Will the advanced special effects and scope kind of hurt "Discovery?"

[DJSuppa]

The special effects that I am most excited to see in discovery are the natural phenomena and landscapes that they decide to create. Whether it be cool looking planets or some type of phenomena in outerspace like the one shown in the teaser. I feel that special effects like these can only help because the audience's imagination will just run wild with thoughts of what is actually out there.

 

[skip bittman]

The effects will be painfully dated and require extensive re-imagining in a few years anyway. A sudden trend to actually want to see actors emoting when they are acting will lead to Klingons being merely a bit of light makeup on actors. A bold leap but Star Trek will have to modernize and embrace that if it wants to attract new fans in 2027.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I was thinking about this and wondered if it's possible for a Trek show to look so good it hurts the very spirit of what Trek has been or should be. In the TNG forum I recall someone saying that one of the reasons they like the show is because it feels almost like a stage play. I think one of the reasons TOS has endured IS because it looks kind of dated and that has provided kitsch value.

Then you look at the movies. TMP has huge budget and it's no good and TWK has a smaller budget and it is the best movie of them all. Same with TNG were most people like the show better than the movies, even the good one in "First Contact." The Kelvin Universe was a hit but it is also movies and not a tv show so you got different expectations there.

Isn't it kind of rare when more money, more special effects actually improves anything? For me I can only think of a few examples on tv and that would be the modern "Battlestar Galatica" and "Lost." Also isn't this idea that young people need flashy things and 2017 design look, whatever that means, to like something kind of saying young people are dumb and can't pay attention or have any imagination so we have to hit them with all sorts of bells and whistles to trick them?

Jason

If you want Star Trek like it was, check out Star Trek Continues.

If you want Star Trek for the modern day, check out Star Trek Discovery.

 

[Takeru]

One of the hallmarks of ST in the Berman era was that it was always consistently just about the best-looking show on TV with the most cutting-edge VFX, the most impressive sets, etc.

Exactly, just compare The Berman era to Babylon 5. B5 is praised for its serialized storytelling but it looks really cheap. The sets and effects for example are so far beneath TNG, DS9 and VOY that it's hard to believe they're contemporary shows.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

There's a difference between effects being "really good" and being excessive, flashy and distracting. More isn't always better; if you're doing a scene with a CGI alien that manages to appear completely photo-realistic and gives believably natural movement in relation to the actors, that is a REALLY GOOD special effect. Contrast with some of the CG aliens in the Star Wars prequels whose movements are jerky, spastic, almost hilariously over-the-top at times for their context. Even if the latter creature looks photorealistic, it draws so much attention to itself that it ultimately hurts the scene more than it helps.

High quality special effects doesn't mean there's more OF it. It means the effects are cleaner, blend into the scene more, fit the context better and are more believable. The most complex CG aliens in the universe don't come off as believable if the first thing you ask yourself is "How much meth would a human being have to smoke to move around like that?"

Agreed.
In a thread with this title if I have to read one more person write about "it has to be about the story first".... Geez. This thread specifically deals with the visuals not the script or story. VFX, costume design, production design, CGI, TV or movie-quality CGI. I think with this kind of budget they are doing 4k UHD mastering and the CGI work will all be rendered at 4k UHD. None of that SD to HD upconvert that ENT did in 2001 season 1. I expect some physical pyro and smoke/flame/sparks on the set as all star trek has even though we all know their consoles are really just data controllers and only power and data flow through them. It looks great for TV to have the bridge have blow 'em up effects just like in Engineering... Not realistic for a bridge unless a direct hit to the bridge which would most likely decompress that compartment but looks great for our principle command castmembers.
Jayson1 check out this thread:
space shot CGI ship expectations

 

[KennyB]

If you want Star Trek like it was, check out Star Trek Continues.

If you want Star Trek for the modern day, check out Star Trek Discovery.

THIS

 

[Christopher]

Exactly, just compare The Berman era to Babylon 5. B5 is praised for its serialized storytelling but it looks really cheap. The sets and effects for example are so far beneath TNG, DS9 and VOY that it's hard to believe they're contemporary shows.

Or compare TNG to the show it shared its syndication package with for seasons 2-3, War of the Worlds: The Series. Not only are WotW's video effects painfully crude, cheap, and amateurish, but the picture and sound quality (at least in the first season) often make it seem like a fan film videotaped in somebody's basement.

Of course, network shows from the time tended to be of better quality. Things like Quantum Leap and Alien Nation looked quite good, although neither had a very heavy VFX load (the latter relied heavily on prosthetic makeup, though). But TNG was rare in being a syndicated show that looked as good as anything on the networks, if not better.

 

[Vger23]

Or compare TNG to the show it shared its syndication package with for seasons 2-3, War of the Worlds: The Series. Not only are WotW's video effects painfully crude, cheap, and amateurish, but the picture and sound quality (at least in the first season) often make it seem like a fan film videotaped in somebody's basement.

