Heavy CGI enhancement anyone?
- Thread starter Raptor_Fawr
- Start date
This is very true...
But imho TOS have this enormous potential to be both "sjw friendly", "gender friendly" and "ethically modern" by changing very minor things (like by giving Uhura more dialogue lines for instance, or by finding an hispanic actor for Khan) and I feel like they are either going to throw away everything down the toilet because "it's old therefore bad".
Or again, it's peculiar vision could be drastically changed for the sake of diversity and modernity (why should we make uhura more important when we can make kirk secretly gay for spock?) things like that.
That's what I fear about remakes. They always look promising, but in the end they almost never get things right. So far I've only enjoyed Lost in Space and Space Battleship Yamato 2199
I will make my children watch TOS before they can like anything newer, I think that there is a certain timeframe where offsprings are too young to care about CGI but still they can enjoy deep thoughts about humanity ethics and such.
But guys I would tell you all a big lie if I were to say I wouldn't like to see Kirk and bones on the Discoprise.
But guys I would tell you all a big lie if I were to say I wouldn't like to see Kirk and bones on the Discoprise.
Or they could go all the way and actually get an actor from India.
I generally don't have a problem with this. I have a problem with them trying to sell the characters as the same ones we saw in the 1960's (same with the Enterprise). They aren't and can never be those versions of the characters.
Or they could go all the way and actually get an actor from India.
I generally don't have a problem with this. I have a problem with them trying to sell the characters as the same ones we saw in the 1960's (same with the Enterprise). They aren't and can never be those versions of the characters.
Even better honestly, as long as they get a good actor that knows the role and is truthful to Khan overall appearance. Unlike Discovery spock where the actor is quite similar to Nimoy but the makeup makes him so different that I had to rewatch twice the last scene from DSC season 2 because I couldn't believe my eyes
India has a thriving film industry, I don't think one would have any problem finding a talented performer.
They were probably out of money by that point in the season. I agree that the makeup was really lackluster. No hint of yellow or green to his complexion. He just looked like your average SoCal pool boy with pointy ears and a bowl haircut.
Especially newer indian productions, although asian movies usually lack of realism in a surreal way (Bollywood and Japanese productions in particular) there are some real gems there that the western society don't even know about
He's gesturing to a woman seated at and operating the library computer. There are photos which show this. They just didn't use those angles in the edits we've seen. @alchemist posted the following photo once, and the (long-gone ) user TGT shared it. Hereit is:
TNG did its share of predictions as well. Though is anything really a prediction? There's always a seed of an idea that blooms and blossoms.
That TOS clip is astoundingly good for what it is. But the cost would make DS9's restoration minuscule by comparison. Colorization of b/w material is one thing, which is already deemed contentious...
The DS9 upscaling segments - some "enhanced" clips show zero improvement (e.g. Bashir). Others do sport some visible edge enhancement - good edge enhancement - but the SD limitations are still very much present in even those. The fact they're avoiding certain types of images that would not benefit from the techno-chicanery doesn't help either.
My favorite TNG prediction is in "The Naked Now" (1987), when Mr. Data has to research Riker's vague memory of someone taking a shower with their clothes on. Data sits at a computer monitor and personally views every page of text and pictures that the Federation has on file. He has to sit there and look at every page sequentially, at high speed, with his android eyes. Billions of pages. It takes hours, if I recall.
The implication is that if the ship didn't have Mr. Data on board, they simply would not find the stored information they needed.
I can't wait for that glorious future, when we finally have the androids who can search our computers for us.
I've always thought that the R was a nickname Mitchell had for Kirk at the Academy rather than a mistake! Although it wasn't an error as such as the T actually came later in the series and not revealed until the cartoon show!
Although I think they've retconned the R into a novel now haven't they? 
JB
My favorite TNG prediction is in "The Naked Now" (1987), when Mr. Data has to research Riker's vague memory of someone taking a shower with their clothes on. Data sits at a computer monitor and personally views every page of text and pictures that the Federation has on file. He has to sit there and look at every page sequentially, at high speed, with his android eyes. Billions of pages. It takes hours, if I recall.
