STAR TREK V DIRECTOR´S CUT

[Maurice]

I dunno where anyone gets the notion that Bran Ferren had too little money. The VFX budget for TFF was higher than for TVH. Perhaps it's where they chose to spend the money rather than a matter of a paltry sum. His facility wasn't set up with many of the needs of a Star Trek movie and motion control miniature photography, so he was simply the wrong choice to begin with.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Look, we can’t even get 4K restorations if most of the original films or anything more than repressings of the original series for the 50th anniversary. They’re not gonna spend the cash. If we get an upscale dad and redone DE for TMP we’ll be lucky.

 

[Vger23]

Look, we can’t even get 4K restorations if most of the original films or anything more than repressings of the original series for the 50th anniversary. They’re not gonna spend the cash. If we get an upscale dad and redone DE for TMP we’ll be lucky.

Sad, but I agree.

I see some of the turkeys that are getting 4K releases and I can't believe Trek doesn't get it....but some bean counter somewhere has figured it out I guess.

 

[Smellmet]

Sad, but I agree.

I see some of the turkeys that are getting 4K releases and I can't believe Trek doesn't get it....but some bean counter somewhere has figured it out I guess.

It's sad to admit it, but these films are quickly becoming forgotten.

 

[Vger23]

It's sad to admit it, but these films are quickly becoming forgotten.

True...and completely unfair. The TOS Trek films really were genre classics from the 80's, and almost all of them were financially significant.

 

[Ssosmcin]

While I wouldn't go so far as calling the Star Trek movies "genre classics," they did turn a good profit for Paramount for the most part and led to Star Trek going from "cult classic" to "franchise." However, Paramount never seemed to have any idea how to manage the property and it never seemed to live up to its potential.

There was a moment in time when the original Star Trek was at a legitimate high point. The mid-80's were such a great time. A movie every two years, reruns everywhere and home video and Shatner and Nimoy had clout.

 

[FormerLurker]

And that's after the special effects fiasco which, to be fair to both Shatner and Paramount, was not entirely the fault of either. (Or even of Bran Ferren's - he simply wasn't given the budget or time needed.)

Except much of it, even most of it, WAS Bran Ferren's fault. Bran Ferren did big budget films repeatedly, and every time they did the same thing; concentrate all their efforts on one prestige effect that wasn't for the finale, and then do slapdash, cheap work for the rest of the film, shorting the finale in the process. I've pointed this out before, but I'll say it again: for the film Second Sight, with Bronson Pinchot and John Larroquette, there is a brilliantly executed effect of Pinchot and several props spinning in midair around a room early in the film, and the big effect for the finale of a jetliner being piloted down the streets of Boston bathed in an unearthly glow is acheived by Scratching The Emulsion Off The Film With A Ball Point Pen. Bran Ferren was often his own worst enemy.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Except much of it, even most of it, WAS Bran Ferren's fault. Bran Ferren did big budget films repeatedly, and every time they did the same thing; concentrate all their efforts on one prestige effect that wasn't for the finale, and then do slapdash, cheap work for the rest of the film, shorting the finale in the process. I've pointed this out before, but I'll say it again: for the film Second Sight, with Bronson Pinchot and John Larroquette, there is a brilliantly executed effect of Pinchot and several props spinning in midair around a room early in the film, and the big effect for the finale of a jetliner being piloted down the streets of Boston bathed in an unearthly glow is acheived by Scratching The Emulsion Off The Film With A Ball Point Pen. Bran Ferren was often his own worst enemy.

Which shot would you consider the prestige effect in ST5? The “god beam” passing the Enterprise was pretty fantastic. It’s hard to believe the same team who made that, slid a static still of the model across the screen for the escape from the Klingon torpedo.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Except much of it, even most of it, WAS Bran Ferren's fault. Bran Ferren did big budget films repeatedly, and every time they did the same thing; concentrate all their efforts on one prestige effect that wasn't for the finale, and then do slapdash, cheap work for the rest of the film, shorting the finale in the process. I've pointed this out before, but I'll say it again: for the film Second Sight, with Bronson Pinchot and John Larroquette, there is a brilliantly executed effect of Pinchot and several props spinning in midair around a room early in the film, and the big effect for the finale of a jetliner being piloted down the streets of Boston bathed in an unearthly glow is acheived by Scratching The Emulsion Off The Film With A Ball Point Pen. Bran Ferren was often his own worst enemy.

