For Mike and Denise Okuda, remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation means respecting the original work by those who first created the series.

Some fans might think that having Star Trek: The Next Generation remastered means that any mistakes will be fixed this time around. But according to Mike Okuda, that is not necessary so.

“For the most part, we find that people – for whatever reason – [mistakes are] part of the viewing experience,” said Okuda. “So to smooth over things they expect to see we find will disappoint some people. That being said, very occasionally there will be some minor tweaks. An example of that is in The Next Level, there is a shot where Picard orders the phasers to be fired at a low level to bathe the wounded space creature to bring it back to life. In the original version the phasers incorrectly came from the Captain’s Yacht. Having worked at Paramount at the time, the original ship’s designer Andrew Probert was very disappointed because that wasn’t where the phasers were supposed to come from. So we thought ‘let’s make Andy happy.’”

Others may wonder why The Next Generation is not being done in widescreen. “First of all, it is our very strong desire is to respect the original work by the original directors and cinematographers,” said Mike Okuda. “By cropping and letterboxing, we change the composition. You make things appear bigger and more crowded. It is true that in some shots – not all – but in some shots there is additional information on the film. But then again you are changing the original intention.”

The Okudas are still working on remastering the first season of The Next Generation. “We are excited that people are going to finally get to see what we have been seeing,” said Denise Okuda.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Next Level will include the pilot episode, Encounter at Farpoint, as well as Sins of the Father (S3) and The Inner Light (S5).

The two clips may be seen at StarTrek.com.

Even though Mike and Denise Okuda have experience with remastering Star Trek, remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation offered its own set of challenges.

In an interview with TrekMovie.com, The Okudas explained their role in remastering The Next Generation, which is a bit different than when they worked on the original series remastered project. “On the original series remastered we were creative producers along with Dave Rossi,” said Mike Okuda. “Here we consultants to CBS and we are dealing with visual effects, but we are also helping them on an overall basis.”

Mike Okuda explained the differences between remastering for the original series and for The Next Generation. “At their heart, they are very similar,” he explained. “That is to take the highest quality film you can and to present it in the highest quality possible. With respect to the visual effects, there is a substantial difference. With the original series, the original film elements were not available – only the composites. And so scanning into HD did not look as good because the state of the art optical printers at the time had limitations. For Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount lovingly preserved virtually all the film elements, so it is possible to recomposite the visual effects – thereby coming very, very close to the original shots.”

Some parts of the remastering are more difficult this time around. “For the original series you basically took the cut negative and scanned it in,” said Mike Okuda. “Whereas here the actual original camera negative was never cut together, so all the pieces have to be scanned and reassembled. That part of it is hugely more complicated.”

A Star Trek: The Next Generation sampler will be released next week. It will include the pilot episode, Encounter at Farpoint, as well as Sins of the Father (S3) and The Inner Light (S5).

Best Buy has five Trek movies on sale, all in the Blu-ray format. Included are Star Trek XI (3 disk version), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek: First Contact.

Star Trek XI is on sale for $19.99, and the four movies are selling for $9.99 each. The movies can be ordered from Best Buy.

Amazon.com is also running a Trek sale. They are offering the 3-disk Blu-ray version of Star Trek XI, just as Best Buy is, however, their sale is even better, discounting the movie to a very affordable $9.99.

Also on sale are all three seasons of the Remastered original series in Blu-ray. Season one sells for $64.49, season two for $65.49 and season three for only $49.99. Amazon.com offers free shipping for orders over $25.00

Star Trek fans who purchased Star Trek XI in either Blu-ray or DVD format received an authorization code to allow them to download a digital copy of the movie to their iTunes library, but then ran into a snag when trying to obtain their copy of the movie.

When trying to redeem the authorization code, some fans saw a message that said that the authorization code had already been used, and could not be used again.

The theory regarding the message is that the codes may have somehow been stolen and posted to a torrent file where unauthorized users redeemed them.

A representative of Deluxe Digital Studios posted to an Apple Discussions thread to assure customers that “if they contact support via the website, they will receive a new code for their digital copy of Star Trek for iTunes or Windows Media.”

Star Trek XI

Star Trek XI was followed in sales by UP, G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, My Sister’s Keeper and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Top rentals for the week ending November 22 include: Star Trek XI in the first position, followed by My Sister’s Keeper, The Ugly Truth, The Taking of Pelham 123 and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

Atari and Star Trek: Online have announced a Twitter contest where they will be giving away one copy of the Star Trek XI DVD every day through November 22.

To enter, submit a famous Star Trek quote mashed up with a Star Trek episode name (movies count) to @trekonlinegame using the tag #STOCONTEST. For examples and more information, check out Star Trek: Online‘s Twitter feed, located here or their Facebook page.

The first new clip features part of the Simon Pegg segment of the “Casting” featurette. J.J. Abrams and First Assistant Director Tommy Gormley (a native of Scotland) spoke about Pegg’s Scottish accent in the short clip.

The second clip is a montage of behind-the-scenes footage from several of featurettes including: Leonard Nimoy speaking about Star Trek; action scenes including the skydiving scene, the car chase, and Sulu (John Cho) fighting; and aliens.

The two clips can be seen here.

As reported by TrekToday a few days ago, twenty North American Blockbuster stores will be open at midnight, November 16, for fans eager to get their hands on the latest Star Trek movie release.

Before sales begin, Blockbuster will host a showing of the movie at 10 P.M. Fans will also have the chance to win official Star Trek memorabilia, including theatrical posters, collectible comic books, Delta pins and more.

Fans who prefer to pre-purchase Star Trek XI at any participating Blockbuster store will receive two free movie rentals.

Twenty Blockbuster stores will be open at midnight to sell the DVD and Blu-ray versions of Star Trek XI. Some of the stores will offer various giveaways.

The list of the stores participating is as follows:

• 2805 North Scottsdale Rd Scottsdale AZ 85257
• 17124 Hawthorne Blvd. Lawndale CA 90260
• 5620 Balboa Ave. San Diego CA 92111
• 3914 Rivermark Plaza Santa Clara CA 95094
• 101 W. Hampden Englewood CO 80110
• 2300 Dixwell Ave Hamden CT 06514
• 11849 East Colonial Dr. Orlando FL 32826
• 1544 Piedmont Road Atlanta GA 30324
• 6409 W. Grand Ave. Gurnee IL 60031
• 815 Rockville Pike Rockville MD 20852
• 481 Harvard St. Brookline MA 02446
• 27942 Woodward Avenue Royal Oak MI 48067-0932
• Route 130 & Fairview Rd. Delran NJ 08075
• 9785 S. Maryland Parkway Las Vegas NV 89183
• 8726 J.W. Clay Blvd. Charlotte NC 28262
• 2550 N. High Street Columbus OH 43202
• 1855 Snow Road Parma OH 44134
• 3501 McKinney Ave. at Lemmon Dallas TX 75204
• 1917 West Gray Houston TX 77019
• 4715 25th Ave. Seattle WA 98105