Court Martial - Ion Pod revisited

[RAMA]

T'Girl wrote:

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The big one for me is the particular shade of grey they used for the Enterprise's hull color.

What I took from the story is that the mere presence of the pod, while in the storm, was endangering the ship in some fashion. It would seem obvious (imo) that Finney was physically in the pod doing something.

Whether the hole/burn on the aft of the secondary hull is supposed to indicate the pod's previous location, or is just some of the damage from the storm ...YMMV.

I believe they used the original actual color of the Enterprise model as opposed to the color seen on tv due to lack of sophistication in the FX, photography, lighting, analog compositing, etc. The CGI FX, matched for the time period, will always look better than the original FX.

RAMA

[TREK_GOD_1]

Warped9 wrote:

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New isn't always better particularly when the new overall is mediocre.

Proven by TOS-R, and other horrible CG jobs like the Star Wars special edition/DVD Jabba the Hutt shoved in the 1977 film.

And don't get me started about the crapfest that is JJ Trek.

Not a single frame or idea worth a damn as he shit all over TOS.

...like that toy/TV remote Enterprise design.

[TREK_GOD_1]

ssosmcin wrote:

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The strengths of the series were always the stories and the characters, so most episodes really aren't effected at all.

Well said.

As for the Ion Pod, even as a kid in the 70's, it didn't confuse or bother me that I learned nothing about it. It was a Maguffin, nothing more. Kirk's plight was the real issue, the pod was just 60's "technobabble" to put the proper sci-fi feel on Finney's death. As a kid, I just thought "ion pod" sounded cool and it was enough that the file room guy had to go in it and Kirk was allegedly forced to jettison the thing. I filled in the blanks with my imagination.

Again, well said.

[EliyahuQeoni]

MarsWeeps wrote:

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So, I just watched the remastered version of Court Martial. Once again, I have to say the remastered effects are excellent. I don't understand why people think they are so awful. They can't make them look like modern day effects because they wouldn't match up with the rest of the shots.

The problem is that they don't match up with the rest of the shots. The CGI stands out like a sore thumb.

Also, these FX shots are not "remastered," they are completely new CGI FX.

[GSchnitzer]

EliyahuQeoni wrote:

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The problem is that they don't match up with the rest of the shots. The CGI stands out like a sore thumb.

Also, these FX shots are not "remastered," they are completely new CGI FX.

The effects shots weren't remastered; they were brand new. But the rest of each episode was remastered--going back to the original 35 mm film negatives instead of relying on the digital copies that were made for the earlier DVDs.

[Robert Comsol]

GSchnitzer wrote:

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But the rest of each episode was remastered--going back to the original 35 mm film negatives instead of relying on the digital copies that were made for the earlier DVDs.

"Digital copies"? I was under the impression, that the original 35mm negative duplicates were scanned in HD resolution but merely "down-rezed" for the first TOS DVD releases. If memory serves the TOS DVDs were advertised to come from freshly made and new (HD) masters.

Put simply, the TOS DVD owners already have the same original content as the TOS Blu-ray owners, although with less resolution / picture detail and color fidelity (because of DVD's MPEG-2 data compression).

Maxwell Everett probably has all the vital information on this subject.

Bob

[GSchnitzer]

So back when the original DVDs were made in 1999-ish, they were scanned and stored at a resolution that didn't yet exist for the pubic, in anticipation of a yet-to-be developed HD medium? And since that HD medium wasn't developed yet, the images were down-rezzed and put out on regular DVD? And then when a HD format was developed, they simply released the images at the level of resolution at which they were originally obtained years earlier (and with newly-made VFX)?

[Mytran]

Well that's exactly what they did with the James Bond films during the remastering process for DVD - in fact the scanning resolution was quoted as being "slightly higher" than the resolution of the film stock itself - basically, to prevent having to go back to the negatives ever again.

As for Star Trek ... dunno. But there is at least a precedent.

[Robert Comsol]

GSchnitzer wrote:

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So back when the original DVDs were made in 1999-ish, they were scanned and stored at a resolution that didn't yet exist for the pubic, in anticipation of a yet-to-be developed HD medium?

Please take the time and look up "HDTV" at Wikipedia.org, by the mid-90's the arrival of public HDTV was already in the pipeline. For the anamorphic (16X9 enhanced) widescreen DVDs (introduced 1997) they didn't use pre-existing old masters but already made new transfers in HD to prepare for HD broadcast and downconvert the resolution to sell DVDs.

Many of these HD masters were used for HD broadcast but in many cases, once HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc arrived, the studios felt the original HD masters were no longer state-of-the-art and decided they needed new ones with better HD resolution.

I'm simply not sure whether TOS relied on these early HD masters or whether new ones were made. Even in the current HD resolution, I'd say there is about 10-20% original live action footage where original negatives apparently got lost (10-20% live footage seems to have been replaced with footage from low resolution film copies that equals the sharpness levels of the current TOS DVDs).

Sorry for strolling off-topic, I shall add an on-topic comment in a few minutes to put the thread back on track.

