The starfields in TWOK are kind of disturbing for me, because the technique they used creates a weird perspective distortion as the camera moves. And I recall all the stars having a uniform bluish tint, which is hardly accurate.
Why did the warp effect get progressively less impressive?
- Thread starter Gotham Central
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The starfields in TWOK are kind of disturbing for me, because the technique they used creates a weird perspective distortion as the camera moves. And I recall all the stars having a uniform bluish tint, which is hardly accurate.
They are supposed to have their actual colour values, but I'm colour blind, so they all look white or pale bluish to me.
^Well, maybe they do in the Genesis simulation, but I'm talking about the starscapes under the main titles and the closing sequence, and my memory of seeing the film in the theater back in 1982.
I dunno, there's that weird white nightmare vortex when the Enterprise or the Narada fly by in the movie. I wonder how that looks from a ship's window, or what the transition from impulse to white nightmare vortex would look like from inside the ship. I always got a kick whenever TNG showed impulse-to-warp from within when they warped from a solar system.
It could be that I rewatched that warp scene so many times (perhaps on Youtube) that I thought it happened more than once on the show. Still, it was fun to watch. The next closest thing I can think of is "Where No One Has Gone Before" with similar big blobs of color (no doubt nebulas, galaxies, and other large "objects") streaking by, but that was just pure warp, no impulse-to-warp transition.
Sure, interactions at warp have only been seen on the small screen.
Yet when the Enterprise warped to Vulcan it appeared as if they dived blindly. Sure, the sensors have been down but that's just the in-universe explanation. So the warp effect is just one ingredient among many and I'd appreciate it if they moved away from the hyperspace/wormhole type of warp and towards the familiar, transparent warp.
Sure, interactions at warp have only been seen on the small screen.
Yet when the Enterprise warped to Vulcan it appeared as if they dived blindly. Sure, the sensors have been down but that's just the in-universe explanation. So the warp effect is just one ingredient among many and I'd appreciate it if they moved away from the hyperspace/wormhole type of warp and towards the familiar, transparent warp.
I'm actually fond of the new effect. It gives the jump to warp a sense of raw power it's never had before.
I'm going to have to agree with this POV as well.
That goes along with the less and less impressive FX budget and art direction.
My fav. will always be the first warp jump in TWOK. It's quick, but damn it's fun.
In one or two of my Trek novels, I've explained them as an illusion generated by the warp field cycling and sweeping the light from the same stars across the ship over and over again, sort of like a rotating prism. The "dust particles" explanation is clever, but it runs afoul of the Enterprise episode where Hoshi specifically referred to them as stars (when she wanted new quarters because the stars were flying by "the wrong way" and she couldn't sleep).
She might of course be taken to be using a colloquial expression, much like one might consider the contrails of a jet its "exhaust" or think of gravitic boots as "magnetic".
But I do prefer the idea of the warp field perverting existing starlight and other visual cues, especially as some (but not all) of the streaks do solidify into stars as a ship drops out of warp. Or at least they solidify into bright spots on the sky, even if them being stars is a bit aphysical considering the human eye shouldn't be able to see anything as faint as stars when simultaneously looking at a brightly glowing starship.
The only problem I see with that interpretation is that while stars turn into streaks, a chasing enemy vessel does not!
Timo Saloniemi
But I do prefer the idea of the warp field perverting existing starlight and other visual cues, especially as some (but not all) of the streaks do solidify into stars as a ship drops out of warp. Or at least they solidify into bright spots on the sky, even if them being stars is a bit aphysical considering the human eye shouldn't be able to see anything as faint as stars when simultaneously looking at a brightly glowing starship.
The only problem I see with that interpretation is that while stars turn into streaks, a chasing enemy vessel does not!
Timo Saloniemi
Cause their own warp field gives them a crisp high-definition transfer when viewed through the field of the ship they're chasing?
Eh, I got nothing.
The ship would be rather blind if her computers couldn't compensate for the distortion. Perhaps the computers only bother with de-streaking the truly interesting things, but let the random stars stretch?
Also, the blurry warp effect of the newest movie looks pretty much the same as the warp effect seen through the Ten-Forward windows in "The Child". Perhaps that's what it always looks like to the naked eye, and only a computer-filtered viewscreen sorts it out into neat starstreaks? Sure, the stars also streak behind the windows of the Conference/Observation Lounges of the E-D and the E-E - but those sets were always problematic in terms of placement within the ship, and might more easily be juggled into a workable position if we decided to treat the "windows" as viewscreens (like was done for the Officers' Lounge in ST:TMP). And having the Ten-Forward windows double as viewscreens goes without saying: clients would insist on it.
Doesn't explain runabout or shuttlecraft forward window starstreaks, of course...
Timo Saloniemi
Also, the blurry warp effect of the newest movie looks pretty much the same as the warp effect seen through the Ten-Forward windows in "The Child". Perhaps that's what it always looks like to the naked eye, and only a computer-filtered viewscreen sorts it out into neat starstreaks? Sure, the stars also streak behind the windows of the Conference/Observation Lounges of the E-D and the E-E - but those sets were always problematic in terms of placement within the ship, and might more easily be juggled into a workable position if we decided to treat the "windows" as viewscreens (like was done for the Officers' Lounge in ST:TMP). And having the Ten-Forward windows double as viewscreens goes without saying: clients would insist on it.
Doesn't explain runabout or shuttlecraft forward window starstreaks, of course...
Timo Saloniemi
Woah, I'd rather say that line in Enterprise runs afoul. I'd ignore it.
I think the simplest explanation is: it's only what the viewer sees. The characters don't see laser beams or hear sound in space either, but the audience does.
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