So how much would have quality SFX in TFF helped the movie to you?

[enterprisecvn65]

So the myriad of shortcomings of TFF have been well documented and discussed so I'll skip the formalities.

I want to know that, in your opinion, do you think if the SFX had been on par with say TWOK or TUC would it have made a difference in your overall opinion of the film.

For those unfamiliar ILM didn't have any crews available and the shot callers weren't willing to wait. So somehow they found this little mom and pop operation, I think in New Jersey, who apparently had a great presentation he showed, but was lousy when it came actual project. Hence the clear lower quality effects compared to the other films.

I know special effects can't make a film great, George Lucas showed that beyond any doubt, but I can't help feeling quality effects might have made TFF merely average and not the disaster it is generally considered to be.

I know when I watch every bad effect just makes me roll my eyes. Especally bad are the spaceship ones. I honestly looks to me like the shots of the Enterprise are of a cardboard cutout of the ship and not a model. The two worst IMHO are when the Enterprise jumps to warp just ahead of the Klingon torpedo, it honestly looks you could see the pull the string and add in horrible warp streaks.

Also when it fires the photon at "god", we'd been used to seeing photons as red or in TMP blue balls of energy with lines coming off it. This one looked like some crazy green/yellow plasma ball you'd see in one of those globes only it illumnated the whole screen terribly.

Well there of course there were others. Would good effects have swayed your feelings at all.

For me it might have a little maybe from a D- to a C-. It still had a lot of shortcomings great effects wouldn't have fixed. But all those things, combined with the terrible effects just took it from bad/below average to laughable. I mean you just can't have the effects from the first 3 films, plus the star wars films, plus films like alien and terminator 2 and blade runner.....and expect to get away with crap like this. Even if the story had been great.

 

[Dukhat]

I want to know that, in your opinion, do you think if the SFX had been on par with say TWOK or TUC would it have made a difference in your overall opinion of the film.

Nope. SFX is just icing on a cake, nothing more. You can have a great movie with zero special effects, or a shitty movie with cutting-edge effects (think Phantom Menace and Avatar.)

I know some people will disagree, but the SFX was never the problem with TFF. People just bring it up because Paramount went with someone a lot cheaper than ILM. Believe me, hundreds of rock men would not have helped this film.

 

[StarCruiser]

The story was too...screwed up to work. There were good moments the movie but, they were too few and far between.

 

[Elder Knight]

We would have probably said "Good music score and good effects wasted on a hopeless story and clumsy execution."

 

[enterprisecvn65]

I want to know that, in your opinion, do you think if the SFX had been on par with say TWOK or TUC would it have made a difference in your overall opinion of the film.

Nope. SFX is just icing on a cake, nothing more. You can have a great movie with zero special effects, or a shitty movie with cutting-edge effects (think Phantom Menace and Avatar.)

I know some people will disagree, but the SFX was never the problem with TFF. People just bring it up because Paramount went with someone a lot cheaper than ILM. Believe me, hundreds of rock men would not have helped this film.

I agree with most of what you say. To me though TFF was just a little different, yeah the story and all of that was weak ass, but the fact that STAR TREK that had been 2nd to Star Wars in sci-fi effects in the 80's put not just sub par, but absolutely DREADFUL effects like that in their film, that was like the cherry on top of the sundae.

Like I said it wouldn't have made much difference but it MIGHT have let me respect the film a little more as a reasonable effort that failed, instead of clearly being done as cheaply and slopply as possible.

 

[RyanKCR]

The effects were a major problem for me. The story itself was not really all that bad. Could have used a bit of tweaking but bad effects and poor set design/construction (ie the shuttle bay and bridge) made the whole thing hokey which made the story feel hokey. Imagine this quality effects on TWOK, I believe it would have hurt even the story.

 

[Christopher]

I know some people will disagree, but the SFX was never the problem with TFF. People just bring it up because Paramount went with someone a lot cheaper than ILM. Believe me, hundreds of rock men would not have helped this film.

