The recycled footage of BOP exploding in Generations

[xvicente]

I am convinced that when they saw how the entire movie was coming off, they thought oh well, at this point even the most beautiful new sfx shot will not be enough to save this pile of mugatoshit, paste anything there and let's go home earlier.

Seriously, this is worse than V.

 

[CaptainStoner]

It should have been TWO vorchas, with one of them destroyed. Lamest space battle of the franchise.

 

[R. Star]

It should have been TWO vorchas, with one of them destroyed. Lamest space battle of the franchise.

Nah, the lamest battle in the franchise has to be TNG's Rascals... the Ferengi attack the Enterprise with recycled Bird of Prey footage and capture the ship in the space of five minutes.... only to be thwarted by meddling kids.

 

[trevanian]

I am convinced that when they saw how the entire movie was coming off, they thought oh well, at this point even the most beautiful new sfx shot will not be enough to save this pile of mugatoshit, paste anything there and let's go home earlier.

Right, that's why they spent all that money on a new ending, because they wanted to cut their losses. They even spent for a miniature shoot of the locked down missile blowing up, just as insurance against the live-action explosion not working (was unnecessary, though.) I actually saw them blow that model up out back of ILM, and caught a piece of Veridian, but it literally dissolved to nothing in my hand.

 

[Jeyl]

Has anyone brought up the fact that the destruction of the Enterprise D's secondary hull was the same explosion used for the destruction of the USS Grissom?

 

[Tosk]

It's barely noticeable though. It's re-colored, and the composite includes new explosion layers around the Enterprise. It doesn't scream re-used shot the way the BOP shots do.

 

[Jeyl]

It's barely noticeable though. It's re-colored, and the composite includes new explosion layers around the Enterprise. It doesn't scream re-used shot the way the BOP shots do.

Still, when you compare that to how many times they blew up the Enterprise D in the actual series, it's still sad they didn't go all out.

 

[JarodRussell]

Has anyone brought up the fact that the destruction of the Enterprise D's secondary hull was the same explosion used for the destruction of the USS Grissom?

Never ever noticed that.

 

[DonIago]

^Ditto.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Tritto.

Just yesterday I rewatched Nemesis, and noticed parts of Borg alcoves made up the walls in the Scimitar's sickbay. Those Trek producers are experts in recycling.

 

[anh165]

In the grand scheme of things, I would have been too upset at everything else that happened in Generations to even get started at the exploding BoP taken out from ST6.

 

[JarodRussell]

It's a bit sad that they couldn't squeeze that other 100,000 dollars for a new explosion out of the production. That all went into the redesigned uniforms they never used.

 

[Hober Mallow]

What makes the BoP explosion stand out is that it explodes in a unique fashion. It's not a model with an explosion graphic slapped over it. The model is blown up in sections, bit by bit. It's actually a pretty slow destruction, made to milk the visceral impact, the immense high in TUC as torpedo after torpedo hammered the damned thing at the end of a one-sided battle. It's extremely distinctive. And when it was first shown in theaters in 1991, the audience cheered. I got a tingle of excitement for years rewatching that. It was perfectly done and intentionally created to have this effect on people.

Then, the next film uses the exact same shot and it stands out (to fans) because of what I described above. It wasn't just another ship being blown up, it was the emotional climax of the previous film. Because of this, what should have been a fist pumping climax in GEN just deflated.

GEN not only reused the explosion, but they tried to rip off the entire scene, right from the moment Kirk/Riker says, "Fire!" You get the hushed silence, the torpedo slowly heading toward the BoP, closeups on the Klingons as they realize they're dead, then... BOOM! Klingons go flying all over the place, then the recycled explosion.

The trouble was the GEN scene didn't have the same impact at the TUC scene for the reasons you described.

 

[Lance]

It's a bit sad that they couldn't squeeze that other 100,000 dollars for a new explosion out of the production. That all went into the redesigned uniforms they never used.

"Generations" is a funny fish. It doesn't really look like one of the cheap Trek movies, certainly it had a modest budget but it wasn't exactly a tightening of the belt. But it did face some major budgetary problems, because mistakes were made along the way in where exactly they spent all that money. Bafflingly, most of it seemed to be elementary mistakes. Things like (as you say) spending all that money on stitching together uniforms that were scraped after filming began, or having to go back and reshoot the ending because the original version stank, or shooting elaborate stunt sequences (orbital skydiving) which didn't even make it into the picture... these are mistakes that somebody with a bit more experience in movie production might not have made. They could have nipped it in the bud during script conferences, but for some reason a lot of these problems ended up being fixed during production, while the cameras were actually rolling. Maybe it was because they didn't get a whole lot of lead-in time from finishing up the TNG series? Who knows.

I always got the feeling that Berman, Moore, Braga and co had the training wheels on during "Generations". They were really feeling their way through the process of making a feature movie, and that they took a lot of lessons they learnt from the experience of making it into the next one. Hence why "First Contact" hit all the right beats straight outta the gate...

