A Word of Totally Fanboy Advice For Those Making The New Show

[USS Triumphant]

When you're making each episode, shoot some extra footage, and maybe even some footage with the new crew interacting with people who aren't there in somewhat generic ways. Can it, and tell no one. Stick it in the vault. What is to be done with it will become apparent in the course of time... say, 20 to 40 years from now, when there's another Trek show or movie being made and it would be really cool to have it to work with.

 

[sojourner]

Another 20 to 40 years and CGI will be so good that this will be un-necessary.

 

[uniderth]

It would be cheaper to just use existing footage than conjure up a cgi look alike. I think this would be a good idea too.

 

[rahullak]

Maybe in 20-40 years cgi would be cheap too.

 

[USS Triumphant]

CGI would almost certainly be necessary to properly integrate everything, but there would be something a whole lot cooler about having the actual actors involved than in simulating them, I think.

 

[sojourner]

And it would have been "a whole lot cooler" if CBS had built physical models to redo the effects in the blueray release of TNG, but we know how that went.

 

[USS Triumphant]

And it would have been "a whole lot cooler" if CBS had built physical models to redo the effects in the blueray release of TNG, but we know how that went.

True, but that's because they would have had to *rebuild* something. I'm talking about having the foresight to have what you need ahead of time.

I know what I'm suggesting will never happen, though - large companies watch the bottom line for their current fiscal quarter, and from that perspective, what I'm suggesting would show up on their ledgers as "wasteful unnecessary cost" - however little they can make it cost, it would cost something, with no immediate or guaranteed return.

But it sure would be neat.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Maybe in 20-40 years cgi would be cheap too.

In 20-40 years, we will have 100% CG actors, dead or alive (estates notwithstanding), and the ability to recreate/manipulate old scenes as we wish.

Hardcore TOS fans will finally get their wish: new adventures with the 1960s crew, as they looked and acted at the time (but maybe on the nu-Enterprise).

 

[uniderth]

I agree that the capability will be there. but it will still cost time and money to model the characters. You can't just press K for Kirk or S for Spock. Somebody has to model and animate these things.

Pulling some old archive footage would still be cheaper.

 

[ancient]

Maybe in 20-40 years cgi would be cheap too.

In 20-40 years, we will have 100% CG actors, dead or alive (estates notwithstanding), and the ability to recreate/manipulate old scenes as we wish.

Hardcore TOS fans will finally get their wish: new adventures with the 1960s crew, as they looked and acted at the time (but maybe on the nu-Enterprise).

Personally, I think the CGI Arnold from Terminator Genisys proves we can do this already - though it's expensive & limited.

 

[uniderth]

Tron Legacy was a good attempt too.

If I was going to do something like this, recreating Kirk's crew, I would probably use a body double and a voice double for each character. Then replace the faces with CGI. I would try and keep the CGI as minimal as possible.

 

[rahullak]

I agree that the capability will be there. but it will still cost time and money to model the characters. You can't just press K for Kirk or S for Spock. Somebody has to model and animate these things.

Pulling some old archive footage would still be cheaper.

With advances in AI, in 20-40 years it probably could come down to just K for Kirk and S for Spock. The realism that makes people go wow would probably become commonplace.

 

[uniderth]

I agree that the capability will be there. but it will still cost time and money to model the characters. You can't just press K for Kirk or S for Spock. Somebody has to model and animate these things.

Pulling some old archive footage would still be cheaper.

With advances in AI, in 20-40 years it probably could come down to just K for Kirk and S for Spock. The realism that makes people go wow would probably become commonplace.

Perhaps. But it will be pointless anyway because in 40 years we will have world War 3 and it will all be wasted. But good news is we only have to wait about ten years after that for warp drive to be invented.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

I agree that the capability will be there. but it will still cost time and money to model the characters. You can't just press K for Kirk or S for Spock. Somebody has to model and animate these things.

Pulling some old archive footage would still be cheaper.

You severely underestimate the progress that will be made in 20-40 years, while severely overestimating the expense at which it will come. I urge you to look up Moore's Law, and contemplate its implications for the topic.

Bookmark this post and check back in 20-40 years: movies will look like "live action", but with CG (non-existent, or long dead) actors. Forget about reboots of old movies. We'll see new movies from the "original" actors. A whole new "Road To" series with Crosby and Hope. The long-awaited sequel to "Gone with the Wind" with the original cast. The 4th and 5th season of TOS. etc...

Look only to the popularity of resurgence in musical genres. Everything old is eventually new again. The technology dictates how intense (and "real") that return is.

I guarantee this will be the future fad.

 

[LLAP]

I always thought what would be a cool idea is that if in 50-100 years CGI get's photorealistic and cheap just to basically redo every Star Trek episode. Just use the actor's likeness and voice. I know it's insane lol

 

[urbandefault]

In 20-40 years we'll have flying cars and hoverboards.

Wait, what year is this?

 

[uniderth]

I agree that the capability will be there. but it will still cost time and money to model the characters. You can't just press K for Kirk or S for Spock. Somebody has to model and animate these things.

Pulling some old archive footage would still be cheaper.

You severely underestimate the progress that will be made in 20-40 years, while severely overestimating the expense at which it will come. I urge you to look up Moore's Law, and contemplate its implications for the topic.

Bookmark this post and check back in 20-40 years: movies will look like "live action", but with CG (non-existent, or long dead) actors. Forget about reboots of old movies. We'll see new movies from the "original" actors. A whole new "Road To" series with Crosby and Hope. The long-awaited sequel to "Gone with the Wind" with the original cast. The 4th and 5th season of TOS. etc...

Look only to the popularity of resurgence in musical genres. Everything old is eventually new again. The technology dictates how intense (and "real") that return is.

I guarantee this will be the future fad.

I agree this will happen. I don't think there is any doubt about that. The issue though is, which would be cheaper/faster to do? Pull some footage out of an archive; or pay artists to model and texture the cast in question, then animators to animate the scenes, then voice actors to duplicate their original voices.

Pulling archive footage will still be cheaper.

Now if we're talking about movies being some sort of 3D Oculus rift medium then you're going to have to model the characters anyway. However, that is a slightly different issue.

Now what could be done is do a 3D scan of the actors faces. This would save tones of money in modelling costs. You could save those 3D scans for when you want to bring back those original crew crew members.

 

[sojourner]

I agree this will happen. I don't think there is any doubt about that. The issue though is, which would be cheaper/faster to do? Pull some footage out of an archive; or pay artists to model and texture the cast in question, then animators to animate the scenes, then voice actors to duplicate their original voices.

That's how they do it today. In 20 to 40 years it may be as easy as scanning the actors from existing footage and let the computer do all the work of texturing and modelling. It will probably be more like moving characters in an RPG computer game than it is using "animators".