The implication is that if the ship didn't have Mr. Data on board, they simply would not find the stored information they needed.
I can't wait for that glorious future, when we finally have the androids who can search our computers for us.
Some predictions coming out as "not true" don't bother me too much. In Space Seed we learn that there was a WWIII that wiped out half of the human race in the mid 90's.
That didn't happen fortunately!
But some other predictions sure bothers me a lot, like in a season 5 episode of Voyager (1995) when the doctor says that the internet was just a temporary fashion that was already over in the early 2000.
I can understand why in the 90's they thought that internet was not gonna be a big thing, but since the federation is still using a internet-like technology in the late 24th century I'd say that it's a dumb statement
I'm comparing the show to our timeline because in-show they do that a lot of times.
The 4th movie, some TNG and some VOY episodes specifically show us the difference between the 20th century and the 23rd or 24th century.
We can compare that, it's in the lore within the same universe.
You can argue that we don't have replicators and warp-speed space travel and that's why our culture is different, but since ENT and First Contact tell us how technology evolved from the early 21st to the late 22nd we have a lot more data to add to the equation
If you looked at TOS in the 60s you could believe that the TOS enterprise was the pinnacle of technology, but try ask someone to compare TOS bridge, the Millenium falcon Cockpit and Discoprise bridge and to tell you what is the more advanced of those.
Probably TOS bridge will underperform the millennium falcon even if there is a 10 years difference between them and the TOS bridge is way more accurate technology-wise
Never mind what it looks like. Look at how the tech is used and what it does. Conceptually the current Discoprise is no more advanced than the TOS Enterprise. It just has the current trend in what looks kewl in hardware.
In the ‘50s-60s a lot of sci-fi spaceships had smooth looking hulls that suggested very advanced construction and engineering techniques far exceeding what we could imagine. How could the TOS E have such slender looking nacelle pylons with massive warp engines atop them and not experience any structural and torsional issues?—what the hell is this thing made of and how does it work?
In the ‘70s the look of sci-fi hardware changed with plastering the hulls and interiors with lots of physical detailing to look more techy. The future now looked more industrial. But the hardware in film and television didn’t perform any better than before—it just looked different.
The hardware in current sci-fi doesn’t look as advanced today as they try to explain how it all works with reams of technobbable and make it look like it could be manufactured today or next week. In ST09 you even glimpse them welding the ships together.
Matt Jefferies knew what NASA was up to and he chose to use shape and how equipment functions (based on general principles) to convey the idea of far future technology rather than trying to explain how everything works and detailing every screw and button.
If a citizen of the 19th century saw a current 21st century airliner that had gone back in time somehow it would look fantastical and magical. He/she might make some reasonable guesses on how it works, but so much would be beyond them. Aesthetically it wouldn’t fit the look of what advancing technology and engineering envisioned a century ago.
Indeed I think some modern jetliners look more futuristic than a lot of current Trek hardware. A lot of contemporary Trek hardware also have terrible and awkward proportions. The JJprise and Discoprise are ugly and ungainly. They look more like sloppy kitbashing than something given a lot of thought.
I could certainly quibble on certain things in TOS and in some ways I could wish fixing them somehow. Example: the computer terminals in the briefing room look fantastic, but some other terminals look very 1950s and clunky. Too bad they couldn’t make them all look more like the briefing room terminals.
You want to see some really cool looking hardware that still works and is conceptually similar to the TOS E? Look at Klaatu’s spaceship, especially the interior, from 1951’s The Day The Earth Stood Still.
In the ‘50s-60s a lot of sci-fi spaceships had smooth looking hulls that suggested very advanced construction and engineering techniques far exceeding what we could imagine. How could the TOS E have such slender looking nacelle pylons with massive warp engines atop them and not experience any structural and torsional issues?—what the hell is this thing made of and how does it work?
In the ‘70s the look of sci-fi hardware changed with plastering the hulls and interiors with lots of physical detailing to look more techy. The future now looked more industrial. But the hardware in film and television didn’t perform any better than before—it just looked different.
