC station began running the original Star Trek late on Saturday and Sunday nights. I have noticed it on many of the ABC stations across the country. I can pick them up off of a couple of satellites so it must be an ABC thing. I have been watching it some and have noticed that it has been changed some since the original version.
Somebody has updated the special effects. Now when you see the Enterprise in space it is a much clearer and detailed image of the space ship and the space around it. It is a little more of an impressive scene than it use to be especially on a digital TV even though it is not
HD. I have also seen it in recent years on the SciFi channel and I think that they are not running this upgraded special effects version. Apparently they are running the version with more of the program edited out to make room for the commercials.
Last Sunday nights episode was the one where they placed the satellites around a planet. These satellites was to produce a light that would destroy some creatures that was invading peoples bodies. I don't know how many times I have seen this as well as other episodes over the years. It has been quit a few.
Previously in this episode they talked about launching the satellites and lighting them off. It was one of those things that you did not see. Sunday night I noticed that a scene has been added showing the Enterprise dropping out the satellites around the planet. Then a later scene showed the satellites lighting up.
It is not really a big deal but I noticed it is new and I liked seeing it.
Having a low budget to make Star Trek eliminated much of the special effects that may have otherwise been there as to the technology of the time. What made the show so good in spite of lack of funds and lots of network pressure was the excellent writing and acting.
The network that canceled the original Star Trek has probably regretted it many times. I certainly hope so. The reason that it was probably canceled was because it was determined that few people was watching it. The reason they did not watch it was because many local stations did not run it during prime time. Many of the stations ran something else in the prime time slot and then ran Star Trek late Saturday or Sunday night. Much of the time many of the local stations did not run it at all.
Those stations had the attitude that no one would want to see Science Fiction. Of course the network apparently did not know that to be the reason that only a few viewers were watching Star Trek according to their people that gathers such statistics. I never did understand how they knew what I was watching since they never asked.
There could have also been other reasons behind its cancellation. At the time, what I just explained was so obvious all across the country. Because of it being ran at such an off time across the country many people that really liked it did not even know that it existed until it was canceled.
The next thing was much later when it was discovered how popular the series was in syndication. So they decided to make Star Trek the Motion Picture. Then they decided not to make it and about that time Star Wars was released and enjoyed great success.
Back in those days science fiction was almost unheard of. There was lots of SciFi fans. The problem was that the movie makers and TV producers decided that no one would want to see science fiction.
Star trek was canceled in about 1968 or 69 and as I said it was very popular in syndication for years. Then in 1979 Star Wars did so well that they decided to make the Star Trek movie.
Now with the success of Star Trek and Star Wars they made movies like ET and Close Encounters of The third Kind. Those two alien movies transformed Americans into believing in the possibility of life on other worlds and it also sparked the science fiction trend.
With this new trend they came along with a large budget for Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar had the budgeting, the support, the actors and the special effects for the time and it flopped. Since it seemed to have everything else it must have been poorly written. At that time Lorne Green and many of the guest stars were very big names.
That is enough history, many of you probably knew most of that anyway. I do like the new Star Trek special effects.
I am not sure that I like being old enough to remember history.
Any Star Trek fans on board?
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