TAS - Different dialogue style?

[Christopher]

Filmation was usually pretty good at faithful adaptations of its source materials. Its Tarzan series was as faithful to the Burroughs novels as any screen adaptation I've ever seen, aside from toning down the violence and maybe modernizing the time period. I think its Zorro series was pretty faithful to the original magazine stories as well.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I really like the ship designs too.https://cdn.thingiverse.com/renders/41/62/7b/8c/a9/FlashFilmation2_preview_featured.jpg

With all the paneling outlined and with its general shape, that rocket always ended up looking like the Hindenburg to me.

 

[tomswift2002]

Also, they recorded their lines separately, without being in the studio at the same time. They didn't have the opportunity to act off each other, just stand there and do their lines, alone. I think it resulted in less energy and stiffer performances.

Actually, it was mentioned in the DVD bonus material a couple of times that Nimoy, Deforrest, Nichols, Doohan, Barret & Takei all recorded together, however Shatner was in a play in New York at the time so his vocals were recorded in New York. Hence when you watch "Eye Of The Beholder" you hear Shatner pronouncing Kakukulakan's name (or however you spell the Aztec serpent god's name) differently from all the others.

Also Filmation used a lot of music and sound effects that had been created for earlier Filmation shows. And even after Star Trek you heard music and sound effects appearing in cartoons like "The New Adventures of Batman".

 

[Christopher]

Hence when you watch "Eye Of The Beholder" you hear Shatner pronouncing Kakukulakan's name (or however you spell the Aztec serpent god's name) differently from all the others.

That's "How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth." And he hilariously pronounced Kukulkan's name as "Kukla Khan." I kept expecting him to add “…and Ollie.”

Hmm…

In “Serpent’s Tooth” did Kukla Khan

A stately pyramid bequest:

Where Kirk, the stalwart captain, ran

Up stairways measureless to man

All for an IQ test.​

 

[tomswift2002]

That's "How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth." And he hilariously pronounced Kukulkan's name as "Kukla Khan." I kept expecting him to add “…and Ollie.”

Hmm…

In “Serpent’s Tooth” did Kukla Khan

A stately pyramid bequest:

Where Kirk, the stalwart captain, ran

Up stairways measureless to man

All for an IQ test.​

???

 

[Christopher]

???

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan

 

[J.T.B.]

Nearly every design element of Flash Gordon was either an extrapolation of, or lifted directly from the original art by Alex Raymond, Al Williamson and Mac Raboy. This includes costumes, props, and yes, ships too.

But not, I'm assuming, the Arborean "Leaf Fighter." Those always had a Star Wars Y-wing vibe to me.

With all the paneling outlined and with its general shape, that rocket always ended up looking like the Hindenburg to me.

Yeah, to me, with the big greenhouse, it was like a combination of an airship and a WW2 bomber, like a Lancaster maybe.

 

[Kor]

I wonder what the explanation is for the different pronunciation of "Orion" in TAS.

Kor

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I wonder what the explanation is for the different pronunciation of "Orion" in TAS.

Kor

Shatner's way of pronouncing it in "The Pirates of Orion" is how it might have been pronounced in Latin in ancient Rome or in Greek in ancient Greece.

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See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift


Perhaps more to the point, it (therefore) has the same vowel structure (though different consonant and stressing) as in how the French pronounce it. (Shatner was born in Quebec.)

I'd conjecture that no one offered any feedback on the subject, so it went into the can how he sounded it out. I guess he didn't remember how it was pronounced in "Journey to Babel."

 

[pfontaine2]

There was a reason the ships in Flash Gordon had lots of paneling. The animated ships were actual models painted white with black panel and contour lines drawn on them. These models were filmed with a motion control camera against a white background using high contrast film. Each frame of a particular shot was transferred to a series of film cels, appearing as black outlines on a clear cel which were then painted as a normal animation cel. This approach saved time as no animators were needed to draw the ships moving in perspective. It's a really simple solution to a very difficult problem and the end result was very effective IMHO.

