What's the point of Aztec-ing on the hull?
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
- Start date
As I recall, the references to the Space Shuttle as a "brick" were not about its contours or aesthetics, but about its performance in re-entry and landing, which was done mostly without power, so the astronauts likened it to flying a brick.
Indeed, yes. I've heard the F-4 Phantom described similarly.
And the Russian Mil MI-24 HIND, which was also referred to as a “flying tank”. Proof that you can make anything fly with a big enough engine.
To take it a step further back, Star Wars was the main reason: At the time, the star destroyer opening shot was so dominant in the perceptions of effects makers and viewers alike that a Star Trek movie would have to have something similar, and indeed it did with the spacedock flyaround. But the smooth-painted look of the OS model would not offer much in terms of scale or visual interest, and as others said the greebly look didn't sit well with the established Federation aesthetics. It was OK for the Klingons, though.
That borrows from what is AFAIK an apocryphal story told about American Airlines: They save a lot of money on fuel from weight savings on unpainted airplanes and pass the savings on to the passenger. Really it was simply that company president C. R. Smith liked the bare metal look.
That was a dig at the big, heavy Phantom from the single-engine, single-seat fighter guys: "With enough thrust even a brick can fly." Most of them ended up flying Phantoms.
That borrows from what is AFAIK an apocryphal story told about American Airlines: They save a lot of money on fuel from weight savings on unpainted airplanes and pass the savings on to the passenger. Really it was simply that company president C. R. Smith liked the bare metal look.
That was a dig at the big, heavy Phantom from the single-engine, single-seat fighter guys: "With enough thrust even a brick can fly." Most of them ended up flying Phantoms.
That's probably overthinking it. It's simply that movie screens are much huger and can show much more detail than any TV screen could back in those pre-HD times, so movie miniatures necessarily needed far more surface detail than TV miniatures to keep them from looking small and fake. The Star Wars greebles and the TMP hull plates were both responses to the same underlying cause, rather than being respectively a cause and effect.
Just look at the intricate surface detail on the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Star Wars did not invent this stuff. Star Wars was itself an homage to decades of earlier cinematic achievement.
Well it definitely fell like a brick when my uncle was flying second seat and had to ditch. That's where I heard the description.
Every spaceship movie I can think of within the next few years after SW had long flyovers/flybys of highly detailed models. Alien, The Black Hole, Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars, Galaxina, Saturn 3. I think it would be in comparison to Star Wars, not 2001, that TMP would be thought lacking if it didn't have something comparable.
Yeah, they did not have a great glide ratio. Glad he made it!
You know what movies also had close-ups of highly detailed models? 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968. Silent Running from 1972. Logan's Run from 1976. Star Wars was not the first movie to take advantage of the size and resolution of the motion picture screen to do detailed miniature work. Cinematic history did not begin on May 25, 1977.
Obviously. It is not a denial of movie history to note that Star Wars had orders of magnitude more impact on the viewing public and influence on audience expectations than any of the other titles mentioned.
In general, yes, but not on this particular point. It's a logical fallacy to mistake general for specific argument. The reasons for putting detail on miniatures have nothing to do with the Star Destroyer shot. Detailed miniatures existed long before then.
I love the design of the Centaur/Buckner overall (obvious scaling issues aside). Probably one of the better thought-out additions of the DS9 frankenfleet and a cool descendant of the Miranda lineage family, but yeah, they really overdid the greebles on that thing. More on the bottom, and the paint scheme is a bit harsh.
The Centaur cannot hold... any more greebles!
And the USS Centaur.
Yikes.
That looks disgusting
I've never liked "Greeblies for details". If something is on a vessel/vehicle/etc, it needs to serve a function and not just be there for the sake of it to "Look Cool" or "Look lived in".
Looks like it has Copper colored chicken pox grown on it.And the USS Centaur.
Yikes.
For a "hero" ship, sure, but for a ship that's just meant to be vaguely glimpsed in a shot or two, on the budget and schedule of a weekly TV series, I can't fault them for taking a more impressionistic approach.
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