Star Trek Movies I-X

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, Dobber said:

Yes, this. It wasn’t just out of focus but looked more like Vaseline.

Chris

I mean, maybe it was done in tribute to how that was actually what they did in TOS for soft-focus shots?  

Still.. yeah, that's just kind of unbelievable that they did such a shoddy job of editing things.  The original just looks better.  

[Seto Kaiba]

Going to see this one tonight.  Got tickets for my parents as well, so they can go see it too.  

Very excited.

[Dobber]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Going to see this one tonight.  Got tickets for my parents as well, so they can go see it too.  

Very excited.

Enjoy!

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Dobber said:

Enjoy!

Oh, we intend to.  They've been Trekkies since TOS so they're extremely stoked for this.  

This'll be my first time seeing a TOS-era movie in theaters.  When I was a kid, the first Trek movie I got to see at the box office was Generations, so I've never seen Kirk on the big screen unless you count... ahem... a bridge on the captain?

Kinda jealous that Fathom Events seems to have WAY better representation where my folks live.  Their nearest venue is barely a block away.  I gotta drive about 30min to mine.

[Dynaman]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

This'll be my first time seeing a TOS-era movie in theaters. 

I saw this on on very near opening day.  Had the joy of waiting outside in the freezing or near freezing cold for at least 30 minutes.  That opening bit with the Klingons was worth it!  The rest of the movie not so much.

[Dobber]

First one I absolutely remember seeing in the theater was ST4 I know I saw the others before then but can’t remember if it was in the theaters or not.

Chris

[Seto Kaiba]

There are some weird moments for quality in this one thanks, I think, to that split-focus diopter setup they used so liberally.

In the meeting in the observation lounge near the end McCoy looks like a thumb in a suit because his face temporarily goes all blurry.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

I just got back from this,  and its about what I expected.    The CG Vger is probably the worst of the items they added.     Overall I enjoyed it then I saw Star Trek 2 was listed.. and I am sold. 

 

[Mommar]

3 hours ago, Dobber said:

First one I absolutely remember seeing in the theater was ST4 I know I saw the others before then but can’t remember if it was in the theaters or not.

Chris

IV was the first I ever got to see as well.

[TehPW]

2 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I just got back from this,  and its about what I expected.    The CG Vger is probably the worst of the items they added.     Overall I enjoyed it then I saw Star Trek 2 was listed.. and I am sold. 

 

Are they gonna do an updated version of WoK (and the other 4 TMP era films)?

[tekering]

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

The CG Vger is probably the worst of the items they added.

I can't agree with that.  The model is beautifully lit, and proportionally very accurate to the original studio miniature.  I love how, all these years later, it puts the whole V'Ger flyby sequence into perspective.

Perhaps you were just disappointed by the creative decision to reveal the ship in its entirety, but concept art illustrates that was the original intent:

It simply wasn't possible to complete the original 60-foot miniature in the limited time they had to finish the film.

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In the meeting in the observation lounge near the end McCoy looks like a thumb in a suit because his face temporarily goes all blurry.

That I must agree with. 😔

What's worse, you can clearly see stars pass through his face during the shot. 🤨

11 minutes ago, TehPW said:

Are they gonna do an updated version of WoK (and the other 4 TMP era films)?

That's doubtful.  I'm sure the WoK release will be the same 35th anniversary "Director's Cut" Fathom released in 2017.

[pengbuzz]

7 hours ago, tekering said:

I can't agree with that.  The model is beautifully lit, and proportionally very accurate to the original studio miniature.  I love how, all these years later, it puts the whole V'Ger flyby sequence into perspective.

 

Ladies and gentlemen...I present to you: the Christmas tree from HELL...

[Chronocidal]

10 hours ago, tekering said:

Perhaps you were just disappointed by the creative decision to reveal the ship in its entirety, but concept art illustrates that was the original intent: *snip*

This is really my entire issue with the reveal.  The cloud always felt more impressive and ominous than anything they could have come up with otherwise.  The size they originally mentioned for the cloud itself wouldn't even have fit within our solar system, so I was perfectly content never directly seeing where it was in relation to Earth.

