It's official: Thank God for Remastered!

[Warped9]

When I think of what looks best in terms of far future starships and how they're photographed I need look no farther than TMP. The refit E was stunning in how it was photographed. It didn't look saturated or "hyper real." It looked natural...except for the cartoony coloured streaking when the ship went into warp. In that respect I preferred TNG's rubber band effect. After TMP and to some extent TWOK ships in Trek started to look cartoony and overdone even while they were still using models. Even the ships of the first Star Wars films looked better. And that enhanced and exaggerated continued throughout the successive series. I think many people have gotten accustomed to this look and now they accept it as normal. To my eye it doesn't look the least bit realistic.

Now these are actual models.

This is cgi from Professor Moriarity I believe.

 

[Chrisisall]

I think many people have gotten accustomed to this look and now they accept it as normal. To my eye it doesn't look the least bit realistic.

I guess we all just need to have our eyes checed is all.
Can I have the name of your clearly superiour ocularist?

 

[Chrisisall]

Now these are actual models.

This is cgi from Professor Moriarity I believe.

I don't know Warped, these examples here look pretty crappy... very little mass- extremely model-y. Sometimes models, when lit & photographed wrong, look worse than moderately convincing CGI IMO.

 

[Warped9]

There is where we part. To me this looks more real. I can't say that for TOS-R. It doesn't look at all real to me. But to each his own.

 

[Chrisisall]

We will agree to disagree, cool.

 

[JarodRussell]

Seriously, TOS-R looks by miles better than the examples you posted.

 

[Chrisisall]

Seriously, TOS-R looks by miles better than the examples you posted.

That's my take on it. I mean, his model is nice (I assume it's the $1200 one), but it's lit all wrong, & the focus is too area-specific for something so large.
Personally, I used to HATE CGI with a seething passion (See: Jar Jar Binks), but on ships & landscapes & buildings in this millenium, I think it's moved into the realm of near-perfection (See: STTOS-R (TV), Serenity, NuTrek, Iron Man (movies)).

 

[Warped9]

Two of those shots are actually the original 11ft. filming miniature.

 

[Chrisisall]

Two of those shots are actually the original 11ft. filming miniature.

Oh, now tell me I didn't PICK one of them for my 'crappy' list...

 

[Chrisisall]

Two of those shots are actually the original 11ft. filming miniature.

I just looked at 'em again- NO FAIR!!! *Photoshop Detected*!!!
Photoshop is a form of digitalization! Digitalization is a form of CGI!!!
Warped! Execute your PRIME FUNCTION!!!!

[Warped voice]
Error? Error? Must examine!!!

EXECUTE YOUR PRIME FUNCTION!!!

[Warped voice]
...Must sterilize my anti-CGI thinking...
must STER-IL-IZE!!!!

 

[Warped9]

I'll narrow it down for you.

 

[Chrisisall]

I'll narrow it down for you.

I'll play!

These two?
They're so DIGITIZED, it's hard to tell...

 

[Warped9]

These are the 11ft. miniature. The first one is a composite shot to recreate the whole ship from the partial shot we see in "The Cage." The second image is a shot of the miniature from where it sat on display in the Smithsonian. I painted them in Photoshop to bring them back to life so to speak.

This is actually a custom scratchbuild model. I gotta say that I really like the shot of the ship firing its main phasers.

The shots of the ship approaching Talos IV and reentering the galaxy are a Master Replicas replica.

 

[Chrisisall]

These are the 11ft. miniature. The first one is a composite shot to recreate the whole ship from the partial shot we see in "The Cage." The second image is a shot of the miniature from where it sat on display in the Smithsonian. I painted them in Photoshop to bring them back to life so to speak.

Digitized... thought so, still, nice work!

This is actually a custom scratchbuild model. I gotta say that I really like the shot of the ship firing its main phasers.

Scratch-built??? Surely not! WOW.

 

[Warped9]

My essential point is that cgi could have been used to recreate such a look where things look enhanced as well as vintage enough so that it wouldn't look out of place alongside the remaining live-action footage.

