Newly composited shots of the TOS Enterprise
- Thread starter Mudd
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Agreed. The level of craftsmanship on the miniatures illustrates just how creative and dedicated the TOS artists were in presenting what could be a realistic look into the far future...and how terrible, wrongheaded and incorrect the 1991 Ed Miarecki "restoration" was.
The TOS-R work just comes off like something one would see in a cheap video game from 2000.
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Both the live action and the FX elements were shot on 35mm film. Maybe you're thinking of the 16mm prints that were used for TV broadcasting back then.
Or the Enterprise seem hundreds of miles long -- and orbiting the planet while tilted 90 degrees sideways.
I always liked the stock Enterprise-in-orbit shots. I saw them as not visually literal, but rather a stylized representation of a space vessel orbiting a planet. Just like the dolly-in-on-the-bridge shot in "The Cage" -- I never thought there was an actual transparent dome over the bridge!
Yeah, but in TMP we finally got the ship in orbit flying in a straight line and it looked fine.
From experience, part of the problem with recreating the ships that were physical models is that even something as "simple" looking as the old Connie is awkward to recreate as a CG mesh with any degree of efficiency, making it expensive to both model and render.
And then there's the fact that we're just used to how the old TOS effects look. The low rent star field, the film grain, camera angles, filters, lenses, blue light from the blue screen, all the subtle reflections of whatever was in the studio at the time of filming. We aren't used to seeing objects in space with no atmosphere, so getting it to look real is extremely challenging.
I’m not sure how “low-rent” the hand-painted star fields were, but I take your point. For example:
…this looks fake to me, but I’m assured that it is quite real. May your way be as pleasant.
I hope we get to see your render soon.
Perfect example. Much like you, when I first saw that photo, I thought it was some CG illustration someone had cooked up. I've often had the same experience with photos of deep sea life.
Not to belabour the point, but when I first encountered this photo a few weeks ago I actually mistook it for (high quality) CGI at first glance:
I'm not used to seeing the model with this lighting, the leading edge on the neck just looks fake somehow, and the fresnel effect on the saucer was never this pronounced in the TOS footage.
I’m not certain, but I think that’s the latest Smithsonian restoration. Maurice could speak to the lighting, but I can’t imagine this was intended to be filmed. If anything, TOS has some unaccounted-for shadows being cast by multiple light sources. Just saying.
That said, still I’m looking at her through a romantic haze, so the neck looks fine to me.
That said, still I’m looking at her through a romantic haze, so the neck looks fine to me.
Correct. It's the Smithsonian restoration with the background cut out. The stand is visible at the bottom, and if you zoom in the imperfections become noticeable, perhaps most notably the recessed rings at the bottom of the saucer have a noticeable bend at the front. But because it's lit differently from the way it was in the show, my first thought was "that's fake!", which is one of the reasons it's so hard to get a CGI version to be convincing.
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