The hardware in current sci-fi doesn’t look as advanced today as they try to explain how it all works with reams of technobbable and make it look like it could be manufactured today or next week. In ST09 you even glimpse them welding the ships together.
Matt Jefferies knew what NASA was up to and he chose to use shape and how equipment functions (based on general principles) to convey the idea of far future technology rather than trying to explain how everything works and detailing every screw and button.
If a citizen of the 19th century saw a current 21st century airliner that had gone back in time somehow it would look fantastical and magical. He/she might make some reasonable guesses on how it works, but so much would be beyond them. Aesthetically it wouldn’t fit the look of what advancing technology and engineering envisioned a century ago.
Indeed I think some modern jetliners look more futuristic than a lot of current Trek hardware. A lot of contemporary Trek hardware also have terrible and awkward proportions. The JJprise and Discoprise are ugly and ungainly. They look more like sloppy kitbashing than something given a lot of thought.
I could certainly quibble on certain things in TOS and in some ways I could wish fixing them somehow. Example: the computer terminals in the briefing room look fantastic, but some other terminals look very 1950s and clunky. Too bad they couldn’t make them all look more like the briefing room terminals.
You want to see some really cool looking hardware that still works and is conceptually similar to the TOS E? Look at Klaatu’s spaceship, especially the interior, from 1951’s The Day The Earth Stood Still.
In the day the earth stood still they also did a wonderful robot costume that still looks quite advanced to this day simply by hiding the closing mechanism of the costume in a way that it couldn't be visible onscreen.
The JJprise is not an ugly spaceship: it is just uglier than the TOS enterprise (according to the people who loved TOS).
The discoprise is not ugly: it is just different from what we see on TOS: the hull is more detailed and feature a lot of industrial-like features.
The only real difference is that the nacelles are fattier and have more led lights than the TOS counterpart.
The JJprise is not an ugly spaceship: it is just uglier than the TOS enterprise (according to the people who loved TOS).
The discoprise is not ugly: it is just different from what we see on TOS: the hull is more detailed and feature a lot of industrial-like features.
The only real difference is that the nacelles are fattier and have more led lights than the TOS counterpart.
Also, this is just my personal opinion tho, there are videos that try to show that the TOS design is superior like this one:
And they fail miserably for one simple reason: that they don't show the real TOS spaceship, they feature a CGI enhanced model of the TOS enterprise, with an entirely different lightning system and a powerful rendering engine, different color schemes from the TOS one etc
And they pretend you to buy that the TOS version is superior.
Ahem... The real TOS version is this one
And they fail miserably for one simple reason: that they don't show the real TOS spaceship, they feature a CGI enhanced model of the TOS enterprise, with an entirely different lightning system and a powerful rendering engine, different color schemes from the TOS one etc
And they pretend you to buy that the TOS version is superior.
Ahem... The real TOS version is this one
Another feature of current sci-fi: lighting. Lighting is used to convey something happening.
It’s not really new, but can be overdone.
The Enterprise in TOS’ first two pilots had no lighting except for windows (and the 1st pilot didn’t even have that). But the series’ version of the ship had spinning domes in the warp engines to convey powerful energies at work. In TOS you never actually saw a tractor beam, but you accepted its existence because, like today, a lot of energies themselves are never actually seen, but we see the results of them at work. In the original version of “The Naked Time” we didn’t see the phaser beam as Scotty is cutting open a bulkhead (yes, I know, they ran out of time to add it in post production), but the result onscreen as is was very cool and convincing. Later they added the visible beam back in and it’s not cool anymore.
The TMP E didn’t have spinning warp engine domes, but just a bit of lighting along the nacelles. But they did make the nav deflector light up and change colour to convey something different happening—one can debate whether that works or not. Later in TNG all the Starfleet ships are lighted along the full length of their nacelles and they pulse when going to warp. Is it effective or does it look cartoony? In TNG tractor beams are visible and it always looks cartoony.
Now GR initially considered adding some sort of lighting along the inboard length of the nacelles (there is a copy of a memo referencing this floating around somewhere), but at the time it was considered too costly to remake the nacelles to incorporate this so they dismissed the idea. What we saw onscreen as is did not suffer for it. And what I’ve seen in later designs with the nacelles lighted inboard convinces me it looks better without that inboard lighting.
