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Which Trek movie(s) had the best Special Effects, IYO?

Chrisisall

Commodore
Commodore
While TMP was great with light, my call is actually STIII. Some shots of Enterprise are ASTOUNDING IMO! Some stuff in TUC was also amazing.
Those two would be my pick.

Yours?
 
Star Trek 2009
LOL, really? At this point I am so sick of 'industrial' & 'cool' CGI. Stuff from STIII, TOS-R, and even STV are nicer IMO, because they represent a smaller, more individualistic group of artists doing their job without a commitee of clowns micromanaging them into bland grandeur.
 
For FX I think the Wrath of Khan, Trek09, and maybe Generations.

Trek3 does have some great visuals like the Enterprise leaving spacedock or the Enterprise approaching the Bird of Prey over the Genesis planet.
 
Star Trek 2009
LOL, really? At this point I am so sick of 'industrial' & 'cool' CGI. Stuff from STIII, TOS-R, and even STV are nicer IMO, because they represent a smaller, more individualistic group of artists doing their job without a commitee of clowns micromanaging them into bland grandeur.

I agree with you on the industrial crap in TRek09 but the opening scene with the Kelvin and the Nerada was pretty slick, especially with the crewperson being blown out into the silence of space. It kind of went downhill from there.
 
It kind of went downhill from there.
I thought some moments were inspired, like the pieces breaking off the nacelle at Vulcan, but yeah, a cartoonfest generally.
Not a CGI fan for the most part, but for really GOOD CGI, see Serenity. Zoik is amazing.:techman:
 
Star Trek 2009
LOL, really? At this point I am so sick of 'industrial' & 'cool' CGI. Stuff from STIII, TOS-R, and even STV are nicer IMO, because they represent a smaller, more individualistic group of artists doing their job without a commitee of clowns micromanaging them into bland grandeur.

What does it matter how the FX work is managed as long as it turns out well? Star Trek XI got nominated for an FX Academy Award. The last nom Trek got in that category was for TMP. And I'm sorry, but many of the effects in STIII were distractingly bad. The Genesis Planet was horrendous.

And the less said about STV the better.
 
What does it matter how the FX work is managed as long as it turns out well?
What does it matter how the intel work is managed as long as it turns out well? Uhhh... 9-11 anyone?

Mis or Micromanaged *ANYTHING* manifests distrust or misgivings concerning the peeps working on whatever.

Look at Digital Domain. Or Zoic. Perfect examples of ancient trust in your employees to do their jobs without overseer methods.
 
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture is filled with annoying matte lines and other artifacts of a rushed post-production schedule. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock contains some beautiful model work when it comes to the starships, but it betrays its budget when it comes to the planetary effects. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was completed with a third-rate visual effects house, and it shows. Finally, the computer generated imagery in Star Trek: Insurrection is often unrefined--the ships too shiny, the cloud effects unconvincing, etc.

Eliminating those four films, I'd probably end up choosing Star Trek (2009) or Star Trek: First Contact. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has the less than convincing Genesis Cave sequence, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country has a few less than convincing shots during the final battle, though on the whole they're both pretty good.

Of course, though the thread is ostensibly about "special effects," it's mostly veered towards visual effects in its discussion.
 
What does it matter how the FX work is managed as long as it turns out well?
What does it matter how the intel work is managed as long as it turns out well? Uhhh... 9-11 anyone?

Mis or Micromanaged *ANYTHING* manifests distrust or misgivings concerning the peeps working on whatever.

Look at Digital Domain. Or Zoik. Perfect examples of ancient trust in your employees to do their jobs without overseer methods.

Sorry, you're not making sense.
 
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is filled with annoying matte lines and other artifacts of a rushed post-production schedule.
But oh-so pretty pretty in any case!!!
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock contains some beautiful model work when it comes to the starships, but it betrays its budget when it comes to the planetary effects.
SO??? Starship pron is of penultimate importance in these matters!
 
Honestly, this debate is kinda silly. Pretty much all the Trek films (minus ST5 for reasons that were outside that film's control) had fantastic visuals for the time they were made. Look at Star Trek VI. The opening Praxis destruction was fantastic for 1991 (it was even nominated for an Oscar, I believe, but lost to T2). Today, the effect is a "meh...it's okay".

Clearly, the visual effects for STXI are the best given the latest technology was used to create the crisp, clear visuals. If one is wanting to debate the process of how those visuals were made, well, frankly, that is a completely different debate altogether.
 
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