Thought exercise: One VOY episode with an unlimited budget?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
- Start date
Easy.
Threshold, of course!
Who wouldn't want to see angst-ridden Tom, delving into the core of his insecurities? The iconic scene where he spits out his own tongue in exquisite and believable detail? His and Janeway's lizard progeny? All done in the highest quality imaginable.
Threshold, of course!
Who wouldn't want to see angst-ridden Tom, delving into the core of his insecurities? The iconic scene where he spits out his own tongue in exquisite and believable detail? His and Janeway's lizard progeny? All done in the highest quality imaginable.
"In The Flesh" - I'm sure the cgi was really good for what was possible at the time, but it could be massively improved.
None . . . ? The visual effects still hold up. I was thinking about saying "Timeless" and then realized that there aren't many effects shots that need to be redone. But maybe there could be additional space battle scenes between the Delta Flyer and the Challenger.
Unlimited budget? Don't even need to go that far, I suppose just a few extra bucks would have been sufficient to have Bride of Chaotica decently shot in color.
Joking aside though. I find it really hard to come up with an episode that would benefit the most. I suppose I think while special effects, actors, etc. aren't perfect by any stretch, they generally do the job well enough that raising them to today's finest possible standards wouldn't do that much for me to enhance the story. Would I enjoy Macrocosm more if the viruses were more realistically rendered? (whatever'realistically' might mean in the case of macroviruses) . Possibly, yes, but not that much.
Most of the issues I have with Voyager are with the writing, and if the script isn't up to specs, an unlimited budget isn't going to fix it (short of hiring some very good writers to rewrite the script itself, of course), as I tried to indicate in my Threshold reaction (even though I still happen to like Threshold on some points).
Joking aside though. I find it really hard to come up with an episode that would benefit the most. I suppose I think while special effects, actors, etc. aren't perfect by any stretch, they generally do the job well enough that raising them to today's finest possible standards wouldn't do that much for me to enhance the story. Would I enjoy Macrocosm more if the viruses were more realistically rendered? (whatever'realistically' might mean in the case of macroviruses) . Possibly, yes, but not that much.
Most of the issues I have with Voyager are with the writing, and if the script isn't up to specs, an unlimited budget isn't going to fix it (short of hiring some very good writers to rewrite the script itself, of course), as I tried to indicate in my Threshold reaction (even though I still happen to like Threshold on some points).
Hiring top-tier writers (perhaps the best on the planet) is definitely a perk of working with infinite dough.
^ If you say so, it's your game. (and of course, it's true in real life).
But if massive rewrites would be needed, at what point would you stop calling it being still the same episode?
But if massive rewrites would be needed, at what point would you stop calling it being still the same episode?
Ah, the Ship of Theseus conundrum...
All I can say is that I'll let you decide what qualifies for a "massive" alteration.
"Timeless". The CGI is passable, but even in the mid-90s better was achievable, and the moment the ship bounces off the ice floor, everyone would be splattered on the inside (So adding some CGI goo to the obligatory walkaround scene wouldn't have hurt., ironically...)
The fun begins at 4:24.
And who made those tracks that appear at 4:33.5, just before the ship flies overhead? There's critters on that planet. Animate some of them too.
The fun begins at 4:24.
And who made those tracks that appear at 4:33.5, just before the ship flies overhead? There's critters on that planet. Animate some of them too.
Endgame and a massive homecoming and coda to rival Return of the King.
Tuvix. The unlimited budget should be used to recreate the episode as a 3 hour musical starring William Shatner in every role. It will be shot at an unprecedented 1024 FPS and at a resolution so high anyone who looks at it will become an insufferable braggart. All copies of the episode should be destroyed as a publicity stunt only for it to resurface on the infranet decades later.
YMMV, but I think as a thought-experiment, it's fine to re-write an episode and turn it into a season-long story. (I'm very happy with what we got for Year of Hell, but making Year of Hell last a season would be a reasonable answer.)
^Great. Now I'm picturing a season-long version of Threshold ...
Endgame. Extend it to a full season to incorporate the Silver Blood as originally suggested, make it a Silver Blood invasion of Earth with multiple Voyager duplicates and turn it into a ‘what happened to the real Voyager?’ story - which Silver Blood Admiral Janeway would try to figure out - and give Voyager a better homecoming. Hire better writers to craft a better ending.
I'd reshoot most (if not all) the Kazon episodes. The space fights, the fights at close quarters, their ships inside and outside ... anything really that is related to the Kazon could do with a revamp, I think.
This is probably also true of the stories although I am okay with most of what we got. Still, a bit more tension wouldn't go amiss ...
And I'd start with the Kazon themselves, that tree foliage on their heads should definitely go ...
This is probably also true of the stories although I am okay with most of what we got. Still, a bit more tension wouldn't go amiss ...
And I'd start with the Kazon themselves, that tree foliage on their heads should definitely go ...
Another vote for "Timeless". I'd love to see what that crash sequence would look like with an unlimited budget.
More like the saucer crash in GEN, if it had been a worst-case scenario.
Part of me always wondered whether anyone survived that crash or whether they all died on impact. Honestly, the former sounds even worse than the latter.
More like the saucer crash in GEN, if it had been a worst-case scenario.
Part of me always wondered whether anyone survived that crash or whether they all died on impact. Honestly, the former sounds even worse than the latter.
There's nothing like enough story in Threshold for a season-long version. Even if it wasn't obvious so quickly that warp 10 turns you in to a lizard, so they tried to get Voyager to go a warp 10, then everyone except the EMH and Kes (for plot reasons) didn't turn in to lizards and the two of them have to spend a lot of time finding some of the lizards who decided to take shuttles to go exploring.Was that really an early draft of Endgame? I would totally watch that.
I think they all died pretty quickly because if anyone had survived for long, the bodies of the crew wouldn't have been left where they fell. Do you think the inertial dampners were offline? Do they work if a spaceship crashes in to a planet or are they just for when the spaceship is in space?
They did initally plan for biomimetic lifeforms i.e. Silver Blood in the finale. They abandoned it because thought it would undermine the return of the real Voyager.
They actually had a bunch of ideas for the biomimetic lifeforms, including the crew’s return at DS9, a Silver Blood invasion, and Janeway killing her fiancé Mark upon the crew's return to Earth . That’s where the whole fireworks scene at the beginning of the finale comes from. But they never planned for more than a two-parter with the Silver Blood.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Endgame_(episode)#Story_and_script
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wik...ger_episodes#Biomimetic_lifeforms'_homecoming