Now, if they had managed to render that graphic with the same perspective so that it cast a shadow across the planet and disappeared partly behind the horizon?  I think I would have been more sold.  I haven't seen that cut, so maybe it does that in that version, but all of the pictures I've seen place it far enough away from the planet that you never get that sense of scale.

[Thom]

The only thing I missed about the new FX, was seeing the 'probes' being fired between the horns. That was always a great shot, and the moment looses some of its weight when they did it from a distance. 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

The whole CGI Vger thing for me,  reeked of Retcon like they did with the Star Wars Remasters in the early 00's.    Now obviously nowhere near the same level of scale,  but the CGI Vger may look good now,  as time passes it probably won't age well.   Probably aging even worse as the rest of the movie did not use any CGI. 

 

 

[Mommar]

So is V’Ger no longer represented as a cloud in this movie?

[Dynaman]

1 minute ago, Mommar said:

So is V’Ger no longer represented as a cloud in this movie?

it still is - that model is only at the very end when the cloud is dispersed near Earth.

It is not a retcon as such, they simply ran out of money (and time) to do the FX shots in the original release.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 5/26/2022 at 1:53 AM, tekering said:

It simply wasn't possible to complete the original 60-foot miniature in the limited time they had to finish the film.

... 60 foot "miniature".  That's 18.28m!  A shooting miniature the size of the 1-scale Gundam statue in Yokohama!

Positively gargantuan, considering the shooting miniature for the Enterprise was a "mere" 8 foot 4 (2.54m).  No wonder they didn't have time to complete it.  That would have taken ages.

 

2 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Probably aging even worse as the rest of the movie did not use any CGI. 

Wasn't the Enterprise herself CGI in this one?  There was that big presentation at the start about the process of compiling the 3D model for it based on an earlier CG model and an up-close examination of the original model.

[valkyrie_cadman]

On 5/25/2022 at 10:53 PM, tekering said:

I can't agree with that.  The model is beautifully lit, and proportionally very accurate to the original studio miniature.  I love how, all these years later, it puts the whole V'Ger flyby sequence into perspective.

Perhaps you were just disappointed by the creative decision to reveal the ship in its entirety, but concept art illustrates that was the original intent:

It simply wasn't possible to complete the original 60-foot miniature in the limited time they had to finish the film.

That I must agree with. 😔

What's worse, you can clearly see stars pass through his face during the shot. 🤨

That's doubtful.  I'm sure the WoK release will be the same 35th anniversary "Director's Cut" Fathom released in 2017.

This was probably the only scene I had an issue with....it literally looked like they cut the figures out on the physical film, and glued them onto the NEW 4K high res background of the starfield in back.

[JB0]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Positively gargantuan, considering the shooting miniature for the Enterprise was a "mere" 8 foot 4 (2.54m).  No wonder they didn't have time to complete it.  That would have taken ages.

And they flew the Enterprise shooting model across the V'Ger model in the original film.

 

For all the movie's failings, going big was not one of them.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 minutes ago, JB0 said:

For all the movie's failings, going big was not one of them.

Just imagine what Roddenberry could've achieved if he'd spent less time on petty beefs and perving on actresses and female colleagues alike.

[JB0]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Just imagine what Roddenberry could've achieved if he'd spent less time on petty beefs and perving on actresses and female colleagues alike.

I mean, in fairness, the first movie had a lot of problems that had nothing to do with Roddenberry. The studio made all kinds of poor decisions(and was all too eager to beef right back at Roddenberry).

I'm not saying Roddenberry was blameless, just... maybe only 20% of the mess was his fault?

[tekering]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

The studio made all kinds of poor decisions

 

The biggest of which was, of course, that old Hollywood chestnut: announcing a release date before they even had a script ready to shoot.  If the audience doesn't know where the story is headed, you've got their interest; if the cast and crew don't know where the story is headed, you've got a disaster.  Reaching your destination without a road map may be problematic, but when you don't even know your destination, you're going to be meandering around doing nothing much of the time... which is precisely why The Motion Picture feels like exactly that. 😒

What shocks me is how little Paramount has learned over the past four decades.  Incredibly enough, they've made an even worse blunder going into Abrams' fourth Star Trek film, having already announced a release date (December 22, 2023) before they've even signed the cast, much less completed a script! 🤭

Pine, Quinto et.al. can demand whatever the hell they want now, and will probably be insufferable pricks on set, too... and the idiot studio execs have only themselves to blame. 🙄

[Dynaman]

9 hours ago, JB0 said:

And they flew the Enterprise shooting model across the V'Ger model in the original film.