Of course, network shows from the time tended to be of better quality. Things like Quantum Leap and Alien Nation looked quite good, although neither had a very heavy VFX load (the latter relied heavily on prosthetic makeup, though). But TNG was rare in being a syndicated show that looked as good as anything on the networks, if not better.

The SFX shots and sets developed for Encounter at Farpoint and used throughout the series were absolutely feature-quality at the time.

 

[BillJ]

The SFX shots and sets developed for Encounter at Farpoint and used throughout the series were absolutely feature-quality at the time.

Yep. As proof, they made it into Generations!

 

[Mudd]

Well, that early production quality on TNG was made possible by the wholesale reuse of production assets that had been built for feature films.

B5 looked a lot cheaper than TNG because it was made for a lot less money than TNG.

 

[Christopher]

The SFX shots and sets developed for Encounter at Farpoint and used throughout the series were absolutely feature-quality at the time.

Yes. They hired ILM to do the miniature effects in the pilot and to build a library of stock Enterprise shots that could be reused in later episodes. Which is why ILM got an FX credit in every episode of TNG even though they only worked on "Farpoint."

 

[Tuskin38]

John Knoll also made the Bajoran Lightship in DS9, not sure if that was a ILM thing or something he did on his own.
CGI elements he made also appaered the title sequence that appeared with DS9 Way of the Warrior.

Edit:

I'm sure why I brought up this unrelated fact

 

[Tesophius]

You lost me at TMP being no good. I've re-watched it like 5 times this year alone.

 

[Jedman67]

Well, that early production quality on TNG was made possible by the wholesale reuse of production assets that had been built for feature films.

B5 looked a lot cheaper than TNG because it was made for a lot less money than TNG.

There were a bare handful of fully reusable assets for Farpoint - however; being able to recycle and rebuild existing sets, rather than having to build new ones from scratch was a huge money saver.
In all fairness, B5's sets were quite good for a low-budget TV show. The VFX were total cheese but the physical sets were outstanding.

 

[Christopher]

In all fairness, B5's sets were quite good for a low-budget TV show. The VFX were total cheese but the physical sets were outstanding.

I would've said the reverse. I found B5's sets extremely bland and cheap-looking. The Zocalo was effective, C&C was okay, but most of the sets were just made of the same modular wall flats put together in different ways and were very dull and boring. But for their time, B5's digital effects were revolutionary -- and that is not hyperbole. It was the first show to make use of a new CG animation system (the NewTek Video Toaster) that allowed CGI to be rendered quickly and inexpensively, enabling the creation of far more numerous and elaborate visual effects than had ever been possible on a television budget before. Yes, they always looked blatantly computer-generated, they didn't have the same quality as feature-grade CGI, but the type and quantity of images they created wouldn't even have been possible on TV before. The Video Toaster technology played a key role in bringing about the proliferation of FX-heavy SF and fantasy shows in syndication in the '90s. It was basically the thing that enabled SF and fantasy to go from being a relatively rare, niche type of TV programming (due to the sheer expense and difficulty of creating the necessary FX) to the major segment of the TV landscape it is today. And B5 was the show that pioneered its use, that proved it could work and set the stage for everything that followed.

I was never as huge a B5 fan as some, and most of its attempted sequels have been pretty bad, but I think it's a shame that the show has faded from cultural memory to the extent that it has, because it really was a historically important, pioneering show. Not just because of its digital effects, but in that it introduced the practice of structuring a series with distinct seasonal arcs, treating each season as a complete volume of a larger work with its own distinct story threads that resolve or escalate to something new at the end of the season.

 

[Tesophius]

I was never as huge a B5 fan as some, and most of its attempted sequels have been pretty bad, but I think it's a shame that the show has faded from cultural memory to the extent that it has, because it really was a historically important, pioneering show. Not just because of its digital effects, but in that it introduced the practice of structuring a series with distinct seasonal arcs, treating each season as a complete volume of a larger work with its own distinct story threads that resolve or escalate to something new at the end of the season.

So that's the show I should blame for everything that's wrong with modern story telling...

 

[Starbreaker]

And Trek fans love B5 for the same reasons they hate serialized Star Trek. That show was about war and conflict. No ifs, and, or buts about it.

 

[Jedman67]

For sure the effects were groundbreaking; no doubt - it would have cost tons more had they gone the TNG route with filming miniatures against a backdrop, etc. The kind of fleet coordination with the starfurys wasn't possible before on a TV budget - but you could still tell the effects were extremely budget limited. The animators for the Starfurys sometimes wrote their own programs to control flight and stuff; and the best moves were controlled entirely by hand!
The sets were alright; I never thought they looked cheap but they werent groundbreaking - the storytelling was much better structured than nearly anything else at the time.

 

[Jedman67]

And Trek fans love B5 for the same reasons they hate serialized Star Trek. That show was about war and conflict. No ifs, and, or buts about it.

Open war didn't start until the third season. The first two seasons heavily built up the setting for it.

 

[Mudd]

Open war didn't start until the third season. The first two seasons heavily built up the setting for it.

Nonetheless, the show was about war and conflict.