Why was the budget for The Final Frontier reduced?

[Paradise City]

I've come to the view that introducing a long lost brother was a good touch. It's giving the Vulcans a satirical tickling. They, on the one hand, obey a very vigorous logic and yet on the other they are a traditional people hamstrung by traditional taboos. The emotional half brother would be "embarrassing" for the Sarek clan so much so they might plausibly clam up about Sybok and Vulcans being Vuclans they may take that taboo to the max and never mention him at all. Additionally the way Sybok is such an immense challenge to Spock. Sybok has an easy charisma and everything appears to flow naturally to him whereas for Spock life is a permanent struggle not only with the fiery passions of his Vulcan nature but with his human side. Sybok directly challenges Spock in some fundamental ways and he throws him for a time until Spock rises to the challenge and eloquently rebuffs Sybok's attempt to unwind the triumvirate that is the pivot of Trek and we see that relationship at its height in the close of their careers. That is high stakes.

As for the whole FX saga, frankly I never noticed anything too much amiss. Pre-CGI can be iffy in many films and these days I'm kinda jaded by FX that is too flashy. I did notice the dumb turbolift scenes and I noticed Sybok's hair got a very vigorous cut before he beamed down to met the Big Cheese. Can't look scruffy if you're going to met the boss I guess.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I always thought that Sybok was a poorly realized concept. There was an interesting way to portray an emotional Vulcan, and "Hail, fellow, join me on my quest, will you not?" wasn't it.

 

[Dukhat]

I've come to the view that introducing a long lost brother was a good touch.

You know, I might have been able to accept that Spock had a half-brother that he conveniently never told anyone about, if his reveal wasn't done in such a ham-fisted, silly way as it was done in this film.

I always thought that Sybok was a poorly realized concept. There was an interesting way to portray an emotional Vulcan, and "Hail, fellow, join me on my quest, will you not?" wasn't it.

Not to mention his incredibly forced laughter at the start of the movie.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The reason the last X-Film movie flopped

You read the headlines wrong. "Blended" flopped.

http://variety.com/2014/film/box-of...h-36-million-friday-blended-flops-1201191209/

"With over $700m in the bank, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has outgrossed X-Men: Days Of Future Past at the worldwide box office (although the latter will eventually overtake the former). Thing is, Spider-Man is seen as a disappointment, X-Men as a big hit..."
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/blo...ilms-that-grossed-250m-and-apparently-flopped

 

[Harvey]

Days of Future Past flopped?

X-Files, maybe?

 

[Indysolo]

Jeez. It's clearly a typo.

The reason the last X-Film movie flopped, for instance, was that it didn't really tie into the mythology and was really just an extended episode.

It should say "X-Files movie".

Next!

Neil

 

[The Old Mixer]

Not so clear if you don't follow The X-Files. There are typos that are easy to read past, and then there are typos that say something other than what's intended.

 

[jaime]

Days of Future Past flopped?

X files.

 

[jaime]

Nope.

What's does CSO mean?

Colour Separation Overlay.
Or chromakey

Blue screen.

 

[Maurice]

Funny, but no one in the biz I know has ever used that term around me!

 

[jaime]

Funny, nut no one in the biz I know has ever used that term around me!

It's probably a Bbcism. I read a lot about making doctor who when I was young. They sort of pioneered it. (they used an off yellow to avoid messing with blue eyes /costumes for example. I believe ds9 was one of the first to switch to luminous colours like orange and the now ubiquitous green screen.)

Reading such things is a hobby. I even made it through the technical sections of that Star Trek The Motion Picture oral history book despite its lack of diagrams. I feel that's some kind of achievement. It's a heifer of a book.

 

[Maurice]

Well, you use bluescreen for photochemical processes for a specific reason. Likewise, green is preferred for video for different reasons. You can key off any color, really, but it takes less light to get a greenscreen bright enough than a bluescreen, and the green channel in RGB color space tends to be the sharpest on lot of DV cameras.

 

[jaime]

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/CSO

Here you go. Ye olden yellow screen. Thought you'd find it interesting from a historical perspective. They went nuts with it in the seventies.

