That sounds like a perfect description of The Motion Picture to me, which is often cited here (although not by me) as a "intelligent" Trek movie
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I would agree.
Why, because they use a long visual effects sequence to convey Kirk's love and amazement with the Enterprise, and a long visual effects sequence to convey the vastness of space and the sheer size of V'Ger compared against the tiny Enterprise? The spectacle you see on screen is the very same spectacle the characters in the film see and feel as well. It's a direct way to make the audience feel what the characters feel.
The VFX in TMP have a lot more purpose than just being eye candy.
The VFX in TMP have a lot more purpose than just being eye candy.
The visuals and effects in TMP aren't trying to pound your senses into submission as has become the more recent style. It could be argued that they're still compensating for a certain... spareness of plot. (Not for my money that TMP is as incoherent as either of Abrams' efforts, more that it felt like butter spread over too much bread.)
Absolutely fair enough. I'm certainly not inclined to pull rank here. Heck, I only get cranky when people question my fan cred. (As in "the true fans know this isn't real Trek"--or variants thereof.)
I was a lifelong Trekkie long before I went pro . . . .
I dunno, I think the use of graphics to compensate for plot these days are more like too much butter, not enough bread. Flashy, but lacking substance.
TMP went overboard with graphics too, but in a different way. There was substance to be had, it's just the minute long shots of the Enterprise flying around just got... dull, especially on top of a plot that had difficulty keeping your attention anyways. I swear I fell asleep watching that movie more than any other Trek film.
ID may be a silly story, with little substance to it, but at least it kept your attention the whole time, even if you're cringing a few times during it.
It's probably worth remembering that TMP was filmed only a year or two after Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a monster hit. Studio executives probably thought that extended SFX light shows were what the public wanted.
TMP was also trying very hard to be 2001: The Space Odyssey, which also featured long wordless SFX sequences.
TMP was also trying very hard to be 2001: The Space Odyssey, which also featured long wordless SFX sequences.
TMP felt a lot like 2001 to me. Plus, I think this being the first outing for Star Trek with a major budget on a big screen, they were really milking the visuals since fans were getting this gigantic more realistic version of Trek for the first time. I think if I saw it in the theater back then, I would have been totally in love and blown away. But my experience watching it the first time was on VHS, and I watched the films out of order. I loved it the first time, but re-watching that one is difficult for me to do in one sitting. I'm jealous of all of the fans who had the opportunity to see it for the first time in the theater!
@Greg - since your credentials have been brought up and we're (sort of) on the subject of the films, it's also SO COOL that you're featured in an extra on one the movie DVDs! When I first started frequenting this board I asked myself...is that the Greg Cox? By the way - did they put that extra featuring you on the blu ray releases as well?
@Greg - since your credentials have been brought up and we're (sort of) on the subject of the films, it's also SO COOL that you're featured in an extra on one the movie DVDs! When I first started frequenting this board I asked myself...is that the Greg Cox?
By the way - did they put that extra featuring you on the blu ray releases as well?
@Greg - since your credentials have been brought up and we're (sort of) on the subject of the films, it's also SO COOL that you're featured in an extra on one the movie DVDs! When I first started frequenting this board I asked myself...is that the Greg Cox?
Thanks. That interview seems like so long ago now that I'm always surprised to hear that people are still stumbling onto it. True confession: my mouth dried up about halfway through the interview but I didn't have the nerve to ask them to stop filming long enough to let me get something to drink. So take this is as a warning: If you're ever being interviewed on camera, make sure there's water nearby!
I don't have the Blu-Ray myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still among the bonus features for Khan.
I couldn't remember for sure.
Didn't realize I was "peremptorily demanding".Because I asked. (and asked politely
Well, okay, I'm willing to make allowances for idiosyncracies about the difference between "asked politely" and "peremptorily demanded"... but perhaps you can tell me what's lacking in my response that you require to be filled in?
I don't feel the ship in the ocean is an example of "bad writing". You claim it is because the ship could hid in space. I feel there has to be something more than that to make it bad.
Again you misunderstand why I brought up Greg. It wasn't to "impress" you. I've tried to make it clear a couple of times. So let me try again. It's not that Greg is a writer, it that he's Star Trek writer. We were discussing the character of James Kirk. And by character I mean his quirks, idiosyncrasies, habits and characteristics. I think as professional who has written Kirk numerous times, Greg's opinion on what makes Kirk tick and what he would do or say hold a little more weight than your's, mine or that Faraci guy.
