What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

My wife thinks it's great, and she isn't a Trekkie, she's just absorbed some trek by osmosis.

 

As the seasons have gone on, I think it's established its world and characters well enough to be watched by those not of The Body.

 

Yeah, for the most part the references just enrich things for the hardcore, but it’s totally watchable for the uninitiated. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any episodes that require one to know Treklore to get the joke - honestly, it might be better than some of the live action series in that regard.

 

The way the Star Trek franchise continues to shoot itself in the foot is part of the charm at this point, honestly.

 

What did he say? I can only find references to Jurassic Park when he said he had "become extinct"

 

"The computer wants to fuck you." Basically, it's easy to use a computer but also looses the weight of working with physical objects.

 

There is an argument that CGI is NOT capable of conveying certain emotions within a film medium in the same way practical effects can. For example, can CGI be scary? Can a CGI creation create the same amount of fear that practical effects can when watching a film or TV show? Or do you lose something in the suspension of disbelief when it’s CGI.

I remember this being a debate when the were doing the 2011 prequel to The Thing. The director of that movie promised practical effects and then the movie was taken away from him for the final cut and the studio demanded CGI. And many people feel the 1980s effects for John Carpenter’s film are far more disturbing and scary than the CGI.

If I remember correctly, this sort of thinking is part of the reason Christopher Nolan tries to keep things as practical as possible on his films, because it helps sell the situation as being plausible the more things seem “real” and not actors reacting to a green-screen.

 

I'm not sure I'd call it charm.

 

I rewatched ST V: TFF the other night and, so help me, I actually low-key like the film now!

Aside from the undeniable flaws and terrible moments (the fan dance only gets worse with time, the rocket boots, Kirk throwing the three-boobed cat lady in the pool water where she instantaneously drowns, the huge anticlimax of “God” looking like the cowardly lion and crying “oooooOOOhhhh” when he’s pissed)…it actually is perhaps the most representative of TOS, from the warm character interplay, the goofy humour and the often dodgy visual effects.
I used to hate it but it’s actually not a bad watch at all, if you’re not expecting a masterpiece. I’d rather watch it over any of the Next Gen or Kelvin films.

And Jerry Goldsmith was truly a god among composers.

 

Everyone should watch this whole series. But since we have invoked the Nolan:


Why would you lose suspension of disbelief by the very nature of something being CG? There are a million CG FX in almost everything we see that nobody ever notices.

I always remember when the first Marvel Avengers movie came out and some people where complaining about the Hulk FX in the scene when he's chasing Black Widow down the hall. ILM's response was something along the lines of "Oh? The 12 foot green monster didn't look like a real 12 foot green monster to you? Did you notice that the human woman that he was chasing, you know, one of the most recognizable actresses in the world, was ALSO CG?"

Go play Alien: Isolation and tell me if CG can be scary.

I think the "CG can never replace a practical model" debate should have been settled with Rogue One. (At least.) Maybe you need ILM and a Disney Star Wars sized budget. But then I think Godzilla Minus One just settled that question as well.

Crappy FX will be crappy FX if they are done with CG or with "practical". And good film making will produce an emotional response no matter the quality of the FX.

 

Which is why I care little over FX.

 

Me too, one reason why Babylon 5 remains my absolutely favorite sci-fi show.

 

No one has argued there should be no CGI whatsoever, not even Nolan. But what he has argued is that it moves beyond a tool that enhances a film and turns what you have into an animated film at a certain point if there's no underlying practical filmmaking, since the audience can tell the difference between animation and flesh and blood characters that exist within a real environment.

