Observations in TNG: "A Matter of Honor"
A joint project with TrekCore, by Jörg Hillebrand and Bernd Schneider
Here are some observations about sets, props and visual effects in TNG: "A Matter of Honor" without a specific theme, and a comparison of the original TV release (TNG) with the remastered episode (TNG-R).
"A Matter of Honor" HD Screencaps @ TrekCore
| Description TNG | Other caps | Comparison TNG to TNG-R | Description TNG-R | |
| The planet housing Starbase 179 was previously seen as Mordan IV in "Too Short a Season" and Relva VII in "Coming of Age". Re-Used Planets in TNG |
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The newly constructed planet in TNG-R: "A Matter of Honor" is not the same as in the two other remastered episodes. | ||
| The set border is visible in the top right corner of this screen cap. |   |
No set border is visible in TNG-R. | ||
| The phaser range appears only in one more episode, in "Redemption I", where it is used by Worf and Guinan. The ring with the blue and yellow semicircle appears to be unchanged, only the line separating the two halves has been changed. |  "Redemption I" |
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The phaser range in TNG-R. | |
 "Redemption I" |
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| The LCARS display is nicely animated in this shot. It is hard to tell what was a practical effect on set and what was added in post production. |  |
In the remastered version of the episode, the word in the yellow field in the top right corner is missing. | ||
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| Though Klingon food was already seen in "Heart of Glory", in this episode the prop masters went out of their way to make the food seem really alien (and disgusting). |   |
A much better look at the Klingon dishes in HD. | ||
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| This shot of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey originally appeared in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". The Bird-of-Prey Size Paradox |
 "Star Trek III" |
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The unchanged shot in HD. | |
Mendon's make-up is the same as Mordock's in "Coming of Age", and they are both played by the same actor (John Putch). As can be seen, the Benzite breathing apparatus was changed between "Coming of Age" and "A Matter of Honor". The two tubes were red and yellow in the first season episode, here they are both blue. The top part of the device is higher in "A Matter of Honor" as well and the small triangle on the lower pieces is silver here, like the rest of the apparatus. |
 "Coming of Age" |
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A look at the breathing apparatus in HD. Also note how much better we can recognize the Benzite's facial features. | |
| The graphic of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey contains an in-joke. "Op Kei" and "Op Yuri" is a reference to the anime series "Dirty Pair", Kei and Yuri being the protagonists of that show. "Dirty Pair" returns the favor on a couple of occasions. Visual Crossovers with Other Series/Movies |
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The display in TNG-R shows the in-joke more clearly. | ||
| After "Coming of Age", the dual Benzite thumbs are seen again in this episode. |  "Coming of Age" |
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The Benzite fingers in TNG-R. | |
| Compare this shot of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey facing the USS Enterprise-D with a similar shot of a Bird-of-Prey facing the USS Enterprise in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". | "Star Trek III" |
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The shots in HD. Note how much darker especially the shaded ventral side of the Enterprise appears here. | |
| When the Bird-of-Prey is turning in space and is seen turning on the main viewer, the same footage is used. The footage was originally created for "Star Trek III", where it was also seen on the main viewscreen on the bridge. |  "Star Trek III" |
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| This close-up of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey was originally created for "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". In that film, the torpedo tube is seen opened/lit. |  "Star Trek III" |
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This TNG-R shot uses a CG model of the Klingon BoP. There are a few subtle differences to the old shot. Doug Drexler: "The Klingon ship - Some footage was just plain missing. The only time we felt justified to replace an element. They did an amazing job finding stuff, I gotta say! We started with a BoP that I had from DS9 that was pretty close. We took extra pains to adjust it and get it right, because we knew that everybody was intimately familiar with it." |
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| The Klingon corridor set only appears in this one shot. |  |
No changes | ||
| The Klingon cloak of Captain Kargan was previously worn by Torg in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". |  "Star Trek III" |
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A better look at the cloak in HD. | |
| In the original version of the episode, the subtitles are burnt in. Such fixed subtitles only appeared in a few more episodes and films. |   |
The remastered episode includes the subtitles too. | ||
| A nice shot of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey bridge, which was specially created for this episode and is not a redress of the Klingon bridge from "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". |   |
The shot of the set in TNG-R. | ||
| A close-up of the USS Enterprise-D hull showing the damage caused by subatomic bacteria. |   |
The visual effect was faithfully reconstructed for TNG-R, using all the old footage. | ||
| The shot of the Bird-of-Prey flying past the camera was originally created for "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" where the shot appears shortly before the Genesis planet explodes. |  "Star Trek III" |
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A close-up of the BoP in HD. | |
| Traditional Klingon tableware (plate and mug) are first seen in this episode. Both mugs and plates appear in many later episodes. The mugs originate from the movie "The Ten Commandments"! |  "The Ten Commandments" |
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The Klingon tableware in TNG-R. Note that the hue was corrected to be much more reddish. | |
| Gagh appears for the very first time. In every subsequent appearance of the Klingon food, it would look different. The Klingon fork was also seen in "Heart of Glory" when Konmel replicated Klingon food in that episode. |  "Heart of Glory" |
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A better look at the gagh in HD. | |
| A good shot that shows the full extent of the Klingon mess hall. |   |
The Klingon mess hall in TNG-R. | ||
