Star Trek V's budget. They cant afford lava rock monsters but they can afford a laser beam space god?
- Thread starter urrutiap
- Start date
Well, many things:
1. They did afford them. They looked like crap and didn't work right, so it was deleted from the film, though you can still see part one one for a couple seconds.
And if they hadn't done that...
2. The special effects for a quick laser beam is cheaper than hiring multiple stuntmen, who then collect residues.
3. You got to schedule them all on shooting days.
4. Stage the shots, storyboard it, work out the scenes with the stuntmen.
5. Pay someone to design the costumes.
6. Pay somebody to make the costumes.
7. More time in the editing room.
8. And finally, contemplate: We are expecting people to see a movie about a half brother we've never seen before, who steals the ship with words and thought realities that somehow make everyone mutiny, go way out into space to find God, don't find God, find something unspecified, watch Spock make a marshmallow, and then realize they've wasted an evening at a theater for yet another Trek film after one with whales, so the rock monsters add what?????
1. They did afford them. They looked like crap and didn't work right, so it was deleted from the film, though you can still see part one one for a couple seconds.
And if they hadn't done that...
2. The special effects for a quick laser beam is cheaper than hiring multiple stuntmen, who then collect residues.
3. You got to schedule them all on shooting days.
4. Stage the shots, storyboard it, work out the scenes with the stuntmen.
5. Pay someone to design the costumes.
6. Pay somebody to make the costumes.
7. More time in the editing room.
8. And finally, contemplate: We are expecting people to see a movie about a half brother we've never seen before, who steals the ship with words and thought realities that somehow make everyone mutiny, go way out into space to find God, don't find God, find something unspecified, watch Spock make a marshmallow, and then realize they've wasted an evening at a theater for yet another Trek film after one with whales, so the rock monsters add what?????
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Emphasis on years later. The effects they had were unconvincing. Shatner wanted ILM but they were busy with Last Crusade.
What budget they had was used and the effects were unconvincing on screen so it was removed.
Had to work with what they had left.
More than simply Last Crusade, but even that was hardly ILM's best work. The tank going over the cliff with the Nazi puppet and the turret falling off revealing the peg... the truly terrible composites of anything in flight starting with the blimp right through the plane sequences. Somehow, effects got worse since 1981. ILM was overstretched that year, so Shatner and co wisely chose to look elsewhere.
However, after that, "he chose....unwisely."
I would have looked at Dream Quest, honestly, they were doing much better work, but they were probably just as busy with The Abyss and Total Recall, which may or may not have been in production at that time.
Thought the fighter vs. birds was quite good.
The tank was bad but I didn't mind the blimp.
We knew at the Denver Star Trek convention in '89 that there was going to be a problem when Shatner came out on stage and said "The effects are being done on the east coast...And nobody knows what they look like!"
Some of the model effects in STV weren't awful. Most of the BoP shots were actually pretty good and there were some dynamic angles, such as the one shot of it coming right into the camera.
The Enterprise was the real loser, for the most part, being slid across the screen like a cardboard cutout (or like the Filmation animated series). However, the few times it was allowed actual movements, such as when it's seen in front of the moon, or when the God Bolt shoots past it, are lovely.
I had a sinking feeling when the "sliding Enterprise warp out" made the preview trailers. I hoped against hope those were placeholders for the finished product. Alas....earwax.
While the effects certainly weren't the reason for the film's box office failure or the overall audience reaction, improved visuals would at least make some of the rest go down better. Eh, I still love this movie and have seen it and return to it a lot more often than The Voyage Home.
The Enterprise was the real loser, for the most part, being slid across the screen like a cardboard cutout (or like the Filmation animated series). However, the few times it was allowed actual movements, such as when it's seen in front of the moon, or when the God Bolt shoots past it, are lovely.
I had a sinking feeling when the "sliding Enterprise warp out" made the preview trailers. I hoped against hope those were placeholders for the finished product. Alas....earwax.
While the effects certainly weren't the reason for the film's box office failure or the overall audience reaction, improved visuals would at least make some of the rest go down better. Eh, I still love this movie and have seen it and return to it a lot more often than The Voyage Home.
They couldn't afford both.
In terms of CG costs and sophistication, the difference between 1989 pand 1999 is epochal. Oh, and GQ was working with ILM and ST 5 had...Bran Ferren?
This isn't complicated.
According to revelations here on this forum, every time it looked like a cardboard cutout being slid across the screen, it actually was a cardboard cutout. Bran Ferren and Associates cut corners for every possible effect, except for a single showpiece in every film they did. It's hard to say what the showpiece is in STV, but my money's on the appearance of the cathedral right before the entity shows up.
And there's also the question of "which scene actually matters to the plot?"
I mean, I personally think the STV plot is one of the silliest ever put into Trek, but for that plot - random lava monsters can be removed if you're out of money, and the final confrontation with "God" really can't. So if you can only afford one, you put in floating-head-with-eye-lasers.
I mean, I personally think the STV plot is one of the silliest ever put into Trek, but for that plot - random lava monsters can be removed if you're out of money, and the final confrontation with "God" really can't. So if you can only afford one, you put in floating-head-with-eye-lasers.
I was at that con. Didn’t Shatner show a clip of the shuttle crashlanding? I remember thinking that clip looked like crap. At that point my expectations cratered.
Shatner didn't show any clips. Harve Bennett did, doing a retrospective of the first four films at the end of his presentation, right before Shatner came on. Got my second gestalt moment in my life shouting "Admiral, there be whales here!" along with Scotty and 4600 other people with that one.
Star Trek V had a respectable budget for the time. Some reports say $30 million; others say $32 million. Regardless, it was a decent budget. Remember that only a few years earlier, TWOK had been made for $11 million.
The problem was that the budget was badly mismanaged. First, they decided not to go with ILM. Ralph Winter has admitted in the years since that the "ILM was too busy" line was mostly not true and that they were really upset that they thought ILM had taken advantage of them a bit on prior films. Second, when they decided not to go with ILM, they made the horrible decision of going with Ferren.
But I still think more important than either of those things is that Shatner just spent money where it didn't need to be at the expense of places it did need to be. Instead of decent effects and a real ending, we get to see all the time and money spent on things like Shatner's vanity mountain climbing shots. Or, y'know, seeing a full size shuttle landing out in the desert is impressive-looking, but it really isn't necessary to drive the story and that money could have easily been spent elsewhere. There are just many shots in TFF that, to me, look like lots of money was spent where it didn't need to be.
The problem was that the budget was badly mismanaged. First, they decided not to go with ILM. Ralph Winter has admitted in the years since that the "ILM was too busy" line was mostly not true and that they were really upset that they thought ILM had taken advantage of them a bit on prior films. Second, when they decided not to go with ILM, they made the horrible decision of going with Ferren.
But I still think more important than either of those things is that Shatner just spent money where it didn't need to be at the expense of places it did need to be. Instead of decent effects and a real ending, we get to see all the time and money spent on things like Shatner's vanity mountain climbing shots. Or, y'know, seeing a full size shuttle landing out in the desert is impressive-looking, but it really isn't necessary to drive the story and that money could have easily been spent elsewhere. There are just many shots in TFF that, to me, look like lots of money was spent where it didn't need to be.
Same. When I rewatch 4, it's only for the scenes in the future and skip most of the back in mid 80s San Francisco stuff, especially the end. Always had a soft spot for that new white 1701-A bridge that my kid imagination went wild with on another 5 year mission.
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