What Trek visual effect do you think was the WORST?

[JarodRussell]

And the shots of Scotty in mid=air as the copter loads the glass are really really bad, like they were farmed out to some cheap-o outfit, very grainy. Haven't seen the film on DVD, but I assume the shots must look even worse than in the theater.

Nope, looks pretty good there.

 

[trevanian]

And the shots of Scotty in mid=air as the copter loads the glass are really really bad, like they were farmed out to some cheap-o outfit, very grainy. Haven't seen the film on DVD, but I assume the shots must look even worse than in the theater.

Nope, looks pretty good there.

You piqued my interest. Still looks awful, saying a lot (all bad) for a movie that has terrible cinematography to begin with.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tvhhd/tvhhd1480.jpg

 

[Doug Otte]

The probe/scan that kills Ilia in TMP.

I always liked that one. It was very harsh and looked/sounded dangerous - unlike a pretty animation of some floating blue beams.

Doug

 

[Doug Otte]

Almost every FX shot in STV, and EVERY shot of Enterprise E in ANY film (it should be hauled away AS garbage).

I never liked the E, and I particularly hated how Eaves changed it for Nemesis.

Doug

 

[Doug Otte]

STV gets a lot of flak, but frankly, The Voyage Home probably had the most dire effects of the TOS movies - not only in quality but in execution; and by 'execution', I mean 'very slowly and dramatically getting closer to the Sun while supposedly doing maximum warp' and 'bad 3D models of actors' busts floating around during time travel'.

That whole sequence was wonderful. It was intended to be subjective and dreamlike. It was an artistic representation of what they experienced or felt during the time warp.

Doug

 

[Anticitizen]

'bad 3D models of actors'

Dude, it was 1986. That was actually some groundbreaking VFX there.

Flight of the Navigator came out the same year, and had some pretty darn good CGI (the shapeshifting spaceship).

And don't forget the Genesis Project reel from The Wrath of Khan, two movies prior.

 

[Chrisisall]

STV gets a lot of flak, but frankly, The Voyage Home probably had the most dire effects of the TOS movies - not only in quality but in execution; and by 'execution', I mean 'very slowly and dramatically getting closer to the Sun while supposedly doing maximum warp' and 'bad 3D models of actors' busts floating around during time travel'.

That whole sequence was wonderful. It was intended to be subjective and dreamlike. It was an artistic representation of what they experienced or felt during the time warp.

Doug

I concur- it worked for me. It finally made time travel an "event" instead of a trip to the local convenience store.

 

[JarodRussell]

And the shots of Scotty in mid=air as the copter loads the glass are really really bad, like they were farmed out to some cheap-o outfit, very grainy. Haven't seen the film on DVD, but I assume the shots must look even worse than in the theater.

Nope, looks pretty good there.

You piqued my interest. Still looks awful, saying a lot (all bad) for a movie that has terrible cinematography to begin with.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tvhhd/tvhhd1480.jpg

Terrible? In what way? I think the movie looks quite good. And it was nominated for Best Cinematography after all, too.

 

[Sky]

'bad 3D models of actors' busts floating around during time travel'.

Oh yeah, that I never liked, or understood.

 

[Gepard]

THE LAST STARFIGHTER broke a lot of CGI ground right before this, but I don't ever see anybody cutting that pic any slack either.

I do. In fact, I'll cut them some slack right now.
.
.
.
.
.
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See that? That's a lot of slack, right there.

 

[JarodRussell]

'bad 3D models of actors'

Dude, it was 1986. That was actually some groundbreaking VFX there.

Flight of the Navigator came out the same year, and had some pretty darn good CGI (the shapeshifting spaceship).

And don't forget the Genesis Project reel from The Wrath of Khan, two movies prior.

Flight of the Navigator had reflections, the Genesis project had procedural animation. The Voyage Home had 3D scans of human faces morphing into each other. All different milestones. The last one is actually the most important one, because it was an important step towards the effects in The Abyss and Terminator 2.

