Those little details you miss

[Timo]

...What I found particularly fascinating was how Spock called every third second in the countdown. That's an alien thing to do - humans, at least from the western civilization where the base ten system runs deep, would more probably call every second or every fifth second.

Not that the supposed humans did any "better": the later increments in the countdown were completely random (57, 53, 48, 44)... That's not how you're supposed to do a countdown, unless your point is to drive the listener mad with anxiety and uncertainty.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ian Keldon]

Klingons have been confirmed for JJ Trek 2013? Where is that source? And they will look like Victor Garber from the JJ Trek 09? Where is that source?

This one-second flash from a JJ Abrams movie highlight reel during an interview a few months ago (done right after they wrapped filming) is NOT from the STXI deleted scenes:

Yeah, the background is different and the pose is slightly different.

Anyways, it's confirmed through other sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2nYOGa7xs&feature=player_embedded

 

[R. Star]

I just say the ship was haunted, or something.

Well as many Redshirts that have died on that ship....

 

[MacLeod]

How? There's no door!

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0388.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0390.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

well we don't see the fourth side, or perhaps there is a ladder from another deck.

 

[Timewalker]

These things happen. TMP featured extensive and elaborate alien makeup and costumes. Didn't see much of it at all. Far background crowd at SF HQ and then again a crowd scene on the Rec Deck. A few standout characters but nothing representative of the array of aliens they worked on. A lot of effort for comparatively little screen time.

The ultimate example is STXI's Rura Penthe scenes, which featured dozens of elaborate aliens (including new-look Klingons, a Gorn, a Salt Vampire and a freaky guy with three faces) only to be left on the cutting room floor.
At least the new look Klingons are being reused in the next movie.

There was a Salt Vampire in Rura Penthe? In the eleventh movie??? WTF?

Salt Vampires went extinct in "The Man Trap."

How? There's no door!

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0388.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0390.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

well we don't see the fourth side, or perhaps there is a ladder from another deck.

Maybe it's the creepy guy who terrorized William Shatner in that Twilight Zone episode.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There was a Salt Vampire in Rura Penthe? In the eleventh movie??? WTF?

Salt Vampires went extinct in "The Man Trap."

Yep. Although there extinct-ness wasn't exactly set in stone (IIRC, we only had the word of one crazy guy to go on), and STXI's rura penthe scenes were set several years prior to TOS anyway.
Here's a comparison pic:

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yep. Although there extinct-ness wasn't exactly set in stone (IIRC, we only had the word of one crazy guy to go on), and STXI's rura penthe scenes were set several years prior to TOS anyway.

Yep. Trelane, the Squire of Gothos, had a stuffed one on display, too, so they may also exist off-world.

and a freaky guy with three faces

He appears in some IDW comic tie-ins.

 

[Timo]

Trelane, the Squire of Gothos, had a stuffed one on display, too, so they may also exist off-world.

Or the species might originate from some other world entirely, and be unrelated to the extinct culture of M-113 - except for possibly being the cause of the extinction...

In any case, the timeline of extinction is quite vague, but a single individual surviving is probably very good indication that multiple individuals were alive one generation ago. Do Salt Vampires have centuries-long generations?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[chopperjockey]

Re: Those little details you miss

Just saw VI again, Undiscovered Country...
Any body know how the sniper at Camp Kidimar could see his target through his scope? The hole in the glass was only big enough to take the barrel!

 

[sbk1234]

LIke a camera where you see through the lense, the scope sees through the barrel.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I never noticed that!

 

[blueziggy]

i like the audio clue in STIII when beaming over to the enterprise and the exterior shot you hear the beginning of the tos theme.

 

[Data Holmes]

These things happen. TMP featured extensive and elaborate alien makeup and costumes. Didn't see much of it at all. Far background crowd at SF HQ and then again a crowd scene on the Rec Deck. A few standout characters but nothing representative of the array of aliens they worked on. A lot of effort for comparatively little screen time.

Weren't a few of them already developed for the aborted TV show?

Also, as far as costumes, I think it was a bit of Fletcher getting the keys to the old paramount art house store room and given a "blank check" and carte blanche. He seemed to gcream overboard, creating whole back stories for the aliens he worked on, using thousands of dollars worth of antique fabrics and jewelry that were just sitting in storage not having been touched in twenty to fifty years.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Weren't a few of them already developed for the aborted TV show?

Also, as far as costumes, I think it was a bit of Fletcher getting the keys to the old paramount art house store room and given a "blank check" and carte blanche.

With the sheer number of Epsilon 9 outfits auctioned by It's a Wrap! a few years ago, they certainly must have earmarked as much costume budget as possible to stockpile stuff for potential telemovie spin-offs, when the budget would be much smaller.

When I had a phone conversation with Fred Phillips in January 1984, he told me their brief was to emulate the banquet scene of "Journey to Babel", with the thought that the alien ambassadors were being gathered for their own briefing on the approach of Vejur. More closeups (and even dialogue) had originally been expected (hence a few aliens had human mouths) but, when Robert Wise came to the project, he was less impressed with the over-the-head latex alien masks and shoved them into the background, despite the gorgeous old fabrics used in their costumes.

 

[trevanian]

...Curiously, the other window shows a wall with a grillework that closely matches that on the interior set. Which is good continuity, but the grille in the set is rather down low, below shoulder level, suggesting that the guy peeking out is crouching deep down, or a dwarf!

The apparent floor level indicated by the docking port establishes this already anyway. What was Probert thinking, placing these portholes so low in relation to the doors? Perhaps he assumed that the interior set would have stairs not unlike those found in the "topside docking port" set through which Spock enters?

Timo Saloniemi

Well, you're looking at a separate scaled-up model of the hull there, and usually when they do these, they aren't particularly accurate (the one built for the can-opener shot in TWOK for instance, which I guess has a lot of inaccuracies in it.) Is it possible that these other portholes aren't quite placed in the same way on the full 8' shooting miniature?

BTW, that is modelmaker Mark Stetson in the window.

 

[Maurice]

...or maybe the guy (Mark Stetson) is seated, since we don't see the room he's in.

 

[Gepard]

BTW, that is modelmaker Mark Stetson in the window.

You mean the creepy face in the porthole, the one that people always wonder about? Cool. Nice to know who it is.

(Extra cool for me, as Mark Steston is a VFX supervisor where I work, so I run into him all the time. /humblebrag)

 

[trevanian]

He told me that when I interviewed him about SURROGATES a couple years back. Every time I do an article involving TMP folk, I always ask about that stuff, or what was inside the rec deck windows, that kind of thing.

 

[Timo]

Is it possible that these other portholes aren't quite placed in the same way on the full 8' shooting miniature?

Possible, but not the case in this, well, case.

Perhaps there's something to the mechanism of that door prop that absolutely calls for it to be mounted at least a couple of feet above studio floor level, and this particular area was designed to facilitate a shot of the doors from the inside, one that was never needed in the end? (Note that the door is above studio floor level in ST2, too, adjoining the torpedo set with the torp track ditch under the set floor...) Perhaps the set depicting the bridge docking port was to be reused without modifications, regardless of the reasons of having those steps on that set?

Nothing about the secondary hull was done quite to Probert's liking, but was dictated from on high; perhaps the exterior reflects his original ideas that never could be implemented in full?

Timo Saloniemi