Production Hell/Heaven

[RobertScorpio]

So we have a thread about reusing sets (which I do not normally favor, but will if its done well and you can't tell). But, ultimately, these are decisions made to save money (reusing clips from other movies fall in this catagory too)...most are done, I think, to save money. Kirk/Khan using the same bridge set, the same ship flybys, the use of TMP footage in Khan..there are so many...

Which decision to do one of these shortcuts do you think worked really well...and which one do you think is so bad it took you 'out of the movie going' experience?

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Anticitizen]

Generations. When they borrowed the footage of the Bird of Prey exploding from the last friggin' movie.

Yeesh, how hard would it have been to whip a model up stuffed with fireworks? You could carve it out of (a dark colored*) styrofoam, for Spock's sake.



*so when it explodes you don't see white debris, obviously.

 

[Balrog]

The stuff in TWOK works for the most part (The Enterprise Spacedock scenes are painfully obvious, but work considering all the new opticals they had to make later in the movie).

All the Voyager sets they used in FC and INS don't work.

And all the TNG sets in TFF and TUC don't work either.

 

[Shatmandu]

Generations. When they borrowed the footage of the Bird of Prey exploding from the last friggin' movie.

I'll second that.

I even recall seeing an interview with Berman where he challenged Trek fans to find reused ship footage.

Pretty fucking obvious, jarkoff.

Joe, on purpose

 

[Botany Bay]

Generations. When they borrowed the footage of the Bird of Prey exploding from the last friggin' movie.

I'll second that.

I even recall seeing an interview with Berman where he challenged Trek fans to find reused ship footage.

Pretty fucking obvious, jarkoff.

Joe, on purpose

Thirded - not an auspicious start as a movie producer for Mr. Berman. Honestly, how did he think he could get away with that? Penny pinching gone mad.

On the other hand, re-using the Enterprise bridge as the Enterprise-A in TVH was fine - the graphics and lighting made it look like the next version of a starship bridge without having to build a whole set for a 10 second scene.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

The reuse of the Enterprise-A bridge as the Amargosa Observatory. I didn't even fucking notice it until I found out it was redressed for it.

 

[Eddie Roth]

I feel that the TNG sets in TUC (the observation lounge, for example) worked better there, sort of to bridge the gap between the designs, than the VGR sets in FC. That yellow holoprojector wall in sickbay just screams Voyager, not Enterprise. That took me out of the film somewhat.

 

[Warp Coil]

The re-use of visual f/x definitely irritated me, but a casual fan or average joe would have no idea, so ultimately it shouldn't be an issue. Only rabid fans like us would even notice such things.

The re-use of sets were pretty hit-or-miss. Sometimes, if the sets were adequately re-dressed and altered, they could pull it off. The 1701-refit corridors became the 1701-D corridors on TNG, and then were used as the 1701-A corridors. You kinda just shrug it off. There were a number of TNG sets re-dressed for TUC, in fact. The 1701-D became the 1701-A dining hall, but I thought it was well done. The re-dress of the engineering set didn't work for me, though. The re-dress of the 1701-refit bridge to become the Reliant in TWOK is fine, because they moved various stations around and re-configured the set to look different enough. And since the Constitution and Miranda class ships look related, and were in service together at the same time, it makes sense that they would share a similar bridge design.

 

[RobertScorpio]

The stuff in TWOK works for the most part (The Enterprise Spacedock scenes are painfully obvious, but work considering all the new opticals they had to make later in the movie).

All the Voyager sets they used in FC and INS don't work.

And all the TNG sets in TFF and TUC don't work either.

agreed..at least in TUC they tried to put piping in to make it look different..but yeah...it does give the feel, even more so to non fans, that the movies are just slightly more expensive episodes...but cost a movie ticket to see...BAD idea...bad idea..

Was Data's lab, where he built Lal, a redress of the bridge? Are those the same hand rails?

Rob

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Data's lab looks like a redress of the battle bridge.

 

[bullethead]

Data's lab looks like a redress of the battle bridge.

Which happens to be a redress of the Ent-refit bridge, just showing you how much you squeeze out of a set.

 

[spaceballone]

The stuff in TWOK works for the most part (The Enterprise Spacedock scenes are painfully obvious, but work considering all the new opticals they had to make later in the movie).

All the Voyager sets they used in FC and INS don't work.

And all the TNG sets in TFF and TUC don't work either.

I didn't like voyager so I haven't watched much of it. Because of this I never noticed the re-use of voyagers sets in First Contact and Insurrection. What's the problem though? They are both federation ships so it stands to reason that the sickbay ect. should all look similar anyway. I didn't notice the tng sets in TUC when I saw it in the theatre but I picked up on them years later watching the video. It doesn't really make any difference to me.
The bird of prey blowing up in generations is the only stock shot that ever bothered me. That was the climax of the last movie so it was fresh in my head when I saw Generations in the theatre. I remember picking that one up right away. Re-dressing sets though, never bothered me.

 

[RobertScorpio]

The stuff in TWOK works for the most part (The Enterprise Spacedock scenes are painfully obvious, but work considering all the new opticals they had to make later in the movie).

All the Voyager sets they used in FC and INS don't work.

And all the TNG sets in TFF and TUC don't work either.

I didn't like voyager so I haven't watched much of it. Because of this I never noticed the re-use of voyagers sets in First Contact and Insurrection. What's the problem though? They are both federation ships so it stands to reason that the sickbay ect. should all look similar anyway. I didn't notice the tng sets in TUC when I saw it in the theatre but I picked up on them years later watching the video. It doesn't really make any difference to me.
The bird of prey blowing up in generations is the only stock shot that ever bothered me. That was the climax of the last movie so it was fresh in my head when I saw Generations in the theatre. I remember picking that one up right away. Re-dressing sets though, never bothered me.

Well..it does bother me. It would be okay if they made a slight attempt to make them different, as they did TUC by adding all the piping. You can use the excuse "well, they are both starships so why cant they look different" line all you want but it doesn't change the facts;

Reusing sets is a way to cut down the cost of a movie. That is why they do it. Samething with reusing stock-footage. Both send the RED ALERT to reviewers, fans of Trek, and even non-fans, that this two-hour movie you just spent $14 on is really, for all intents and purposes, just a two-hour episode that isn't even as good as a regular (and free TV version) of the movie. And with all due respect to Macolm Mcdowell and Anthony Zerbe and whoever played Shinzon, its TV stars with B lister actors as the 'lure'.

True, TREX XI didn't have what could be call an A lister as a star. But what it did have was excitement and it didn't look like a TV episode of TREK passed off as a movie.

To be sure, this has a lot to do with budget. But I have to think that somewhere along the line when they were making INSURRECTION/NEMESIS (sorry fans of those movies) they had to know it just wasn't 'big screen' quality, and should have been direct-to-DVD releases. But the con went through and millions of people went to see Insurrection (hoping to see an action packed movie like FIRST CONTACT) and what they got was a silly plot that had been told about seven thousand times on TOS-TNG-DS9 and Voyager.

Then Nemesis came out. And thats when the old "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice? Shame on me" feeling set in.

Robert Xavier Scorpio