Budweiser Factory Enterprise, Good or Bad Idea?

[stonester1]

Completely agreed.

It seemed...random...unlike any Engineering we've seen before on Star Trek, and that was not to the better.

 

[Shazam!]

If the brewery was a budgetary decision in so much as they didn't really have the resource to realise their designs, I think that's okay.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

If the brewery was a budgetary decision in so much as they didn't really have the resource to realise their designs, I think that's okay.

I've heard this. But I have a hard time believing it. They had $150 Million dollars to make this movie. I don't think a little green screen and CGI backgrounds wouldn't have put that big a dent in the budget. If TV shows like 24 and Ugly Betty use green screen and CGI on a weekly TV show budget, there's no reason the JJA couldn't have done the same with the budget they had. The initial engineering design sketches from the art of the movie book looked a whole lot like something out of Star Trek. JJA couldn't have that. So we got the brewery.

 

[Chris_Johnston]

Why not film on an aircraft carrier and dress that up a bit for the lower decks?

Why not indeed? It worked for Silent Running.

Absolutely! But then, Trumbull's crew tweaked things a bit, since the ship was going to be scrapped after filming, i.e. changing the shape of the hatchways, filling the hangar deck with all those nifty cargo pods, etc.
(Fun fact: Apparently, Dow Chemical donated all the plastic to make the cargo pods because they wanted some good press to compensate for their other product, Napalm.)

EDIT: Now that I've read the entire thread, I'm with Zim 100% — totally took me out of the movie.
Of course, my Dad was a set designer, so we always went in for "Design Porn" movies, like Star Wars, A L I E N & Blade Runner (especially those two!).
Thanks to him, I go into a big-budget Sci-Fi movie or TV show expecting every square inch to be custom-designed.
(He passed away just a few months before Space: Above and Beyond premiered. He would've gone nuts over those sets!)

When I saw the water treatment plant and brewery in ST09, I thought "What, are we in film school now?"
Not to insult film school, because Lucas took his USC final project and amplified it (with the help of Coppola) into the best example I can recall of making real-world locations look futuristic: THX 1138

 

[muzzleflash]

If the brewery was a budgetary decision in so much as they didn't really have the resource to realise their designs, I think that's okay.

I've heard this. But I have a hard time believing it. They had $150 Million dollars to make this movie. I don't think a little green screen and CGI backgrounds wouldn't have put that big a dent in the budget. If TV shows like 24 and Ugly Betty use green screen and CGI on a weekly TV show budget, there's no reason the JJA couldn't have done the same with the budget they had. The initial engineering design sketches from the art of the movie book looked a whole lot like something out of Star Trek. JJA couldn't have that. So we got the brewery.

A CGI green screen might not have taken up much of their budget, but if their entire budget was already consumed/allotted before they could get around to constructing the engineering sets...well there's not much they can do I suppose.

Hopefully we'll see engineering in its proper form in the sequel.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

If the brewery was a budgetary decision in so much as they didn't really have the resource to realise their designs, I think that's okay.

I've heard this. But I have a hard time believing it. They had $150 Million dollars to make this movie. I don't think a little green screen and CGI backgrounds wouldn't have put that big a dent in the budget. If TV shows like 24 and Ugly Betty use green screen and CGI on a weekly TV show budget, there's no reason the JJA couldn't have done the same with the budget they had. The initial engineering design sketches from the art of the movie book looked a whole lot like something out of Star Trek. JJA couldn't have that. So we got the brewery.

A CGI green screen might not have taken up much of their budget, but if their entire budget was already consumed/allotted before they could get around to constructing the engineering sets...well there's not much they can do I suppose.

Hopefully we'll see engineering in its proper form in the sequel.

Well, that would have constituted plain irresponsibility on the part of the production crew. Why would they spend all of their budget before building sets? However, I do hope that was the case and we do get to see a proper engineering set next time around.

 

[muzzleflash]

Not necessarily spent, but allocated. I'm pretty sure they can't just go around changing the budget willy-nilly.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

I'm sure they could have re-allocated. I do it all the time at work. Budgets can easily be altered or modified before the money is spent.

It is my feeling that the brewery engineering was a concious choice by JJA, not a necessity based upon "budget restraints".

 

[publiusr]

This is the only thing I didn't like about JJs vision. The new Doctor Who episodes started the trend of having ground facilities as spaceship interiors. Ironically, the Waters of Mars base looked more like the interior of a spaceship, and the interiors of some ships looked more like asteroid bases or SG1 or something.

 

[Herbert1]

They could have done some dressing of the brewery to make it look more futuristic than just putting radiation trefoils on some of the tanks in post production or they could have combined the location with digital mattes or miniatures to make it appear a little different or futuristic.

 

[Devon]

I'm sure they could have re-allocated. I do it all the time at work. Budgets can easily be altered or modified before the money is spent.

