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ST Phase 2: MIND-SIFTER

Maurice and doubleohfive:

I think just about everything you guys have noted was right in the money-as always. I don't want to pick apart your picking apart--especially since your comments are all pretty accurate.

Mostly, I want to thank you for putting your thoughts down and posting them. It's a shitload of work to do that, and I'm appreciative of the feedback. The only people who love Trek more than us knuckleheads who make these things are you (collectively everyone here) knuckleheads who watch these things with the same amount of (or more) passion as we put into them--and offer your valuable thoughts.

Further comments and observations are welcome from everyone here, not just Maurice and doubleohfive, of course.

My last observation is that so many of the "A would have been better than B" comments are not news to us, of course. Generally we are thwarted in our efforts to deliver an even better product. It's not that we didn't realize those things would have been better; generally, we were just stymied in our efforts to do it that "better way"-- whatever it was.
 
Such a treat to get to watch this again with retro effects. Thanks for that. I need to make a list of my "10 favorite things" about this episode. I'll try to post that in a couple of days. Second, third and fourth viewings really help me appreciate what I'm seeing here.
 
Really tempted to watch, but I think I'll wait for the retro effects version. Since it's presented in 4:3 ratio, seeing it that way first should be that much cooler. :techman:
 
Was that John Eaves about ten minutes into the episode?

And nice touch setting it before Assignment: Earth to avoid having to deal with that!
 
lennier1 said:
Was that John Eaves about ten minutes into the episode?

And nice touch setting it before Assignment: Earth to avoid having to deal with that!
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Well, interestingly enough, when the story was first published in a fanzine, the Klingons wanted the secret to the "breakaway factor" for time travel. When the story was later published in a book, the editors changed the time travel method to the Guardian. The writer never liked the changes the editors made. I'm a bit surprised we went with the version of the story that the writer herself hated.
 
Ah, I know what's happening. The image with the newspaper where I put the end credits over it is the one where that may appear to be the case.

When I layed out the images, the blue credits seemed to dazzle into the black of the newspaper type, so I not only lightened the paper considerably, I also created a white soft surround or glow for the blue credits letters so they'd stand up against the background and be readable.

That's what causes the picture to ook white; the white glow around the credits is bleeding into it.

Reading the credits was more important than making the BG image the star.
 
Really Greg? :rolleyes: The choice was made because that is the version of the story most fans remember with fondness and I am quite sure wanted to see. I also won't go into the many reasons our original footage and screenplay had to be jettisoned out the airlock.
 
It also helped to bring the show full circle. The Guardian was there in your first episode and now it's on one of your finest.
 
GSchnitzer said:
Well, interestingly enough, when the story was first published in a fanzine, the Klingons wanted the secret to the "breakaway factor" for time travel. When the story was later published in a book, the editors changed the time travel method to the Guardian. The writer never liked the changes the editors made. I'm a bit surprised we went with the version of the story that the writer herself hated.
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As an outsider looking in, I think the Guardian just works better in this case. YMMV of course. :)
 
It also condensed the necessary time travel scenes and they didn't have to address the problem of a whole ship full of Klingons orbiting a helpless 20th century Earth.
 
Pony Horton said:
Ah, I know what's happening. The image with the newspaper where I put the end credits over it is the one where that may appear to be the case.

When I layed out the images, the blue credits seemed to dazzle into the black of the newspaper type, so I not only lightened the paper considerably, I also created a white soft surround or glow for the blue credits letters so they'd stand up against the background and be readable.

That's what causes the picture to ook white; the white glow around the credits is bleeding into it.

Reading the credits was more important than making the BG image the star.
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I dunno...
15931212251_e25db93f5d_o.png

15313585633_8e39ba5cd9_o.png

...the newspaper looks the same to me both in episode and in the credits. It looks like the photos are printed on a different piece of paper, since underlying color doesn't match. Again, a minor nit.
 
lennier1 said:
It also condensed the necessary time travel scenes and they didn't have to address the problem of a whole ship full of Klingons orbiting a helpless 20th century Earth.
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While that could have been interesting in itself, I agree wholeheartedly. :)

Maurice said:
Pony Horton said:
Ah, I know what's happening. The image with the newspaper where I put the end credits over it is the one where that may appear to be the case.

When I layed out the images, the blue credits seemed to dazzle into the black of the newspaper type, so I not only lightened the paper considerably, I also created a white soft surround or glow for the blue credits letters so they'd stand up against the background and be readable.

That's what causes the picture to ook white; the white glow around the credits is bleeding into it.

Reading the credits was more important than making the BG image the star.
Click to expand...

I dunno...
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Hey it looks pretty good to me. :)
 
some really strong and long comments, so just a few from me

ok so fan film, so ill start off with the all respect to those involved comment. Respect.

Brian Gross as Captain Kirk, obviously we have not seen the Goss as Kirk before this, due to I dont fully understand but "reasons" I think this episode is a good induction for a new Kirk, dont just throw him straight in, but have the audience accpet him as Kirk, as he realises that himself, I did some one comment about him being "too soft" I see where that person was coming from, but maybe that is the events of the episode itself, and when he returns to Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise, that will change.

Brandon Stacy as Mr. Spock, um the self mind meld and the link between him and Kirk, I can accept one but not both, more accepting of the former rather than the later, but the later does go somewhere to explaining why Spock off in this episode.