Like I said a word derived from intellect and a synonym for film. Intelligent qualifies.
Well I associate the term with nostalgia. Probably because when thinking about the past people tend to forget the bad stuff in the "Good Ol'Days". That's my understanding of the term, someone who filters out the bad stuff either in the past or the present. Never heard the "not earned" part.
Two things about hiding the Enterprise underwater:
1. It provided (for me) one of the coolest visuals in the history of movies. It made me drool in the theater and I didn't give two shits about the reasoning behind it.
2. The reasoning: I am perfectly fine with the explanation that this was being used to show how immature Kirk was.
Whether a person likes what went on is purely personal taste. But I don't think it was bad writing because the scene accomplished what it set out to accomplish. YMMV.
The way I see it the Enterprise hiding underwater was great writing.
It was unexpected and fresh.
That awe-inspiring moment of it rising out of the ocean, you could really believe that witnessing it would impact the trajectory of a primitive society, which was what the plot required.
It was unexpected and fresh.
That awe-inspiring moment of it rising out of the ocean, you could really believe that witnessing it would impact the trajectory of a primitive society, which was what the plot required.
Likewise completely fair enough, and cheers, I appreciate that.
(On TMP's visual style, incidentally, I think the point about its heritage in trying to imitate Kubrick and/or Close Encounters is spot on. Hadn't quite placed it in that context, but that makes it quite explicable.)
Andymator said:
Well, it was "unexpected." And don't get me wrong, the ship rising out of the water is, in and of itself, a cool shot.
What makes it bad writing to me is that there is no explicable reason for it to happen except to get the cool shot. Kirk is, we are told repeatedly, a starship Captain of greatness. It could not or at least should not have failed to occur to someone fitting that description that just keeping the ship in orbit would hide it from the natives and allow it to better support Spock's operation in the volcano*. That's why the ship on the sea floor is "unexpected." There is no good reason for him to do it.
The plot requires Kirk, in other words, to act stupidly in a way that has to be lampshaded by his Chief Engineer -- so that the viewers will know not to take any of this seriously, because the writers sure didn't -- in order to get a cool shot. That it was good spectacle does not make it good writing. Having to contrive stupidity on the part of supposedly-capable characters is bad writing. Good writing would have been to find a means to the spectacle or something like it without having to resort to that kind of contrivance.
(* Which, even worse for scientific illiteracy: "cold fusion" does not freeze things. And I actually have to wonder if the writers just didn't know that, or knew and just didn't care to come up with an alternate name for the device, like a "stasis bomb" or something. It's a moment of gratuitous badness that a simple copy-edit should at any rate have caught, which really does create the impression that nobody of importance on the production cared at all. I'm not one of these people who believe the filmmakers should be "respecting the fans" at every turn -- but not respecting your own craft and product is a different kettle of fish... and one of the reasons I hold it against Abrams is that I know for a fact he is, or can be, a better filmmaker than that.)
Perhaps in the future "cold fusion" doesn't have the same connotations it does in the present.
While it's not stated, if we're to assume that Kirk is a great captain, etc., then shouldn't we also assume that if Kirk put the ship underwater then there was a good reason for it?
Here's one - atmospheric interference would prevent the ship from communicating with the folks on the ground. In order to both keep in contact but also keep the ship hidden, Kirk decided to put it in the ocean, conveniently near where he and Bones would be in case things went badly...as they did.
While it's not stated, if we're to assume that Kirk is a great captain, etc., then shouldn't we also assume that if Kirk put the ship underwater then there was a good reason for it?
Here's one - atmospheric interference would prevent the ship from communicating with the folks on the ground. In order to both keep in contact but also keep the ship hidden, Kirk decided to put it in the ocean, conveniently near where he and Bones would be in case things went badly...as they did.
And perhaps with better writers we wouldn't have to resort to those kinds of shenanigans.
Not really, no. If you have to tell the audience that a character is hot stuff because Take Your Word For It, even though they act nonsensically, that's bad writing.
As opposed to megatonnes of seawater? Come on. Anything that applies to "atmospheric interference" applies a thousandfold to the ocean.
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