ST:TMP - Lost Footage from the Trench

[alchemist]

Do not try to bend the spoon; that's impossible.

DS9Sega and Cardinal Biggles: Thank you!

I'm not kidding, that reminds me of Kung Pow: Enter The Fist.

You guys are making fun of this !?! Just wait....just wait until you see the video transfer of this roll. Then... you'll have something to make fun of...

BTW, this roll was the most damaged of all of them. It had been left on a window sill in the sunlight for a long time. I did a bit of work on that little picture to make it look that way, so don't expect the movie of this to look as good.

 

[QuasarVM]

Yes.

How is it hurting anyone by showing interest in Dave's site? I have a real problem with being told what we can/can't say.

We're not hurting anyone.

Speaking for myself, Dave knows I respect him and Curt. Asking about the progress of the site should not be considered a problem.

 

[Psion]

Do not try to bend the spoon; that's impossible.

DS9Sega and Cardinal Biggles: Thank you!

I'm not kidding, that reminds me of Kung Pow: Enter The Fist.

You guys are making fun of this !?! Just wait....just wait until you see the video transfer of this roll. Then... you'll have something to make fun of...

BTW, this roll was the most damaged of all of them. It had been left on a window sill in the sunlight for a long time. I did a bit of work on that little picture to make it look that way, so don't expect the movie of this to look as good.

Excellent work! Only ... work harder. And faster. In exchange, we'll pay you twice what we're paying you now.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Yes.

How is it hurting anyone by showing interest in Dave's site? I have a real problem with being told what we can/can't say.

We're not hurting anyone.

Speaking for myself, Dave knows I respect him and Curt. Asking about the progress of the site should not be considered a problem.

And yet Dave has expressed thanks to me and DS9Sega for asking Jeyl to "leave the man alone," so that would suggest some of these inquiries are irritating. I haven't said anything to you because you usually bring something interesting to your inquiries as to their progress. I don't mind that. What I do mind is the thread being dredged up simply to ask "Are we there yet?" And as a wise man (okay, my dad) once said, "Next person who asks that, I'm pulling this car over..."

 

[QuasarVM]

Yes.

How is it hurting anyone by showing interest in Dave's site? I have a real problem with being told what we can/can't say.

We're not hurting anyone.

Speaking for myself, Dave knows I respect him and Curt. Asking about the progress of the site should not be considered a problem.

And yet Dave has expressed thanks to me and DS9Sega for asking Jeyl to "leave the man alone," so that would suggest some of these inquiries are irritating. I haven't said anything to you because you usually bring something interesting to your inquiries as to their progress. I don't mind that. What I do mind is the thread being dredged up simply to ask "Are we there yet?" And as a wise man (okay, my dad) once said, "Next person who asks that, I'm pulling this car over..."

Yeah, that's cool...I understand your frustration with "Are we there yet?"

 

[Jeyl]

And yet Dave has expressed thanks to me and DS9Sega for asking Jeyl to "leave the man alone," so that would suggest some of these inquiries are irritating.

Ya. Telling people to leave someone alone when they ask for updates is no different than getting in their face and demanding answers to every question.

Geez, do you honestly think I'm being unreasonable here? Nevermind the fact that Alch doesn't have to answer to anything I post, but did it ever occur to you that I'm just having fun with the situation rather than trying to be an unreasonable pill who demands constant updates?

So thank you Alch for making me feel like a complete idiot for wanting to see how things are going.

 

[QuasarVM]

And yet Dave has expressed thanks to me and DS9Sega for asking Jeyl to "leave the man alone," so that would suggest some of these inquiries are irritating.

Ya. Telling people to leave someone alone when they ask for updates is no different than getting in their face and demanding answers to every question.

Geez, do you honestly think I'm being unreasonable here? Nevermind the fact that Alch doesn't have to answer to anything I post, but did it ever occur to you that I'm just having fun with the situation rather than trying to be an unreasonable pill who demands constant updates?

So thank you Alch for making me feel like a complete idiot for wanting to see how things are going.

I personally did not take/read your post as being "demanding" in any sort of way, Jeyl...

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

I would like to see the security guards getting zaped by the energy probe on the bridge! Ilia in engineering too. I remember seeing footage back in 1979 of the klingon battle cruisers that I have not seen since. In the footage it showed all three cruisers each firing a single torpedo instead of the lead ship firing all three torpedos! I no this sound crazy but I know what I saw.

Sadly, you're incorrect. That never happened. I saw the film opening weekend and the torpedo firing was the same then as it is today. Apply Occam's Razor here: the film barely got finished (so to speak) as was...which is more likely" that they'd have changed the sequence as you suggest (requiring a different edit, different shots, and altered soundtrack), or that you're misremembering?

Either that or you're remembering a trailer where they repeated the same closeup of the lead ship firing the first torpedo a few times.

