One of the unexpected benefits of the TNG remastering project has been the restoration team’s work to correct certain visual effects errors or inconsistencies that have become fan fodder over the last twenty-five years — changing in-jokes and other text once though illegible through the standard definition haze, repositioning energy beams, and performing other tweaks across the seasons.

“Encounter at Farpoint”: The energy beam used to feed the Farpoint creature from orbit was moved from the captain’s yacht to the phaser array.

“The Royale”: The Charybdis mission patch is reworked to remove the re-used patch from the real-life Apollo 17 mission.

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“Darmok”: The phaser beam emanating from the forward torpedo launcher is replaced with a shot from the dorsal phaser array.

A similar issue occurs in TNG Season Six’s “Timescape,” where a power transfer emanates from the Enterprise “deflector array,” yet the energy beam seems to be generated from the port side of the engineering section of the ship — leading some fans to question why this effect was not similarly adjusted in line with the examples listed above.

Michael and Denise Okuda, TNG art department leads who have been acting as consultants to the HD remastering of The Next Generation, took to Facebook today to address this issue:

What do you think? Should “Timescape” have been altered to reposition the transfer beam, or was the CBS Digital team right to leave it as is? Tell us in the comments below!

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