The Rockman in STV
- Thread starter jeddah
- Start date
I don't know where the few frames of the rockman appear, but I thought we'd want to take a gander at him in all his cheesy badness. 
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bemhyCVcu3o&feature=player_embedded[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bemhyCVcu3o&feature=player_embedded[/yt]
I never thought the Rockman was all that bad. The test footage of the suit looked okay to me. At least as good as Yarnek, and that was a pretty good creation from the 60s.
As a concept in the film, however, that's another issue. But given the rest of TFF, I don't think a Rockman would have been any worse than a Giant Floating God Head.
The bit I don't get is that Shatner wanted a swarm of Rockmen but couldn't afford that many, and in the end only money for one Rockman suit. Why would he need several suits? Couldn't they composite one effect many times over, like they did with TOS Enterprise model in "The Ultimate Computer"? If they could do that TV effect in the 60s, I'd think that same effect could be done for films in the 80s.
As a concept in the film, however, that's another issue. But given the rest of TFF, I don't think a Rockman would have been any worse than a Giant Floating God Head.
The bit I don't get is that Shatner wanted a swarm of Rockmen but couldn't afford that many, and in the end only money for one Rockman suit. Why would he need several suits? Couldn't they composite one effect many times over, like they did with TOS Enterprise model in "The Ultimate Computer"? If they could do that TV effect in the 60s, I'd think that same effect could be done for films in the 80s.
He probably wanted them to all be unique.
I think The Shat really understand the "it" factor of TOS better than Bennett, Meyer, Wise, and even Nimoy.
He doesn't get enough credit for it.
Don't want to turn this into another TFF flame war, but my point is it captured the charm, nuance and aura of TOS better than any of the other five films. The Rockman is sort of the epitome of that.
The rockman was kind of neat.
From a story perspective, this could have worked. The final act might have been pretty cool.
I can see some non-corporeal entity trapped on a planet that can control certain aspects of it. Instead of the floating head scene, just a disembodied voice with the same dialog ("What does God need with a starship?"... all that).
When the entity doesn't get it's way it attacks Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Sybok with an army of these rock creatures. They fight their way to the shuttle blasting these things with their phasers, though it's shown that it's somewhat ineffective as the entity just creates new ones. Sybok sacrifices himself at some point to save Kirk and co. The rest of the movie would play out pretty much the same. When reaching the shuttle, the crew gets ready for take off but the rock creatures destroy the engines. Scotty manages to beam Spock and McCoy to safety but the Klingons knock out the transporter before Kirk can be rescued. Kirk grabs an extra phaser from the shuttle and runs to higher ground. On the Enterprise, Spock kicks Koord and the keester and forces him to help Kirk.
Back on the planet, Kirk doesn't have much time. Both phasers are fully discharged and the rock creatures are surrounding him. The disembodied voice of the entity gives Kirk one last chance to live by allowing it to take the starship to use as it's "chariot", when the Klingon BoP swoops down, blasts the shit out of the rock creatures and beams Kirk to safety.
Obviously the FX for the finale would have exceeded the STV budget by a bit.
From a story perspective, this could have worked. The final act might have been pretty cool.
I can see some non-corporeal entity trapped on a planet that can control certain aspects of it. Instead of the floating head scene, just a disembodied voice with the same dialog ("What does God need with a starship?"... all that).
When the entity doesn't get it's way it attacks Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Sybok with an army of these rock creatures. They fight their way to the shuttle blasting these things with their phasers, though it's shown that it's somewhat ineffective as the entity just creates new ones. Sybok sacrifices himself at some point to save Kirk and co. The rest of the movie would play out pretty much the same. When reaching the shuttle, the crew gets ready for take off but the rock creatures destroy the engines. Scotty manages to beam Spock and McCoy to safety but the Klingons knock out the transporter before Kirk can be rescued. Kirk grabs an extra phaser from the shuttle and runs to higher ground. On the Enterprise, Spock kicks Koord and the keester and forces him to help Kirk.
Back on the planet, Kirk doesn't have much time. Both phasers are fully discharged and the rock creatures are surrounding him. The disembodied voice of the entity gives Kirk one last chance to live by allowing it to take the starship to use as it's "chariot", when the Klingon BoP swoops down, blasts the shit out of the rock creatures and beams Kirk to safety.
Obviously the FX for the finale would have exceeded the STV budget by a bit.
I'll jump on this bandwagon. For the time, the rock monster suit looked fine. And CorporalClegg is right ... Shatner understood aspects of Star Trek better than any other director of Trek films. Final Frontier reached for a deeper meaning than all the others with the exception of The Motion Picture.
Unfortunately, he didn't have the clout to go toe-to-toe with the suits at Paramount, and for all his understanding of Trek, he made a series of bad decisions with the story that ultimately got filmed.
But he had some great ideas. I love that Final Frontier starts with a teaser ... just like the show. I love the original idea to try to film a "Powers of 10" sequence for the credits that pulls away from Sybok on Nimbus III and ultimately zooms in on Kirk El Capitan -- what a pity that didn't get filmed!