 

[trevanian]

^Tritto.

Just yesterday I rewatched Nemesis, and noticed parts of Borg alcoves made up the walls in the Scimitar's sickbay. Those Trek producers are experts in recycling.

It's funny, I think those are the elements Trek bought from Universal after seaQuest 2032 tanked. Whenever I saw them in FC it took me out of the movie.

Those noting the GRISSOM explosion being reused should note that the GRISSOM explosion wasn't totally original or custom either. ILM was already mixing and matching elements from hundreds of staged pyro events done during the making of EMPIRE, and I'm pretty sure the GRISSOM blast is an example of that (Cinefex touches on this.)

Having said that, I never made the connection between this and GEN either, and that's even with having interviewed the GEN VFX supes, both Paramount's and ILM's. I rewatched SFS a couple weeks ago, so it should be fresh in mind, and still I don't recall it looking the same. Does the GEN one have a big white flare over the whole flame aspect (which is all I noticed of the GRISSOM event)?

 

[trevanian]

It's a bit sad that they couldn't squeeze that other 100,000 dollars for a new explosion out of the production. That all went into the redesigned uniforms they never used.

"Generations" is a funny fish. It doesn't really look like one of the cheap Trek movies, certainly it had a modest budget but it wasn't exactly a tightening of the belt. But it did face some major budgetary problems, because mistakes were made along the way in where exactly they spent all that money. Bafflingly, most of it seemed to be elementary mistakes. Things like (as you say) spending all that money on stitching together uniforms that were scraped after filming began, or having to go back and reshoot the ending because the original version stank, or shooting elaborate stunt sequences (orbital skydiving) which didn't even make it into the picture... these are mistakes that somebody with a bit more experience in movie production might not have made. They could have nipped it in the bud during script conferences, but for some reason a lot of these problems ended up being fixed during production, while the cameras were actually rolling. Maybe it was because they didn't get a whole lot of lead-in time from finishing up the TNG series? Who knows.

I always got the feeling that Berman, Moore, Braga and co had the training wheels on during "Generations". They were really feeling their way through the process of making a feature movie, and that they took a lot of lessons they learnt from the experience of making it into the next one. Hence why "First Contact" hit all the right beats straight outta the gate...

While I'm no fan of FC at all, I agree with you about how screwed-up GEN was on the production side. To me, blowing 20% of your original shooting schedule on the nautical E was just plain insanity.

I think the director and cinematographer worked wonders on the film visually, but the compromises forced on the production by the line producer (the guy who supposedly knew how to make movies on schedule, and he should have known everything after having worked on THE PRISONER and for Stanley Kubrick) didn't do the movie any favors creatively.

I think Carson lost a lot of ground career-wise for this one and it is a shame, he was one of the only directors in ModernTrek who really brought something (the season 5 opener had some really creative framing that worked with depth on the 4:3 image the way a widescreen shooter would work with the bigger aspect ratio to maximize image interest); he should have a career closer to Rob Bowman's, at the very least.

 

[Jonesy]

Gene Roddenberry went to the trouble of making the Klingon Empire an ally of the Federation in the TNG era just to get away from that...

Was it Gene? It's been stated many times that Bob Justman was the one who basically had to push hard to convince Gene to have a Klingon (Worf) on the bridge in TNG. Where is it that Gene went out of his way to make the Klingon's an ally?

 

[Hober Mallow]

Gene Roddenberry went to the trouble of making the Klingon Empire an ally of the Federation in the TNG era just to get away from that...

Was it Gene? It's been stated many times that Bob Justman was the one who basically had to push hard to convince Gene to have a Klingon (Worf) on the bridge in TNG. Where is it that Gene went out of his way to make the Klingon's an ally?

That's right. Roddenberry wanted TNG to have nothing whatsoever to do with any original Trek alien -- no Klingons, no Vulcans, no nada. And no references to the original. If Roddenberry had had his way, audiences would never have been sure if TNG had any more to do with the original Trek than the Friday the 13th series had to do with the movies.

 

[trevanian]

Gene Roddenberry went to the trouble of making the Klingon Empire an ally of the Federation in the TNG era just to get away from that...

Was it Gene? It's been stated many times that Bob Justman was the one who basically had to push hard to convince Gene to have a Klingon (Worf) on the bridge in TNG. Where is it that Gene went out of his way to make the Klingon's an ally?

That's right. Roddenberry wanted TNG to have nothing whatsoever to do with any original Trek alien -- no Klingons, no Vulcans, no nada. And no references to the original. If Roddenberry had had his way, audiences would never have been sure if TNG had any more to do with the original Trek than the Friday the 13th series had to do with the movies.

Friday13th SERIES! Geez, outside of Robey in a white t-shirt, did that show have ANYTHING going on upstairs?

 

[TheSubCommander]

No. Reused shots don't typically bother me.