 

The enterprise in those flyby shots was a tiny one.  A few inches.

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, JB0 said:

And they flew the Enterprise shooting model across the V'Ger model in the original film.

 

For all the movie's failings, going big was not one of them.

They actually had a much smaller model for some of the scenes that they used:
 

Quote

Magicam's smaller scaled refit-Constitution-class filming model

"There is also a second model of the Enterprise which is twenty inches long [eighteen according to Olsen], used for long shots," Sackett/Roddenberry claimed in their book The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (p. 207). Built specifically for forced perspective shots, construction on this model was started a few months into the build of its larger sister at Magicam where it was sighted by Paul Olsen when he was hired for the painting of the larger model. (Star Trek: Creating the Enterprise, p. 45)

Jim Dow, confirming their claim, elaborated, "We also built a quarter-scale Enterprise, which worked out to be about 22 inches. It was designed to be used in long shots with V'Ger, but I don't really know exactly where it can be seen in the picture. The quarter-size Enterprise model had all of the same lighting functions that the large-scale model had, it reproduced everything the big one could do, it even had the five-way armature in it. We were able to power all the lighting systems from any one of those five positions in that little 22-inch model. We had to import axial lamps from Japan, which are so tiny they're incredible–they're about the size of a ballpoint pen tip–because everything was scaled down. They're very difficult to get, we had to have them flown in specially for Star Trek. The model itself probably weighed less than two pounds." While Dow did not exactly knew what the small filming model was used for, Mark Stetson did, "The smaller Enterprise miniature was delivered by Magicam to Astra, but it wasn't used 'til much later, by Apogee. After they finished with it, it was again returned to Maxella and used for some final shots there. But the only time you ever saw the smaller Enterprise was in some shots flying over V'Ger where V'Ger fills the screen and you see the Enterprise as a tiny little dot flying across it." It is the model Apogee's John Dykstra referred to as the "one-foot" model, used for the approach and passage of the Enterprise over V'Ger, to emphasize the size of V'Ger, itself an eighty-six feet long studio model, "But for some of the more distant shots we built and photographed a smaller version of the Enterprise, about a foot long." (Return to Tomorrow - The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, pp. 276-277, 462; Cinefex, issue 2, 1980, p. 67)

The small filming model turned out to be more influential that its rather limited actual use in the movie led to believe, as Dow further attested to, "That model is the one from which we produced a set of molds that we took to Milton Bradley. They have since produced a toy that's on the market which was actually produced from the original molds made for the quarter-scaled Enterprise in the movie. Very few people know about that." (Return to Tomorrow - The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p. 277) That production-used model has therefore been, in effect, the very first template for an electronic Star Trek-based electronic starship toy model.

Though returned from Apogee to EEG for additional filming, not a single further sighting of that particular model has been reported ever since.

 

Link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Constitution_class_model_(refit)#Smaller_scaled_refit-Constitution-class_physical_models

Edited May 28, 2022 by pengbuzz

[Dynaman]

An eighteen inch model would still be HUGE unless the camera was really far away.  I suppose they filmed things "sideways" (for the top down shots) to allow positioning the camera further away from the props but that would still be many feet.

[pengbuzz]

2 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

An eighteen inch model would still be HUGE unless the camera was really far away.  I suppose they filmed things "sideways" (for the top down shots) to allow positioning the camera further away from the props but that would still be many feet.

18 inches is not all that big, especially for a professional filming model. Keep in mind that after a certain size, detail may not be picked up by a camera.

[Dynaman]

2 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

18 inches is not all that big, especially for a professional filming model. Keep in mind that after a certain size, detail may not be picked up by a camera.

True, but the Enterprise in those flyby scenes is TINY.  It takes up a very small portion of the screen.  How far away does the camera have to be to make it that tiny?  No apparent use of having used lense tricks (like they did on the Vaseline bridge shots)

[JB0]

I stand corrected.