It is my feeling that the brewery engineering was a concious choice by JJA, not a necessity based upon "budget restraints".

We know that he wanted to use an engineering set, or at least considered one as Engineering sets were envisioned. I'm sure when the budgets were adjusted it came down to "Spend millions of dollars on this and risk going over budget, or make due with a redressed industrial location at the cost of a simple name drop." John Eaves has commented on this on his personal blog, apparently the budget J.J. got was not the budget J.J. wanted.

 

[Rusty0918]

Well, I do agree whtat they had a good idea for an aesthetic change but it was poorly executed. Something like of what Ryan Church had in mind would work a whole lot better (did you see his sketches for engineering?)

I'm not a fan of the engineering section, but that does not mean that I long for a lava lamp warp core!

 

[M'Sharak]

I'm sure they could have re-allocated. I do it all the time at work. Budgets can easily be altered or modified before the money is spent.

It is my feeling that the brewery engineering was a concious choice by JJA, not a necessity based upon "budget restraints".

We know that he wanted to use an engineering set, or at least considered one as Engineering sets were envisioned. I'm sure when the budgets were adjusted it came down to "Spend millions of dollars on this and risk going over budget, or make due with a redressed industrial location at the cost of a simple name drop." John Eaves has commented on this on his personal blog, apparently the budget J.J. got was not the budget J.J. wanted.

I don't remember the details on budget JJ wanted vs. budget JJ got, but something else comes to mind: in a recent bit of video, Roger Guyett from ILM was seen stating that the space jump/drilling platform sequence comprised more than a third of the effects shots for the entire film, and also that that sequence had not been part of the original story. Might it be that the engineering sets, as conceived, ended up falling casualty to the decision to add the space jump sequence to the movie? That one sequence had to represent a significant chunk of change reallocated from the effects budget originally intended for other scenes.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I don't remember the details on budget JJ wanted vs. budget JJ got, but something else comes to mind: in a recent bit of video, Roger Guyett from ILM was seen stating that the space jump sequence comprised more than a third of the effects shots for the entire film, and also that that sequence had not been part of the original script. Might it be that the engineering sets, as conceived, ended up falling casualty to the decision to add the space jump sequence to the story? That one sequence had to represent a significant chunk of change reallocated from the effects budget originally intended for other scenes.

If push came to shove, I'd rather have the amazing and thrilling space jump sequence than another science-fictiony engineering set. Moreover, I preferred the in-camera use of an existing facility to yet another CGI set extension.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

I liked the sets for engineering they made it feel big and real. But next time they should build massive warp core on the engineering sets themselves , love to see simon pegg sayin i canna change the laws of physics standing next to a 3 storey warp core .

 

[T'Girl]

Problem with building a massive warp core is that they have established that the nuEnterprise has multiple ejectable warp cores, not one big one.

Using a section of the brewry where there's a tangle of pipes and a cat-walk and you look like your in a section of a machine would have been better.

 

[Captain Rob]

Just my 2 cents worth.
Just saw the V recap on ABC tonight that showed the mothership's CGI engine room. If ABC can afford it then JJ Abrams should be able to. i'd like to see a nice sequence where Scotty's in an upgraded version of the TOS engine room with the top of the warp core in the middle. He then travels down the warp core on a lift to the secondary hull where there are multiple ejectable warp cores. Sort of like Kirk's scene from TWOK but on steroids.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Just my 2 cents worth.
Just saw the V recap on ABC tonight that showed the mothership's CGI engine room. If ABC can afford it then JJ Abrams should be able to. i'd like to see a nice sequence where Scotty's in an upgraded version of the TOS engine room with the top of the warp core in the middle. He then travels down the warp core on a lift to the secondary hull where there are multiple ejectable warp cores. Sort of like Kirk's scene from TWOK but on steroids.

CGI sets and set extensions can be great for one or two shots but, after a while, they begin to be painfully obvious CGI set extensions. They lack the weight that a real set or even an existing industrial location can provide.

I loved the "lower decks" look that was achieved by shooting in the Budweiser Factory, especially in that long tracking shot where Kirk and McCoy first come aboard and the other scene with Kirk, Spock, Pike, and Sulu doing their little catwalk.

As I've said before, the location fails during the wide shot of Kirk and Scotty running alongside one of the warp core tubs. Except for that, I think the location works well to give the Enterprise a machine shop lower decks, even for the communications hub and "water turbine".

 

[Devon]

Just my 2 cents worth.
Just saw the V recap on ABC tonight that showed the mothership's CGI engine room. If ABC can afford it then JJ Abrams should be able to.

Abrams said he didn't want CGI sets. So he got his wish.

 

[Maurice]

Rendering CGI set extensions for TV is cheaper than for film because the max resolution for HD is lower than the minimum resolution for convincing motion picture projection.