That's been my experience, too. I didn't have any problem, for example, with the fact that BSG was making up its mythology as it went along. I did have a problem that the resolution of much of that mythology ultimately sucked.
SF Lit Author John Scalzi Picks Best Trek Movie Directors
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Incidentally, and just to balance this out, somewhat, here is another recent blog from another author named John, giving a refreshingly insightful appraisal of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture":
http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2009/04/cult-movie-review-star-trek-motion.html
http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2009/04/cult-movie-review-star-trek-motion.html
I just took a look at the TrekCore screencaps too. While I don't see anything particularly wrong with the lighting -- I see what you mean about the stylistic lighting, but it seems fine in that scene to me -- I can't agree that Kirk looks particularly youthful.
He certainly doesn't look old, but I think they failed quite miserably at achieving the effect they were going for -- namely, that only a relatively small period of time had passed between the time of TOS and the time of the movie, and not the 10 years that had passed in real life. While I don't think Kirk looks bad, he definitely doesn't look like he's still 10 years younger.
(BTW, how is it that TrekCore is able to get away with those screencaps without Paramount complaining? I mean, fair use is one thing, but they provide, in still images, the entire movie from start to finish.)
Oh, I think he looks good, played by a man who, in real life, was pushing 50. Certainly, Kirk is no spring chicken in TMP, and nor is he intended to be, but neither, however, is he this middle-aged, indecisive has-been that he's presented as just three years later in TWOK. That's an important distinction, I think.
No, he doesn't. But I'm not sure we're meant to believe that TMP takes place shortly after TOS. For example, not only do the durations for Kirk being Chief of Operations at Starfleet Headquarters and the Enterprise's dramatic refit not match, suggesting a more complex history than simply, "Enterprise gets dolled up, Kirk bides time with desk job", but the Enterprise was originally meant to be on a five-year mission, so, at the very least, it's possible that that was completed before Kirk became an Admiral, giving us something closer to a total of five years, which is more believable than two or three. It's also possible another five-year mission, or mission of some lesser span, or extension of the extant five-year mission, was undertaken, or some other set of circumstances agglomerated to fill in an extended gap between series and movie. It's not a cut-and-dry case; the film seems to leave things open-ended and invite imagination (on multiple levels).
Two possibilities:
- They're unable to respond.
- They're unwilling to respond.
Sorry.
I don't think that Trek Core's screen caps are a major cause of concern. If Paramount went on the war path about that, it'd be messy, and potentially set a self-defeating precedent. A basic level of freedom is good, and, in a way, the caps are a free advertisement for the Blu-ray product. And, at the end of the day, they're just static images, so the movie isn't really being reproduced, even though, technically, you're not meant to to reproduce anything, "in part or in whole and by any means" (but, as I said, trying to stamp out every last violation would be draconian and pointless).
I'd agree that the themes are present in the film, but they're not played out well by the plot as written. For example, when someone says that Kirk isn't Kirk until he reconnects with the Enterprise, you can look back and say "oh yeah, I guess I can see that", but there's not a moment when watching the film where that happens. For instance, just before entering the cloud, Kirk and Decker are arguing on the bridge, the next exchange between them is "This is how I define unwarranted!" Then they go their separate plot ways, and next thing you know, Decker hurries on the bridge and says "Jim!" and all is peachy. Huh? The problem with the film is that it's missing the connective tissue that lets us see WHY these transformations are happening and involving us in them.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I'd agree with that, Kirk never seems like Kirk to me in the film. There are points in the novelization when he seems like Kirk (not many), such as when he tells IliaProbe "NO" flatly instead of saying the word in that selfconsciously affected voice he uses in the film ... I needed to hear the Kirk of CHARLIE X at that point in the film, somebody taking a firm tone and hand to the problem child, and it didn't happen.
CRYO, backing up to one of your earlier posts, the issue of lighting. Hard lighting is more unflattering when it comes from the wrong direction, but soft lighting used in ways that don't model a face properly is equally distracting. Kline chose to deliberately use the soft light in a contrasty way, but this was for me a worst of both worlds approach ... you want the rich contrasty shadows of sidelighting in a film, not the wishy washy ones we got. BTW, based on what little I've seen of TheAbramsThing online, I agree 100% with you on the horrible lighting of the ST 11 bridge ... that is certainly the least credible control center they've ever done, between the blinding lights and glare glare everywhere. I'd'vd probably been most happy with a trek bridge that looked like the RED OCTOBER control room, though in terms of what we got in the features, the E-B bridge is okay, and I like the TFF one, just because it really snaps to when you go to alert status.
I don't like the colors on the Meyer bridge either, but to me that is because he didn't change it enough from the TMP one ... it was a little warmer, but could have gone much more extreme.
