Stock footage from TMP and TNG in Voyager

[Oso Blanco]

Just rewatching Voyager and I noticed that in Non Sequitur, there are two shots that had been used before.

The first is a shuttlecraft flying by the Golden Gate Bridge, which obviously had been taken from TMP. The second one is when Harry and Tom are trying to leave space dock ... that space dock is the Dyson's Sphere from TNG!

I've never noticed that before, did you? Are there similar examples in other episodes?

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

In "Unity", clips of TNG ("Best of Both Worlds"), DS9 ("The Emissary", "Way of the Warrior") and "Star Trek: First Contact" are played during the regeneration montage. There are probably more.

Voyager clips have been used in DS9 (a torpedo hit from "Caretaker" was used during a Dominion attack on the station) and Enterprise ("In a Mirror, Darkly" used a clip from that episode with the Vadwuur in it, whatever it's called and however you spell it)- and most strangely (and kind of on a tangent), some Voyager guest ship CG models cropped up in the background of Firefly.

[Frontier]

Technically, the runabout leaving wasn't stock footage in a strict sense so much as a recycling of an effect, since in 'Relics' there was no runabout, but rather the E-D leaving. So they likely filmed the runabout and set it against the Dyson sphere doors closing because they didn't have access to the old spacedock doors from ST 3 which where done 20 years earlier by ILM.

And the shuttle by the golden gate was from a later film than TMP if it's the shuttle at night time. We saw shuttles in san fran in the day only in TMP, the night shot w/SFHQ on the top of the hill was from either ST4 or ST6.

Teehee.

[Oso Blanco]

Frontier wrote:

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Technically, the runabout leaving wasn't stock footage in a strict sense so much as a recycling of an effect

I know, but I didn't want to make things complicated ...

Frontier wrote:

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And the shuttle by the golden gate was from a later film than TMP if it's the shuttle at night time. We saw shuttles in san fran in the day only in TMP, the night shot w/SFHQ on the top of the hill was from either ST4 or ST6.

I'm talking about the shot that follows Spock's ritual on Vulcan, the one before Kirk talks to Sonak. I think it's the very same shot that was used in Voyager.

[Mytran]

In VOY's Dark Frontier, when the Borg sphere returns to the complex for the first time they recycle footage from the movie First Contact - except they run it backwards!

[Dukhat]

Ah, stock footage. The bane of my existence as a Star Trek fan. I think the only thing that irritates me more was when they'd recycle the same alien ship model 15 times for 15 different alien races, some not even living in the same part of the galaxy. But that's another conversation.

However, I do think that the re-use of the Dyson Sphere footage wasn't that egregious. Since it was just the doors, even someone who saw Scotty's TNG ep probably wouldn't assume there's now a 1 AU-diameter sphere in orbit around the Earth acting as a spacedock.

[DonIago]

Personally I thought it was egregious because, much like the BoP explosion in GEN, it was just so obvious. As soon as I saw it I thought, "Dyson Sphere".

[Dukhat]

DonIago wrote:

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Personally I thought it was egregious because, much like the BoP explosion in GEN, it was just so obvious. As soon as I saw it I thought, "Dyson Sphere".

Oh, I know. I thought the same thing. I guess I'm just saying that it wasn't as grating to me because of the way it was used.

They needed to show big spacedock doors, and they essentially had three choices: Use stock footage from STIII, use stock footage from "Relics," or make a whole new scene with new doors for what amounts to a 2 second shot. Since the angle of the "Relics" shot was exactly what they were looking for (and you can't see enough of the background to establish that it's really the Dyson Sphere), in this case it was a necessary evil.

Now compare that to static shots of re-used alien ships-of-the-week, or stock footage thereof (especially prevalent in TNG). There were also three choices: Show a brand-new model each time for a few seconds of establishing shot, show a re-used model or SF, or just show nothing at all. This is where my opinions differ from the VFX people: unless the ship is actually supposed to be doing something instead of just hovering there, why bother to show it at all? I would rather just have seen nothing at all instead of the Pakled ship used as the Gatherer ship, or the Talarian ship used as the Kriosian ship, etc. IMHO this is what made Star Trek look cheap.

[DonIago]

Hm. I guess ship reusage doesn't bother me quite as much, especially if it's just establishing shots. In my case I think it's the "memorability" of the shot being reused. Things like the Enterprise approaching spacedock, the BoP explosion and the Dyson Sphere escape, IMO shouldn't be reused because they were (at least to me) memorable shots where their origins will be clear unless the shot is changed in some significant manner.

I'm more forgiving with regards to DS9's combat footage given that I knew there was no financially realistic way they could create mass starship combat scenes on a regular basis.

[TedShatner10]

The derelict alien ship from Voyager's dreadful "The Fight" was reused again and redressed as a Romulan drone ship many years later in a S4 ENT episode.

[Destructor]

There's an episode where Tuvok mind-melds with a dude to overwhelm him with disturbing images, and it's a plethora of not only Star Trek stock footage, but heaps of stuff from the Paramount archives, including the horror film 'Event Horizon' if I'm not mistaken.

[spooky spice]

I remember keeping a list of re-used props and costumes when I was a member of a ST:TNG fan club, got quite long as well!