FX; defining moments

[RobertScorpio]

From TOS to the last episode of Enterprise, and all the movies. Some of the FX were good, some were bad. Some of them, especially in TOS's case, were ground breaking for their time, though may not seem so great now..

What are the five biggest advancements in TREK's effects....where, when they came out, they were so good they raised the bar until the next one came along and raised it higher...what were Star Trek(s) most defining moments in the area of Special Effects..

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Data Holmes]

TMP... The holodeck and odo...

 

[RobertScorpio]

Here are a few for me..

Doomsday Machine...I thought, for TOS's time, they really pressed the envelope...

TMP is some cases. The warp effect, the beautiful shots of the Enterprise...

The Genesis animation scene in Khan...

The Whales from VOYAGE HOME...

The scene in SECOND CHANCES when Riker walks around Thomas..still blows me away...

DS9's sacrafice of angels battle scenes...

Rob
Canary

 

[trentman359]

My single favorite FX scene is in Star Trek VI. The torpedo breaching the Enterprise's hull is awesome. No scene comes close. The way the battle was edited, the music, I don't know if I will ever be as fulfilled by any other FX shoot as I am by that one.

 

[gblews]

My vote goes to the Transporter, both the execution and the concept. Before TOS' Transporter, all T.V. spaceships (probably movies too) were shown landing in order for crew or passengers to enter or leave the ship. The shimmering disasembling of flesh and matter was a convienient, timesaving, and cool way to get folks from the ship to wherever.

It's no wonder the Transporter became the most widely known piece of Trek tech.

 

[RobertScorpio]

My vote goes to the Transporter, both the execution and the concept. Before TOS' Transporter, all T.V. spaceships (probably movies too) were shown landing in order for crew or passengers to enter or leave the ship. The shimmering disasembling of flesh and matter was a convienient, timesaving, and cool way to get folks from the ship to wherever.

It's no wonder the Transporter became the most widely known piece of Trek tech.

Yep...I had forgotten about that. Good point.

Perhaps the worst TREK effect were the puppets they used at the end of Cats Paw...I didn't see the remastered version, did they refilm that sequence? Or did they airbrush out the strings??

Rob

 

[JiNX-01]

From Enterprise:
The NX-01
Destruction of Earth in Twilight
The shot of the NX-01 and NX-02 in the warp bubble with Trip climbing the cable from Columbia to Enterprise in Divergence.
The Xindi insectoids.
The reproduction of the Defiant in IAMD II
The Borg wreckage in the Arctic in Regeneration

 

[trevanian]

Rather than going all technical, I'll just say putting the spinnies on the nacelle caps. Really kicked it up a notch.

and of course TMP.

Folks will say Genesis effect, but in terms of impacting trek positively, I'll stick with those first two.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

-Transporter (TOS)
-Pretty much any closeup of the Enterprise or V'ger in TMP
-Enterprise-D entering orbit of Veridian III in Generations (Best Star Trek VFX hands down... best ILM VFX hands-down)
-Odo morphing effect, man.
-Wrecking Voyager in Year of Hell. Showed the kind of continuity they would have been able to achieve if the series wasn't done with a hardcore stock shot mentality.

 

[trevanian]

-Wrecking Voyager in Year of Hell. Showed the kind of continuity they would have been able to achieve if the series wasn't done with a hardcore stock shot mentality.

Just requires a different kind of mentality. Except for perhaps two versions of the ship (least wrecked and most wrecked, which you do a as miniatures), you keep the views to a perspective that you'd see through a window looking out across the expanse of ship. You produce a single digital (or traditional) matte painting, then alter the details and relight each time you have more damage. Dramatically it'd would better because you'd have the crew actually in frame with the damage they're talking about (hell, you could do a time-lapse of damage with a series of dissolves a la the end of 2010 when Europa transforms.)

Berman wouldn't ever go for that kind of thing, but then there's that mentality issue again ...

