Why did the warp effect get progressively less impressive?

[Saito S]

I may be in the minority here, but my answer to the question in the OP would be: it didn't.

I thought the TMP "fireworks" warp effect was ridiculous. Completely over the top and cartoonish. The TWOK-TUC warp effect and the TNG-era "strech-jump" were both huge improvements (one moment that I thought was really cool was at the very end of GEN, when the three Starfleet rescue ships all warp out together. Seeing multiple ships go to warp almost simultaneously was something we hadn't really seen before in TNG.)

As for the Trek XI effect, I really like it as well. It may be the best one yet. As BillJ pointed out, it gave the jump to warp a real sense of power, an impact, that it didn't have before. The presence of sound effects in space is a long-standing tradition in Trek and other space operas, despite how unrealistic it is, and JJ's movie takes full advantage of that conceit with this great pop sound right when the ship zips off the screen.

Generally, I think the relative simplicity of later warp effects represents an improvement, not a downgrade, over the light-show in TMP.

 

[Christopher]

(one moment that I thought was really cool was at the very end of GEN, when the three Starfleet rescue ships all warp out together. Seeing multiple ships go to warp almost simultaneously was something we hadn't really seen before in TNG.)

Which is because the slit-scan technique used to create the warp stretch was difficult and time-consuming. ILM created three warp-stretch shots for "Encounter at Farpoint" -- the two seen in the main titles and the "turn and warp" shot when the ship ran from Q -- and the show just reused those same three shots over and over for 7 years because they couldn't afford to create more (except for the side-view one in "Where No One Has Gone Before" which was done simply by stretching the image laterally). Once they began using CGI ships in the later shows, it became possible to create the effect digitally and we saw it more often. I'm not sure whether the warp jumps in GEN were done digitally or if they were new slit-scan shots made possible on a feature-film budget.

Generally, I think the relative simplicity of later warp effects represents an improvement, not a downgrade, over the light-show in TMP.

Well, I don't agree. I like pretty colors...

 

[Gotham Central]

(one moment that I thought was really cool was at the very end of GEN, when the three Starfleet rescue ships all warp out together. Seeing multiple ships go to warp almost simultaneously was something we hadn't really seen before in TNG.)

Which is because the slit-scan technique used to create the warp stretch was difficult and time-consuming. ILM created three warp-stretch shots for "Encounter at Farpoint" -- the two seen in the main titles and the "turn and warp" shot when the ship ran from Q -- and the show just reused those same three shots over and over for 7 years because they couldn't afford to create more (except for the side-view one in "Where No One Has Gone Before" which was done simply by stretching the image laterally). Once they began using CGI ships in the later shows, it became possible to create the effect digitally and we saw it more often. I'm not sure whether the warp jumps in GEN were done digitally or if they were new slit-scan shots made possible on a feature-film budget.

Generally, I think the relative simplicity of later warp effects represents an improvement, not a downgrade, over the light-show in TMP.

Well, I don't agree. I like pretty colors...

The thing that I still find odd is why the effect that has been so common in all of the 24th century shows seems to virtually vanish with the introduction of the Enterprise E. First contact maintains some semblance of the original effect even though the flash disappears (though it is present on the Phoenix). However in Insurrection and Nemesis the flash and stretch completely disappears and Nemesis adds that weird smoke contrail. Why the change?

 

[Christopher]

The thing that I still find odd is why the effect that has been so common in all of the 24th century shows seems to virtually vanish with the introduction of the Enterprise E. First contact maintains some semblance of the original effect even though the flash disappears (though it is present on the Phoenix). However in Insurrection and Nemesis the flash and stretch completely disappears and Nemesis adds that weird smoke contrail. Why the change?

It might've been a matter of shrinking budgets, same as with the TOS movies' progressively simpler warp effects. Or it could've simply been that the films had different VFX supervisors/designers, and a different director in the case of NEM. Different artists or creators have their own distinct tastes and styles.

 

[JarodRussell]

The flash NEVER vanished with the Enterprise-E. It's there in First Contact, and Nemesis. In Insurrection we never see the Enterprise jumping to warp, we only see her in warp, with the traditional star streaks.

 

[22 Stars]

When first reading the title of the thread, I assumed it was about just addressing TOS movies, and how in TMP the color streaks were crisp and clean lines, and over time they got wider and more blurred. I am in the camp of preferring the TMP effect, over subsequent TOS movie blurry warp streaks. The one exception I can think of is the shot in III where we get a nice long thin streak with that great sound, and of course TWOK, and the Ent. warping out of the Mutara Nebula.