As for angles, I really think most everything that isn't shot on that little crane (the stuff that just tracks in) shows off good angles. The shooting across Kirk at Spock stuff looks the way it should, instead of the TMP miscue of putting Spock BEHIND Kirk (guess we are in total disagreement there, I've always thought having the science officer as your literal AND actual good right hand is ideal), which would be great if you were shooting an IMAX film where the image is square or tall rather than widescreen. There are a few times in TMP when they get the framing okay, with the helm at one end of frame and Spock at the other, but for the most part my eyes is wandering (which may explain why it is I see the diopter stuff so clearly.)
I don't think I've ever liked the behind-captain area in any picture ... I'd've as soon as not blocked it off with tubing or some awesome bit of mysterious architecture and eliminate the walkway there, so the ramp around the bridge ran 300 degrees instead of 360 ... it would have given them something to blow up behind Kirk as well.
I have to roundly dissent, once again. The film explicitly presents a Kirk who is stupendously attached to his ship, blinding him to the limits of what his lover can do and the struggles of the "carbon units" giving it their best, just as V'Ger is stupendously attached to the idea of the Creator being an entity much like it, having little regard for the crew of the Enterprise, out of whose own limits, hopes and aspirations the technology needed for V'Ger to exist, at its core, in the sense that the Enterprise crew represents enlightened, yet still primitive and ego-centric, humanity, was spun. William Shatner's own performance of Kirk is more ritualised in this movie, as opposed to the more naturalistic hue he brought to the character in subsequent movies. But this is entirely appropriate and correct. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is about, well, motion, and emotion, and the impulses behind movement and e-movement, and the actors' performances reflect the more stately and doxological construction (framing, editing, attitudes to the Enterprise, transporter beams and other Star Trek tropes, music, effects, dialogue, themes ... everything).
Hmmm. I think I see it as honouring a certain communication between TMP and TOS, more than getting the most impactful lighting possible, in a manner of speaking. Rich, contrast-heavy shadows and the like may have proven to be an unnecessary distraction, and I'm not sure that they'd have fit the mood of the film in any meaningful way.
Just as the Earth-tones are a response to, and rejection of, the bright, almost garish colours of TOS, and a self-conscious, provocative attempt at conveying newness -- a heightened consciousness, in effect -- but in more of a willed evolutionary sense than a mindless abandonment of what came before (reflected grandly in the refitted Enterprise), so the lighting and framing is, quite clearly, more complex and stylish, but not in a showy, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink way (unlike this prose
). TMP is aware of validating itself and the TV series that spawned it by not moving completely away from what was already done, and what made TMP possible. In a more mundane sense, a not-too-stark kind of lighting actually works in synergy with the uniforms, rather than oppressing their subtle beauty with too much of a good thing.Also, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to return to your charge re: Kirk and McCoy once more. In the spirit that a picture is worth a thousand words, and realising my propensity for excess, I present two pictures for the price of one (er, none). These are scaled down and modestly enhanced captures from Trek Core. In both cases, I beefed up the gamma, colour and sharpness a little bit, hopefully getting these frames to look as good as they can be, for a fair and honest comparison. Now, you wanna talk lighting? With all respect to the actors, Kirk and Bones look like ass in the TWOK shot, and that's from a film with much simpler lighting. Shatner, in particular, comes off really bad in the bottom shot, as compared to the shot of him in TMP. Just look at his eyes. What were they playing at in TWOK? Yes, this is one of the worst shots of him, yes, having him look older suited the film's purposes, but still... Ugh. Sorry, Bill. The makeup and lighting in TMP was a million times better.
http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/0Cryogenic0/?action=view¤t=kirkbonestmptwok.jpg
BLOW UP THE BRIDGE??!!
Sorry, little Alec Guinness moment, there.
This is another of my problems with Nick Meyer's films (and a lot of the films from TWOK on). What is with all those damn explosions? If the refitted Enterprise is that unstable and that unsafe, just what in the hell is the rest of Starfleet's line like? I mean, c'mon! TWOK is really dramatic in this regard, with people and bits 'n' pieces of console on the bridge flying everywhere, every time the ship is fired on, even when it's the engineering section that's hit.
It's an incredibly false way of introducing danger and excitement, when you can't exercise any tact or imagination. Stupid and schlocky in the extreme. I rue the day that Harve Bennett and Nick Meyer turned Star Trek into Horatio Hornwank. Their lunk-headed ways, as well as their near total disrespect of the Enterprise herself, and the exploratory ethos of ST, which Gene Roddenberry fought tooth and nail to build and expand, toppled the hard Sci-Fi and quality cinema of ST:TMP with a single movie, taking us all the way to STXI and the present day. Of course, any carny huckster worth their mendacity knows: give the public what it wants.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
To me, Kirk still looks embalmed in the TMP shot.
The TWOK shot is just what you live with when you have no place to hide lights and are booming in from the front of the set, I don't sweat that one.