I agree entirely. What this movie needed wasn't something added but a few silly and nonsensical things taken away -- e.g. the gravity boots, the impossibly high turboshaft, the references to the center of the galaxy (only three near-consecutive lines, easy to excise), Scotty hitting his head, and the bit where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are unharmed by a photon torpedo -- an explosive more powerful than a nuclear bomb -- going off not thirty feet behind them. (They could've changed it to a phaser beam instead.)

Could have used a bit of tweaking but bad effects and poor set design/construction (ie the shuttle bay and bridge) made the whole thing hokey which made the story feel hokey.

What's wrong with the set design of the shuttle bay? It's literally a full-size recreation of the TOS shuttle bay miniature. I think that's impressive, if anachronistic.

Honestly, I never had a problem with the effects in TFF. They weren't quite up to the level of the previous movies, but they seemed okay to me -- not actively bad, just run-of-the-mill.

 

[Maurice]

The effects are bad, sorry.

Ferren and Associates couldn't get the motion control system to work right so they ended up shooting all the model shots as stop motion, so there's no blur, which makes anything moving fast have this terrible staccato quality. They only managed to put together two shots where the Enterprise is moving (firing the torpedo and orbiting with the BOP at the end), and every other shot of the ship is a damned still... even the warp drive. The lightning from the God-wanna-be and the Enterprise's torpedo are strictly amateur hour animation, as is the awful bluescreen work of Kirk falling alongside El Cap. The matte paintings are okay, as is the planet Sha-ka-ree, and the Great Barrier looks all right. but, in general, the VFX are low rent.

That said, they're so few and far between the net improvement from fixing them would barely begin to address the movie's problems, which are much more about an unfocused story and uneven characterization. So, no, high quality VFX would not have helped the movie almost one bit.

 

[Khan 2.0]

Posted something about speculation on if ILM had done TFF FX here
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=9469486#post9469486

the spaceship FX for ENT/BOP/shuttle surely wouldve been up to Trek III standard (plus maybe wed have seen some new mushroom spacedock stuff as in VI instead of reusing the end of IV) but what about ShaKaRee/god? would they have done the bluey light show? Maybe, but itd have more than likely looked less bland, more 'ILM' looking...in fact maybe they wouldve been able to do the original ending of all the gargoyles coming out the ground after the torpedo strike and them chasing KSB back to the shuttle with Scotty accidentally beaming one up thinking its kirk and having to disintegrate it but in doing so destroys the transporter. So kirk is on the run using 2 phasers and gets to the top of the mountain and fires both phasers at the gargoyles but there's too many but then the BOP arrives and blasts them..then kirk fires his phasers at the BOP before being beamed up..(as described in The Making of The Trek Films & The Making of Trek VI) the gargoyles couldve been a combination of animatronic/puppets/early CG/animation/man in suits as in Raiders (dark angel ending), Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Twilight Zone The Movie Nightmare 20,000 segment, SW trilogy, Aliens etc (dunno how 'god' wouldve fit in with all the gargoyles? maybe He would be like the overlord of them directing them/guiding them toward the trio like a big Dr Manhattan.)

I doubt the FX wouldve been an issue and criticized just like they weren't for the other films -

 

[FormerLurker]

Better effects would have made the wildly erratic storytelling easier to take, to be honest. I remember cringing several times the first time I saw it(which I had to hide so as to not turn newbies off to Star Trek), but it was as much for the cringe-inducing scenes being followed by cringe-inducing effects as the bad writing. All in all STV would still be the worst of the TOS films, but by much, much less of a margin if ILM had done the effects.

 

[RyanKCR]

What's wrong with the set design of the shuttle bay? It's literally a full-size recreation of the TOS shuttle bay miniature. I think that's impressive, if anachronistic.

The problem I had was during the shuttle crash/landing. The speed of the shuttle, the shortness of the bay and the length of time it took till the net stopped the shuttle was very unbelievable. Just didn't work for me. Plus I missed the huge open bay into the cargo bay from TMP. The bay in TFF made the Enterprise feel small.

