STC Episode 6 (news and speculation)....

[Firebird]

It has to be said. The original planet wrecker was awesome. The damaged Constellation was serviceable when seen from a distance, but seen up close--such as when it's going right into the machine--the suspension of disbelief fell apart completely.

Playing devil's advocate here: on old 60s/70s television sets, was the resolution really high enough for anyone to notice the deficiencies in the model at the time of broadcast? Sure, it looks like shit now that we can see the episodes in high definition, but those effects weren't made for that kind of scrutiny.

 

[Warped9]

I first saw "The Doomsday Machine" in 1970 or '71 on a Zenith colour console television and we had excellent reception for the time. The fact the Constellation was a model kit soon became apparent.

The truth is that other ships in TOS could also be static miniatures--such as the Klingon and Romulan ships--but they were nicely detailed custom made miniatures rather than hastily assembled plastic kits. They certainly weren't going to repaint and damage the valuable 33 in. Enterprise miniature or the even more valuable 11 footer. But if there had been more time then the AMT kit could have been a more nicely constructed model or custom miniature before "damaging" it and putting it before the cameras.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

I've never noticed the crappy-looking model. Always just thinking about Bugles, I guess.

 

[Bixby]

Does it matter? I doubt you're ever going to enjoy anything STC does.

As far as I know
A) I have given praise in the past to aspects of STC's production that I felt rightly should be(look it up)
B) This is still the Trek BBS fan productions section and it still hasn't morphed into STC's Facebook page, correct?
and C) who says I don't get some enjoyment out of their episodes? I keep a Youtube grouping of many Trek fan films and theirs are among them. Yet it doesn't mean I'm going to become blind because of that.

 

[feek61]

It has to be said. The original planet wrecker was awesome. The damaged Constellation was serviceable when seen from a distance, but seen up close--such as when it's going right into the machine--the suspension of disbelief fell apart completely.

Honestly, to me the only bad scene of the Constellation is the shot from the back as it enters the planet killer. The other shots were great and I think the opening shot of act 1 was fantastic (even now in HD)

 

[Maurice]

Doug Drexler has done such an awesome job with the Big E that I would LOVE to see him bring the Klingon D7 battlecruiser to the screen. C'mon, STC! We gotta see some TOS style Klingons with that amazing D7 in action. I admit John Colicos (Kor) and Michael Ansara (Kang) are hard acts to follow, but we think you can do it.

His stuff is sometimes inconsistent, tho. The first shot of the Enterprise in the teaser is pretty spot-on. The shot zooming into the breach is... not.

 

[Harvey]

His stuff is sometimes inconsistent, tho. The first shot of the Enterprise in the teaser is pretty spot-on. The shot zooming into the breach is... not.

His model work is superb, I think, but the direction of the shots is very inconsistent in terms of matching the aesthetic of the original.

In the public teaser for "Come Not Between The Dragons," for example, there's a terrific establishing shot at the very beginning; but the next shot of the ship (at around 00:50) has a sharp pan that you'd never see on the original series. The shot zooming into the hull breach is even more of a departure from the style of the original.

I appreciate that Continues tries to keep the visual effects shots to a minimum (like the cost-conscious original), but the live action photography is so intent on aping the original that some of the visual effects work sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[Maurice]

Yeah, and the lighting on the hull-breach zoom totally ruins the physical model look he got in the first shot.

If I were still doing 3D (gave it up for Lent in 1993, I;m very religious about it) I'd be tempted to take a crack at trying to replicate the look of a stage-shot model. I have some probably unorthodox ideas about the process.

 

[Warped9]

It would have been a bit involved, but I believe the zoom through the hull breach could have been done back in the day perhaps with a series of mattes.

 

[Firebird]

It would have been a bit involved, but I believe the zoom through the hull breach could have been done back in the day perhaps with a series of mattes.

It could have, yes, but I think it would've been prohibitively expensive for their budget. So, it strikes one as anachronistic in that sense.

 

[Warped9]

To an extent I think we can cut STC some slack when they do something that could have been done back in the day given the conceit of a bit more time and money. That is distinctly different from showing us something that simply couldn't have been done no matter how much time and money were available.

 

[Maurice]

It would have been a bit involved, but I believe the zoom through the hull breach could have been done back in the day perhaps with a series of mattes.

Opticals were expensive. More affordable would have been to do it in miniature and just roll the camera through it as many times as necessary, and do a 3-frame dissolve from the exterior shot of the ship to the interior. But making the camera speed move match for the transitions would have been a bear no matter what technique was employed.

And to be fair to STC, on "The Tressaurian Intersection" we did VFX stuff that was possible using 1969 film tech but would have been an utter budget buster had it been attempted, so I have no issue with that. My comment was more about calling forward and not being true to the language both textual and visual of the era.

 

[STEPhon IT]

It can be confusing since there's TWO threads which involves the same episode.

 

[Warped9]

It can be confusing since there's TWO threads which involves the same episode.

I intended the other one to supercede this one given Ep. 6 has now become available to view for certain individuals. That one is a grading and discussion thread where, for the present, we're trying to avoid spoilers until the episode is widely released come May 29th.

But given the fact of discussion drift similar issues are raised and commented on.

 

[Firebird]

I've been avoiding the other thread on episode 6 until the episode premiers. Didn't wanna take a chance on accidentally being spoiled via the grading and evaluation discussions.

 

[Warped9]

I've been avoiding the other thread on episode 6 until the episode premiers. Didn't wanna take a chance on accidentally being spoiled via the grading and evaluation discussions.

So far it's been good.

 

[9gs]

I've been avoiding the other thread on episode 6 until the episode premiers. Didn't wanna take a chance on accidentally being spoiled via the grading and evaluation discussions.

Go for it the other thread has devolved into nothing about EP6.

 

[Maurice]

Go for it the other thread has devolved into nothing about EP6.

Untrue. The other thread is currently largely discussing how close STC is sticking to doing what could be considered a 1970-era continuation of the show, and you called everyone "dicks" for doing so.

 

[urbandefault]

It's not like STC has ships whipping around like mosquitos. I can forgive a few indulgences in the FX shots, because everything else looks so good.

 

[9gs]

Untrue. The other thread is currently largely discussing how close STC is sticking to doing what could be considered a 1970-era continuation of the show, and you called everyone "dicks" for doing so.

It's a joke everyone needs to lighten up some. It's just a fan series we are not splitting the atom here.