Favourite original FX shots...

[Maurice]

Two issues with that image. One, you will never have that view from an F104 cockpit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:...h_TFS,_479th_TFW,_at_Udorn_RTAFB,_in_1965.jpg

It doesn't help that the cockpit set they used was clearly not a good fit for a Starfighter.

I liked the idea too but IMO the execution was cartoony as fuck.
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x19hd/tomorrowisyesterdayhd634.jpg

It looked like this... where the brightest surfaces of the Enterprise are brighter than the @#$%ing sun!


It should have looked more like this... which looks bright and hot

 

[Spock's Barber]

Are those original VFX ,or are they from TOS-R?

original:
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=96&page=5

remastered:
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/thumbnails.php?album=85&page=22

Must be remastered, from TrekCore.

 

[BK613]

It doesn't help that the cockpit set they used was clearly not a good fit for a Starfighter.


It looked like this... where the brightest surfaces of the Enterprise are brighter than the @#$%ing sun!
View attachment 24091

It should have looked more like this... which looks bright and hot
View attachment 24090

Even brighter. And there are effing stars in the background!

 

[Maurice]

Even brighter. And there are effing stars in the background!

I said "more like" because it was a rough and quick tweak I did.

 

[BK613]

I said "more like" because it was a rough and quick tweak I did.

Wasn't contradicting you; only saying it needed to be ramped up to 11. And the stars comment is aimed at the FX team not you; maybe I should have been more explicit.

 

[shapeshifter]

Arguing brightness levels near the surface of the Sun. Priceless.

 

[Spock's Barber]

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[publiusr]

What I wouldn’t have given to go outside as a child and look up and see just that above the nearby Birmingham Airport.

I missed a daylight bolide when my Mom nagged me indoors for a bloody haircut that could have waited. Let me want to see storm clouds and down to the basement we’d go…errrr…

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Yup. The Enterprise traversing the blue sky. The Jupiter II would have been welcome as well.

(sigh)

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Reposting this pic because it's so freaking awesome!!!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

A lot of the ones already mentioned.

That initial zoom in to the bridge of the Enterprise from "The Cage" is still pretty great. It immediately gives us a good look at the ship and elegantly establishes exactly where the bridge is:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x00/thecage008.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x00/thecage009.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x00/thecage010.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x00/thecage011.jpg

I love Albert Whitlock's matte paintings for the show. In particular his rendition of Delta Vega from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" ("Nobody here but us chickens, Doctor."):

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x03/wherenomanhasgone263.jpg

And Starbase 11 from "The Menagerie" and "Court Martial":

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x11/themanagerie1_003.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x20/Court_Martial_003.JPG

The surface of Eminiar VII is pretty great too:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x23/A_Taste_of_Armageddon_045.JPG

And I love the simple device of cross-cutting between the two Enterprises at the beginning of "Mirror, Mirror." It immediately and clearly establishes the possibly confusing idea that Kirk and company have been transported into an evil opposite universe (At 2:09 in the video below). It's also a great touch that the Mirror Universe Enterprise has the spikes at the end of the nacelles, while the regular Enterprise doesn't:

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And I love that shot of the Fesarius in "The Corbomite Maneuver" where it continues enlarging past where you expect it to stop until it's positively dwarfing the Enterprise and Oooooh Shit our heroes are in trouble now:

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x10/corbomitemanuever144.jpg

And in the non-Remastered shot...the 1701 is absolutely dwarfed and tiny by comparison.

In the remastered shot because of how they ultimately composed it; you you get the impression the Fesarius is big; but it doesn't have the same visceral effect of just HOW SMALL the 1701 is in comparison when compared to said original non-remastered shot.

As some have said above; many times the CGI artists working on the remaster seemed to not realize WHY certain effects shots were composed in the manner they were. These guys seemed to just wanted to up the visual details of the respective ships, thinking it was the issue with some of the original effects shots without considering that there was a valid and important in narrative reason to compose a shot in the way they did.

Exactly. The moments where I hate the new remastered FX (and there are also several shots I really like) are in the places where they obviously assumed that those poor dumb clods in the '60s did things wrong and they didn't consider that there were reasons why the original effects crew did what they did.

It looked like this... where the brightest surfaces of the Enterprise are brighter than the @#$%ing sun!

Ha! I hadn't thought of that before, but you're absolutely right. Not getting brightness and shadows correct is a common mistake in modern FX, probably because many of the artists know computers better than basic artistic principles.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

One of the last shots of the 11 footer was chopped up…showing the Enterprise slowing turning….nacelles turning.

Is that the shot we see at the end of That Which Survives and when Scott says they are "going nowhere" in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?

 

[IMC Headquarters]

I'd love to vacation at this place for a couple of months...

 

[Neopeius]

The shot I always remember is the Enterprise shooting at Apollo's temple. Just that whole sequence.

The Cage is full of memorable F/X.

Something my wife noted in "The Man Trap" (but not on "Charlie X") was that the corridors were all lit with different colors depending on the scene. It made it seem like there were sections of the ship devoted to medical, sciences, engineering, etc. So the ship felt bigger. It's a subtle trick, but it's really cool.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I like the matte paintings a lot.

My favorites in order:

1. Delta Vega lithium cracking station/refinery
2. "Court Martial" Starbase 11 (very Bonestell-esque). [https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x20/Court_Martial_003.JPG]
3. Rigel VII fortress
4. "The Menagerie" Starbase 11, beam down point
5. Eminiar VII, beam down point

My favorite starship porn beauty shot of the Enterprise is the frame on the cover of so many editions of The Making of Star Trek. I do not know authoritatively what episode it's from (assuming it is a frame from one of the episodes), but it seems at least very similar to this frame from "Journey to Babel":

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x10/Journey_to_Babel_279.JPG

It looks like the optical printing matte may be breaking down in the forward underside of the saucer? But I don't care. It's such a gorgeous angle on the ship.

 

[GNDN18]

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yes, those are all epic. And the shots with both starships are far superior to the shots in "The Omega Glory" and "The Ultimate Computer" that are assembled out of multiple Enterprise stock footage shots.

Ugh (not favorites):
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x23/theomegaglory_029.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x24/The_Ultimate_Computer_317.JPG

 

[GNDN18]

And the shots with both starships are far superior to the shots in "The Omega Glory"

QFT. Nothing beats the View Master envelope, though. The three-footer and an AMT model!

I must admit that I still connect emotionally with my nine-year old self when I see Wesley’s task force in formation. I didn’t really get the whole optical printer thing until I was at least eleven.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I must admit that I still connect emotionally with my nine-year old self when I see Wesley’s task force in formation. I didn’t really get the whole optical printer thing until I was at least eleven.

I get that. The flaw in the execution is of course that it's the same shot replicated. At least they're not all scaled the same. I can't attest to whether they also thought to keep the shots out of sync.

QFT. Nothing beats the View Master envelope, though. The three-footer and an AMT model!

I snatched that "Omega Glory" View-Master release up in a heartbeat when I was a kid (and the "Yesteryear" one too; lawn-mowing paid ). I didn't realize that's how the cover was made.

 

[GNDN18]

Somebody put together the definitive web site in the AMT models used on TOS that referenced the GAF shot. There were also pictures of a lighted model used in “The Trouble with Tribbles.” I haven’t been able to find it since; perhaps somebody here knows something about it.

ETA I might have conflated the AMT web site with this one. It captures the sense of wonder and confusion that came with all that merchandizing from the 70s: those manufacturers were no respecters of canon. I wondered why the shots in the reels were not seen kin the episode, not realizing they were staged for GAF. I really wanted to know what Uhura was reading.