 

[Dukhat]

Better effects would have made the wildly erratic storytelling easier to take, to be honest. I remember cringing several times the first time I saw it(which I had to hide so as to not turn newbies off to Star Trek), but it was as much for the cringe-inducing scenes being followed by cringe-inducing effects as the bad writing. All in all STV would still be the worst of the TOS films, but by much, much less of a margin if ILM had done the effects.

The VFX for this film were:

1. Kirk falling off a mountain and Spock rescuing him.
2. Shots of the Enterprise either sitting around doing nothing or flying through space.
3. Shots of the BoP either sitting around doing nothing or flying through space.
4. Pioneer exploding(!)
5. A shuttle flight that ends up crashing in the shuttlebay.
6. The occasional phaser blast or photon torpedo or two.
7. ShaKaRee.
8. God.

How would better VFX for any of the above really have helped make the film's story any easier to take?

 

[cardinal biggles]

The effects are bad, sorry.

Ferren an Associates couldn't get the motion control system to work right so they ended up shooting all the model shots as stop motion, so there's no blur, which makes anything moving fast have this terrible staccato quality. They only managed to put together two shots where the Enterprise is moving (firing the torpedo and orbiting with the BOP at the end), and every other shot of the ship is a damned still... even the warp drive.The lightning animation from the God-wanna-be and the Enterprise's torpedo are strictly amateur hour animation, as is the awful bluescreen work of Kirk falling alongside El Cap. The matte paintings are okay, as is the planet Sha-ka-ree, and the Great Barrier looks all right. but, in general, the VFX are low rent.

I know you posted this spreadsheet in the "Chapel in the movies" thread to illustrate a different point, but what astonished me was that Ferren and Associates spent more on VFX than ILM did in either TSFS or TVH -- a million more. I know ILM would have been sending in their third-stringers for TFF -- their two best teams were already tied up with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II -- but surely those guys could have done better than Bran Ferren.

I also agree with you: the story and character problems run too deep for better VFX to save this film.

 

[Maurice]

The VFX for this film were:

1. Kirk falling off a mountain and Spock rescuing him.
2. Shots of the Enterprise either sitting around doing nothing or flying through space.
3. Shots of the BoP either sitting around doing nothing or flying through space.
4. Pioneer exploding(!)
5. A shuttle flight that ends up crashing in the shuttlebay.
6. The occasional phaser blast or photon torpedo or two.
7. ShaKaRee.
8. God.

How would better VFX for any of the above really have helped make the film's story any easier to take?

You're missing:

1a. Shuttle flying away from Yosemite
4a. Decloaking
5a. Shuttle approaching and flying over Nimbus III
5b. Warp drive
6a. Great Barrier
9. Matte paintings at the top and tail of the film
10. Planet orbit and space stuff to be rear projected into the main viewer and wheel room windows

 

[Dukhat]

1a. Shuttle flying away from Yosemite

Ok, add that to the general shuttle VFX.

4a. Decloaking

Stock footage

5a. Shuttle approaching and flying over Nimbus III

Same as 1a.

5b. Warp drive

Stock footage

6a. Great Barrier

Yep, forgot that one.

9. Matte paintings at the top and tail of the film

While matte paintings are technically VFX, I view that more as an art department job, not a VFX job.

10. Planet orbit and space stuff to be rear projected into the main viewer and wheel room windows

Again, that's just ShaKaRee with two ships matted into the foreground.

 

[Maurice]

If you're going to be that reductionist then just say "shuttle shots" instead of "shuttle crash". What you list as "stock footage", wasn't. And matte paintings ARE VFX. The art department doesn't do them.

Anyway, here's something fun: actual animatics for Star Trek V's effect by Robert Lyons.

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[Smellmet]

I come at this from a slightly different angle, whilst I agree that good FX do not a good film make, and I agree with what posters on this thread about this, but for me the nature of films like this demand that I'm at least a little 'wowed' by what's on screen surely? This is a sci-fi action adventure flick after all. The Final Frontier fails to deliver in this respect nearly 100%.