And, yeah, the JJprise and Discoprise are ugly as shit. A contemporary automotive analogy is all those cars and trucks with ridiculously oversized grills and performance cars with all kinds of absurd and pointless aerodynamic skirts, wings, vents and diffusers to convey the idea of power and high speed capability. It’s a fad and it’s all ugly as hell.
It’s not really new, but can be overdone.
The Enterprise in TOS’ first two pilots had no lighting except for windows (and the 1st pilot didn’t even have that). But the series’ version of the ship had spinning domes in the warp engines to convey powerful energies at work. In TOS you never actually saw a tractor beam, but you accepted its existence because, like today, a lot of energies themselves are never actually seen, but we see the results of them at work. In the original version of “The Naked Time” we didn’t see the phaser beam as Scotty is cutting open a bulkhead (yes, I know, they ran out of time to add it in post production), but the result onscreen as is was very cool and convincing. Later they added the visible beam back in and it’s not cool anymore.
The TMP E didn’t have spinning warp engine domes, but just a bit of lighting along the nacelles. But they did make the nav deflector light up and change colour to convey something different happening—one can debate whether that works or not. Later in TNG all the Starfleet ships are lighted along the full length of their nacelles and they pulse when going to warp. Is it effective or does it look cartoony? In TNG tractor beams are visible and it always looks cartoony.
Now GR initially considered adding some sort of lighting along the inboard length of the nacelles (there is a copy of a memo referencing this floating around somewhere), but at the time it was considered too costly to remake the nacelles to incorporate this so they dismissed the idea. What we saw onscreen as is did not suffer for it. And what I’ve seen in later designs with the nacelles lighted inboard convinces me it looks better without that inboard lighting.
And, yeah, the JJprise and Discoprise are ugly as shit. A contemporary automotive analogy is all those cars and trucks with ridiculously oversized grills and performance cars with all kinds of absurd and pointless aerodynamic skirts, wings, vents and diffusers to convey the idea of power and high speed capability. It’s a fad and it’s all ugly as hell.
The first sentence from your comment is somehow debunked by the part that I erased on my reply.
If they decided to add the lights on the miniature model eventually everyone would have loved that design and if someone in the future asked to remove the leds from the enterprise because "lightning doesn't indicate real technology it's just a cgi effect" then you would have the opposite opinion.
The same can be said with star wars lightsabers: lasers are not visible with naked eye, nor they can be 1meter long only, but still lightsabers look cool and they are an irreplaceable item from star wars. No sane SW fan would ask for the laserswords to be more realistic (so invisible and extremely long) but rather they decided that the author was wrong and those are not made of lasers but rather plasma.
In the old star wars canon they even recognized that they are made of plasma, because Lucas clearly was wrong in the sciency stuff.
L A S E R S W O R D
So yeah, sentiment over scify technology changes with time, but in the 60s they clearly had no idea on how technology could have changed, and again I must remember you the fact that in TOS the enterprise uses a voice recognition technology over a magnetic tape storage similar to VHS.
When humanity will be able to achieve such system I will change my mind, but to me it appears more likely that you can get telecinetic powers rather than a magnetic-tape based computer with voice recognition capabilities of any kind.
As for the "JJprise and Discoprise are ugly" argument, that's your opinion and if you feel like that I cannot change the way you look at the world.
But honestly if you say that those are ugly it's just because you like the old version and you are afraid that the new versions could dethrone the TOS enterprise in some way, like she is your daughter and you tell her she is the most beautiful girl on the planet even if it is not true at all
They’re ugly from a design point of view. The TMP E is different from the TOS E, but it still works. The JJ and Discoprise are horribly ungainly and with terrible visual balance.
The TNG E looked okay from some angles and visually ungainly in others.
There are a lot of new things that look better than before—not everything old is gold. But not everything new is automatically gold either.
The TNG E looked okay from some angles and visually ungainly in others.
There are a lot of new things that look better than before—not everything old is gold. But not everything new is automatically gold either.
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