Between these two Trek films has the worst SFX
Which Trek Film has the worst SFX
- Thread starter cybersoldier
- Start date
trevanian
Rear Admiral
NEMESIS ... that shot in drydock at the end is horrible, and I have to turn the brightness way down during the rift stuff because it is so cartoony. INS at least has a few good shots in between the cartoony ones.
TFF has a lot of bad shots, but at least they're models, so there's a physicality to the ships (though the mattework is appalling.)
L
Lord Garth
Guest
I don't remember Nemesis well enough, and I have no intention of refreshing my memory (can you really blame me?), so I'll go with Insurrection. The Enterprise looked like a cartoon, particularly when it first appears. 1998 was too soon for a complete CGI switch.
Oh, it's not close. When the Enterprise went to warp to avoid Klaa's torpedo in TFF, it couldn't have looked any worse if someone's hand was pushing the Enterprise along and the warp effect were birthday party streamers attached to the nacelles.
The people who designed the Gorn suit saw that and said, "Damn, that looks fake!"
The plain and simple fact is that "Star Trek V" didn't have the budget for convincing special effects that Insurrection did. Insurrection's effects may have been rather ugly and lazy compared to other Star Trek movies, but they were at least more modern and advanced being 8-9 years newer and created on a regular movie budget (although not under the guidance of the same visual effects wizards of the previous movie, if memory serves).
Unfortunatley, they're also extremely brightly light and have craptastic paint jobs, which end up making them look like toys.
Nemesis looks like a video game due to the over-detailed models with grimdark texturing and wonky lighting.
Insurrection may have been lazy, but at least it looks ok.
Shitscale as follows, from most to least:
1) TFF
2) NEM
3) INS
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There's less motion control miniature work in TFF than it might appear. Most of the shots of the Enterprise are still photos of the ship scaled against the background...even when it goes to warp. Notice that the perspective changes not one-iota as is steaks by. It's why the warp "trail" is so weirdly curved in that shot. Awful.
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TFF. You could tell it was done on the cheap.
TFF. Not even close.
Bran Ferren's f/x team did their best...but they just were never up to doing a project on the scale of a STAR TREK movie. And twenty years later the results are more painful and dated than ever.
Bran Ferren's f/x team did their best...but they just were never up to doing a project on the scale of a STAR TREK movie. And twenty years later the results are more painful and dated than ever.
The final frontier
More from TFF, which has my vote as the worst:
There's a great fan-made CGI upgrade of TFF on YouTube...not terribly refined in some ways and a bit too rough around the edges but something Paramount Home Video could use as an inspiration/basis for a CGI Remastering.
^
Actually, INSURRECTION's effects were heavily praised by Gene Siskel before his death for finally living up to the standards of other late 90s space and fantasy extravaganzas. His TV review of the film(he really, really liked it while Ebert gave it a mild thumbs down)said it was the first TREK movie to have "STAR WARS quality effects."
Actually, INSURRECTION's effects were heavily praised by Gene Siskel before his death for finally living up to the standards of other late 90s space and fantasy extravaganzas. His TV review of the film(he really, really liked it while Ebert gave it a mild thumbs down)said it was the first TREK movie to have "STAR WARS quality effects."
I actually kind of like the idea behind a few of these shots. I like seeing the Enterprise off in the distance, so far away from the defenseless shuttle. If the shots weren't basically flat-lit cutouts sliding around without any motion blur...
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