Enterprise-D destruction
- Thread starter Carpathia86
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As far as I know, they only used the 4-foot-long Enterprise-D model in DS9, while Generations used the original 6-foot-model (which was repainted and detailed for the film). Plus, as you say, the big twelve-foot-wide saucer for the crash scene and the Ten-Forward section.
They had a great influence on modern cinema then.
Yup.
It was payment for him editing Tomb Raider ironically.
We had our first warning there...a lot of character stuff on the cutting room floor and into the deleted scenes, at least one of which featured an extremely well known and warmly regarded actor.
I must check the deleted scenes on the new one...see if there’s a better film hiding in there...
Ahh yes, that's right, thank you. I remember that from the DVD special features, now that my memory has been jogged.
Ah yes, you are definitely right. Good point!
Even the stock shot of the Odyssey docked at DS9 had been filmed with the 4ft model, so I can't even try for a technicality.
The idea of a David vs Goliath battle with the old ass underdog ship pummeling the big superior one to death is actually a pretty cool idea. The problem with the sequence as filmed is we get no real idea of the damage being inflicted on Enterprise by this fast little thing doing strafing runs on the slow lumbering Federation flagship because all the damage we see happening is from the inside of the ship -- the bridge sets shaking, consoles blowing up, the desperation of the crew to find a quick solution, etc -- but there are unforgivably few shots of the two ships in orbit. Maybe only two or three. If we pay very close attention we see the bridge shake maybe twenty times and the aft consoles explode at one point, it's clear that the Klingon ship is running rings around them and the Enterprise caught unawares can't keep up (maybe the BOP took out the other weapons systems?), but we don't get to SEE it, so the whole thing feels lame.
Another hint of things we don't get to see: Geordi declares the coolant leak that brings down the ship to have been caused by "that last torpedo", but we never got to see the BOP launching torpedoes at Enterprise. It clearly happened, but it all happens off screen. We never saw any of it.
The whole thing needed more optical shots of the ships battling it out, to help sell the idea of the pasting the Enterprise is taking.
Another hint of things we don't get to see: Geordi declares the coolant leak that brings down the ship to have been caused by "that last torpedo", but we never got to see the BOP launching torpedoes at Enterprise. It clearly happened, but it all happens off screen. We never saw any of it.
The whole thing needed more optical shots of the ships battling it out, to help sell the idea of the pasting the Enterprise is taking.
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Frankly it also needed more shots of the E returning fire besides one lame-ass phaser shot.
They might have gotten around that point, at least, by suggesting the BoP had targeted the E's weapons arrays first, but as noted, more establishing shots were desperately needed.
It's sad when the VFX shown in the series ("Conundrum" readily springs to mind as the E showing its combat prowess) are more impressive than those shown in a feature film.
They might have gotten around that point, at least, by suggesting the BoP had targeted the E's weapons arrays first, but as noted, more establishing shots were desperately needed.
It's sad when the VFX shown in the series ("Conundrum" readily springs to mind as the E showing its combat prowess) are more impressive than those shown in a feature film.
Paramount running tings on the cheap again basically.
Blame the Braga, Moore and Jeri Taylor for that. B&M wrote the movie but it was Taylor who suggested the audience would find the lack of action "charming". Another creative in Hollywood who thought subverting audience expectations would yield big dividends.
Remember, Paramount shilled out several million dollars on the reshoots for Kirk's death and the finale. After B&M's lackluster finale of Soran shooting Kirk in the back failed with test audiences.
So,TPTB had money to do a better space battle. But I don't think they put much thought into it. Remember, it was Braga's idea to have the ENT-D crash in the finale of TNG seaspn 6. It was saved for the movie though. But the comedy of errors that are the crew's actions in GEN were all done to facilitate the ENT-D destruction.
It was only towards the end of filming that they realized they created a massive plot hole. Something which Leonard Nimoy pointed out to them at the beginning. When he was in talks to direct GEN. And that was the Nexus itself.