[pengbuzz]

53 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

True, but the Enterprise in those flyby scenes is TINY.  It takes up a very small portion of the screen.  How far away does the camera have to be to make it that tiny?  No apparent use of having used lense tricks (like they did on the Vaseline bridge shots)

From the quote I posted:

"It is the model Apogee's John Dykstra referred to as the "one-foot" model, used for the approach and passage of the Enterprise over V'Ger, to emphasize the size of V'Ger, itself an eighty-six feet long studio model".

(note: Dykstra referred to it as the "one foot model", but it was 18 inches according to the rest of the crew.)

So, they built an 86 foot long V'Ger section apparently.

Edited May 28, 2022 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, JB0 said:

I mean, in fairness, the first movie had a lot of problems that had nothing to do with Roddenberry. The studio made all kinds of poor decisions(and was all too eager to beef right back at Roddenberry).

I'm not saying Roddenberry was blameless, just... maybe only 20% of the mess was his fault?

Maybe so, but Gene was veeeeeery good at self-sabotage... not as good as his freaking lawyer, but he could still have taught a master class in it.

 

7 hours ago, tekering said:

The biggest of which was, of course, that old Hollywood chestnut: announcing a release date before they even had a script ready to shoot.  If the audience doesn't know where the story is headed, you've got their interest; if the cast and crew don't know where the story is headed, you've got a disaster.  Reaching your destination without a road map may be problematic, but when you don't even know your destination, you're going to be meandering around doing nothing much of the time... which is precisely why The Motion Picture feels like exactly that. 😒

IIRC, I've always heard the movie's writing and pacing problems were down to two main factors unconnected to the release date:

1. The script was a retooled rescue from the unproduced Star Trek Phase II pilot project... leaving the original 48 minute story spread painfully thin across two-and-a-quarter hours of feature film and necessitating nearly-daily rewrites that left the cast and crew barely aware of where the film was headed.
2. The production's overspending on special effects making the director and studio execs hesitant to leave any of those extravagantly expensive shots on the cutting room floor.

 

7 hours ago, tekering said:

What shocks me is how little Paramount has learned over the past four decades.  Incredibly enough, they've made an even worse blunder going into Abrams' fourth Star Trek film, having already announced a release date (December 22, 2023) before they've even signed the cast, much less completed a script! 🤭

Pine, Quinto et.al. can demand whatever the hell they want now, and will probably be insufferable pricks on set, too... and the idiot studio execs have only themselves to blame. 🙄

To be fair, that's gotta be the second or third time they've tried that for that one movie.

It's just going to make them look silly if they can't scrape up the cash to meet Pine, Quinto, et. al.'s demands... which was the original problem after their financial backers pulled out in the wake of 1-3's underperformance.

[Dynaman]

59 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

From the quote I posted:

"It is the model Apogee's John Dykstra referred to as the "one-foot" model, used for the approach and passage of the Enterprise over V'Ger, to emphasize the size of V'Ger, itself an eighty-six feet long studio model".

(note: Dykstra referred to it as the "one foot model", but it was 18 inches according to the rest of the crew.)

So, they built an 86 foot long V'Ger section apparently.

Here is the shot I'm speaking of.  Even an 18" model would have to have been shot at a REALLY long distance to get it this small on screen.

 

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Maybe so, but Gene was veeeeeery good at self-sabotage... not as good as his freaking lawyer, but he could still have taught a master class in it.

True enough. 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Y'know, I don't think I ever thought about it properly before... but most of this movie has the audience watching Kirk watch things on a succession of different viewscreens.  We watch him watch things on the bridge viewscreen, on the recreation deck viewscreen, on the massive viewscreen in his office, etc. basically from the minute they leave spacedock until their encounter with the Voyager 6 probe at the movie's end.

... 

...

...

It would be amazing for someone to edit it to recreate the "You're looking at now, sir" scene from Spaceballs.  

I wonder how many episodes of TOS you could get through by inserting an entire episode every time the camera cuts to a viewscreen?  I'm guessing at least a season.

 

[Dynaman]

Darn it!  Where is that parody someone put together, taking all the footage of the cast (intently) watching the viewscreen with moans and groans from an adult movie playing...