Stop throwing everything into one single bucket labelled "CGI".

 

[Anticitizen]

Dude, it was 1986. That was actually some groundbreaking VFX there.

Flight of the Navigator came out the same year, and had some pretty darn good CGI (the shapeshifting spaceship).

And don't forget the Genesis Project reel from The Wrath of Khan, two movies prior.

Flight of the Navigator had reflections, the Genesis project had procedural animation. The Voyage Home had 3D scans of human faces morphing into each other. All different milestones. The last one is actually the most important one, because it was an important step towards the effects in The Abyss and Terminator 2.

Stop throwing everything into one single bucket labelled "CGI".

Oh, I'm not throwing them into a single bucket - I'm clearly dividing them into 'awful' and 'good'. Groundbreaking or not, the time traveling sequence looked awful, to my eyes anyway. FOTN and TWOK did not. I don't really care what sort of technology is used or whether it's groundbreaking - if it looks good, it looks good. I prefer most of the model effects in the TOS movies to the later CGI.

 

[trevanian]

Nope, looks pretty good there.

You piqued my interest. Still looks awful, saying a lot (all bad) for a movie that has terrible cinematography to begin with.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tvhhd/tvhhd1480.jpg

Terrible? In what way? I think the movie looks quite good. And it was nominated for Best Cinematography after all, too.

The Scotty element doesn't have the same contrast as the daylight tree environment; it looks like a grainy postage stamp to me.

And yeah, TVH was nominated for cinematography and score -- both of which are abyssmal. I can buy off on smoking up the BoP set stylistically (though not to the insane levels, like in the computer room), but smoking up the inside of an aircraft carrier (check when Chekov runs through a virtual cloud bank during his escape)? And they even have smoke on the E-a bridge interior ... godawful looking. TVH is so low-contrast it almost looks like video at times. TFF has a lot of low-contrast elements, but it mixes things up, so you have snap to the image as well.

 

[Start Wreck]

STV gets a lot of flak, but frankly, The Voyage Home probably had the most dire effects of the TOS movies - not only in quality but in execution; and by 'execution', I mean 'very slowly and dramatically getting closer to the Sun while supposedly doing maximum warp' and 'bad 3D models of actors' busts floating around during time travel'.

That whole sequence was wonderful. It was intended to be subjective and dreamlike. It was an artistic representation of what they experienced or felt during the time warp.

Doug

I prefer my version:
http://startwreck.comicgenesis.com/d/20070413.html

 

[ST-One]

And the shots of Scotty in mid=air as the copter loads the glass are really really bad, like they were farmed out to some cheap-o outfit, very grainy. Haven't seen the film on DVD, but I assume the shots must look even worse than in the theater.

Nope, looks pretty good there.

No, it does look awful. You can still see the outlines of the crate after is was lowered behind the cloaked edge of the ship.

 

[Chrisisall]

No, it does look awful. You can still see the outlines of the crate after is was lowered behind the cloaked edge of the ship.

Multiple pass bleed-throughs don't COUNT!!!

It was fine.

 

[MikeS]

The whole "genesis falling to pieces" scene in STIII: TSFS looked so fake. You could tell it was a soundstage, and the rocks appeared to weigh nothing.

 

[Chrisisall]

The whole "genesis falling to pieces" scene in STIII: TSFS looked so fake. You could tell it was a soundstage, and the rocks appeared to weigh nothing.

Quantum Proto-matter flux in gravitational conversion fooled your eyes, Mike.
It's okay, you didn't know any better.

 

[JarodRussell]

The whole "genesis falling to pieces" scene in STIII: TSFS looked so fake. You could tell it was a soundstage, and the rocks appeared to weigh nothing.

The whole fight between Kirk and Kruge screamed TOS, so did the obviously artificial looking set. Is that a bad thing?

 

[Search4]

The Genesis explosion with the Enterprise racing away. They had me going in the nebula... But then cocentric rings from the explosion?

Which of course brings up the "where DID the planet come from" question.