All right, fair enough. Don't agree at all, but not going to try and sway you.
So how much would have quality SFX in TFF helped the movie to you?
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All right, fair enough. Don't agree at all, but not going to try and sway you.
Hello, friend who I went to see this movie with.
Then I guess you haven't been listening. The effects do the job of telling the story (such as it is). They're better than the effects in TOS, or any space effects pre-2001:Space Odyssey.
What I don't get is that the production team knew that they were dealing with an FX company who was on the cheap and hadn't really done anything on the order of what a STAR TREK movie might entail ... it seems to almost go against logic that nobody ever checked on them, until they finally saw what going it cheap bought them. And they were surprised by this! The fact that it was an East Coast company, is that the excuse? Yes, with ILM you know you can walk away from a meeting with them and forget all about it, because they're going to deliver. I know that Ferrien was called upon to do the "god creature" as his "test" to see if he'd get the job, or not and that wowed them. But, uh ... yeah, I don't see how they started out just giving Ferrien all of the trust they'd given ILM, right out of the gate, based on that. When they started to deliver the goods, then yeah ... maybe not looking over their shoulder makes more sense, than it did before.
Associates and Ferren had done some genuinely great work in the past, most notably Little Shop of Horrors. But as I recall from Cinefex, Ferren needed to outsource a fair amount of the blue-screen work to another shop because his team had no experience with it. That kind of due diligence should have been done in advance of signing a deal -- the holy trinity of project management is timeline, budget and scope, after all -- and that's on Ralph Winter, who seriously fucked the dog and has since admitted that going with Associates and Ferren was his call.
Bran Ferren and Associates has a habit of doing one great effect, and the rest is crap. In 1989 they did the John Larroquette/Bronson Pinchot feature "Second Sight", and the big effect they did do for that film was Pinchot's character floating around. When the time came for what was the big money effect of Pinchot's character using his psychic powers to drive a jetliner down the streets of Boston, the effect they used was literally scratching the emulsion off the film with a ball point pen. This film came out after TFF, so was no benefit to Shatner or Bennett, or Winter, in making the decision, but it's telling of Paramount's priorities at the time.
And Little Shop was probably the best thing Bran Ferren and Associates ever did.
And Little Shop was probably the best thing Bran Ferren and Associates ever did.
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If that's your perspective fine I respect it
Personally though it was okay to use the line "well the effects weren't great but did their job" before 1977.
After Star Wars though all that changed and not only did people expect SFX to tell the story but they expected a certain level of quality to the effects themselves. Especially in films like Star Trek.
If "The Empire Strikes Back " had come out completely the was it was. Only for reason lucas really went cheap on the effects and the walkers looked like stop motion King Kong in the 30's and the star destroyers and millennium falcon looked like the Enterprise in TFF it would have probably been slammed. Never mind the fact the story everyone raves about having such depth wouldnt have been any different.
Today we have the opposite problem where movies are made with amazing SFX but the story sucks. And effects have reached the point where they don't amaze like they once did no matter how good.
It's like an jet liner. First time you see one it's really cool. Fly on them 20 times a year or see them over your house all the time......it doesn't really dazzle you.
By 1989 people expected a film like TFF to have effects of a good quality. Regardless of the story itself and the people making the film should have known this. Instead we get shots of the enterprise where it literally looks like a cardboard cutout of the ship flying to or away from the camera.
Bad films and stories happen. But something like TFF effects are inexcusable, especially for a pioneering franchise like ST
a similar thing happened with Superman IV in 1987 - like Trek V the story wasn't too good (the main star had helped write it) and the FX were far worse to what they were in previous films (like Trek V they switched FX people - this time due to a horrific last minute budget slash from $36m to 17m - so at least SIV had that excuse) and both Trek V and SIV really needed great FX to help compensate the story (on the Superman collection dvd extras one of the Superman I-III producers talk about SIV and how the new producers Cannon thought they could get away with going with a cheaper FX house not realising that one of the stars of the Superman films was the expensive FX and without them they were shortchanging the audience which helped result in SIV being a flop)
So without decent FX it was like a double blow for both films - not only was the story lacking/abit nonsensical this time, but the FX which were expected to be at least on a par with the previous films were shockingly bad = game over (although Trek got another chance thanks to the 25th anniversary - Superman wasn't so lucky - actually the following year 1988 was Supermans 50th anniversary, so abit strange they didn't want the film out for then)
So without decent FX it was like a double blow for both films - not only was the story lacking/abit nonsensical this time, but the FX which were expected to be at least on a par with the previous films were shockingly bad = game over (although Trek got another chance thanks to the 25th anniversary - Superman wasn't so lucky - actually the following year 1988 was Supermans 50th anniversary, so abit strange they didn't want the film out for then)
That's a great point, not only had "Star Wars" changed the game to where people had a certain expectation for quality SFX in sic-fi and fantasy films....the own FRANCHISES had set precedents for the level you'd expect.
