ST:TMP BluRay

[Jeyl]

And by the way, it's shit.

Well, I fail to see how that would improve things.

So, since your so skeptical on the effects work of ILM did on the later films (for which 2 and 3 combined still didn't reach TMPs budget), what's the point on nagging the effects? I like the effects in TWOK and TMP, but all I'm hearing from you is plastic toys and fu**** water tanks. Are you that cynical towards anything not-TMP?

Maybe it didn't occur to you when the budget for Wrath was 1/3 of the Motion Pictures budget, but when you're dealing with that much limitations you have to use run-of-the-mill techniques. If the Wrath of Khan had the same budget as The Motion Picture, I would agree with your points towards the movie's looks, but the Wrath of Khan didn't have a budget anywhere near The Motion Picture and thus couldn't afford to make up as many new techniques that The Motion Picture did.

 

[ST-One]

Just a note, in my view: ILM's work on the Trek movies was shit compared to TMP.

They do equal "bad".

Personally (and I know that it is a minority-opinion), I like the ILM paint-job on the Enterprise better.

But still, the Enterprise looks magnificent in that head-on dry-dock shot, always has, and now even more so.

 

[USS Mariner]

Nevermind that I said it is technically inferior to the things that TMP did.

Really? I thought you were calling the ships plastic toys and discriminating the nebula sequence as being shot in a fu**** water tank that you call run-of-the-mill. How is that not crap talk?

Well, it's a water tank, sometimes a water tank where fish fuck. Generally, it's just called a water tank.

It's pretty, but it isn't all that special. Is that collected enough of a response?

 

[USS Mariner]

And by the way, it's shit.

Well, I fail to see how that would improve things.

It puts less strain on the "8" key.

 

[USS Mariner]

Something I had not noticed before, in picture 16, the paint job on the nacelle seems to be in bad shape.

My fault, the video corrupted slightly during that grab.

Here is a slightly earlier shot of the E without so much flare, matching trevenian's.

This was always one of the weaker shots, but, boy, does it look bad now.

Anyway, I'm getting that BRD

Hell yes, though I'm probably going to wait for it to hit $20, and get a BD player for it.

 

[USS Mariner]

So, since your so skeptical on the effects work of ILM did on the later films (for which 2 and 3 combined still didn't reach TMPs budget), what's the point on nagging the effects? I like the effects in TWOK and TMP, but all I'm hearing from you is plastic toys and fu**** water tanks. Are you that cynical towards anything not-TMP?

Yes, because the effects on TMP were flawless across the board.

Just look at other ILM films and compare their effects work to their Trek stuff of the period. Tell me which films they put more effort into.

Maybe it didn't occur to you when the budget for Wrath was 1/3 of the Motion Pictures budget, but when you're dealing with that much limitations you have to use run-of-the-mill techniques. If the Wrath of Khan had the same budget as The Motion Picture, I would agree with that your points towards it's looks, but the Wrath of Khan didn't have a budget anywhere near The Motion Picture and thus couldn't afford to make up as many new techniques that The Motion Picture did.

Star Wars was $11 million. If anything, they did just as much innovating as TMP did (with quite a few of the same production staff.) Your point being?

 

[Jeyl]

Star Wars was $11 million. Your point being?

Because you're doing a comparison between TMP and TWOK. There is very little to compare Star Wars to with it's $11 million dollar budget because they were doing everything from scratch. And maybe since ILM was so successful with their Star Wars movies that their price tag went up as well. As a result, I would theorize that not much of TWOK's $11 million budget went into the effects as Star Wars' original $11 million did.

 

[USS Mariner]

Star Wars was $11 million. Your point being?

Because you're doing a comparison between TMP and TWOK. There is very little to compare Star Wars to with it's $11 million dollar budget because they were doing everything from scratch. And maybe since ILM was so successful with their Star Wars movies that their price tag went up as well. I would theorize that not much of TWOK's $11 million budget went into the effects as Star Wars' $11 million did.

How can you figure that if TWOK started out with almost all of the sets they needed? Sure, the sets were vandalized in the interim between the two pictures, but it's not like they had to globe trot and re-cut the film at the eleventh hour.

 

[Jeyl]

How can you figure that if TWOK started out with almost all of the sets they needed? Sure, the sets were vandalized in the interim between the two pictures, but it's not like they had to globe trot and re-cut the film at the eleventh hour.

Well, there were other sets that were made for the film that were not reused from TMP like Kirk's home, Ceti Alpha Six with Khan's cargo bays, the Epsilon station and the Genesis Cave. Not to mention they had to redress a lot of the sets they took from TMP to fit in with the new lighting and coloring, such as the Klingon Bridge becoming the photon torpedo room.

There was also the CGI work that was done involving the displays and the Genesis Effect video. That couldn't have been cheap to produce back in the 80s.

What about replacing all of the displays on the bridge from projectors to video sets? I know TVs cost a lot more back than.

And the uniforms? They went all out on that one. They started with a whole new line of designs and probably made a boat load of them specific to each cast member.

And what about Pyrotechnics? I don't remember a single live 'boom' being used in TMP. Spock smashes a station? Not a single spark. But in Star Trek II, they literally blow stuff up right in front of the actor's faces. Having the cast be so close, preparing the shots and cleaning up afterwards has to cost a pretty penny since professionals are obviously involved.

 

[RyanKCR]

How can you figure that if TWOK started out with almost all of the sets they needed? Sure, the sets were vandalized in the interim between the two pictures, but it's not like they had to globe trot and re-cut the film at the eleventh hour.

Well, there were other sets made for the film that were not reused from TMP like Kirk's home, Ceti Alpha Six with Khan's cargo bays, the Epsilon station, the Genesis Cave. Not to mention they had to redress a lot of the sets they from TMP to fit in with the new lighting and coloring, so that's not cheap.