Bob

[Robert Comsol]

ZapBrannigan wrote:

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Regarding the Ion Pod, I never saw those Mandel and Newitt drawings before. Definitely snagged them for my own files. Thanks, guys.

Incidentally, in the Mandel lower sensor dome concept, the pod looks too small for a man to occupy except as a contortionist.

Shouldn't there be a phaser emplacement where Mandel suspected the ion pod to be located?

I know, the phaser beams don't match exactly the center of the lower dome (did these VFX ever match exactly?) but I think this original VFX shot rather intended to locate the beams in the center than on the (usual) upper ring of the dome.

Additionally, the Mandel ion pod would straight connect to the phaser control room seen in "Balance of Terror". While its central power circuit column (first seen as transporter circuit in "The Enemy Within") could power this dome phaser, it's apparently to small to serve as a crawltube for a man.

Bob

[Timo]

Shouldn't there be a phaser emplacement where Mandel suspected the ion pod to be located?

Perhaps - but apparently also at the exact intersection point of the beams in the image you linked to, which would be the ring above the ventral dome, to port and thus just behind the dome when viewed from starboard.

Seriously, forks, having a phaser emitter (capable of spitting out two beams) at the bottom of the dome plus at each of the three little pimples on that ring would nicely account for the existence of four distinct phasers, enumerated in "Paradise Syndrome", firing twin beams from the general area of the lower dome. If the ring rotates, we have a number of firing angles plus a Gatling action of sorts to take care of the unfortunate overheating problem of these weapons ("Balance of Terror"). And a tetrahedron of emitters is an appealing geometry in many ways.

Then again, the "Gatling ring" would make the existence of things like starboard phasers somewhat redundant. And we have seen that the aft phasers of the Defiant weren't on a Gatling ring around the dome atop the shuttlebay. And the top saucer dome lacks rings and pimples of any sort...

As regards the ion pod, many a thing was left unexplained and may safely remain so. But the idea that the very existence of this pod would pose a danger to the entire ship is quite an absurdity that transcends the McGuffin nature of this pod and yells for an explanation. Yet we get none - even though the plot hinges on Kirk being accused of jettisoning the pod. How could he possibly be blamed for this action even if it cost the life of Finney? If so much is at risk, then a few fumbled warnings or mistimed keypresses should not lead to a murder charge, merely to an inquest and reprimand for carelessness in handling a deadly crisis. And Finney could be buried in absentia after being stripped of rank and publicly disgraced, for having had the indecency to die in a way that jeopardized the safety of the ship.

This is the main reason I prefer to think that the pod posed no danger whatsoever, and had to be jettisoned only because this was the way to get the ship out of the danger posed by the storm. Kirk would have had options, then: jettison and escape, or not jettison and escape. The former would get the mission accomplished and justify the damage and risk to the ship; the latter would mean embarrassing and expensive mission failure, but at least Finney would be alive.

If Kirk were committing premeditated murder here, and the pod itself posed a risk to the ship, the charge should not be one of jettisoning Finney to his death. It should be choosing a particularly monstrous means of murder that threatened the lives of 428 innocents. If the pod plays a minor role here, merely being the murder weapon, then the approach taken in the trial is fully justified and understandable. It all deals with whether Kirk jettisoned Finney in an understandable accident or in sinister murderous deliberation, after all, never touching upon the wider repercussions of the act.

Timo Saloniemi

[ZapBrannigan]

RAMA wrote:

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I believe they used the original actual color of the Enterprise model as opposed to the color seen on tv due to lack of sophistication in the FX, photography, lighting, analog compositing, etc. The CGI FX, matched for the time period, will always look better than the original FX.

RAMA

The ship's color varied a lot in the original version, depending on lighting and the vagaries of fx film processing:

White

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x...elahhd0007.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x...rainhd0356.jpg

Dull white

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x...rainhd0006.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x...leadhd0001.jpg

Silver-gray

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x...spawhd0075.jpg

Gray

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x...romehd0092.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x...nwebhd0726.jpg

Dark gray

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x...nwebhd0003.jpg

The odd thing is, the TOS-R ship is a shade of gray we never saw before among all the choices.

[blssdwlf]

ZapBrannigan wrote:

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The odd thing is, the TOS-R ship is a shade of gray we never saw before among all the choices.

Yeah - that struck me as well. Even when I use Gary Kerr's color swatch I do have to do some color post-processing or colored lighting to get the same color variations as seen in the original FX.

[plynch]

I always thought it was silver when I was a kid. Even painted one AMT silver, which was a very "soft" (mushy) testors color, if you know what I mean.

[ZapBrannigan]

plynch wrote:

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I always thought it was silver when I was a kid. Even painted one AMT silver, which was a very "soft" (mushy) testors color, if you know what I mean.

I left mine white and it looked okay, but not just right.

My first Klingon battlecruiser came molded in gray plastic and it looked right on. I loved that: it was just like the aired version. My second AMT Klingon ship, to my shock, was molded in black plastic. That was just weird.