The Recycled Battle Scenes From WYLB SUCKED!

[nx1701g]

^ Generations

 

[PKTrekGirl]

mrs260 said:
Personally, I don't understand why anyone cares about battle scenes. They serve basically the same purpose as exterior establishing shots, and so for me the re-use of footage in them--if I even notice--is no worse than the re-use of establishing shot footage.

The way I figure it, re-using some exterior footage gives them the money they need to pay Andy Robinson. I like Garak more than I like shiny new footage of some random ship blowing up.

You bring up a very good point here.

DS9 by far had the largest supporting cast of any of the Trek shows. There were several DS9 recurring characters that were WAY more developed than some of the major characters on VOY and ENT.

But to get such a huge cast of highly developed recurring characters takes MONEY, folks. Lots and lots of money. Because if you think actors like Louise Fletcher, Salome Jens, Andy Robinson, Casey Biggs, Mark Alaimo, Jeffrey Combs, and all of these other folks come cheap....well, they don't. Especially since a few of them really just should have been made part of the 'official' cast, given all the screentime they got.

Now...given the choice between all of these wonderful recurring characters we had...and a few more minutes of cool 'splosions...well, for me there is no contest.

To most viewers (who do not watch the show over and over and over and over on DVD), the recycled footage is barely noticeable. Most viewers simply don't pay attention that closely. And so we are really talking here about a select group of fans who have watched the show numerous times who are upset about the recycled footage. Cus the vast majority of Trek viewers watch the episodes once or twice and that's it. Remember - when DS9 was on TV in first run, the concept of DVD boxed sets for TV shows wasn't even around yet. Who could have predicted that the average fan would, in future, be able to own the entire show to watch over and over and over....and in doing so, notice such things?

And so for most fans, there was a long time between Sacrifice of Angels and WYLB. Plenty of time to forget the excruciating details of a big space battle. A year and a half, actually.

So, given the choice between using some recycled footage from over a year and a half ago...and paying the cast of thousands they required for WYLB...they opted to pay the cast of thousands.

And IMO, it was the correct choice.

 

[StewMc]

Hermiod said:

nx1701g said:
According to the Companion that shot is somewhere in the episode as well, but I haven't seen it.

The shot from The Undiscovered Country of a random Klingon soldier being thrown forward by an explosion from behind him was reused in Generations when Lursa and B'Etor's ship blows up and was also reused during the battle scenes in this episode.

Its a common error that the shot of the random Klingon was from TUC, it was infact filmed for Generations and used just before the stock footage of the BoP blowing up from TUC. The shot was then used in DS9.

 

[nx1701g]

^ That's not what I meant I'm afraid (sorry for the confusion). I know about the Klingon Officer from generations but, apparently, the shot of the TUC Bird of Prey is present in the battle for a split second.

 

[StewMc]

^
Oh I know what's what you meant, but my post was more for the benefit of Hermiod. Its quite amusing that the Generations footage used in WYLB is mixed with footage of an exploding Vorcha cruiser which is also reused footage, from Sacrifice of Angels.

That said, I find it hard to believe that the stationary model BoP explosion appears in the middle of a fast moving CGI battle sequence, unless it was composited into the background somewhere?

 

[nx1701g]

^ That may have been what they did. And I apologize for my confusion this time.

 

[Huntingdon]

The problem with the stock footage is not so much that it is there, but they picked the most recognisable shots from previous episodes. If you must have it then at least don't pick the bits people will notice. The 'spectaculour' effect is lost becuase you've seen it before, so there is no advantage to picking that shot.

The worst bits were the two exploding Mirandas and the rammed Klingons, IIRC. On the other hand - there was a nice bit with a Miranda evading the Breen...

 

[Gravity]

I agree, but special effects didn't drive the story of Deep Space Nine in my humble opinion, but Captain Sisko's relationship with the Prophets and the Celestial Temple. THAT was the true story. Everything else was icing on the cake.

 

[Navaros]

I would just never have hired Ezri, period. Completely useless and irrelevant character (not to say that Jadzia was any more useful or relevant) and from what I understand the series regulars get paid several times more money than any recurring guest actor or actress does. Which is pretty sad considering that the recurring guests on DS9 demonstrated acting mastery that far supassed that of most of the main cast.

Anyhow, my point is they should have never hired anyone for the useless "Ezri" role and then they could have had enough money for all the great guest actors and had WYLB be the mother of all space battles.

 

[Jono]

The SoA shots didn't match well with the rest because it showed the Dom fleet all bunched up while the rest of the scene had the battle pretty spread out. If they really wanted to use that they should have deleted most of the background ships so you just have the Jem'Hadar battlecruiser blowing up the Miranda or the Defiant cracking the Hideki in a head to head.

They did something similar to the approaching chin'toka scene they reused by simply removing the planets in the background.

Other then that the other stock footage was fine. Even the ramming from TotP as it suited the new spread out battle footage.