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BLANK TRICORDER SCREENS

Now that CG has reached its current level of sophistication I am hoping it can help me fix one of my personal TOS pet peeves.

In countless incidents a crew member (usually Spock) looks at their tricorder and announces its readings. The problem is that the viewer can clearly see that the screen is blank.

I would love to see an update placing data on that blank screen.
The screen and buttonss project images right into your eyes. It's a security method and distraction reducer, while improving practicality.
 
The displays on the bridge used to confuse me as a youngster! I was never sure if they were meant to be pictures (which they actually were) or screens depicting the outside of the ship or just images of various space phenomena that the ship had recently encountered!
A couple of the overhead screens showed rear-projected images in a number of episodes. I assume they weren't used more often because of the time and labor involved in setting up and rigging slide projectors.

Link: Using Those Overhead Bridge Screens
 
In countless incidents a crew member (usually Spock) looks at their tricorder and announces its readings. The problem is that the viewer can clearly see that the screen is blank.

My laptop viewer is usually blank, too - to anybody looking at it at an angle other than dead ahead.

Granted, it's not completely blank from quite all angles outside mine, but I'm sure future polarizing filters can do better than today's.

Timo Saloniemi
 
What Shatner quicky figured out is you can put a fingertip on one of the hinge discs and thus can control the lid. You can make it flip open only so far, and you can confidently snap it shut without the lid bouncing.
 
Diversity in imagery is what I would like to see.

Were I to make a bridge, the overhead screens would be rear projection, with smart phone screens in cubby holes, and Spock’s station a CRT...different levels of warmth
 
Here's a radical thought along those same lines... What if they made CGI renders of 1960s Shatner, Nimoy, and the other actors' faces and digitally placed them over the sometime super-obvious stuntmen in the fight scenes? We're at a point now that with enough time and budget, they could pull it off convincingly.
 
Here's a radical thought along those same lines... What if they made CGI renders of 1960s Shatner, Nimoy, and the other actors' faces and digitally placed them over the sometime super-obvious stuntmen in the fight scenes? We're at a point now that with enough time and budget, they could pull it off convincingly.



You would have to replace the stunt doubles' bodies too. I remember one stunt double for Shatner was pretty big and pretty chunky. Shatner himself could get somewhat chunky but not THAT chunky. I mean, everytime I saw the guy, I would think of the Goodyear blimp.

Remember that scene in Jurassic Park where the drinks in the cups would ripple when the T Rex is walking? I can just see the drinks rippling whenever the big and chunky stunt double guy is walking around on the set. They must have reinforced the set floor with several tons of concrete for otherwise, the set would have been shaking violently every time the big dude took a step.

Moving on to a little change of subject, there's one obvious use of a double that shouldn't be too hard to fix using cgi. The close up of Scotty's hands on the transporter controls where all ten digits are intact.

Robert
 
You would have to replace the stunt doubles' bodies too. I remember one stunt double for Shatner was pretty big and pretty chunky. Shatner himself could get somewhat chunky but not THAT chunky. I mean, everytime I saw the guy, I would think of the Goodyear blimp.

Which scene is that?
 
If they did do CGI versions of Kirk, Spock & McCoy in the near future, would you want them to recreate the novelised adventures like The Klingon Gambit for instance or Assignment:Eternity for instance..? :shifty:
JB
 
If they did do CGI versions of Kirk, Spock & McCoy in the near future, would you want them to recreate the novelised adventures like The Klingon Gambit for instance or Assignment:Eternity for instance..? :shifty:
JB
some of the gold keys would be fun to have animated.
 
some of the gold keys would be fun to have animated.

I would have loved to see an early Gold Key Style fan film. Green uniforms (with only Spock in blue), tricorders as communicators, canteens and backpacks, giant transparent transporter chamber, submarine controls on the bridge and all.

"Great galloping galaxies!!!!"
 
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Which scene is that?


I'm exaggerating of course.

But it was a fight scene involving Kirk, I don't remember which episode, probably Court Martial or Space Seed.

I haven't been able to watch TOS for a long time so my memory can be foggy but if I remember right, this same guy who doubled for Shatner played a non speaking Enterprise crew member a few times. In The Trouble With Tribbles, I'm sure he was one of the crew sitting with Chekov and Scotty in the bar before the brawl.

Now that I think about it, in the DS9 tribute episode to TTWT, as a joke one of the DS9 people in the bar scene, O'Brien I think, mistakes this guy for Kirk.

I'm sure others here know who I'm talking about.

Robert
 
But it was a fight scene involving Kirk, I don't remember which episode, probably Court Martial or Space Seed.
Space Seed I believe is the one.
In The Trouble With Tribbles, I'm sure he was one of the crew sitting with Chekov and Scotty in the bar before the brawl.
You are correct.
Now that I think about it, in the DS9 tribute episode to TTWT, as a joke one of the DS9 people in the bar scene, O'Brien I think, mistakes this guy for Kirk.
Also, I believe this is correct too.
 
As I said I was exaggerating. He's not fat but every time I watched the fight scene in Space Seed, I couldn't help noticing Baxley was noticeably bigger and stockier than Shatner.

Robert
 
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