Jeff Bond as Dr. McCoy, stand out performance here for me, unless Jeff was hamming it up with the accent, he holds the episode together really well, and of the 3 I felt he was the best in the episode. Alot of what McCoy does in this episode feels like the role of a ship's counselor, but since Kirk did not have one, it falls on McCoy, who obviously has the relationship with Spock to allow it.

Im a bit lost with this female Doctor, on the one hands its "take me seriously, I have a degree" but on the other, she seems to fall into every cliche female Doc, her colleagues would accuse her of, she gives up on pretending she doesn't have feelings for Jim quickly enough, and does become overly attached and involved, even if she is right about Jim, she isnt quite as prefect as may have been suggested.

Over all its a strong entry by Phase 2, one of its best, certainly (and maybe) the best episode with no big name guest stars, its good to see the production raise its game. Some good writing, really benefits the cast, making the whole thing more believable, even if we get the sight of Spock Fonzing it up. :guffaw:
 
My Oh My..... I got to give this 12 Starships out of 10!!!! This works on so many levels. I can't nit pic this, I know some who will but I just want to enjoy this present.

Thank you all.
 
Very cool episode - I really liked it. Not a big fan of the 4:3 format. And I was a bit confused about the New Voyages/Phase II naming, plus using the old ship again when they announced the refit last year - but I guess that all had to do with the placing of the episode in the first or second season. I am still looking forward to the first episode with the new ship.

The new Bones was surprisingly good, I feared I would miss Kelley much more. The rest of the cast was also very good. Really no acting faults here, quite the contrary.

Some of the audio was not exactly perfect, but it wasn´t really distracting. Great recreation of the Guardian. VFX were nice again - I did watch the updated FX first and then had a look at the supposedly "retro" ones, which did not look very retro to me, just very simple. But as long as we get to choose I won´t complain.
 
The best since World Enough and Time . HANDS DOWN. It felt like proper Trek; very ambitious with Kor and the Guardian too.

I watched with the modern effects but it still felt like a 60s episode. I loved John Kelley as McCoy and couldn't help but feel saddened by his departure but Jeff Bond EXCELS in the role - the voice particularly reminds me of Deforest. Brian Gross was very good as Kirk and taking a starring role I still love Brandon as Spock.

Bravo all round, here's to the next one!
 
jamesmc said:
Really Greg? :rolleyes: The choice was made because that is the version of the story most fans remember with fondness and I am quite sure wanted to see. I also won't go into the many reasons our original footage and screenplay had to be jettisoned out the airlock.
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Oh, I hear ya, Boss. We talked about that following the submission of my preproduction script notes. But I spoke inartfully: I'm not surprised at the story choice; I'm disappointed. I understand the need for a new script and I support your thinking. I just don't think that also introducing the Guardian (like Shirley hated) was a necessary part of developing a new script.

A couple a years ago, we had talked about how, in our earlier script, we used the "breakaway factor"--which made sense because that's what Shirley had in her story before her editors got a hold of her story. We thought that, even though the Guardian was the method most people were familiar with from the edited version of Shirley's story, we didn't care and thought people should become familiar with Shirley's original story regardless of how familiar people were with the book version. It makes sense to give people what they are familiar with; it also makes sense to give people something they aren't familiar with as a surprise. I don't know how to quantify people who want to see stuff they are familiar with and people who want to see stuff they aren't familiar with. So disregarding "popularity," all other things being equal, I would have gone with Shirley's original story instead of the Guardian version that Shirley hated--no matter how familiar people were with it. But, as always, you and I complement each other and we have slightly different approaches to Producing our episodes.

If nothing else, (and it was on my mind when I generated my script notes), we've "been there, done that" already with the Guardian--regardless of how cool it might be. And since we already established a research station there, we had to get around that by setting the episode back during the TOS era. I would have just gone with the treat of introducing people to the elements from Shirley's original story.

We spend a lot of goofy time around the Guardian. It's cool, I suppose, but it comes at the cost of exploring Kirk's mental problems--or in exploring the Spock/McCoy relationship more deeply.

The notion that the Klingon empire could go to any time by learning the secret of the "breakaway factor" done from any star system anywhere is pretty damned compelling and scary and worth exploring; it's more frightening than Klingons learning about the Guardian, since we can just garrison the planet. And Shirley's original story left a mystery as to what happened to the Klingon ship that brought Kirk to the past to drop him off. Are they still there? Could there be more to this story? Is there a sequel here? How cool would that have been!? But the Guardian was cool, too--like in "In Harm's Way" and "Of Gods and Men." It's just not the direction I would have gone. No big deal and not really a surprise.

Like so many say, "your mileage may vary." Our story choice isn't really surprising; there were good reasons for it. It's just not the way I recommended we go with the script. But that's why you're the Senior Executive Producer and I'm a Co-Executive Producer.
 
jamesmc said:
that is the version of the story most fans remember with fondness
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Which is exactly why Shirley wanted her version filmed - so fans would get to know the story she intended to tell instead of the "bastardized" one...one in which she presented Chekov as a young up-and-coming Kirk. Looks like her dream is dead, alas.

But the names of the people who actually created the story you guys filmed seem to be missing... Sondra and Marsha should get the credit they deserve. Then again, so should David Reddish. Just MHO, of course.
 
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