Will the advanced special effects and scope kind of hurt "Discovery?"

[Christopher]

For sure the effects were groundbreaking; no doubt - it would have cost tons more had they gone the TNG route with filming miniatures against a backdrop, etc. The kind of fleet coordination with the starfurys wasn't possible before on a TV budget - but you could still tell the effects were extremely budget limited. The animators for the Starfurys sometimes wrote their own programs to control flight and stuff; and the best moves were controlled entirely by hand!

The thing that's hard to understand in this era of photorealistic FX is that visual effects in the past were usually about tradeoffs. Most effects looked artificial in some respect -- miniatures looked miniature, stop-motion looked jerky, bluescreen mattes had visible matte lines, etc. -- but we accepted those imperfections because they were the only way to achieve those images at all. It didn't matter that you could tell King Kong was an animated puppet or Godzilla was a guy in a rubber suit, because without that animated puppet or that rubber suit, the movie wouldn't even exist. For me, at least, it was the same with B5's effects. Yes, they were low-budget, but that's just what made them so important to SFTV -- the fact that they made it possible to create elaborate FX shots on a syndicated-TV budget instead of needing the resources of a tentpole feature. And they could actually do more than a big-budget movie with conventional FX techiques, like extend the shots longer or do more distinct effects in a single scene rather than cut between them, or let the camera swoop entirely around a spaceship and show it from every angle in a single shot. So the limited image quality and realism was the tradeoff for making all these images possible to depict on television at all.

It was the same with Hercules and Xena a few years later. The monsters Hercules fought were obviously computer animation, but they were able to have him fight monsters on a regular basis in a weekly series, rather than needing a year or two to create a single stop-motion creature feature. The loss of quality was offset by an enormous gain in quantity, which made it feasible to do a high-fantasy action-adventure saga as a weekly TV series in a way that wouldn't have been possible before.

Honestly, at the time, I thought B5's effects were pretty good, aside from things like thruster exhaust or flame which the software couldn't handle remotely convincingly. But I haven't seen the show in a long time (it's streaming now, but I haven't gotten around to rewatching yet), so I don't know how they'd look to me today.

 

[Jedman67]

i'm not talking about tradeoffs. The better funded productions had the time and money to produce cleaner fx, whether practical or digital. Everything of course is a product of its own time. B5 ran concurrently with TNG and DS9; the digital technology was there. In DS9, for example; the runabout windows were usually "closed" because to leave them open meant setting up a video monitor with the star screen projection, which made the shot more expensive, etc - so they cut it out.
I remain convinced that if B5 had a bigger fx budget, the GCI would have looked tons better.

 

[Christopher]

i'm not talking about tradeoffs. The better funded productions had the time and money to produce cleaner fx, whether practical or digital. Everything of course is a product of its own time. B5 ran concurrently with TNG and DS9; the digital technology was there.

Not exactly. TNG rarely used digital effects -- only for a couple of things like the space creatures in "Galaxy's Child." Star Trek didn't begin using digital effects routinely until later DS9 and early VGR, after B5 was already on the air. Indeed, B5's original FX company, Foundation Imaging, was let go from B5 after season 3 and moved to Voyager.

And again, the difference in funding is exactly my point. Of course the big-budget productions could do better work, but only a few TV productions were at that level. As long as VFX were that expensive, then FX-heavy television had to remain a rare, niche phenomenon as it had always been before. What the Video Toaster did was to bring digital FX to the masses, to make them affordable for everyone instead of just the wealthy elites. They democratized digital FX. Not only could low-budget TV shows now create visuals that only well-funded film studios could achieve before, but so could amateur filmmakers and hobbyists. At the risk of overstating the point, it's like the effect the printing press had on literacy, turning it into a commonplace thing instead of a privilege of the rich. As I said, the emergence of low-budget digital effects was the revolution that started the modern era where SF and fantasy make up a large percentage of TV programming instead of the sparse selection we had before the '90s.

 

[Jayson1]

One thing I wish we would have seen on "Babylon 5" was for them to film outside or go on location once in awhile. I think the fact that they never seemed to leave it's studio helped make it look even more cheap.

Jason

 

[Jedman67]

One thing I wish we would have seen on "Babylon 5" was for them to film outside or go on location once in awhile. I think the fact that they never seemed to leave it's studio helped make it look even more cheap.

Jason

They went off base plenty of times - Narn, Centauri Prime, Mars, The Great Machine; even Earth.
If you mean "outdoors" like SG1, yeah.

 

[Christopher]

They went off base plenty of times - Narn, Centauri Prime, Mars, The Great Machine; even Earth.
If you mean "outdoors" like SG1, yeah.

That's how I took Jayson1's comment, yeah. Going "outdoors" on what's clearly a studio set is part of what makes a production look cheap. It's good to get some real location filming, even if it means every alien planet looks like the woods outside Vancouver or a quarry near London.

 

[Jedman67]

That's how I took Jayson1's comment, yeah. Going "outdoors" on what's clearly a studio set is part of what makes a production look cheap. It's good to get some real location filming, even if it means every alien planet looks like the woods outside Vancouver or a quarry near London.

That also looks cheap after a while.

 

[Christopher]

That also looks cheap after a while.

But better than 100% studio filming.

 

[Jayson1]

That also looks cheap after a while.

I think it depends on how it is done. For starters every building doesn't have to look super futurisitc even if your show is in the future. A building can just look like a building. All it sometimes has to do is look modern or somewhat advanced.

Jason

 

[Jedman67]

But better than 100% studio filming.

