For TMP Fans: "Lighting V'ger"

[Data Holmes]

The transporter effect was interesting in TMP because it involved spinning a very thin wire at real fast speeds while shooting a laser beam at it. I also think that I remember reading that this was done on set with the actors inside the spinning wire, and that this was the first time the effect was attempted practically on set at time of shooting.

No the laser through the wire was a post effect, not on-set, done by Matt Beck of Apogee, who later did X-FILES. ST THE MAG had a lastpage feature on it.

Abel's people actually shot a lot of the transporter accident (from Koenig's account and others), but I don't know what they intended to do visual-wise.

Ah, my mistake. It was a very cool effect though, shame it was dropped from the later films. So much of the effects work done and developed for TMP, and it's potential to further the look of trek, seems to have bee lost in the name of ILM. A real shame.

Most people I know mean THIS when they talk about the Basestar on V'ger. (Also here in hi-def)

Well, the vger exterior is something like 68 ft long, so it MIGHT be a basestar model ... but my reference was to Greg Jein's work for Trumbull (not apogee, who did the exterior) on the vger interior.

Actually, since Dykstra/Apogee DID the BSG vfx, it could well be a casting or something of the sort ... in-joke that went untold? According to Dykstra, they used styrofoam coffee cups and whatever was at hand to finish off the vger exterior.

Didn't the model start to eat itself at some point?

 

[Pauln6]

When I think of Basestars, all I can think of is Lucifer (shudder). Imperious Leader was great fun though. I wish the final Cylon had been him in the NuBSG - with his evil henchdog, Muffet.

 

[Maurice]

What about the Darth Vader-Miss Piggy controversy? Is it really just the result of our anthropomorphic brains hastening to divine patterns in bilateral arrangements? Or was V'Ger a closet ROTJ fan, celebrating the uneasy alliance of patricidal cyborg antagonists and dancing alien muppets (no wonder it had an existential crisis)?

It's bunk. I suspect it started because people saw still frames from the Spock Walk in the PhotoStory book.

There's no Vader or Piggy in the SpockWalk sequence. They're optical illusions. "Vader" is just a momentary negative space in the gap between sections of Epsilon Nine as the camera moves (and loses that shape after a moment as it does), and "Piggy" is just some grillwork and a couple of dark spots that give the impression of Miss Piggy...just as some clouds look like anvils or horsies.

See?

And See?

(click to zoom if necessary)

When I think of Basestars, all I can think of is Lucifer (shudder). Imperious Leader was great fun though. I wish the final Cylon had been him in the NuBSG - with his evil henchdog, Muffet.

Lucifer and his ilk look like reworks of the heads of Mean Mr. Mustard's robotic assistants in the awful Sgt. Pepper film of 78.

 

[trevanian]

Actually, since Dykstra/Apogee DID the BSG vfx, it could well be a casting or something of the sort ... in-joke that went untold? According to Dykstra, they used styrofoam coffee cups and whatever was at hand to finish off the vger exterior.

Didn't the model start to eat itself at some point?

Well, if they used spray paint on the styrofoam, that would be enough to do it, but I hadn't read or heard about that.

As for the green yellow electricity stuff seen in the flyover ... I've thought that was some of the least convincing stuff in the whole picture. There are just some things that seem really difficult to animate effectively ... I think the ectoplasm animation in LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE is just phenomenally convincing, but when I see attempts to do the same in SOMETHING WICKED or POLTERGEIST, they just seem Disneyesque-awful by comparison. On the green yellow vger stuff, I think it is a case of somebody saying, make it look just like the concept art, when that ain't always possible.

If you look at Mead's art for vger, almost all of it looks better than the actual miniature, in part because the perspective on Mead's stuff is really REALLY interesting (in his book OBLAGON, you can see some of these TMP renderings spread across two huge pages, and they are actually breathtaking in scope and detail), especially the sweeping curve of the arches. Dykstra's people come close a few times, but usually the scale gets blown during some point in the very-sustained shots.

The single improvement I'll acknowledge as being a legit improvement in the DE of TMP (outside of Shat's oh migod goin' 'way) is the omission of the 'reverse angle on viewer' during the flyover, when they had a partly out of focus shot (lack of depth of field?) looking back and down at vger on the viewscreen that made it seem about two feet long. It almost looks like a video shot, it was so bad.

 

[Data Holmes]

Actually, since Dykstra/Apogee DID the BSG vfx, it could well be a casting or something of the sort ... in-joke that went untold? According to Dykstra, they used styrofoam coffee cups and whatever was at hand to finish off the vger exterior.

Didn't the model start to eat itself at some point?

Well, if they used spray paint on the styrofoam, that would be enough to do it, but I hadn't read or heard about that.

I remember reading once that they had to start filming at one end of the model before the other end was finished, and was still being built, because what they did do was starting to melt.

 

[Psion]

Didn't the model start to eat itself at some point?

Well, if they used spray paint on the styrofoam, that would be enough to do it, but I hadn't read or heard about that.

I remember reading once that they had to start filming at one end of the model before the other end was finished, and was still being built, because what they did do was starting to melt.

I, too, recall reading this, but can't say where and given the need for multiple passes described above now find such a problem implausible.

 

[Maurice]

I believe the issue was they used some kind of fish oil to give the surface a sheen, and it ended up stinking to high heaven and ruining the finish, so they chainsawed the model.

 

[trevanian]

The only place I've seen BTS pics of the full 68ft vger model was in the Christopher Finch Special Effects book (I think the ones on the Barbee page were done by splicing different stills together to keep the whole thing in focus, a la the stills used in SILENT RUNNING that look along the length of the ship.)

The thing looked magnificent in its odd way, so maybe they just grabbed what stills they could for reference or posterity before it went to pieces?

 

[Maurice]

If you look at Mead's art for vger, almost all of it looks better than the actual miniature, in part because the perspective on Mead's stuff is really REALLY interesting (in his book OBLAGON, you can see some of these TMP renderings spread across two huge pages, and they are actually breathtaking in scope and detail), especially the sweeping curve of the arches. Dykstra's people come close a few times, but usually the scale gets blown during some point in the very-sustained shots.

Mead's paintings of V'ger are awesome. It's unfortunate the film couldn't replicate the sense his images gave. The film is much darker, and lack the quality of life his rendering contain by virtue of the sense of dynamic energy crackling about the thing.

BTW, I have the Finch book and just flipped it open to the pages showing V'ger. The "base star" feature on the outside surface I was discussing earlier is plainly visible on the model and appears to be only about the diameter of a CD, based on the human figure seen in the photo: ergo not a Basestar model at all.

 

[Psion]

...

BTW, I have the Finch book and just flipped it open to the pages showing V'ger. The "base star" feature on the outside surface I was discussing earlier is plainly visible on the model and appears to be only about the diameter of a CD, based on the human figure seen in the photo: ergo not a Basestar model at all.

But what if they used the same stuff found in "Shrinky-dinks" for castings from the Base Star and--

Oh, alright, I'll stop. I think that pretty much kills the hypothesis. Good job, and thanks!

 

[Epsilon-9]

The days of photochemical optical effects looked so grand in scale on the big screen.