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Michael Westmore's Aliens

T

trekjiro

Lieutenant
Red Shirt
On the special edition DVD of Insurrection, I just saw a spotlight on Michael Westmore who is the main art director for the movie. I was blown away with the amount of work he has done in Star Trek. Its so interesting seeing how he derived all the characters and applying all the prosthetics and makeup. He also is featured in the first and fifth season of the DS9 boxset and ENT Season 4 boxset. He is a big part of Star Trek.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Michael_Westmore's_Aliens

Here are his film credits.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0922878/
 
Yes, if you ever need a beautiful woman disfigured with a ridiculous-looking forehead, Westmore's your man.
 
I won't miss his work, to be honest. I already had my share of Chernobyl mutants and Thalidomide children in Star Trek... and if I ever see another complex, detailed reptilian mask spoiled by unobscured human eyes and teeth, I'm gonna freak out.

So much work, yet so little effort. Westmore's work on Trek is a study in mediocrity.
 
WOW!!!

The above post describes EXACTLY how I feel about Westmore's makeup work. He fed upon his own designs until he eventually came full circle and started copying himself.

Somebody hit the nail on the head a while ago when they said Star Trek aliens were just an actor with a chicken Mcnugget slapped on their forehead. That became a joke between my friends and I forever after.
 
exalted one said:
I won't miss his work, to be honest. I already had my share of Chernobyl mutants and Thalidomide children in Star Trek... and if I ever see another complex, detailed reptilian mask spoiled by unobscured human eyes and teeth, I'm gonna freak out.

So much work, yet so little effort. Westmore's work on Trek is a study in mediocrity.
Click to expand...

Yes, I kinda have to agree. I'm very tired of seeing humans with a few wrinkles/ridges on their noses or face somewhere. Ruffles should have ridges, not every human-looking alien. Voyager was especially bad for this, I found.
 
Although I fully agree with the idea that Mr. Westmore was burned-out/mediocre by the end, at the same time I have to give him credit.

After all, he did it straight for how long, 25 TV seasons? That's a lot of bumpy-forehead Chicken McNugget creations, all in all. *zoinks* :eek:

Cheers,
-CM-
 
It made me appreciate TOS all the more. When they had a beautiful woman guest star, well, there she was! There was Barabara Babcock, Marianne Hill, Sherry Jackson, Sabrina Sharf, Kathie Browne in all their natural beauty, plus a sexy costume. On TNG et al, we got Ellen Brye with a funky forehead, Marta DuBois with a funky forehead, Linda Thorsen and Mary Crosby with spoons on their foreheads, Michelle Forbes with a nosepiece, Robin McKee with a funky forehead and - what the hell was that on her head?!?!
 
I think some of Westmore's designs did get very repetitive, and I would've liked to have seen more diversity in them. Maybe having to literally design a new alien every week on a TV budget was the issue.

That said, however...I think some of you are being too hard on him. Some of his designs were pretty cool--the Cardassians being the first ones to come to mind. I also think some of the more unusual extras on DS9 were pretty neat--and it was too bad they didn't get more screentime.
 
I like Westmore's designs for "hero" races, like the Cardassians and the Bajorans, and some of the DS9 backgrounders (Like Morn). But the rest of it tended to blend together.
 
While sometimes there was a bit of the "nose applique" of the week, he still worked on neat creatures like Tosk that shone- I think he quality was there when it was needed, and given the long hours and huge numbers of actors and extras on ST, I don't think I'll fault him when budget/time constraints came in. I'm sure if he had more time to design and work on things- the individual races would have come through. I think it was Roddenbery who didn't want mouths covered, otherwise he was worried you'd lose the actor- but Westmore made that work with Tosk, so he could make it work with other creatures too.
 
DS9Sega said:
trekjiro said:
On the special edition DVD of Insurrection, I just saw a spotlight on Michael Westmore who is the main art director for the movie.
Click to expand...
He was NOT the art director of Insurrection. He was makeup designer & makeup supervisor. The Art Director of the film was Rob Wilkinson.
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Thanks for pointing that out. Here is his amazing history.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0922878/

I haven't seen all of Michael's work on DS9/Voyager/Enterprise yet. Even Jonathan Frakes mentioned while directing you have alot more time and freedom in many aspects with movies in comparison to the series.
 
While I agree there were an inordinate number of races with an extra ridge or a blob here and there, I have to echo Colonel Midnight's comment that he was coming up with new aliens week in, week out for 25 seasons.

In the case of DS9, there's a huge variety of aliens among the background performers, and in most episodes of any of the modern series, you're usually introduced to at least one, usually more, alien races. I think he did a fantastic job to be honest.

I can't think of a songwriter who can belt out a new song that often without starting to draw upon past songs and giving them a 'samey sound'. The same complaint could be applied to alien ship design and sets, where a lot of models (CGI and physical) are redressed and re-used. Even the writers of Trek hit upon the same problem if you look at how many Enterprise scripts seemed to have come before (Doctor's Orders -> One, Carbon Creek -> 11:59, Oasis -> Shadow Play, Terra Nova -> Friendship One). Originality is definitely a hard thing to keep going for any period of time, and I think he did a good enough job of it with time and budget to take into consideration.
 
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Forbin said:
Nerys Ghemor said:
Some of his designs were pretty cool--the Cardassians being the first ones to come to mind.
Click to expand...

They had spoons on their foreheads. SPOOOONS!!! :cardie:
Click to expand...

Ooookay...besides the obvious The Tick joke, and discussion of inherently funny words, I don't see the problem.

Oh, and this probably won't surprise anybody who's read my fanfic, but I have a theory as to what the deal is with that. Your one and only hint: it also has something to do with why Cardassian voles are so hard to exterminate.
 
Michael Westmore is an absolute hack and a blot on the name of a legendary Hollywood makeup family. His idea of makeup is creating thick latex appliances. Need an alien? Let's give him forehead bumps, a nose ridge and an extra nostril.
It certainly reveals a lot that the aged McCoy in TOS looked far more convincing than the one in TNG.
Do you know that when they used to apply Spock's eyebrows, they did it one hair at a time -- and to the man's face, not to some appliance.
No, M. Westmore fits right in with Berman's accounting approach to creativity.
 
Some blame goes to lazy writers for inventing new aliens every week, so many were one-shot appearances.

Rufflians, the Ridgerians, the Spottans, the Lumprians, Bumparans..were the worst. :)
 
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