I sure didn't know all that about Ferren. I was going off what Wikipedia said: Ferren had been given three months to come up with all the effects (half the usual industry timeframe), with Shatner insisting on test-viewing every shot and ordering changes if he didn't like what he saw. (After TMP's Memory Wall & other FX headaches, understandable.) Ferren told Paramount 'This is how much I'll need to get it all done by then,' Paramount balked and said no, Ferren shrugged and started cutting every corner possible.

 

[FormerLurker]

Which shot would you consider the prestige effect in ST5? The “god beam” passing the Enterprise was pretty fantastic. It’s hard to believe the same team who made that, slid a static still of the model across the screen for the escape from the Klingon torpedo.

The "god beam" is a good choice. Sha Ka Ree itself isn't bad, with its swirling aura. They got away with stuff because a lot of the cheap effects looked better than they were. Their biggest problem is working with large models. They just weren't equipped for that.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I remember the first time I saw the bird of prey swooping in to attack the shuttlecraft and the bridge section went right up to the screen. Even though the effects at that point we’re still kind of wobbly, even my jaded friend next to me said “sick!”

There were a handful of nice model shots but mostly it was shockingly bad. Especially coming off the previous films. ILM wasn’t flawless either: the screaming Nazi in the falling tank in the same years Indy Jones movie was an obvious puppet and the blue screen of Indy and Henry in the plane against Nazi pilots was hideous even then. But ILM knew how to do space ships.

 

[Vger23]

While I wouldn't go so far as calling the Star Trek movies "genre classics," they did turn a good profit for Paramount for the most part and led to Star Trek going from "cult classic" to "franchise." However, Paramount never seemed to have any idea how to manage the property and it never seemed to live up to its potential.

There was a moment in time when the original Star Trek was at a legitimate high point. The mid-80's were such a great time. A movie every two years, reruns everywhere and home video and Shatner and Nimoy had clout.

I was perhaps a little over zealous with my characterization. I just meant it was one of those "staple movie franchises" of the 80's that were so memorable (Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Karate Kid, etc etc). Agree they are not "classics" by the most strict definition!

Which shot would you consider the prestige effect in ST5? The “god beam” passing the Enterprise was pretty fantastic. It’s hard to believe the same team who made that, slid a static still of the model across the screen for the escape from the Klingon torpedo.

\\

The God Beam is a great effect. The image of the Enterprise in front of the moon is also pretty cool. I'm one of the people who actually likes the weird, glow-y, Great Barrier effects (though I think there should have been more of the Enterprise interacting with the effect). Maybe the exterior shot of the shuttle crash. Other than that.....not much to be proud of.

 

[Vger23]

I remember the first time I saw the bird of prey swooping in to attack the shuttlecraft and the bridge section went right up to the screen. Even though the effects at that point we’re still kind of wobbly, even my jaded friend next to me said “sick!”

There were a handful of nice model shots but mostly it was shockingly bad. Especially coming off the previous films. ILM wasn’t flawless either: the screaming Nazi in the falling tank in the same years Indy Jones movie was an obvious puppet and the blue screen of Indy and Henry in the plane against Nazi pilots was hideous even then. But ILM knew how to do space ships.

I actually think ILM's work on Star Trek never quite measured up to the consistency they had on Star Wars. After TWOK, the model work was hit-or-miss at best. You'd have some great and then some crappy stuff in any given film. TUC was probably the most inconsistent. TSFS was probably the best. Nobody at ILM ever made the ships look as good as TMP, though. I'm not sure how the TMP crew would have handled some of the more dynamic stuff....but man, what they did for TMP still looks superior to this day.