| The wall ribbing behind Riker was also seen in the corridor earlier in the episode. It also appears in "The Icarus Factor" in the holographic Rite of Ascension hall. |  "The Icarus Factor" |
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No changes | |
| In shots like this, a real monitor which played back video footage was placed in the aft consoles. Normally, only backlit graphics which were much more static appeared here. |   |
We can see the display better in HD. However, it consists of useless numbers for the most part. | ||
| The close-up of the front section of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey also appears in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". For "A Matter of Honor", the shot was mirrored. |  "Star Trek III" |
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This TNG-R shot too shows the new CG model of the Klingon BoP. | |
| The close-up of the hull was realized using a specially created surface model of the hull. |   |
We can recognize many more details of the hull in HD. | ||
| This shot shows one of the side entries to the bridge. |  |
No changes | ||
| The wall at the aft part of the bridge was originally seen in the terraforming station on Velara III in "Home Soil" and also appeared on the bridge of the Erstwhile in "The Outrageous Okona". |  "Home Soil" |
 "The Outrageous Okona" |
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No changes |
| The Klingon main viewscreen appears different from all the other main viewscreens seen on earlier and later Klingon bridges. |   |
The effect in HD. Note the "scan lines" that were added to insinuate that it is an image on a screen. | ||
| The dedication plaque can be seen very well in this short shot. |   |
We can read the text on the plaque in HD. | ||
| The green and blue stripes simulate the back sides of isolinear optical chips. The display with the stripes was added for the second season. In the first season, a simple wall without a plexiglass cover was here instead. |  "When the Bough Breaks" |
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An HD close-up of the memory bank. | |
| The inside of the Benzite breathing apparatus can be seen here. |   |
We can see more details of the inside of the apparatus in HD. | ||
| The console with the red hexagonal light in the background has appeared in several earlier episodes. It was originally created for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", where it appeared in main engineering. It was also seen on a Klingon Bird-of-Prey in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". It then appeared in "The Battle" aboard DaiMon Bok's Ferengi Marauder. After that, it was seen aboard the Talarian freighter Batris and the Ornaran freighter Sanction. In season 2, it also appeared aboard the Pakled ship Mondor. |  "Star Trek II" |
 "The Battle" |
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No changes |
 "Star Trek IV" |
 "Symbiosis" |
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 "Samaritan Snare" |
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| A similar console appears on the port side of the bridge. |  |
No changes | ||
| A good look at the starboard side of the Klingon bridge. |   |
Owing to the darkness of the shots, we can't recognize much more of the bridge in the remastered episode. | ||
| The shot shows the central part of the Klingon bridge. |   |
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| Another view of the starboard part of the bridge, showing the round grating/light source on the ceiling and the console in the background. |   |
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| A good look at the Klingon Captain's chair. Klingon chairs like this first appeared on the bridge of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". |  "Star Trek IV" |
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| Equipment is visible in the top right corner of this shot of the bridge. |   |
The equipment is no longer visible thanks to the reframing. | ||
| This is the Klingon "death sting" disruptor, first seen in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" introduced a different kind of disruptor, but those disruptors weren't seen on TNG until season 4. Until then, the original disruptors, created for the first feature film, were used. |   |
We can recognize more details of the weapon in HD. | ||
| A good look at the Klingon version of an LCARS display, featuring the Klingon logo. |   |
An HD close-up of the display. | ||
| Several very noticeable cardboard squares are seen behind Picard and Data. |   |
We can see the cardboard in TNG-R just as well. | ||
| The position lights of the Bird-of-Prey Pagh are not turned on in this shot. A few moments later, the ship is seen with all its position lights turned on again. |   |
In TNG-R the position lights are consistently on. | ||
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| The wall behind the door was seen in several earlier films and episodes. Parts of it also appeared on Quadra Sigma III in "Hide and Q" and Mordan IV in "Too Short a Season". Wall pieces like this appeared for the very first time in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" on V'ger, though. |  "Star Trek I" |
 "Hide and Q" |
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A better look at the wall in HD. |
 "Too Short a Season" |
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| The aft port side of the bridge can be seen here. |  |
No changes | ||
| Both the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and the USS Enterprise-D appear very static in this shot. In both cases, a still from a shot showing the ship in motion was used (see last observation). The shot of the Bird-of-Prey was created for "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", though the actual frame used for the still here does not appear in the film, as the ship flies past a rock on Vulcan in that shot. It is unclear where exactly the energy beam is fired from. |  "Star Trek III" |
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The reconstructed shot in TNG-R. | |
 "Star Trek III" |
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The final shot of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey flying away was also originally created for the third Star Trek feature film. It appears towards the end of the film when the BoP is flying towards Mount Seleya, preparing for its landing. We can still see the orange light from the Vulcan sun especially on the first screen cap. This means that no new footage of the Bird-of-Prey was created for this episode and that all footage was re-used from Star Trek III. |
"Star Trek III" |
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The sequence is the same in TNG-R. Note on the last HD cap that the BoP is cut off because the frame was chosen too wide for the available footage. | |
 "Star Trek III" |
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 "Star Trek III" |
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 "Star Trek III" |
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