Up until a few days ago I don't think I ever realised that the phasers in TWOK were the same as in TMP In any case, these CGI versions look beautifully slick and modern, very suitable for the refit era
I wonder why they changed the trigger? I can understand the cosmetic changes, since it was going to be seen in close up more than it was in TMP, but the trigger seems such a odd thing to alter?
The other prop it looks like it's been taped on. If you have to tape it on when it's not in use, I'm betting it was falling apart all the time so they went another direction.
Hey Donny, do you know how that blue TWOK phaser that Commodore Miles posted earlier fits into all this? The separation line is much more noticeable than the tight one on your model and a lot of the reference images. Also, the grip in that photo looks somewhat more organic with subtle curves in spots that, again, aren't seen on your model and whether the other reference images exhibit it or not is hard to see.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the TWOK phasers started out as stunt phasers from TMP, which would explain the softer detail, the simplified trigger and the fact that the control panel is just a sticker.
I admit I idealized the details of the TWOK phaser to be a bit more "tight around the edges" than the TWOK phaser reference pic @Commodore Miles posted yesterday. I don't like the softness of the separation line, and because the subtle curves in the grips of both the TMP phaser and TWOK phaser reference pics look somewhat arbitrary, I decided to model the grips of both as a uniformly shaped piece, albeit with that "bump" where the trigger is. However, I believe the phaser Miles posted is indeed a screen-used hero phaser from TWOK, but after careful study, I think it's a stunt phaser from TMP converted into a hero phaser from TWOK. I think this accounts for the rounder, sloppier separation line. And we see this same "keypad" design on the TMP stunt phaser and this hero TWOK phaser, both of which do not have the square impressed indicator lights of the TMP hero, but instead a printed graphic. I think they added some working lights to a TMP stunt phaser for it's use in TWOK. Anyway, like I said, I Idealized my TWOK phaser to fit the more graceful look of the TMP hero, but with the different control panel, surface finish, cylindrical trigger, slightly different glass cylinder up top, and rainbow hologram strip. [EDIT] Looks like Miles beat me to it!
Thats pretty close, but if you closely at the actual prop only the 4 buttons on the left hand side had lights, and there is only one white line on the front square on the right hand side as opposed to two on all the others, also there should still be a lip/line over the top of the beam emitter like on the TMP phaser. Your TMP phaser looks perfect BTW.
Yes, somebody probably stole/lost the hero phasers from TMP so they were stuck having to use the stunts for TWOK.
Good points! But the reason I added lights to the right side control panels was becasue we can see lights on both sides of Kirk's phaser here: movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok-dc-hd/chapter13/st2-twok-dc-1710.jpg However, I can easily remove one of the white lines from the front square. However, I think I'm going to stick with the lip being absent on the top of the emitter. Like I said, I idealized a few things to my liking
I hadn't ever noticed that apparently De Kelley was holding down the trigger in that scene, as the forward beam emitter was lit up, whereas Shatner's wasn't. Bad firearms discipline for De!
I'm just going off the TrekCore screencaps here; I'll pop the movie in later to verify, but it looks like the buttons on McCoy's phaser don't light up the way Kirk's do. I wonder if there was just one really nice hero prop (used by Kirk and later Terrell), and the others maybe just had a light-up emitter, but not the more complex blinking lights on the top.
Finished renders of the TMP & TWOK phasers! I've used the name "Atalskes Phaser Corporation" and the model number "Phaser IV" from MSGTTE as the description on the footer. The "Mk I" and "Mk II" is to differentiate between the TMP and TWOK models. There's nearly 15 years canonically between the two movies so I figured we can just explain that the TWOK phaser is a later model of the same line of phasers. TMP: TWOK: And the two together: Which would you want to have by your side in a phaser fight?
Kirk sure does look badass in this frame: Too bad we never got to see what kind of FX they'd have used for the TMP phaser, had we ever got to see it fire.