I think one of the few things that Trek has gotten consistently and traditionally right is that ship-board energy weapons have observable travel times. It's the scale of the ships that's off. At the relativistic distances at which starships encounter each other, a beam's travel time would be short but observable. Keep in mind that one light-second is only 186,000 miles, give-or-take — that's only about 5/6 the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Cosmologically speaking, any two starships seen together on screen would basically have to occupy the same space in order to see comparative sizes we see on screen.
Are the beams coming back?
- Thread starter GalaxyX
- Start date
I loved the Kelvin's weaponry. The Enterprise's phaser bolts ... not so much. I always liked the visual mix of torpedoes and beams. I think having short bursts and continuous beams in the same sequence would be pretty cool. Maybe analogous to a shotgun and a sniper rifle?
I loved the ones in Star Trek 6 now that I remember them. They were pretty much "instant hit" beams.
I too hate the pew pew spit balls but there was something tired about the beams too. If they and the torpedoes make no impact when they hit, who cares? Phasers used to be dread-inducing mega-weapons...now they're meh. The first spacecraft the U.S. launches with nukes could obliterate most Trek starships, given how badly they react to the far weaker energy weapons we see these days.
Forget the phasers beaming or zapping in the next movie, I want to know if the transporters will swirl or sparkle!
Or will they look like somebody pouring Sprite into a glass again?
*GASP*
PRODUCT PLACEMENT IDEAS!
*GASP*
PRODUCT PLACEMENT IDEAS!
Energy beams should be relativistic speeds. But they always show them as these slow "piss" beams that could easily be dodged the same way I dodge paintballs coming at me.
The ones in nuTrek (particularly the hand phasers) are even worse, doing this "spit" bolt, similar to Star Wars.
That's the worst variation of a phaser beam possible.
We have a WINNER!!! This is the real reason the beams look the way they do.
Yeah but they do it better or worse ep to ep, movie to movie. Sometimes they're just too damn slow, and others just slow enough to see and fast enough to fear. Plus with ships anyway, being far distances apart, they do have a tiny bit of leeway with when/where the beams go.
The phaser and torpedo sound effects were directly lifted from TOS, right on down to the mechanical 'whoosh' effect heard from inside the ship in 'Balance of Terror.'
We have a WINNER!!! This is the real reason the beams look the way they do.
I never understood this.
Look at Star Trek 6, then look at Nemesis, then look at most Enterprise phaser fights.
Almost all of the phaser scenes are pretty much "instant on" beams. And they looks fuckin' kick ass and intimidating!
Who wouldn't be intimidated by an immediate beam of energy suddenly appearing in your general direction?
They sounded Star Wars....:-(
Some of the tech manuals suggest the beams in phasers are full of heavy antimatter particles, hence the flamethrower-like phasers.
But I didn't like it either.
But I didn't like it either.
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