Superman I-II had, for the time, very good effects. Sure they look dated today, but some still hold up well even today. III was a terrible film and effects were a step back, but not a huge one. Then IV comes out and not is the story horrible, but the effects look like some high school filmmaking class did it and it surprised fans that not only had the stories gotten so bad but the effects had regressed so much. So much so it killed the franchise.
Star Trek same thing. TMP, TWOK and TSFS had effects that, IMHO, ranged from good to top notch for the most part. TVH didn't have many SFX but the ones it did have were decent/good. Then TFF comes and, like Superman IV, the story is awful but the SFX look primitive compared to the earlier films.
I know it's not a totally fair comparison but look at TMP vs. TFF. TMP was criticized for being slow and awkward in it's story, but it was almost universally praised for having amazing visuals. I don't think it's as bad as the rap it's gotten but it's not exactly a film that gets your blood pumping. Could you imagine though if the SFX in it looked like the ones in TFF.......it would be unwatchable.
Again would more/better effects have made TFF better or more watchable? I guess that a personal judgement call. All I can say is that when the sci-fi industry, and your own franchise, sets a standard for quality visually and then you release something that is so behind that standard, a lot of people are going to say "What the hell" and the film will already have two strikes against it.
All I know is that when "Spaceballs" a film parody of sci-fi, mostly about Star Wars, but still, has better looking effects in it than a STAR TREK film......you're in some serious trouble, regardless of how good or bad the story itself may be.
Interesting - as most of the Enterprise shots in the movie are dreadful - going to warp and the bit where Sybok says 'full ahead' are two particularly bad examples where they just move/reduce the shot of the model, yet the final shot of the Enterprise leaving Sha Ka ree looks really good and in perspective. You've probably got a point there.
That certainly helps clarify things! Thanks, alot.
The Forbidden Planet shots of the ship flying through space and of it flying over the planet look really good, although I've never seen them on the big screen. Were those done as practical effects, as a ship model or ship and planet models in front of a backdrop of stars, with the ship on wires, or were those done as composites with traveling mattes?
I used to think that about Superman III, but I've reassessed it. It's actually a pretty good film if you accept it in the spirit it was intended, as a faithful recreation of the goofy Superman comics of the Silver Age. In some ways it's actually more consistent in tone and cohesively told than the first two movies (which were torn between Silver-Age silliness and a more grounded approach), and it has some good characterization for Clark/Superman and Lana Lang. And Ross Webster made a better Lex Luthor than the films' Luthor himself did.
But yeah, The Quest for Peace was pretty much irredeemable.
I haven't seen III for years so I'd have to watch it again and see if my perspective has changed. I will say I thought the Bad Superman vs Clark Kent was really well done.
I Remember when IV came out I was excited because Hackman was back. Then I read reviews and they all said in no uncertain terms it was an embarrassment so I passed. Have tried to watch it on tv but can't get through it. At least with TFF I can watch it and still be mildly entertained. TQFP is just awful in every possible way.
I watched it on TV a couple of days ago - I've always had a soft spot for it. Drunk Superman flicking peanuts in that bar and the subsequent scrapyard fight are fantastic scenes. The whole film is goofy but I don't mind that. Superman 4 on the other hand has to be one of the worst films ever made. TFF isn't that bad, but it's only a few rungs from it in my opinion.
always liked SIII (as you say it was reflective of the comics of the time) - and thought the FX were the best of the series
Well, no, it was reflective of the comics of a generation earlier. By 1983, DC's comics had gotten more serious and sophisticated, following Marvel's lead. This was just three years before The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, after all. But comic-book movies were still stuck in the Silver Age, lagging decades behind their source material. Superman III was in the vein of the uninhibitedly silly Superman comics of the '50s and early '60s.
And it's no different today. Batman v Superman, to all accounts, is heavily influenced by The Dark Knight Returns in its portrayal of Batman, even though it's 30 years later. Before that, the Nolan movies from 2005 onward owed a lot to Batman: Year One from 1987, The Man Who Falls from '89, and The Long Halloween from '96-7.
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