Actually on the 11 footer shots I simply lifted the glowing nacelle caps from TOS screencaps and layered them onto the image. And then I lighted the windows and lights again. The phaser beams are custom made, though, and there's some blue glow on the hull. On "The Cage" shot I lighted the windows and lights and added glow from the nacelle domes onto the hull. Note, too, that in each case I darkened the overall image because unlike in the '60s today we have monitors and televisions that could properly show such a darkened ship. It's still a compromise, but it does look a little more like deep space and it's less brightly lighted like the original TOS shots.

 

[BillJ]

My essential point is that cgi could have been used to recreate such a look where things look enhanced as well as vintage enough so that it wouldn't look out of place alongside the remaining live-action footage.

It pains me to say this... and I'll probably have to turn in my Trekkie card after this:

On a 40 inch screen @ 1080p, it is the original effects that look badly out of place. I understand the need to do this after comparing the original/cgi effects on a high-definition display.

I grew up with those effects and I loved those effects but they just don't hold up anymore.

 

[Warped9]

My essential point is that cgi could have been used to recreate such a look where things look enhanced as well as vintage enough so that it wouldn't look out of place alongside the remaining live-action footage.

It pains me to say this... and I'll probably have to turn in my Trekkie card after this:

On a 40 inch screen @ 1080p, it is the original effects that look badly out of place. I understand the need to do this after comparing the original/cgi effects on a high-definition display.

I grew up with those effects and I loved those effects but they just don't hold up anymore.

Yes, but recreating an enhanced version of those shots would look fine on a contemporary large screen television because you'd have contemporary resolution. Note that the shots I've displayed might look fine on a computer monitor, but they don't have the resolution for a large TV. But they could if that had been the initial intent.

Another small comparison.

 

[BillJ]

Not sure what you're trying to prove... but when you put those shots up side-by-side-by-side, yours actually looks the worst of the three. It's a little brighter than the original effect but issues still remain with the image being blurry. It looks like it's out of focus. Then you blow it up to 1950*1080 resolution and it would look terrible.

No offense... because I couldn't even do as good as you did there.

 

[Chrisisall]

My essential point is that cgi could have been used to recreate such a look where things look enhanced as well as vintage enough so that it wouldn't look out of place alongside the remaining live-action footage.

Okay, but enhancing existing FX would have be REALLY EXPENSIVE, although, it would have been my first overall choice with eps that needed little or no added shots (like COTEOF)

Actually on the 11 footer shots I simply lifted the glowing nacelle caps from TOS screencaps and layered them onto the image. And then I lighted the windows and lights again. The phaser beams are custom made, though, and there's some blue glow on the hull. On "The Cage" shot I lighted the windows and lights and added glow from the nacelle domes onto the hull. Note, too, that in each case I darkened the overall image because unlike in the '60s today we have monitors and televisions that could properly show such a darkened ship. It's still a compromise, but it does look a little more like deep space and it's less brightly lighted like the original TOS shots.

Like I said, nice work, but I still choose the remastered version's new FX over the old ones, given that it is the only choice we currently have. In future, after a hundred years of Trek, I'm confident they'll go old school with models, new school with digital phasers & stars, and then 3D it for home holo-viewing.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I'm not talking about enhancing existing footage. I'm talking about creating new footage that looks enhanced yet still of the era. I'm talking about something that looks like what could have been done with state-of-the-art feature film resources as was done in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I feel like hardly anyone gets the point. We're not saying the new f/x of TOS-R look like crap. We're saying they look wrong because they so obviously look like contemporary productions alongside live-action footage that is forty years old. And just because some people say they can't tell the difference only underlines that they likely don't understand what could or could not have been possible even under the best of conditions back in the day.

Let me put it another way. If you restore a vintage or classic care lovingly, but then you add low profile tires and xenon headlights you might have something that looks cool (to some), but it certainly doesn't look authentic.