News Brent Spiner Returned for "Picard" (and you could do the CGI better in 15 minutes, we get it)

When it comes to B4 (or whoever) being still in a drawer I have to think of the old adage that if you show a gun hanging over the fireplace in the start of a play it will get fired before the play is over. I just find it hard to believe they are going to show up B4 in a drawer and him not get put back together. Maybe that is an episode 8 or 9 thing but I still think that android in a drawer will get put together at some point.

 

Yeah, this is weird. They should have just put Spiner in a mo-cap helmet and CGI'd the whole thing.

 

Yeah, very good point. Also, Spiner has been pretty involved in promotion of the show, much more than Sirtis or Frakes, so it would be a bit weird if his involvement was just a brief dream sequence or two.

And Data looks pretty good in the latest clip. At least in motion it works really well.

 

Why keep the parts in a drawer though?

 

They simply didn't have the budget for that. They cpuldn't even make him look like in TNG (Spiner said that).

 

"B-4 was a bad idea. Let's pretend he didn't happen. Oh? But some of you are still wondering about him anyway? Let's show you what happened to him. B-4 faltered and Data's memories didn't fully survive the transition into him. So nothing could be done. Moving on now."

As per "Inheritance" (TNG), Dr. Soong built three unsuccessful androids before creating Lore. B-4 was probably one of those three.

 

If you want to show B4 is dead and gone show him as a pile of smoldering metal but a bunch of parts still in a drawer. Parts in a drawer can be put back together. That doesn't establish to me that he is dead and gone never to return.

Since we know the Borg and "rogue synths" are part of the plot of Picard it is not a stretch that those parts in that drawer are going to play a role. Maybe it isn't B4 fully coming back but I don't think those parts in the drawer is a throwaway scene.

 

let alone the budget to give him a frontal hairpiece during filming

 

he could a bit better without extreme CGI, but they did a decent Job overall, a decent balance on the skin, could and did go smoother, but looked a bit too perfect, and looked younger than his skin did in Nemesis, the Pupils are something that thankfully is fixable digitally, the choice to pull his hairline down digitally is absolutely absurd though, He's had real one in the past, shouldn't have been such a hustle to do it in camera, his voice is what gets me.

 

Honestly, eye pupil size, hairline, etc.... none of that matters. We all know, by looking at him, that is Data. That should be enough for all of us.

 

Star Trek: Digital De-Aging Tech Helped Convince Brent Spiner to Return as Data in Picard

https://comicbook.com/startrek/2020/01/18/star-trek-picard-data-return-brent-spiner-cgi-de-aging/

 

well,

well thats just it,

so it's supposed to be okay that they are to lazy to worry about a hairpiece while filming, and instead let the VFX people worry about it when they've got more than enough on their plate already?

 

as a Fan, yeah, technically it's enough for me that he is there, but as a VFX person, I think it sets a bad example of what should and should not be done digitally, and the hairline still isn't quite right, it became VFX Artist's Job to do that front hair, a VFX Artist has to worry about getting it right, that's part of having and keeping a Job

 

You also think that the hairline was manipulated digitally? My guess is that it was higher originally, either because they used Spiner's real hair or because they used a wig with a higher hairline. And so they decied to change it in post to make him appear younger.

 

it was obviously digitally manipulated, hell in the trailer a few months back showing him painting, the hairline actualleywobbled a bit

 

You know...to some degree you are right. But I'm just a little dissapointed about the missing attention to detail by these well paid professionals.

 

Yeah, it was obvious in the trailer. But it was less obvious in the poker scene.

 

Let's see how the rest of the VFX are before we judge them