To be fair, that set was hard to light and shoot; a master of softlighting like Geoff Unsworth would have had a difficult time (and not just because he had died that year.)
The only thing I know of that Abrams' people got right on the new one was changing the bridge from a circle to something a little more elliptical to facilitate widescreen framing. Then again, outside of the shape, there is NOTHING on the Abrams bridge I want to see, especially with that lighting.
Once every two or three years I find a poster here who is really worth reading, for content AND style. You've joined an elite group, up there with PSION and a few others, most of whom moved on to other planes of existence (which, I know, cannot be proven logically, but so there, sue me!)
The TWOK shot is just what you live with when you have no place to hide lights and are booming in from the front of the set, I don't sweat that one.
To be fair, that set was hard to light and shoot; a master of softlighting like Geoff Unsworth would have had a difficult time (and not just because he had died that year.)
The only thing I know of that Abrams' people got right on the new one was changing the bridge from a circle to something a little more elliptical to facilitate widescreen framing. Then again, outside of the shape, there is NOTHING on the Abrams bridge I want to see, especially with that lighting.
Once every two or three years I find a poster here who is really worth reading, for content AND style. You've joined an elite group, up there with PSION and a few others, most of whom moved on to other planes of existence (which, I know, cannot be proven logically, but so there, sue me!)
That bottom one is begging for a caption this contest.
I actually think he looks ready for embalming in the TWOK shot.
Embalmers, gather round! That man is going to pop off any second now!
Nope, neither do I. And that is one of the more extreme TWOK shots. In general, the film just looks soft and muddy, and sometimes, if not often, that softness is out-of-bloody-focus soft. Ugh. And William Shatner consistently looks a lot older in TWOK than in TMP. Combined with poor lighting and crappy hair, the pompous, stuffy uniforms help not at all. TWOK is perfectly watchable, but badly executed. In my opinion.
Ah, Geoffrey Unsworth! "Superman: The Movie" looks PHENOMENAL! Unsworth's masterful lighting and John Barry's awesome production design still put that movie head and shoulders above the competition.
Even the shape doesn't work, for me. That's not a clever choice. If you think about it, it must have been an obvious temptation on every previous Star Trek film (every time they could afford to either build or re-arrange a bridge set, that is). But they always resisted. Then along came Abrams. Wide bridge, bright bridge, flashing bridge, glare-y viewscreen bridge, aesthetically, all-over-the-place bridge ... nope, I just think it's complete overload, on multiple levels.
Why, thank you.
This has been an enjoyable discussion, indeed.
Kirk discovers Bones' right arm is longer and more flexible than he could ever have imagined.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Catherine Coulson, the 'log lady' on TWIN PEAKS, was a camera assistant on TWOK. I'm guessing some of the really outoffocus shots (like Kirk holding the ale) are her fault, but TGT cited the DP's use of inferior film stock as an indication of bad and/or cheap thinking throughout.
Considering how many badly framed and poorly focused shots the new movie contains...
How does that argument work? This is a new film and a new set. And every time they rebuilt a bridge they changed it, and they'd even rework and rearrange parts of the standing bridge sets between films set on the same ship.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I haven't seen it or checked the credits in detail, but I still don't think Coulson worked on TheAbramsThing.
Show me a movie bridge that's as ridiculously wide.
Show me a movie bridge that's as oppressively bright.
Show me a movie bridge with as many animations and distractions.
Show me a movie bridge with ugly-ass chairs, tacky decals and a glare-ridden window for a viewscreen.
* * *
The new design is over designed. It's a homage to TOS, a lens-flare lover's paradise and the bastard child of an Apple and a Topshop department store. In short, it's a mess.
I get that you hate the new bridge, but you can't tar it with an argument about previous productions not redesigning the bridge as they did so all the time...even if they didn't come up with the solutions Abrams team did.
I don't get what's wrong with a wide command center. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it stupid.
Personally, I find the shapeless ill defined mess of the Ent. E bridge far more awful, so it's all in the eye of the beholder.
Nothing!
All of the Star Trek bridges have looked like functional military command centers. The Enterprise-D looked a little bit like a living room, but it was functional. The Generations version looks great, with additional stations and more people around. The Enterprise-A bridge from Undiscovered Country looks the best to me. Love the color and the lighting. That's what a bridge needs to look like. Voyager's bridge looks good, too.
The nuTrek bridge is really awful compared to any of those bridges.
All of the Star Trek bridges have looked like functional military command centers. The Enterprise-D looked a little bit like a living room, but it was functional. The Generations version looks great, with additional stations and more people around. The Enterprise-A bridge from Undiscovered Country looks the best to me. Love the color and the lighting. That's what a bridge needs to look like. Voyager's bridge looks good, too.
The nuTrek bridge is really awful compared to any of those bridges.
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