Ignoring the convoluted nonsense of blowing up stars to shift gravity, and change the Nexus' course. So that Soran could be on a planet when the Nexus flew over. If you can go back to the any point in time, freely and with no consequences... Why doesn't Picard just go back to earlier in the movie; when Soran was freely walking the decks of the ENT-D?
Because that would save the ship, save the crew, save Geordi from being kidnapped and tortured, save the 200 million anonymous inhabitants of the Veridian syatem and save everyone's time from watching this movie.
Nimoy nuked this movie before it even started production. Berman, Braga and Moore caught on later but it was too late.
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Ironically, Taylor was right...the non-action sequences in the film are charming.
Nothing can be done about that plot hole...though it is at least fairly obvious to an experienced viewer that Picard is just going back to when he thinks of himself as failing, and reasonably avoiding massive paradoxical time travel (which is, of course, impossible...he has to fail to enter the nexus so he can leave it, in order to not fail. Not to mention if Soran enters the nexus, he will always succeed, and has done so already...the soran in the nexus can leave to ensure his own success, and as time has no meaning there....yes it’s an utter mess.) but well..it’s all too silly. I say that as someone who basically likes the film.
There’s a whole confluence of choices, from studio head through production team, that really led to the messy bits in this film. I think it’s a shame they didn’t go to Michael Piller, and more of a shame that when they did, the producers, Stewart among them, slowly smashed the project till we got insurrection.
It is indeed ridiculous that some episodes have better battle scenes than the movie, but the battle fx still looks great, even better than in Insurrection.
I don't want to go too much off topic, but what would the original be of Insurrection?
I don't want to go too much off topic, but what would the original be of Insurrection?
As planned and started (according to the book Fade In) it would deal with a starfleet captain going rogue, who was a classmate and friend of Picard and the Crushers, who goes a bit Colonel Kurtz on a planet with a ‘fountain of Youth’. Picard is sent to bring him in, and then some of the rest would presumably have gone in similar ways to what we got in the film.
Stewart didn’t want to focus on Picard feeling old (as he felt that was done in Gen, and standing next to an unable contemporary captain would do that...) and also wanted a love interest for Picard (goodby backstory to Picard and Beverly, hello Anij.) After that it was all tweaks for added boom. It’s an interesting book. It even feels like an insight into Nemesis and what went wrong there (Spiner and Stewart both with Producer powers...add in stupid director, and all the other odd decisions...) in a way. It also really shows the work people like Piller were putting in when they wrote for Trek. Some went for ‘it would be cool if’ and had a shopping list, others worked at it from a ‘the story makes sense a b c’. B and M often went ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’, particularly the B. Sometimes that works, but it’s not a shame solid as starting with a story happening.
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All the FX in generations are superior to the dross served up in insurrection.
I disagree, showing the Duras sisters in a BOP emphasizes that they've fallen from being ia powerful Klingon house to likely only possessing that lone BOP.
If they were in a mighty battleship the message would be different.
Good point. Weren’t they looking for trilithium in a Ds9 appearance?
Not quite, they sold something with a similar name as an explosive to Bajoran terrorists.
(Just checked Memory Alpha, it was 'Bilitrium').
The Durases only having a Bird-of-Prey might have made sense thematically, but it still strained credibility that it could hold its own against the Enterprise. Maybe it would have worked better if they'd established that trilithium torpedoes still cause incredibly powerful detonations even when you don't fire them into a star, and that all they needed was one shot to cripple the Enterprise and leave it unable to mount any sort of fightback (at least, not until Data technobabbles the solution).
While that was definitely a huge problem with the plot device called the Nexus, the larger problem was its description: a place where your greatest wishes come true, and that it's so addictive that you'll never want to leave. Well, not only was it quite easy for Picard and Kirk to leave, but Kirk's greatest wish was obviously to command his ship again because he hated retirement. And yet the Nexus gave him the fantasy of...being retired?
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