Even when the film was brand new I found the visuals to be frankly embarrassing.

There's literally only 2 reasonable effects shots in the entire movie and they are both very brief - the 1701-A behind the moon, and orbiting the planet with the BoP. That's it. The Enterprise going to and being seen at warp, and going into the Great Barrier are Superman 4 levels of dreadfulness to cite just a couple of examples.

Up to scratch visuals would have helped the movie no end. Whilst I agree that films like The Phantom Menace and Avatar are not great films per se, they are both good cinematic experiences, especially Avatar, because of the top notch special effects. I think it would have papered over the cracks enough for me to enjoy it a lot more than I do.

It would still probably be the worst Trek film for me, but by a lesser margin.

 

[Melakon]

The stop motion of the space probe target practice was the most jarring sequence for me when I first saw it in theaters. The animation work there was bad. Really bad. It wasn't anywhere close to Harryhausen standards (or even Jim Danforth), and he worked with a lot less money.

 

[Khan 2.0]

The effects are bad, sorry.

Ferren an Associates couldn't get the motion control system to work right so they ended up shooting all the model shots as stop motion, so there's no blur, which makes anything moving fast have this terrible staccato quality. They only managed to put together two shots where the Enterprise is moving (firing the torpedo and orbiting with the BOP at the end), and every other shot of the ship is a damned still... even the warp drive.The lightning animation from the God-wanna-be and the Enterprise's torpedo are strictly amateur hour animation, as is the awful bluescreen work of Kirk falling alongside El Cap. The matte paintings are okay, as is the planet Sha-ka-ree, and the Great Barrier looks all right. but, in general, the VFX are low rent.

I know you posted this spreadsheet in the "Chapel in the movies" thread to illustrate a different point, but what astonished me was that Ferren and Associates spent more on VFX than ILM did in either TSFS or TVH -- a million more. I know ILM would have been sending in their third-stringers for TFF -- their two best teams were already tied up with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II -- but surely those guys could have done better than Bran Ferren.

I also agree with you: the story and character problems run too deep for better VFX to save this film.

remember reading in a Cinefantasqie or one of the Making of books, Winter saying if theyd gone with ILM it wouldve been their 'D' team as the A team etc had already been booked with the other blockbusters of 89 (why did the Trek V team let that happen anyway? they knew the schedule) and that when it came to doing tests for the end god thing ILMs was silly

thing is (as already mentioned) even if they had got ILMs D team (with the top ILM people already working on Indy, GB2, BTTF2, Abyss) the fx probably wouldve still be better than what was as itd have still been ILM doing it - ILM trained, the facilities, models, ILM already having done the FX for II, III ,IV ... And maybe some of the 'A' team who were die hard trek fans wouldve helped out in the end anyway

 

[Christopher]

The effects are bad, sorry.

Compared to ILM's work, or to modern standards, perhaps. But I grew up in the '70s and saw plenty of older movies and shows -- and by the time TFF came out I'd seen Doctor Who and maybe Blake's 7. Compared to the level of "bad" I'd gotten used to, TFF was perfectly adequate. On the spectrum between, say, Return of the Jedi and Godzilla vs. Megalon, I'd put TFF somewhere in the middle.

What's wrong with the set design of the shuttle bay? It's literally a full-size recreation of the TOS shuttle bay miniature. I think that's impressive, if anachronistic.

The problem I had was during the shuttle crash/landing. The speed of the shuttle, the shortness of the bay and the length of time it took till the net stopped the shuttle was very unbelievable. Just didn't work for me.

That's more a problem of directing and editing than set design, though.

Plus I missed the huge open bay into the cargo bay from TMP. The bay in TFF made the Enterprise feel small.

Well, there was no way they could've built that in full scale anyway. And I'm pretty sure that if you look carefully at Probert's matte paintings of the TMP shuttle/cargo complex, there's evidence of sliding bulkheads that can close off the shuttlebay from the cargo bay. Presumably they're open while cargo is being laded and closed the rest of the time.