Unfortunately, he didn't have the clout to go toe-to-toe with the suits at Paramount, and for all his understanding of Trek, he made a series of bad decisions with the story that ultimately got filmed.
But he had some great ideas. I love that Final Frontier starts with a teaser ... just like the show. I love the original idea to try to film a "Powers of 10" sequence for the credits that pulls away from Sybok on Nimbus III and ultimately zooms in on Kirk El Capitan -- what a pity that didn't get filmed!
I really don't think he did. His idea of "it" was all-Shatner, all of the time.
He couldn't hold a candle to Bennett, Meyer, Wise OR Nimoy.
I love that the creators of "Galaxy Quest" accomplished both the "marauding horde of gargoyles" and a Rockman that Shatner so desperately wanted for his big ST V climax.
I saw GQ at a sneak preview with some old ST friends (we'd all won contest tickets and reunited quite unexpectedly at the cinema). During the film, we kept whispering hilarious ST V (and Director Shatner) comments. We were hysterical when the little alien babies suddenly turned into a "marauding horde of gargoyles", straight from Shatner's early script...
We were blithering idiots by the time the Rockman arrived, mere seconds after I'd whispered to my friends, "And now all we need is a giant orange Rockman".
I saw GQ at a sneak preview with some old ST friends (we'd all won contest tickets and reunited quite unexpectedly at the cinema). During the film, we kept whispering hilarious ST V (and Director Shatner) comments. We were hysterical when the little alien babies suddenly turned into a "marauding horde of gargoyles", straight from Shatner's early script...
We were blithering idiots by the time the Rockman arrived, mere seconds after I'd whispered to my friends, "And now all we need is a giant orange Rockman".
Even though I called him cheesy, I liked the idea of the rockman. But then I liked the idea of Kirk actually meeting the devil and having to fight gargoyles. Honestly I think the gargoyle suits would have looked tons better than the rockmen and probably been cheaper to make as well. Damn Bennett for talking Shatner out (what I thought) were some really neat ideas.
1994 actually:
Fantastic Four (1994) by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
You mean the guy who also played an alien in VOY's "Basics Part 2"?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Michael_Bailey_Smith
with VOY's Mortimer Harren, even ("Good Shepherd"): actor Jay Underwood as Johnny Storm!
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Jay_Underwood
Or there was my effort of 1986, using papier mache and orange rubber gloves:
Fantastic Four (1986) by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
That's me as Mr. Fantastic, btw.
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That's pretty much what I was thinking. And IIRC, the producers of the big-budget movie found it quite difficult to put Ben Grimm on the big screen a decade and a half-later. So I do have some sympathy for Shatner and co on this one.
Jeez, he should have gone to the King of the American Sci-Fi Monsters, Irwin Allen. He was still alive then. Irwin had a bunch of Rockmen on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
This was back in 1966, too. They cranked out four of five of these on a fraction of the money and Shatner couldn't handle one? Ah well.
This was back in 1966, too. They cranked out four of five of these on a fraction of the money and Shatner couldn't handle one? Ah well.
And I bet those things crease and fold all over the place. That's the trouble with "rock", it doesn't flex, which makes flexible rock creatures an oxymoron.Jeez, he should have gone to the King of the American Sci-Fi Monsters, Irwin Allen. He was still alive then. Irwin had a bunch of Rockmen on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
This was back in 1966, too. They cranked out four of five of these on a fraction of the money and Shatner couldn't handle one? Ah well.
Johnny Storm is really rockin' that pornstache.
1994 actually:
Fantastic Four (1994) by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
You mean the guy who also played an alien in VOY's "Basics Part 2"?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Michael_Bailey_Smith
with VOY's Mortimer Harren, even ("Good Shepherd"): actor Jay Underwood as Johnny Storm!
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Jay_Underwood
Or there was my effort of 1986, using papier mache and orange rubber gloves:
Fantastic Four (1986) by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
That's me as Mr. Fantastic, btw.
Funny you should say that. He grew it as a joke and when we quipped that he'd have to shave it off for the game show, he was determined to keep it.
A few weeks later, in a lettercol missive about upcoming changes in the "Fantastic Four" comic, the Marvel editors said that maybe it was time for Johnny to do something radical - like growing a mustache! (He ended up taking Alicia from the Thing - and marrying her. Then, of course, she turned out to be Lyja, a Skrull doppleganger.)
When I posted this pic on a different BBS recently, someone did a "Separated at birth" post, with my friend as Johhny Storm compared to a mugshot of a pornstached Jeffrey Dahmer.
Ol' Rocky dopesn't look bad in that dim lighting with the moody music. But a gaggle of them chasing Shatner around that planet might have been quite silly.
It wouldn't have saved the movie, but couldn't have hurt it any.
It wouldn't have saved the movie, but couldn't have hurt it any.
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