The Shape of the V'Ger Cloud

[Joker]

Throughout ST:TMP we're given many different views of the V'Ger cloud. Some tactical displays, some exterior visuals, some as the Enterprise enters it.

However... I cannot make head nor tale of what the damn thing is supposed to look like. Every image we get seems to differ from the rest.

The first shot in the movie:

A similar shot from the end of that sequence:

Enterprise's tactical:

Again, closer:

Enterprise on approach:

On the viewer:

Now... was any effort at all made during production to give the cloud any kind of consistent shape? The opening shots, to my eyes, are simply a blue blur, a total shapeless mess that could be anything. For the first shot of the movie, it establishes nothing. The rest seem to be at odds with each other, going from a sphere on tactical displays, to a long reclining surface as the Enterprise and the Klingon ships approach it.

Were there any planned uniform designs that weren't used? Did different departments have different ideas of what it should look like? Any storyboards or concepts? Was any care given at all to it?

Does anyone have any info about this?

 

[Jeyl]

Let's take a look at the first tactical screen that shows the circular barriers. Note how the outermost barrier completely surrounds the cloud. I will theorize that this barrier represents the first image we ever see of the Cloud. We're seeing it's first barrier layer from a great great distance.

Now note how the innermost barriers actually have gaps in the middle. The second most inner barrier is the one where the gaps are closer to each other so this barrier is where the most common looking cloud image comes into play. And since this is the final barrier that has a gap before it leads into the perfect circle, it makes sense that the sides of the gaps would lead directly into it.

 

[sbk1234]

I think it's cloud shaped.

 

[Jeyl]

I think it's cloud shaped.

Ya, a cloud that's over 2 AUs in diameter being generated by a ship. I think a vessel generating something that massive would maintain a consistent shape.

And it's pretty much been established that it's not just a 'cloud', but a power field.

 

[Data Holmes]

I think it's cloud shaped.

Ya, a cloud that's over 2 AUs in diameter being generated by a ship. I think a vessel generating something that massive would maintain a consistent shape.

And it's pretty much been established that it's not just a 'cloud', but a power field.

82 AU's thank you.

 

[Christopher]

We're dealing with something on the scale of Earth's orbit (or the scale of Pluto's orbit in the original cut), so it's no surprise that it would be hard to get a look at the whole thing and that it would look very different on different scales. I've always taken the initial shots to be merely glimpses of the tiny, tiny part of it that was visible to the Klingon ships. Though it could be what Jeyl says, the outer layer shown on the first tactical display. Indeed, now that I take a close look at those first two screencaps you posted, it does look like there's a spherical core visible behind a more diffuse outer layer, similar to what's seen in the tactical plot in your third screencap.

Everything else is pretty consistent. Perhaps the first tactical display is lacking in resolution and is only a rough approximation of its structure. Thus, as Jeyl suggests, the equatorial gap in the inner sphere in the first tactical display could actually have the more complex flattened-hourglass shape shown in the second, closer tactical plot. Now, that tactical display in your fourth image clearly matches the shape of the cloud in your fifth image. And what's in the viewscreen in your sixth image looks basically like the same shape seen at closer range and head-on instead of obliquely. The difference between them is purely one of perspective.

 

[Jeyl]

I think it's cloud shaped.

Ya, a cloud that's over 2 AUs in diameter being generated by a ship. I think a vessel generating something that massive would maintain a consistent shape.

And it's pretty much been established that it's not just a 'cloud', but a power field.

82 AU's thank you.

No, 2. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with Robert Wise. So let me ask you, do you have a problem with Robert Wise? Cause I would love to hear about it!

 

[Data Holmes]

Ya, a cloud that's over 2 AUs in diameter being generated by a ship. I think a vessel generating something that massive would maintain a consistent shape.

And it's pretty much been established that it's not just a 'cloud', but a power field.

82 AU's thank you.

No, 2. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with Robert Wise. So let me ask you, do you have a problem with Robert Wise? Cause I would love to hear about it!

If Robert Wise had a problem with that perhaps he should have fixed it in the script... In 1978... when they were filming the line... 82 AU's is what it was supposed to be. http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Trek-The-Motion-Picture.html


And my problem with Wise was he gave his name to that... abortion of a version of TMP.

 

[Christopher]

^Does it matter for the purposes of this discussion how big the cloud is?

Anyway, creators are entitled to change their minds. Lots of creators decide later on that their original decisions were flawed and wish they could change them, and sometimes they get the chance to do so. After all, presumably we get wiser as we get older. So it's hardly fair to insist that creators have to remain slavishly bound to decisions they made decades before when they were less wise.

Also, if either version of the film can be meaningfully called an "abortion," it would be the theatrical release. The word "abort" means to halt a process before it's completed, and that's exactly what happened with the theatrical release -- due to an inflexible deadline, post-production on the film had to be aborted before completion, and the film screened in theaters was therefore unfinished in its editing, effects, sound mix, etc. Regardless of whether you like the DE or not, it was a version of the film that was taken to completion as its makers intended, so it's simply factually incorrect to apply the word "abortion" to it.

 

[deck5]

However... I cannot make head nor tale of what the damn thing is supposed to look like.

Remember that an energy field will have a different profile in every part of the EM spectrum. The visible part is only one narrow band.

 

[Jeyl]

And my problem with Wise was he gave his name to that... abortion of a version of TMP.

I bet you wouldn't say that if the Director's Edition resembled the film if the crew had more time to finish everything. I don't look at this Director's Edition as an altered film, I look at it as THE film.