Sorry dude you are incorrect This was not in the film in the theaters and I was at the opening of TMP! The footage I saw of the klingon ship were in a advertisement or a news broadcast I am not sure which! All I know is what I saw. I am a photojournalist by trade, and so I have a photographic memory when it comes to film, video and stills. The shot I saw was a side view of all three ships from the closest one in the foreground and the last one be the furtherest from the camera angle. From that angle each one fired a single torpedo! Thats it! As I said before I know I saw this shot! Also as we all know there was alot of extra footage from TMP that was not included in the special features in STTMPTDE.

Was it a poster perhaps? Some film posters (I'm thinking TWOK for example) are pretty outrageous in taking liberties with the plot of a film.

 

[QuasarVM]

Do not try to bend the spoon; that's impossible.

DS9Sega and Cardinal Biggles: Thank you!

That might be the funniest still I've ever seen from TREK. Shatner looks like he is going to go jousting or something, with all those pyramids on his suit.

Maybe it is a good thing we never saw this. I'm reminded of a line from THE STUNTMAN: you'll get a belly-laugh, Sam! There won't be a dry seat in the house!

Dude. The shot isn't finished. I'm sure it would have looked quite a bit different in the finished film.

 

[trevanian]

Do not try to bend the spoon; that's impossible.

DS9Sega and Cardinal Biggles: Thank you!

That might be the funniest still I've ever seen from TREK. Shatner looks like he is going to go jousting or something, with all those pyramids on his suit.

Maybe it is a good thing we never saw this. I'm reminded of a line from THE STUNTMAN: you'll get a belly-laugh, Sam! There won't be a dry seat in the house!

Dude. The shot isn't finished. I'm sure it would have looked quite a bit different in the finished film.

Dude, I think they'd have needed to paint out the pyramids entirely with candy-apple pyramids to avoid getting a laugh, and it'd've been easier to shoot Kirk alone and add them in rather than going that route.

Production wanted to get this stuff in-camera; if vfx knew it wouldn't work that way, they had months to come up with alternatives. Getting it in-camera is something you do to AVOID a ton of post, not add to the giant shot list.

Best case scenario: you pixellate or skip frame the pyramids popping up all over, like the bit in SUPERMAN 3 when he gets swallowed and ensnared in a supercomputer. Still gonna look pretty hokey.

If you kept everything in shadow and relied on sound effects, it might be menacing as all hell, but face it, that wasn't going to be the approach on THIS movie.

 

[QuasarVM]

That might be the funniest still I've ever seen from TREK. Shatner looks like he is going to go jousting or something, with all those pyramids on his suit.

Maybe it is a good thing we never saw this. I'm reminded of a line from THE STUNTMAN: you'll get a belly-laugh, Sam! There won't be a dry seat in the house!

Dude. The shot isn't finished. I'm sure it would have looked quite a bit different in the finished film.

Dude, I think they'd have needed to paint out the pyramids entirely with candy-apple pyramids to avoid getting a laugh, and it'd've been easier to shoot Kirk alone and add them in rather than going that route.

Production wanted to get this stuff in-camera; if vfx knew it wouldn't work that way, they had months to come up with alternatives. Getting it in-camera is something you do to AVOID a ton of post, not add to the giant shot list.

Best case scenario: you pixellate or skip frame the pyramids popping up all over, like the bit in SUPERMAN 3 when he gets swallowed and ensnared in a supercomputer. Still gonna look pretty hokey.

If you kept everything in shadow and relied on sound effects, it might be menacing as all hell, but face it, that wasn't going to be the approach on THIS movie.

I don't think it was RAA that wanted the in-camera stuff. Taylor told them repeatedly it wouldn't work and they DID talk about alternatives.

I think the whole sequence could be done easily and convincingly NOW...but 1978 was a different world. I'd almost like to see some enterprising young CGI artist (with a lot of time on his hands) build the entire sequence from Spock leaving drydock to Chapel "scanning pons area" in Sickbay. They'd have to have the storyboards of course...

 

[trevanian]

Taylor HAD to know the arc that Dykstra and Edlund went through with suits as well as Lucas on SW, and couldn't have been so naive as to think that creatives would defer to the vfx experts as a matter of course (a feature isn't a commercial.)

Wise wanted it in-camera. Clearly, you don't say no to Wise (ask Joe Jennings or Bill Theiss.) The story is that Abel's people designed and either built or had built the trench and wall, so this was not something they could blame on the production designer for not working. What are they doing spending hundreds of thousands on sets (what was it, 250 grand for the one set and a hundred plus on the other?) that don't work when photographed? WHY did they spend that kind of money if as you say Taylor kept telling them it wouldn't work?

They could have pushed the spacewalk back past the holidays if need be, in order to get the in-camera approach worked out (assuming that was even possible.) Would have just been a matter of not striking the trench and wall, and while that would cost, this was a big movie, even before all the vfx OT in 79.

 

[Maurice]

Yeah, but Paramount couldn't push the release date because of how they'd block booked the film. What strikes me is that the only way those pyramid thinguses mighta worked is if they'd been covered with 3M material and front-lit, like the Kryptonian costumes from Superman...that was they'd have appeared to be energized and not plastic.

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, but Paramount couldn't push the release date because of how they'd block booked the film. What strikes me is that the only way those pyramid thinguses mighta worked is if they'd been covered with 3M material and front-lit, like the Kryptonian costumes from Superman...that was they'd have appeared to be energized and not plastic.

