I think they were pretty on-par with other TV shows from the same era with a similar budget.
Do you wish TNG had been better with the action scenes?
- Thread starter Jayson1
- Start date
I think for the most part that they did fine action wise in TNG, especially considering the era and budget etc. For me Yesterday's Enterprise would be their best in terms of space battles.
Using stock footage is fine as that's what is needed sometimes. But if it's reuses from such recognisable parts like in YE, I don't know if it's just me but it can take me out the moment. Rascals being what I'm thinking of here, though that isn't that episode's main issue at all...
Using stock footage is fine as that's what is needed sometimes. But if it's reuses from such recognisable parts like in YE, I don't know if it's just me but it can take me out the moment. Rascals being what I'm thinking of here, though that isn't that episode's main issue at all...
I always thought the fight scenes in TNG look very much like what you'd see in a stage play.
I was always okay with less hand to hand combat or space battles, as long as whatever was going on fit with the story being told. That is my primary interest in TNG, the amazing storytelling.
I was always okay with less hand to hand combat or space battles, as long as whatever was going on fit with the story being told. That is my primary interest in TNG, the amazing storytelling.
Very much this. TNG was a show built around dialogue, with the occasional scrap. It's less like an action show and more like an adventure show with the occasional bit of action thrown in. It is occasional as well. There are great skas of TNG episodes where phasers aren't fired and punches aren't thrown.
I watched Tapestry recently and I thought the bar fight/Picard heart stabbing was done well enough.
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I love the stylised fighting in TNG. The future is palm punches people. So many palm punches. I also love that they dont run down corridors in a crisis, but do this weird kind of fast walking. Seriously, check out the end of Power Play. Its super exciting somehow - even though its basically a load of dialog and people walking down corridors at the end.
They over-used the palm strikes and double axe-handles IMO.
Impossible!
There was a lot of awkward flailing, especially in the first season with Denise Crosby, since they had to sell that this skinny person who doesn't look like she' particularly strong somehow is able to defeat huge aliens.
I think the implications with all those palm punches and that weird...well I dunno what to call that move Tasha used to knock down opponents...was that they have some sort of futuristic martial arts.
But to be fair, fight scenes that are just awkward, badly choreographed flailing have a tradition in Star Trek, just look at the Gorn fight! I dunno how that came across back in the 60s, but today its difficult to watch without laughing (and I don't mean because of the costume, though the poor fella inside it must have sweated like hell out there in the desert).
I think the implications with all those palm punches and that weird...well I dunno what to call that move Tasha used to knock down opponents...was that they have some sort of futuristic martial arts.
But to be fair, fight scenes that are just awkward, badly choreographed flailing have a tradition in Star Trek, just look at the Gorn fight! I dunno how that came across back in the 60s, but today its difficult to watch without laughing (and I don't mean because of the costume, though the poor fella inside it must have sweated like hell out there in the desert).
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A great example of badly choreagraphed firefight is in Gambit Part I. A phaser is practically a portable WMD, yet it was like seeing an ugly 1950s western shooting where to escape the effect of a weapon that can destroy a mountain just do a ridiculous somersault behind a boulder.
By the way I've always found phasers-fights somewhat unrealistic (something that even the authors of the shows have admitted). How is it unlikely that after the few first missed shots the bad guys don't set their phasers on "Earth-Shattering level"? I mean, how powerful hand phasers are is canonical!
But said "Earth-Shattering level" would have bad side-effects in many situations; you could accidently blow a hole in the side of a ship and get yourself sucked out into the vacuum of space. The building or (in Star Trek, more likely) the cave you are having the fight in could collapse in such a way that buries and kills you as well, etc. etc. etc.
Only because its possible to set the thing to the level of a rocket launcher doesn't mean it would be prudent in any specific situation.
The TNG fights remind me sometimes of the clumsy fight in the Arrow verse shows
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Yes, if you are a Starfleet officer. If you are a bad guy and you are panicking, I don't believe if a so far fetched scenario. And what if you are in a open field on a planet? Still in the show they choreographed similar situations like it was a firefight with muskets of the 18th century.
I never really thought about it too much- TNG was a product of it's time. It still boggles my mind to think that I was only 19 when it aired, and it was very much a product of its time- 80's television.
As for the static nature of space combat in Trek, that's always been something of a staple of the series, at least the earlier ones like TOS and TNG. The Great Bird always likened it to 'Hornblower in Space,' so those slow moving, behemoth starships 'firing broadsides' at one another seemed to just slot right in.
And Trek has yet to top the Captain Kirk flying bulkhead-bounce-kick. Worf, with or without Batleth, has nothing on that.
Think how two regular people might fight.
There wouldn't be much CGI style kicks and spins, that is movie stuff.
Star Trek did just fine with fight scenes.
However, sometimes when watching a Klingon fight, a skilled warrior, they don't appear more than someone in a bar fight.
There wouldn't be much CGI style kicks and spins, that is movie stuff.
Star Trek did just fine with fight scenes.
However, sometimes when watching a Klingon fight, a skilled warrior, they don't appear more than someone in a bar fight.
I always hated the battle scenes when the ship would get hit by phaser fire or something and Picard would just sit there and ask for a damage report. Worf would say all departments are reporting this. Was the report generated by the computer because if not, there is no way they could have reported the damage that quickly. Also, how about firing back ASAP instead of just getting a report? I kind of think the opponent would keep firing instead of just stopping...unless their captain asks for a damage report on the other ship just to even things up.
The setup and execution definitely make that scene more than the sum of its parts. It's a great episode, managing to grab and keep the viewer interested in the resolution...
...Now if only Ron Jones scored it, it'd have been far better! Season 5 was hit or miss with the effectiveness of incidental music, season 6 manages to be far worse, and there's nothing worse than "wallpaper music" - something that just sits there and adds nothing to the scene. Or, worse, it distracts. You can hear the same schlock in any number of YouTube videos made nowadays by casual/semiprofessional dilettantes, and most of the time it's unnecessary to even have. Let the dialogue and scene sell it first, then complement it with good effects and sound. (If I ever started a video series, I definitely know what not to do and based on the comments section I'd be prepared for feedback given, or at least nasty verbiage of the sorts that would otherwise get that annoying BEEP noise overlaid... try wallpaper muzak over that!
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The setup and execution definitely make that scene more than the sum of its parts. It's a great episode, managing to grab and keep the viewer interested in the resolution...
...Now if only Ron Jones scored it, it'd have been far better! Season 5 was hit or miss with the effectiveness of incidental music, season 6 manages to be far worse, and there's nothing worse than "wallpaper music" - something that just sits there and adds nothing to the scene. Or, worse, it distracts. You can hear the same schlock in any number of YouTube videos made nowadays by casual/semiprofessional dilettantes, and most of the time it's unnecessary to even have. Let the dialogue and scene sell it first, then complement it with good effects and sound. (If I ever started a video series, I definitely know what not to do and based on the comments section I'd be prepared for feedback given, or at least nasty verbiage of the sorts that would otherwise get that annoying BEEP noise overlaid... try wallpaper muzak over that!
Yeah, check out the end of Booby Trap. Ron's music really makes the scenes work. Imagine this with Season 6 music and it'd be pants.
For the life of me I will never understand why Berman hated good music. I actually understand some of his rules. Keeping things in lined with what he thinks Roddenberry would do sort of makes sense if your like him and not a big believer in Star Trek ideas so instead just go with what the guy who created it would want. Try and downplay extreme emotions and add technoabble so the shows feel serious and not like 1950's Buck Rogers style Sci-Fi. But the music made zero sense, especially since it was already happening with Ron Jones and fans seemed to like his music.
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