CHIEF JAWA sent in a review of "Red Dwarf: Remastered" - currently making the rounds in UK.
I’ve gotten a lot of mail about this new restoration of the classic British series, so I thought I would pass on CHIEF JAWA’s ruminations and evaluations of the "remastered" first episode.
I’ve tried to get some screener copies of this series in personally - thought it would help me pass on some information about the series to the readers of this page. A very kind gentleman offered to send some of the remastered episodes to me, but they would have been all but useless because the local video conversion facilities wouldn’t do the necessary video conversions (really tight about copyright issues).
Anyway, here’s what CHIEF JAWA had to say about what he saw:
The first thing that struck me was the BBC's publicity for this episode, there was none. I wasn't even aware the first episode was going to be aired last night. It was listed in TV magazines as an unspecified episode, didn't even say what series it was from.
Of course though, being episode one, it was from Series One. So, what was it like? Well, the whole thing starts of with an audience POV shoot, spinning through space. Then an old clip comes on screen, "Before Remastering" appears with it. After that, comes a quick snippet of what the scene looks like "After Remastering" again, a caption accompanying the short clip.
Then, we begin traveling through space, shifting through black holes and flying past asteroids, then the theme begins, accompanying a selection of clips of the first remastered series, then the logo "Red Dwarf: Remastered"
Next the actual episode begins with the man in the space suit painting on "Red Dwarf" onto the side of the ship itself, except, in this version it's the CGI ship, and a glorious spectacle it is too. Truly massive. Looks kinda the same as the old version, but slightly more square in appearance.
After a few brief exterior clips of the ship travelling through space, bypassing planets as it goes, we begin the actual scenes. These have been cleaned up, and boy, they look great, a real 'film-like' touch has been added, excellent.
Later, as the episode goes on, you really notice the sound differance. Announcements over the ships comlinks...etc, the ambiance too was great. The newly recorded music was a real plus also, I hope a CD is released.
Overall, the remaster was brilliant, I have the odd niggle, one being the The Scutters. More and more have been included into scenes (they dart around the ship in twos) but it it is obvious they were added, you can see the matte lines. Only other thing? Well, I wanted to see the crew get totaled, an opportunity to add some cool effects was missed, shame.
It was in widescreen though, well, sort of. I think the black bars were just added to add a more filmic effect to the whole thing , it was a far lower ratio then 1:85.1 though, not very noticeable.
I have no idea if the BBC plan to show any more. I'll but the videos of Series 1 on Monday though, just so I can see what they did to the others.
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glen@aint-it-cool-news.com