DIRETORS GUILD OF AMERICA: Because of the kind of films you make, people might assume you use lots of computer-generated imagery, but you actually prefer models, mattes, and in-camera effects. When do you like to use CGI?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: The thing with computer-generated imagery is that it’s an incredibly powerful tool for making better visual effects. But I believe in an absolute difference between animation and photography. However sophisticated your computer-generated imagery is, if it’s been created from no physical elements and you haven’t shot anything, it’s going to feel like animation. There are usually two different goals in a visual effects movie. One is to fool the audience into seeing something seamless, and that’s how I try to use it. The other is to impress the audience with the amount of money spent on the spectacle of the visual effect, and that, I have no interest in. We try to enhance our stunt work and floor effects with extraordinary CGI tools like wire and rig removals. If you put a lot of time and effort into matching your original film elements, the kind of enhancements you can put into the frames can really trick the eye, offering results far beyond what was possible 20 years ago. The problem for me is if you don’t first shoot something with the camera on which to base the shot, the visual effect is going to stick out if the film you’re making has a realistic style or patina. I prefer films that feel more like real life, so any CGI has to be very carefully handled to fit into that.

DGA: Perhaps the most famous effects scene in any of your films is the tumbling hallway sequence in Inception, which you did without green screens or computers but used an actual tumbling hallway. Why did you decide to go old school for that?

NOLAN: I grew up as a huge fan of Kubrick’s 2001, and was fascinated by the way in which he built that centrifugal set so that the astronauts could jog all around and upside down. I found his illusions completely convincing and mind-blowing. It was one of those rare instances that, when you find out how the trick is done, it’s even more impressive. So I’ve always wanted to do something like that, and with Inception I had the opportunity and resources to do it within an action context. To take that trick and push it in a different direction fulfilled one of my childhood ambitions. So many techniques change in filmmaking over the years, and many of the things you grew up admiring you will never get the opportunity to do. But that large-scale physical effect was still the best way to do the sequence, and it was really fun.​

For an example of what Nolan is speaking about, take the Star Wars prequels. The CGI in those movies are used not only to enhance the fantastical elements of the story, but to create the worlds in which the characters inhabit, and a lot of times there's nothing practical shot as the basis for the CGI to be used as a tool to enhance. That's why it feels so fake and animated so often, and like the characters don't inhabit a real world, with real structurers, but are pretending against blue-screens, tennis balls, and dots on walls.



The MCU films usually shoot in practical locations, on real streets, with real people and put the CGI work in and around those elements. The Battle of New York for the first Avengers film was shot in the streets of Cleveland (if I remember right), and they had dudes in mocap suits playing the Chitauri, Hulk, etc., where the actors had physical elements that they were reacting/acting against and helped sell the illusion of real characters in a real environment fighting fantastical creatures.

 

A man of taste and breeding, I see!

I believe that Babylon 5's CGI has a charm all of its own precisely because it's relatively primitive; but compared to other shows with very early CGI, like SeaQuest DSV or Space: Above and Beyond, I think it holds up really well due to superb design work. And of course there's no way they'd have been able to do that show with physical models anyway.

 

Ahhhh yes. The arena from Attack of the Clones. A largely practical miniature set (built by Adam Savage among others) enhanced with CG characters.

(6:05. Sam's reaction at 6:14 is perfect.)

Old timey FX work at (literally) it's finest.

Now you can make the argument that you don't like actors acting against FX. Actors have been saying this for decades before CG. But it carries so much more OOMPH if people don't like that computer-y mumbo jumbo.

Sometimes "I want the environment to be real and have a real physicality to it" can lead to your engineering set being a brewery.

 

This is an extraordinary series of videos.

 

For an example we are to refer to movies that are nearing 20 years old? Is there no allowance for the maturing of the FX industry in those 20 years?

 

Yes, let’s pretend that modern movies don’t use the same techniques to replace practical sets and real location shooting because some suit at a studio thinks it’s cheaper with CGI.


Ghostbusters (2016)

The current Ghostbusters films are a prime example of this, where the VFX in the original 1984 film are more believable and “real” because they were shot with real actors, in a real location, reacting to real objects with VFX added in to complete the experience

Compare that to a situation like the one above where the actors are in a green room reacting to marks on a wall, and the entire environment has to be drawn in around them.

 

Actors have had 30 years to adapt to the changing VFX world. Their skills grow as they continue to acclimate. Much like skills changed as we moved from live action theater to more intimate TV and movie settings.