 

[Grant]

I think one of the more surprising things about the model shots from Star Trek V was the fact that they didn't just give in and use more stock footage from the first four movies. I know that they they're paying for new shots for most of the scenes but sometimes you have to be practical --there were shots in the script that they left out of the movie entirely because they didn't have the budget or the time to complete them that could have easily been filled with stock footage of the Enterprise from previous movies. One was they were supposed to have the ship go to warp after Kirk has his little speech and says he misses his chair and one was when they show a plain Starfield while Kirk his reading into the faulty log device and another is where they once again show just a Starfield just before Kirk and McCoy go to visit Spock in the forward observation room before they reach the planet -- all three of those shots could have been filled in with very attractive shots from the first four movies.
There are also a couple of shots of the bird of prey that could have been reused so that the effects team could concentrate I'm shots that absolutely positively had to be new.

 

[Vger23]

I think one of the more surprising things about the model shots from Star Trek V was the fact that they didn't just give in and use more stock footage from the first four movies. I know that they they're paying for new shots for most of the scenes but sometimes you have to be practical --there were shots in the script that they left out of the movie entirely because they didn't have the budget or the time to complete them that could have easily been filled with stock footage of the Enterprise from previous movies. One was they were supposed to have the ship go to warp after Kirk has his little speech and says he misses his chair and one was when they show a plain Starfield while Kirk his reading into the faulty log device and another is where they once again show just a Starfield just before Kirk and McCoy go to visit Spock in the forward observation room before they reach the planet -- all three of those shots could have been filled in with very attractive shots from the first four movies.
There are also a couple of shots of the bird of prey that could have been reused so that the effects team could concentrate I'm shots that absolutely positively had to be new.

I wonder if it's mostly because the older model shots don't have the "NCC-1701-A " on the hull.

 

[Grant]

I wonder if it's mostly because the older model shots don't have the "NCC-1701-A " on the hull.

From some angles definitely yes but there's a lot of angles where that "A" would be not seen unless you were specifically looking for a tiny little a after the one. Obviously not shots of the forward top of the hull.
Two and a half years after Star Trek the motion picture they used eight or nine shots from the original movie. So two and a half years after Star Trek 4 they could have used at least the shot of the Enterprise A going to warp speed from the end of Star Trek 4.
Also there are shots of the Enterprise at warp speed where you can't see if there's an A or not

 

[Nightowl1701]

For all we know, there were recycled stock shots in the 20 minutes Bennett cut, and were cut for precisely that reason: "Eh, they've seen that before. We got lucky getting away with that in II - don't want them to think we're slumming it."

 

[Grant]

We knew they were slumming it as soon as we saw the new shots. And there's no way that they could have thought that simple star fields would be better than a recycled shot. Star Trek 2 used recycled shots Star Trek 4 used recycled shots and then Star Trek 5 was too high and mighty to let the audience see that they were using a recycled shot?

 

[Ssosmcin]

The establishing shot of the Enterprise in spacedock was a reused shot from TVH. At least one of the star fields was from Star Trek II (maybe both? - one of them looks really blurry, the other not). The recycled sets were easy enough to spot.

And jeez, of Generations could swipe the BoP exploding in hugely memorable fashion out of TUC, TVH could grab a few stock shots of the Enterprise and the Klingons/

 

[Grant]

Yes as soon as they saw that Ferren was falling behind schedule or turning in subpar special effects they should have told them to concentrate on what should have been a memorable scene of the Enterprise going through the barrier-- and go ahead and use as many stock shots as they possibly could from the previous movies. Just as was done with Star Trek II ALL the early shots of the Enterprise were from the first movie. That way they could save their time and energy for more important shots of the Enterprise in battle with the Reliant.
In fact the only new shot planned for the first part of Wrath of Khan was a shot of the Kobayashi Maru That was supposed to appear on screen as disabled. But for whatever reason they decided to simply not show Kobayashi Maru and save whatever money it would have cost to create the graphic on screen