Was there ever an FX show on any of the Trek(S) that blew your mind? When you saw it, you asked yourself "HOW DID THEY DO THAT?" Here is mine. When Thomas Riker is brought aboard. And there is this scene where Wil Riker walks around Thomas Riker, a full 360 degree circle. That blew me away. No cut aways, no split screen, he walks around Thomas... It still blows me away. Before you list yours, can someone tell me how exactly they did that scene with the two Rikers? Rob
So we can't list ours until someone tells you how they did yours? LOL I was blown away by the reptilian Xindi. They look amazing.
^ LOL Just in case anyone doesn't want the magic ruining for them... this is how I'd go about it: Spoiler: Two Rikers I think if I was going to try and pull that off today, I'd make sure the camera and any movements are exactly the same for both takes, then when compositing the two shots together, use Thomas Riker as a masking object, so when Will walks round him he is obscured as if the two are actually interacting. I'm not sure if that's how they did it back then, but it's one way of doing it. I imagine greenscreening would be another simple way of doing it and again compositing the two takes on the same background. As for effects that blew my mind - any of the DS9 Dominion War battles. For a show on a budget to pull off such convincing graphics that still hold their own a decade later is a testament to the amount of work that went into them.
One that blew my mind and I didn't even know it was the Genesis tape from TWOK. I knew if looked fantastic...but at that time I didn't know that computer generated images even existed. I don't remember asking myself "How'd they do that!??!" but that's my answer.
I'm with you..when that movie came out I thought, at the time, those effects were very cool. I knew they were CGI, but I didn't know that it had progressed that far... Rob
First time I saw the Jem-Hadar kind of 85% vasish, you could still kind of seem them, at the same time they did seem to vanish or be like a shadow in a dark room...
I'm a visual effects artist by trade, so I already go in knowing how it's all done. The Trek effects have always been okay I suppose, nothing ever remarkable. The movies had some good stuff, and TNG's effects were pretty good for its time. Enterprise is a disgrace however. It's awful use of CG is enough to make anyone gag.
EM. This for me too. It actually started with T.W.o.t.W, when I saw that Klingon ship get hit and go tumbling end over end, I knew I was witnessing a new age of Trek SFX beginning.
TMP's drydock departure that seems to be taken from just next to the port nacelle, inboard. It is one of the only times I had seen a periscope lens shot that didn't betray the actual size of the filmed miniature (look at similar stuff from the same year/same month film BLACK HOLE and flinch), and it more than made up for the 'looking down at saucer' cuts in the travel pod approach which don't work.
Are you talking about that future library set they did? I quit watching after the show with that computer game reject of an image.
I actually kinda liked Enterprise's CG efforts One of my favourite "beauty shots", if you will, is in Shockwave, part I, as Enterprise moves from beneath/behind the camera POV towards the planet. Granted, I think the budget cuts sometimes showed a couple of times in season 4 (Soong in the Augments embryo chamber, for instance). And I wasn't overly impressed with the Gorn - I would've much preferred a guy in a green suit with ping-pong ball eyes That's probably just me though.
The Battles of War Of The Warrior & Sacrifice Of Angels both seriously impressed me. The former - a model sequence, the later CG showing its true potential. When you consider how painstaking the work that went into minimalist battles with model was implied to be, the amount that went into WOTW is staggering. But then SOA with traditional modelwork is hard to picture as well.
Yep...I loved both those episodes. And the battles actually propelled the story, not just there as window dressing... TELL me you don't get goosebumps when Worf's Klingon fleet dives out of the sun and attacks the Jem'hadar, allowing Sisko to break the line!! Rob
I was always impressed by the destruction of the USS Yamato in TNG Contagion. For model work done for late 1980s TV, it looked pretty damn cool.
The Holodeck scenes! I mean it's supposed to be a bunch of holograms, yet everything LOOKS SO REAL!!!!!!!
I have to go with DS9's initial battles from S4 onwards too as the amount of ships/effort really gave the battle scope. especially when you see the rest of the fleet at the end of S5. Though clipping in the interiors blowing up in the finale was a really nice touch. Though as a kid the ship decloaking over the whaling ship in TVH always seemed special to me as it just looked really cool. The Enterprise stalking the Reliant in Khan had the same effect, an, particularly rising up from being it had the same effect as it just looked really nice, as did the crash in Nemesis. It really blew me away as it was something I'd never seen, nor expected to see, in Star Trek when I first saw it in the cinema. Especially with some of the dodgy effects in the previous film (the shuttles spiralling downwards looked dreadful to me)
The destruction of the USS Enterprose in TSFS..... ....the death of a beloved character arcing out of orbit while the crew look on. Dialogue was superb too.