 

[jaime]

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/doctor_who_telly_special_effects_tech/

And one more rather in depth look at it, explaining the chromakey name too. Ironically, this means late 80s doctor who was, for about 75 minutes, on a par with the more expensive fx in star trek, albeit star trek V. (one of the reasons cited for the doctor who cancellation back then was that it couldn't compete with imported star trek shows and their million dollar budgets. Which was a nonsense because it wasn't competing anyway...they were on the same network. And who would have ended up on a par with babylon 5 probably, if not better, comparing the BBC fx work for Red Dwarf for example.)

 

[Iamnotspock]

I would hold that the story and characterisation are very much in keeping with TOS, and the film actually contains more characterisation and development than any of the other films except for Kirk himself ironically. (that mostly happened in the other films)

Ironically, but understandably. According to Nicholas Meyer and Harve Bennett, Shatner was initially reluctant to depict Kirk's mid-life crisis in TWOK, as he had trouble separating himself from the character (Meyer: "The difference between an actor and a movie star is that an actor pretends to be somebody else, and a movie star pretends that somebody else is them. Bill Shatner is essentially a movie star") and didn't want to be seen to be ageing on screen for all to see, until Bennett stoked his ego by comparing him to Spencer Tracy, who had aged gracefully and effectively on screen over his long career.

It makes sense that, when given free rein over a Trek film, Shatner would want to relive the glory days and play Kirk in his prime again, regardless of any inherent implausibility. UK film critic Mark Kermode summed it up when he said, "You know Star Trek V is the one Bill Shatner directed because it opens with bloated, 60-year-old Captain Kirk, looking like he'd have trouble running a couple of laps round the track, free-climbing El Capitan(!), and ends with him squaring up to God."

 

[RAMA]

How so? That's like blaming them for not controlling Braga and Moore during Generations. No matter how great a talent you are, if you're handed edicts from the studio on how the movie needs to be done, then your hands are pretty much tied.

Shatner had way more power on STV than most people realize. He was a de facto producer, and although ostensibly Harve Bennet and Winter were there to control "Shatner's appetites", they also wanted him to have his creative control, because Shatner contractually had a right to do whatever Nimoy was allowed to do. So up until he clashed with Paramount on his budget, he had free rein..when he realized he had mis-spent his money on things he wanted to see in his movie rather than what was necessary, he realized he didn't have the budget for the finale.

 

[RAMA]

This is almost completely nonsensical. Shatner may have been the director (and he directed the hell out of the movie; it's gorgeous), but Bennett and Winter could and should have realized, for example, that Associates & Ferren didn't have the skills or the resources to pull off the effects -- that kind of due diligence falls upon the producers' shoulders. Beyond that, Bennett, by his own admission, was burned out on Trek after he continuously fought with Nimoy during production and post-production of The Voyage Home, and he didn't really want to be part of another movie. That, combined with a ludicrously rushed production schedule, is a recipe for disaster.

See my post above...but yes, if Harve was burned out then it was more reason they allowed Shatner more leeway than normal for a director. So on paper, the executive producer's have ultimate responsibility, but for various reasons, including what I mentioned above, and because STIV had been so popular with Nimoy at the helm, the amount of creative input he had on the story, Shatner bears the ultimate responsibility for STV being the disaster it was.

I think STV looks terrible, and I'm not just talking about the FX. Even a movie that had a similar or less of a budget adjusted for inflation from 5 years later (Generations) looked way better than STV.

 

[Aldo]

Days of Future Past flopped?

He's talking about the last X-Files film.

 

[gottacook]

So up until he clashed with Paramount on his budget, he had free rein..when he realized he had mis-spent his money on things he wanted to see in his movie rather than what was necessary, he realized he didn't have the budget for the finale.

Why do you assume that Shatner (in addition to co-writing and directing) was involved in the details of production accounting and personally let this lapse occur? The production would have had its own personnel dedicated to this task, not necessarily hired by Shatner. In any case, you would expect Paramount to at least attempt to carefully budget everything before shooting began, given its experience with TMP.

 

[Kor]

Days of Future Past flopped?

He means the last X-Files film ("I Want to Believe"), not the last X-Men film.

Kor