Balance of Terror - Are they phasers?
- Thread starter Scrambo
- Start date
Probably looking for a big tiger mouth on the front, ala the Flying Tigers...
Maybe Saturn0660 is thinking of the ST:E episode (Minefield I think?) which featured a Romulan ship that looked very similar to it's counterpart of a hundred years hence, yet looked more advanced (which it shouldn't have, in either case) and didn't have a bird emblem (which it should have) yet had a cloaking device (which it shouldn't have)?
That's one case where the original photography definitely looks better!
Name dropper!
The new BOP is a little brighter than the old one, but the difference looks pretty marginal to me.
That's interesting. In the remastered broadcast version I watched, and the one I own on DVD, the bird-of-prey painting is quite clear.
Now THAT is interesting. I saw the remastered one locally on the CW and it's the first thing I noticed. Heck, even my wife who just thinks Star Trek is just OKAY noticed it.
I wanna say it's the first time they show the ship.. and it's not there.
A little three-minute-ish long clip of all the new VFX for the remastered "Balance of Terror" is here on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYWl-b6AdjM
(I'm not seeing any shots of the Romulan ship with missing bird-of-prey markings.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYWl-b6AdjM
(I'm not seeing any shots of the Romulan ship with missing bird-of-prey markings.)
That's interesting. In the remastered broadcast version I watched, and the one I own on DVD, the bird-of-prey painting is quite clear.
Now THAT is interesting. I saw the remastered one locally on the CW and it's the first thing I noticed. Heck, even my wife who just thinks Star Trek is just OKAY noticed it.
I wanna say it's the first time they show the ship.. and it's not there.
^^ That clip reminds me of how much I disliked what they did to the episode in TOS-R.
- I dislike the obvious plating seen on the BoP.
- I dislike the retconning of sound and image of photon torpedoes when the spoken reference describes something else. The original phaser bursts visual was cooler.
- I dislike the new comet f/x. Looks really cartoony.
- I dislike the explosions. The original f/x was better.
- I dislike the obvious plating seen on the BoP.
- I dislike the retconning of sound and image of photon torpedoes when the spoken reference describes something else. The original phaser bursts visual was cooler.
- I dislike the new comet f/x. Looks really cartoony.
- I dislike the explosions. The original f/x was better.
Didn't the original version also use the silvery photon torpedo "squirt" VFX for the phasers with "proximity blast?" And didn't the original version also use the "photon torpedo" sound effect for these proximity blast phasers?
I think, by convention, phasers in the new TOS-R versions of all the episodes were standardized as blue (instead of lots of different colors) and photon torpedoes were standardized as red (instead of silvery). In the case of the remastered "Balance of Terror," they used "phaser blue" instead of "photon torpedo red" for the proximity blast phasers.
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No. It didn't use any sound effects for the external shots at all. Just musical cues. It worked very well.
Well, there are two different "external shots" of these "phasers set for proximity blast." One is the view of the Enterprise as it fires these photon torpedo-like weapons:
...and the other is the view from the Enterprise's POV of these weapons detonating far off in the distance:
I think only the "far off in the distance" detonation shots are done without any sound effect and with only some musical score. I think the shots of the Enterprise actually firing the weapons do have an accompanying photon torpedo sound.
Can somebody check my sanity? (I'd appreciate another set of eyes.)
No, in the original non-new VFX and remastered version of the episode, when the proximity blast phasers are fired, the silvery photon torpedo VFX is used (as seen in the top picture) and it is accompanied by the "photon torpedo" sound. When these bolts of whatever-they-are are seen detonating in the distance from the POV of the Enterprise, it is music only with no accompanying sound effect. Hold on, let me plug in my old Volume 4 "two episodes per disc DVD" with "Balance of Terror" on it. Back in a minute....
Yes, when the Romulan ship *doesn't* emerge from the tail of the comet, Kirk orders that the proximity phasers just be fired blindly by Stiles; the view of the Enterprise as it actually fires its weapons (as seen in my top picture) is indeed accompanied by the photon torpedo sound.
Are you saying the the old VHS versions (and earlier versions) *before* they were digitized for those "old" DVDs don't have the photon torpedo sound?
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In the original broadcast version of the episode before anyone messed with it there was no sound to the phaser bursts. That is how we saw it on television in the '60s, '70s. '80s and '90s before they were remastered.
They started messing with things when the episodes were digitized for dvd. Then they just kept messing with it.
They started messing with things when the episodes were digitized for dvd. Then they just kept messing with it.
If that's true, then they messed with it for VHS releases in the 80's and 90's as well, because the VHS versions have the sound effect as well. And I find it very unlikely that anything was changed for the VHS releases.
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