Thought exercise: One DS9 episode with an unlimited budget?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
- Start date
What You Leave Behind
Use all new sfx for the battle
Get back Farrell for some hallucinated farewell with Worf
An extra 45 minutes in order to fix the timing difference between the Pahwraiths and the battle for Cardassia
Reshoot the opening bedroom scene to include Siddig, de Boers, and Robinson
And the light beer being served on set at Vic's will be switched with Scotch.
Use all new sfx for the battle
Get back Farrell for some hallucinated farewell with Worf
An extra 45 minutes in order to fix the timing difference between the Pahwraiths and the battle for Cardassia
Reshoot the opening bedroom scene to include Siddig, de Boers, and Robinson
And the light beer being served on set at Vic's will be switched with Scotch.
I generally agree with this, especially if we see the destruction of the Romulan flagship, get the Ent-E and other Sovereign class ships involved in the Battle of Cardassia and show a few flyby shots, and get a longer battle between Sisko and Dukat. It is Prophets vs Pah wraiths, after all.
As for mine, I would choose "The Emperor’s New Cloak".
Extended to two hours, with limited or no commercials.
Would features a large number of cameos:
- A number of Klingons - mirror House of Duras, mirror K’Ehleyr, mirror Gowron, mirror Martok, mirror Alexander (female), mirror Grilka, either on the Regent’s ship or on ships flanking the Regent’s ship.
- The Regent’s ship would also have mirror Farian, mirror Ro Laren, mirror Troi & mirror Dr. Noonien Soong (working on developing androids for the Alliance) on board.
- A Jadzia cameo, where she brings in reinforcements for the Terran Rebellion
- TNG cameos (Nova class ISS Enterprise-E, with mirror Picard, mirror Riker, the mirror Crushers, mirror Geordi, & mirror Yar sisters)
- VOY cameos (with the ISS Voyager and the Val Jean getting thrown into the Gamma Quadrant in the mirror universe after the space battle ends up in the Badlands and they encounter the Caretaker; mirror B'Elanna would beam aboard one of the ships from a Klingon ship leading a boarding party prior to the ships being thrown across the galaxy)
"Homefront/Paradise Lost." I'm also imagining it as a standalone movie, like a better version of "Into Darkness." More scenes of chaos on Earth. Heavier Starfleet presence visible on the streets. More battle scenes between Federation ships. Much more intense climax. I think the cast is really good so I wouldn't really change it, unless it's supposed to be a modern version. The only thing that would be nuts would be to replace the Lakota with the Enterprise, but I have a hard time imagining that working in the story.
there was some great new footage, filmed for the end battle scene, however, a lot of it was reused footage from a sacrifice of angels, and they even steal that image of Garak jumping away from the Jem Hadar barracks explosion early in the episode.
there was also a couple of scenes of Klingons, being engulfed in explosions that came out of earlier movies like undiscovered country and generations…
but I thought it was pretty clever The way they composited those scenes into the new footage…
What You Leave Behind.
To this day I’ve been annoyed with the amount of stock footage the series finale used for the space battles, and the use of the original Defiant in scenes where it was supposed to be the new Defiant (which was the reason for making the new Defiant the same class as the old one.) It looked cheap and completely noticeable, just like the exploding BoP from TUC that they reused in GEN. I can hear the producers’ thoughts even now: “Just reuse the old footage; nobody will be able to tell!” The series finale deserved better than that. I would have created all new CGI ships for the final battle rather than using stock shots of Excelsiors, Mirandas and FC ships from the battle of Chin’toka.
To this day I’ve been annoyed with the amount of stock footage the series finale used for the space battles, and the use of the original Defiant in scenes where it was supposed to be the new Defiant (which was the reason for making the new Defiant the same class as the old one.) It looked cheap and completely noticeable, just like the exploding BoP from TUC that they reused in GEN. I can hear the producers’ thoughts even now: “Just reuse the old footage; nobody will be able to tell!” The series finale deserved better than that. I would have created all new CGI ships for the final battle rather than using stock shots of Excelsiors, Mirandas and FC ships from the battle of Chin’toka.
Blame the Fire Caves. Foundation Imaging syphoned a whack of the budget on that sequence, apparently.
I don't know what they were thinking reusing the Jem'Hadar kamikazeing into the Klingons from Tears of the Prophets. That was a specific tactic they used to buy time to get their orbital weapons platform online.
There was even a scene of Garak shielding himself from an explosion in the compilation footage - from the previous episode! Footage of the Klingons on an exploding vessel from Star Trek VI also found its way in there.
I don't know what they were thinking reusing the Jem'Hadar kamikazeing into the Klingons from Tears of the Prophets. That was a specific tactic they used to buy time to get their orbital weapons platform online.
There was even a scene of Garak shielding himself from an explosion in the compilation footage - from the previous episode! Footage of the Klingons on an exploding vessel from Star Trek VI also found its way in there.
I don’t think that would have mattered. They would still have used the stock footage to save money and time.
I imagine so. I only bring it up as I remember (very vaguely) an interview with Ira where he mentioned how pricey the Fire Caves sequence was. He may have mentioned it alongside comments re: concessions made.
It sounds to me like thr studio gave the episode a tight budget, and Behr had to make lots of requests for every increase. Space battle scenes could be easily dismissed by execs because footage could be reused, whereas the fire caves were new.
Oh, I understand the rationale. To the producers, a ship is a ship, and one space battle is no different than another space battle. I just wish there was more time and money to make something different for the series finale.
At one point, Sisko mentions that he wanted to build a house on Bajor; obviously, he found the planet greatly appealing (because of both the topography and the people). If I had the means, I'd choose the episode with the most logical reason to be set on Bajor...and then flesh it out over the space of two or even three episodes. We're talking the best matte paintings, TONS of establishing shots, intricate costume design, custom-written songs, at least one festival, et cetera. The plan is to not just sell Sisko on Bajor, but to sell us - the viewers - on Bajor as well. By the end, anyone with their eyes glued to the screen is going to weep because they will never know such a world.
Last edited:
Profit and Lace. Quark is gonna be so hot.
How does one improve upon perfection?
Another vote for WYLB. I was thinking that based on the thread title itself, before I'd even seen the responses. Even if the only change was to replace the stock footage with new footage I'd be happy...though really, I think by and large the episode is pretty great as-is.
However, as an alternate: "Way of the Warrior". I believe there's a couple of times in that episode where for budget reasons they fire all weapons but all we see is a button being pushed without any fun VFX footage accompanying it, and while the footage we do see is pretty spectacular (certainly by the standards of the time), I wonder what they might have been able to do with unlimited moneys.
For similar reasons, I would also accept "Sacrifice of Angels" or "Call to Arms".
Really, just give every episode an unlimited budget, because it's a great show and it deserves the boost. <3
However, as an alternate: "Way of the Warrior". I believe there's a couple of times in that episode where for budget reasons they fire all weapons but all we see is a button being pushed without any fun VFX footage accompanying it, and while the footage we do see is pretty spectacular (certainly by the standards of the time), I wonder what they might have been able to do with unlimited moneys.
For similar reasons, I would also accept "Sacrifice of Angels" or "Call to Arms".
Really, just give every episode an unlimited budget, because it's a great show and it deserves the boost. <3
Pay Shimerman to transition?
Similar threads