I agree, and they could have projected different stuff on them, like some of the ALTERED STATES Blair Brown stuff at the end, that has a volcanic look. But you'd have probably run into issues with proximity to the setpiece behind him.

Considering all the other work to do in the time left, in-camera seems the only likelihood, outside of scrapping it all ...

 

[QuasarVM]

Yeah, but Paramount couldn't push the release date because of how they'd block booked the film. What strikes me is that the only way those pyramid thinguses mighta worked is if they'd been covered with 3M material and front-lit, like the Kryptonian costumes from Superman...that was they'd have appeared to be energized and not plastic.

They were covered in Scotchlite... so that they would reflect light brightly when lit. And if I recall correctly, they were going to use rotating gels, to give them a multi-colored effect. If memory serves, they planned to do this to eliminate any need for opticals...again, in-camera stuff since that's what they were saddled with by Wise.

You've got to remember Wise came from old-school sci-fi filmmaking where using wires would have been the only way to go...

The Abel studio was masterful at doing some really cool and advanced animation. Just take a look at their 7-Up See The Light commercials (Which won awards for their work, btw) from the 70's as an example. Clearly, they COULD have done some really cool animation rather than doing it in-camera.

The answer is, it was not their decision...they were saddled with it.

And Trev, they didn't make the decision to build the V'Ger Trench and Memory Wall sets either. RT told me he wanted to mount the actors on a kind of armature -- they way Trumbull did when they re-shot the Spockwalk.

Sure, they designed the interior sets. They designed the exterior...so it makes sense. They would have a more clear understanding behind the layout of the interior...and how it would match the exterior.

For what it's worth, RT told me they should never have gotten involved in the sets -- in retrospect.

I don't think the image Dave posted is lit. It looks like a dry run for shooting the things glomming onto Kirk -- which as we know would have been shot with the V'ger sensors being pulled OFF Shatner and then printed in reverse for the final effect.

 

[QuasarVM]

Do not try to bend the spoon; that's impossible.

DS9Sega and Cardinal Biggles: Thank you!

I'm not kidding, that reminds me of Kung Pow: Enter The Fist.

BTW, this roll was the most damaged of all of them. It had been left on a window sill in the sunlight for a long time. I did a bit of work on that little picture to make it look that way, so don't expect the movie of this to look as good.

I read this yesterday and I'm still incredulous that someone would be so careless with a piece of film history -- let alone, TREK history!

When I read stuff like that and recall the treatment of the original Enterprise model from TOS -- it really pisses me off.

How does this stuff fall into the hands of such negligent people?

 

[Jeyl]

I'm not kidding, that reminds me of Kung Pow: Enter The Fist.

BTW, this roll was the most damaged of all of them. It had been left on a window sill in the sunlight for a long time. I did a bit of work on that little picture to make it look that way, so don't expect the movie of this to look as good.

I read this yesterday and I'm still incredulous that someone would be so careless with a piece of film history -- let alone, TREK history!

When I read stuff like that and recall the treatment of the original Enterprise model from TOS -- it really pisses me off.

How does this stuff fall into the hands of such negligent people?

I just finished listening to the new BluRay commentary track for TMP and they actually do go into discussion on how handling props, footage and other film elements are done after shooting. Pretty much it all boils down to costs. Storage is expensive. They even mention Stanley Kubrick on how he literally ordered everything destroyed after shooting 2001.

P.S. Favorite commentary moment
Uhura: A faint signal from Starfleet Sir.
Daren Dochterman: It says "HELP!"

 

[QuasarVM]

BTW, this roll was the most damaged of all of them. It had been left on a window sill in the sunlight for a long time. I did a bit of work on that little picture to make it look that way, so don't expect the movie of this to look as good.

I read this yesterday and I'm still incredulous that someone would be so careless with a piece of film history -- let alone, TREK history!

When I read stuff like that and recall the treatment of the original Enterprise model from TOS -- it really pisses me off.

How does this stuff fall into the hands of such negligent people?

I just finished listening to the new BluRay commentary track for TMP and they actually do go into discussion on how handling props, footage and other film elements are done after shooting. Pretty much it all boils down to costs. Storage is expensive. They even mention Stanley Kubrick on how he literally ordered everything destroyed after shooting 2001.

P.S. Favorite commentary moment
Uhura: A faint signal from Starfleet Sir.
Daren Dochterman: It says "HELP!"

I guess I'm just thinking it would preferable for a fan who truly loves this stuff to get his/her hands on it -- as I think it would probably be better preserved were that the case.

 

[cardinal biggles]

They even mention Stanley Kubrick on how he literally ordered everything destroyed after shooting 2001.

IIRC, Kubrick did that not because of the cost of storage, but because he didn't want any of the sets or models showing up in some crappy B-movie or movie-of-the-week. Unfortunately, it meant that the team who made 2010 only had film stills from 2001 to go by when trying to recreate the Discovery model and sets.

 

[ncc-1017-e]

^ They did a good job with that!