 

[J.T.B.]

^ Good info, I knew it was models but didn't know how they were shot.

On the subject, does anyone know what technique was used for Ming's "energy curtain"? It was very striking in the day, and still holds up.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder what the explanation is for the different pronunciation of "Orion" in TAS.

Not all of TAS, just "The Pirates of Orion." They pronounced it the usual way in "Yesteryear" and "The Time Trap." But "Pirates" was second-season, so maybe the new director thought it sounded too much like "O'Ryan" or something.

There was a reason the ships in Flash Gordon had lots of paneling. The animated ships were actual models painted white with black panel and contour lines drawn on them. These models were filmed with a motion control camera against a white background using high contrast film. Each frame of a particular shot was transferred to a series of film cels, appearing as black outlines on a clear cel which were then painted as a normal animation cel. This approach saved time as no animators were needed to draw the ships moving in perspective. It's a really simple solution to a very difficult problem and the end result was very effective IMHO.

The same technique was used for the landscapes in the "Taarna" sequence of the Heavy Metal film.

On the subject, does anyone know what technique was used for Ming's "energy curtain"? It was very striking in the day, and still holds up.

It was a backlit moire. You take two patterns of straight lines drawn on transparencies and slide them across each other at an angle, and the way they overlap creates complex, moving patterns. A rotating version of the effect was used for the swirly circular display on Spock's console in TOS, although after season 1 they never bothered to rotate it.

 

[J.T.B.]

It was a backlit moire. You take two patterns of straight lines drawn on transparencies and slide them across each other at an angle, and the way they overlap creates complex, moving patterns. A rotating version of the effect was used for the swirly circular display on Spock's console in TOS, although after season 1 they never bothered to rotate it.

Ah thanks! I know backlit, and I know moire, that makes sense.

 

[Christopher]

And I agree, the moire lighting effects were very impressive. Filmation has a reputation as a cheap studio, but they were innovative, experimenting with novel techniques like that and the model ships.

 

[pfontaine2]

And I agree, the moire lighting effects were very impressive. Filmation has a reputation as a cheap studio, but they were innovative, experimenting with novel techniques like that and the model ships.

Interestingly enough, the same technique was used by Robert Swarthe at the end of Star Trek:The Motion Picture to create the VGER energy that engulfs Decker and the Ilia Probe, as well as the swirling patterns on the belly of the Mothership after it lands at Devil's Tower in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It's not a new technique but its very effective in quickly generating all sorts of interesting and every-evolving patterns.

 

[Maurice]

re the "slot mask" animation for Ming's forecefield: typically you don't use two masks with straight line "slots" because your eye is really good at detecting exactly that. So usually the second mask is made up of squiggly lines. Yes, this this is how a lot of the V'ger transformation sparkles were done. I copied this technique in "The Tressaurian Intersection" to create a giant Tholian web (link) and to add a bunch of white energy sparkles to another shot (link).

 

[johnnybear]

Hah! Kirk can't even pronounce Lt.Kyle's name properly in the episode Immunity Syndrome, despite having him as part of his crew for the past two years, and even Spock can say it right! If you're reading these messages, Shat, it's Kyle not Cowl!
JB

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

So you've never been thinking about a word with a different sound than the one you're trying to say and mixed the two up when you spoke? I do.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

So you've never been thinking about a word with a different sound than the one you're trying to say and mixed the two up when you spoke? I do.

I do it all the time. But when it's not a plot point, such as when Picard said "Mister Broccoli," ideally the director should catch it and order a retake.

 

[Qonundrum]

The word pastiche makes me want ice cream.

Pastiche Wobble ice cream like in the season 3 episode where the evil children do bad things to the crew at the behest of the mystical-but-evil shower curtain-wearing, used car salesman guy? (wha' the heck is 'wobble' anyway, apart from one wobbling if they eat too much ice cream or as a euphemism for certain exercises designed to reduce calories to help prevent wobbling in the long run? )