A couple of days ago, our pal Bill Hunt at TheDigitalBits.com filed his
daily report, which concluded with some interesting news for fans of
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since the
Blu-ray Disc releases of the original series came out,
TNG-lovers have hoped that there would be a similar remastering for that program. Like many science fiction shows of the era (such as
The X-Files and
Babylon 5),
Star Trek: The Next Generation was shot on film but "finished" on video, with standard-definition visual special effects which would have to be re-produced from scratch in high definition-level resolution to be an acceptable HDTV broadcast, or an acceptable Blu-ray Disc release.
Bill's write-up last Monday at The Digital Bits suggests that due to the success of the Blu-ray releases of the original
Star Trek, along with a tie-in promotional opportunity with the second big-screen J.J. Abrams
Trek film in 2012, a remastered
Star Trek: The Next Generation - fit for high-def broadcasts and BDs - could indeed be in the offing. He says that CBS/Paramount could use money to fund the project which comes from a recent deal for NetFlix to stream all 5 live-action
Star Trek series, along with other shows in that studio library.
The bottom line, for now? Bill's report contains these two tantalizing sentence fragments: "
So after several months of looking into this, our industry sources have finally begun hinting that TNG Remastered IS moving forward..."; "
Our best guess: Watch for official news to break at Comic-Con in July." We'll be watching! Stay tuned, of course, and we'll update you as further developments occur. Our thanks to every reader who e-mailed us to make sure we had seen this info.
