Random video linkage

A few bits of video linkage that caught my eye recently.

Firstly, how cool is this sliding door? It would obviously annoy the crap out of you if you actually had one, but the technolust is too powerful to resist. Janet thinks we should get one.

Those who saw my recent post about the Frank Miller adaptation 300 may have seen the video showcasing several scenes from the film (from a recent comics convention). The official trailer is now available, and it’s every bit as testosterone drenched as the previous video, only in better quality. It’s also rather stylish, and very beautiful. And it features a shouty man with lots of teeth.

In one of my excessivly geeky moments I talked about the remastering of the original 1960s Star Trek show; primarily this is just a high-definition clean-up and rescanning of the original film/negative, although it’s not yet airing in HD. Controversially they’ve also chosen to update the effects using CGI. Less controversially they’re hewing incredibly closely to the look and feel of the original effects, the only complaints so far being that the CGI space shots are allegedly even blander than the original model work. (Well, not the only complaints since Trek fans are a fickle bunch. In fact the faithfulness of the effects is in itself becoming controversial, with some individuals feeling that there’s no point in redoing the effects if they’re not going to try something a little more daring.) Me, I love the original Trek with the completely non-rational portion of my brain¹, and I know a lot of the episodes very well indeed, even though it’s years since I actually sat down to watch one of them from start to finish. I’m also generally opposed to special editions, since part of the pleasure in watching something old is in analysing how it looks, whether it’s dated well, what still works, what looks hokey, etc. There’s a part of your brain which stands back from the story and appreciates it as an artefact of its era. But that said, these do look pretty good. Some sample pictures and videos here and here, including this nice new Enterprise flyby.

¹ Yes, there are some rational bits.