And who knows? Maybe he intended to edit the AU down to 2 in post but didn't get around to it.

 

[Data Holmes]

And my problem with Wise was he gave his name to that... abortion of a version of TMP.

I bet you wouldn't say that if the Director's Edition resembled the film if the crew had more time to finish everything. I don't look at this Director's Edition as an altered film, I look at it as THE film.

And who knows? Maybe he intended to edit the AU down to 2 in post but didn't get around to it.

If GR wasn't involved with it, it isn't "The Film"


TMP was so much more GR's film than Wise's.

 

[CoveTom]

^ You're kidding, right? Between Wise, Livingston, Eisner, and Katzenberg, GR's wishes for the film were quite frequently ignored. Additionally, Roddenberry got pretty badly burned out with the stress that was the TMP production, to the point that by the end of the shooting he had basically removed himself from the production altogether.

 

[Data Holmes]

I would also like to call attention to the TMP Novel, page 3 I believe, where kirk describes the cloud as being "Billions of Kilometers" in diameter...

An AU is 150 million Km... which means that 2AU would be 300 million km... no where near billions.

Where 82 AU's would be 12,300,000,000... 12.3 billion Km.

The novel was written by GR... I think that secures what size the cloud is, thank you.

 

[Christopher]

^Umm, there's a ton of stuff in the TMP novelization that's subsequently been contradicted, and Roddenberry himself is on record as saying that it isn't canonical. I doubt Roddenberry cared in the slightest how big the cloud was, since it's completely irrelevant to the story. And it's a silly thing to drag an entire thread off-topic to argue about.

 

[trevanian]

Ya, a cloud that's over 2 AUs in diameter being generated by a ship. I think a vessel generating something that massive would maintain a consistent shape.

And it's pretty much been established that it's not just a 'cloud', but a power field.

82 AU's thank you.

No, 2. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with Robert Wise. So let me ask you, do you have a problem with Robert Wise? Cause I would love to hear about it!

Anybody buying into 'this is Wise's real vision' BS is not working on all thrusters, to speak the local parlance. It doesn't reflect his intent from his interviews a couple years after the flick, and it doesn't reflect a lot of the notes and storyboards done and discarded during production.The DE is a very selective economy-minded re-visioning, but not one that really changes the movie, except to make it a little harder to watch.

 

[trevanian]

And my problem with Wise was he gave his name to that... abortion of a version of TMP.

I bet you wouldn't say that if the Director's Edition resembled the film if the crew had more time to finish everything. I don't look at this Director's Edition as an altered film, I look at it as THE film.

And who knows? Maybe he intended to edit the AU down to 2 in post but didn't get around to it.

He said post-release that the drydock scene needed to be cut significantly as well. Didn't see that happen in the DE.

 

[Jeyl]

He said post-release that the drydock scene needed to be cut significantly as well. Didn't see that happen in the DE.

Where does he say that? Have you listened to the effects crew commentary? They talked about trimming it down, but decided not to because so many people thought it was an important moment for the movie. This was the first time Star Trek fans got to see the Enterprise live for first time in at least a decade.

And from my personal point of view, how can we cut Jerry Goldsmith's score like that? At least he said he wrote the music in the cloud and over the V'Ger ship to be trimmed down if needed. You can find that in the crew commentary too.

 

[trevanian]

He said post-release that the drydock scene needed to be cut significantly as well. Didn't see that happen in the DE.

Where does he say that? Have you listened to the effects crew commentary? They talked about trimming it down, but decided not to because so many people thought it was an important moment for the movie. This was the first time Star Trek fans got to see the Enterprise live for first time in at least a decade.

And from my personal point of view, how can we cut Jerry Goldsmith's score like that? At least he said he wrote the music in the cloud and over the V'Ger ship to be trimmed down if needed. You can find that in the crew commentary too.

Don't rely on revisionist history or you'll start thinking that the klingon blood color in TUC was due to ratings concerns.

The L'ocifiers interviewed Wise in 80 or 81 and he had plenty to say about where the cuts needed to be made (the interview is in the unauthorized MAKING OF THE TREK FILMS, I think.)

Talented people can edit any piece of music effectively; geezus, there is music editing in 2001, cutting classical pieces, but it is entirely invisible due to work quality.

TGT and I both think that most of the Wise end of the commentary was written for him by SharpLineArts; you can choose to disagree with that view or not, but it isn't one either of us came by out of lack of interest or lack of research, that's for damned sure.

Just as an example, if you go by the DVD, you'd think almost none of the spacewalk was shot, when probably almost all of it was, something folks knew back in 79 and 80. But revisionism holds sway, and it is only in fits and starts that truth starts to resurface (check the current thread here on that story.)

EDIT ADDONI see you're already posting in that thread, so you can see that there is disparity between DC DVD history and what really went down, so why are you taking this 'tude here? .

 

[Jeyl]

TGT and I both think that most of the Wise end of the commentary was written for him by SharpLineArts; you can choose to disagree with that view or not, but it isn't one either of us came by out of lack of interest or lack of research, that's for damned sure.

I was not referring to the commentary track on the DVD, but the one you can download off of the official website that was done by the crew who worked on the Director's Edition.

And since I'm having a little difficulty understanding your motives behind this mess, what exactly do you think happened to Star Trek: The Motion Picture? The Director's Edition isn't something I would generalize as a "Revision". That would only occur if they put the NX Enterprise in the Recreation Deck or changed the Enterprise's torpedoes red. They actually left quite a bit alone. They even said they didn't want to stride off too far from how the original movie was presented, because it's still the same movie. So what is your problem with the Director's Edition?