There was also the CGI work that was done involving the displays and the Genesis Effect video. That couldn't have been cheap to produce.

What about replacing all of the displays on the bridge from projectors to video sets? I know TVs cost a lot more back in the early 80s.

And the uniforms? They went all out on that one. They started with a whole new design and probably made a boat load of them specific to each cast member.

And what about Pyrotechnics? I don't remember any of those being used in TMP. Having the cast be so close, preparing the shots and cleaning up afterwards can be expensive.

Kirk's home was his quarters redressed.

 

[Jeyl]

Kirk's home was his quarters redressed.

Well, it certainly didn't show with the alterations that was made to it. The fire place, the exterior back drop with moving features, furniture, the commodore computer (was it a commodore?), the weaponry artifacts, the carpet and a very tall ceiling.

Oh! Don't forget that either before or after the sequence in his home was shot that they had to use the set so it looked just like his quarters from The Motion Picture! With different lighting and set pieces of course. So really, you can pretty much conclude that the work they did in The Wrath of Khan that involved Kirk's quarters was nearly double what they did in The Motion Picture since, as you say, they're using the same set.

 

[Jeyl]

Anyways, back on Topic.

Say Elton, how do the shots of the Klingon Bridge look? The opening of this movie is my absolute favorite opening ever in a Sci-Fi film and I'm just dying to know.

 

[Joker]

Klingon1, Klingon2, Klingon3, Klingon4, Klingon5.

 

[Jeyl]

Klingon1, Klingon2, Klingon3, Klingon4, Klingon5.

Best looking klingons EVER! Thanks Elton.

 

[Joker]

I've sampled 10 minutes of audio from the film for someone with a decent system to judge the quality of the soundmix.

 

[trevanian]

I don't know about the knit pickers out there, but these shots are fabulous looking compared to everything I've seen from TMP.

It's hard to get where you're coming from, since TMP, with the exception of some terrible matte lines, has got the most stupendous ship photography of any of the movies (though some of FX is pretty good.) Then again, I saw this thing a lot of times in the theater and I am probably a nitpicker.

 

[trevanian]

How can you figure that if TWOK started out with almost all of the sets they needed? Sure, the sets were vandalized in the interim between the two pictures, but it's not like they had to globe trot and re-cut the film at the eleventh hour.

Well, there were other sets made for the film that were not reused from TMP like Kirk's home, Ceti Alpha Six with Khan's cargo bays, the Epsilon station, the Genesis Cave. Not to mention they had to redress a lot of the sets they from TMP to fit in with the new lighting and coloring, so that's not cheap.

There was also the CGI work that was done involving the displays and the Genesis Effect video. That couldn't have been cheap to produce.

What about replacing all of the displays on the bridge from projectors to video sets? I know TVs cost a lot more back in the early 80s.

And the uniforms? They went all out on that one. They started with a whole new design and probably made a boat load of them specific to each cast member.

And what about Pyrotechnics? I don't remember any of those being used in TMP. Having the cast be so close, preparing the shots and cleaning up afterwards can be expensive.

Kirk's home was his quarters redressed.

Not to my eyes it wasn't. Kirk's quarters were still Kirk's quarters; Kirk's home was a platformed set (there are plenty of pics illustrating this) a good ways up off the ground, to allow for the big scenic backing around and below it.

 

[trevanian]

Something I had not noticed before, in picture 16, the paint job on the nacelle seems to be in bad shape.

My fault, the video corrupted slightly during that grab.

Here is a slightly earlier shot of the E without so much flare, matching trevenian's.

This was always one of the weaker shots, but, boy, does it look bad now.

Anyway, I'm getting that BRD

I knew it couldn't last; you're back to your usual form with that one.

BTW, It was just SO so bad they used it on the ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT opening for years.

 

[trevanian]

Star Wars was $11 million. Your point being?

Because you're doing a comparison between TMP and TWOK. There is very little to compare Star Wars to with it's $11 million dollar budget because they were doing everything from scratch. And maybe since ILM was so successful with their Star Wars movies that their price tag went up as well. As a result, I would theorize that not much of TWOK's $11 million budget went into the effects as Star Wars' original $11 million did.

I can speak to this; SW was budgeted at around 2 to 2.5, and it came in at 2.8 or 3 mil for ILM's end of things.

Doug Trumbull bid TWOK at something like 1.5 or 2 mil, then claimed in CFQ that he underbid ILM by 1.5, but that Paramount gave ILM the contract for political reasons, which would put ILM's price for TWOK at 3mil or 3.5. Now it COULD be that the Genesis stuff got done on a see-it-then-pay basis, but I don't know (that is what happened with the CG for SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and Disney didn't like the CG and didn't pay, and the cg company went out of business as a result.)

I think the big deal on TWOK was how much time to do it, and yet when I look back on some articles, it seems there was no OT on that at ILM, so maybe it was just a straightforward job. They were doing ET and POLTERGEIST at the same time, too.

The ILM people did okay in terms of executing SOME of Mike Minor's boards, but they completely messed over his concept of the Eden cave, eliminating all the other bubbles, which sort of made the part with the actors scream, 'look at me' in a really bad way.

 

[Jeyl]

It's hard to get where you're coming from, since TMP, with the exception of some terrible matte lines, has got the most stupendous ship photography of any of the movies (though some of FX is pretty good.) Then again, I saw this thing a lot of times in the theater and I am probably a nitpicker.

I was simply commenting on the way the shots looked in comparison to the previous DVD release of the Director's Edition. The contrast on the Klingon Sequence alone sold me in the first second.