 

[Data Holmes]

-Wrecking Voyager in Year of Hell. Showed the kind of continuity they would have been able to achieve if the series wasn't done with a hardcore stock shot mentality.

Just requires a different kind of mentality. Except for perhaps two versions of the ship (least wrecked and most wrecked, which you do a as miniatures), you keep the views to a perspective that you'd see through a window looking out across the expanse of ship. You produce a single digital (or traditional) matte painting, then alter the details and relight each time you have more damage. Dramatically it'd would better because you'd have the crew actually in frame with the damage they're talking about (hell, you could do a time-lapse of damage with a series of dissolves a la the end of 2010 when Europa transforms.)

Berman wouldn't ever go for that kind of thing, but then there's that mentality issue again ...

Berman was an idiot.

 

[trevanian]

-Wrecking Voyager in Year of Hell. Showed the kind of continuity they would have been able to achieve if the series wasn't done with a hardcore stock shot mentality.

Just requires a different kind of mentality. Except for perhaps two versions of the ship (least wrecked and most wrecked, which you do a as miniatures), you keep the views to a perspective that you'd see through a window looking out across the expanse of ship. You produce a single digital (or traditional) matte painting, then alter the details and relight each time you have more damage. Dramatically it'd would better because you'd have the crew actually in frame with the damage they're talking about (hell, you could do a time-lapse of damage with a series of dissolves a la the end of 2010 when Europa transforms.)

Berman wouldn't ever go for that kind of thing, but then there's that mentality issue again ...

Berman was an idiot.

Clearly, Berman is a believer in the steady-state universe rather than the expanding one or the oscillating one.

The glass tabletop thing about ship orientation is a perfect example of keeping trek so far behind the times for so long. The way he made Probert reorient the WarBird is another, though that at least let B5 do a good Minbari cruiser w/o being accused of ripping off trek.

 

[Data Holmes]

Just requires a different kind of mentality. Except for perhaps two versions of the ship (least wrecked and most wrecked, which you do a as miniatures), you keep the views to a perspective that you'd see through a window looking out across the expanse of ship. You produce a single digital (or traditional) matte painting, then alter the details and relight each time you have more damage. Dramatically it'd would better because you'd have the crew actually in frame with the damage they're talking about (hell, you could do a time-lapse of damage with a series of dissolves a la the end of 2010 when Europa transforms.)

Berman wouldn't ever go for that kind of thing, but then there's that mentality issue again ...

Berman was an idiot.

Clearly, Berman is a believer in the steady-state universe rather than the expanding one or the oscillating one.

The glass tabletop thing about ship orientation is a perfect example of keeping trek so far behind the times for so long. The way he made Probert reorient the WarBird is another, though that at least let B5 do a good Minbari cruiser w/o being accused of ripping off trek.

They should have let JMS do his birth of the federation series...

 

[ialfan]

The battle in ENT: Countdown

 

[SonicRanger]

The Genesis animation scene in Khan...

Yes, especially because the company that made that animation became Pixar.

 

[trevanian]

The Genesis animation scene in Khan...

Yes, especially because the company that made that animation became Pixar.

Not getting how that makes it a defining trek moment.

 

[RobertScorpio]

The Genesis animation scene in Khan...

Yes, especially because the company that made that animation became Pixar.

Not getting how that makes it a defining trek moment.

Well, it was a preamble to the day with most TREK effects would be CGI. Okay.. a stretch..but oh well...

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Saga]

the floating Klingon blood in ST VI
Voyager crashing on the ice planet in Timeless

 

[butch101]

The beauty shots of the Enterprise in TMP, GEN and FC. Perfect.
The crash of Voyager in Timeless.
Enterprise getting her ass-kicked in Azati Prime. Beautiful.

 

[Gagarin]

The Tholian Web's effects were all great in that episode - I think that's a great example of TOS opticals at their best.

The Cage looked amazing too, a shame they couldn't keep up that level of work 2 years later for the production run.