Better in what sense? In looking more "rounded"? Not necessarily. It depends on any number of factors, not the least the requirements of the story. Vasquez Rocks and the Tillman Water plant are pretty well-known to Trekkies, as is the "alien cityscape" matte-painting used in roughly 450 episodes of TNG. It doesn't make it look any better to recycle the same material over and over and over and over again.

I think it depends on how it is done. For starters every building doesn't have to look super futurisitc even if your show is in the future. A building can just look like a building. All it sometimes has to do is look modern or somewhat advanced.

Jason

The Tillman Water plant was used throughout TNG, DS9 and VOY to represent Starfleet HQ in San Francisco; once you started seeing that building pop up to represent other alien locations....well, it didn't look any better than just throwing together a set and filming.

 

[Jayson1]

Better in what sense? In looking more "rounded"? Not necessarily. It depends on any number of factors, not the least the requirements of the story. Vasquez Rocks and the Tillman Water plant are pretty well-known to Trekkies, as is the "alien cityscape" matte-painting used in roughly 450 episodes of TNG. It doesn't make it look any better to recycle the same material over and over and over and over again.

The Tillman Water plant was used throughout TNG, DS9 and VOY to represent Starfleet HQ in San Francisco; once you started seeing that building pop up to represent other alien locations....well, it didn't look any better than just throwing together a set and filming.

Sometimes I think it's not just about the look but the amount of room to do stuff. Find new places to put the camera's. Plus I think their is a underated apeall of just being able to see the blue sky or the night sky if it's dark outside.

Jason

 

[Christopher]

Better in what sense? In looking more "rounded"?

In looking like what it's actually supposed to be, for one thing. If a scene is meant to be outdoors and it actually looks outdoors, that's less distracting than if a scene is meant to be outdoors and it's obviously on a soundstage. Naturally, the closer you can come to portraying what you're trying to portray, the better. That should go without saying.

It depends on any number of factors, not the least the requirements of the story.

Obviously that's true if we're talking about a single individual story. But we're not. We're talking about the look of an entire series. If a show never even once does location filming, then cumulatively it looks more claustrophobic, more lacking in visual variety. Look at Star Trek season 3. The only location filming it had all season was in "The Paradise Syndrome," plus a couple of scenes in "All Our Yesterdays" and a brief establishing shot in "The Way to Eden." And taken as a whole, it looked cheaper and more restricted than the first two seasons did.

 

[Jedman67]

In looking like what it's actually supposed to be, for one thing. If a scene is meant to be outdoors and it actually looks outdoors, that's less distracting than if a scene is meant to be outdoors and it's obviously on a soundstage. Naturally, the closer you can come to portraying what you're trying to portray, the better. That should go without saying.

Obviously that's true if we're talking about a single individual story. But we're not. We're talking about the look of an entire series. If a show never even once does location filming, then cumulatively it looks more claustrophobic, more lacking in visual variety. Look at Star Trek season 3. The only location filming it had all season was in "The Paradise Syndrome," plus a couple of scenes in "All Our Yesterdays" and a brief establishing shot in "The Way to Eden." And taken as a whole, it looked cheaper and more restricted than the first two seasons did.

For a series that took place 99% of the time in a space station or starship, "outdoor" scenes are completely unnecessary, especially as location shooting costs more than studio shooting which makes a difference if your show is on a tight budget, like B5.
Sure, it would have looked better if it had been better funded, but it wasn't and didn't and still looked impressive for its time.
Which we've discussed to death already.

 

[Christopher]

Sure, it would have looked better if it had been better funded, but it wasn't and didn't and still looked impressive for its time.

VFX-wise, yes. Set-wise, not so much. I got so sick of those prefab walls.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

For a series that took place 99% of the time in a space station or starship, "outdoor" scenes are completely unnecessary, especially as location shooting costs more than studio shooting which makes a difference if your show is on a tight budget, like B5.
Sure, it would have looked better if it had been better funded, but it wasn't and didn't and still looked impressive for its time.
Which we've discussed to death already.

I completely disagree.

The outdoor locations in, for example, TOS season two bring added pleasure to the episodes. I can confidently say that "Friday's Child" would have been utter dullsville, if it had been entirely shot indoors. And in the case of season three, it's impossible to imagine "The Paradise Syndrome" being effective shot inside. As good as the alien planet sets were, it wouldn't have rung as true to see Kirk so happy to be on the planet in the teaser, and it could have easily been eye-rolling-ly silly.

In the case of TNG, "Darmok" was a great episode because it had a great script, but part of what makes it enjoyable is being outdoors. In the case of "The Survivors," shooting outdoors is a nearly a necessity from the standpoint of the story, in order to underscore the incongruity of the house with the apocalyptic devastation on the rest of the planet.

Etc.

More viewing pleasure = better ratings. Variety of location is part of that equation. From a production standpoint, it's about finding the right balance between cost and reward.

 

[Eric Cheung]

Addressing what I think the intent of the original question was, I think part of what you mean has less to do with FX and more to do with pacing. I welcome groundbreaking effects; the effects in the 2009 movie were maybe the first time I thought the line between model photography and CGI was truly invisible. The ships looked photorealistic and scaled to match.

But I do kind of want a healthy dose of talking. I want the character subplots we regularly got in the Berman-era, even if Q made fun of what he thought was Picard's misplaced interest in things like Data's quest to be human. One of the negatives I see with the shorter seasons new shows have these days is that we don't get as many episodes that are purely about the characters, and not about pushing the plot to an even greater speed, careening toward a finale. We don't get the budget conscious bottle episodes as much anymore. Having fewer limits on the scope of imagination shouldn't preclude the writers from doing the occasional two-hander or comedy episode.

I'm looking forward to the show, but I do find that I don't tend to watch as many new shows or movies as I did when I was a kid in the 90s. Partly that's because I'm busier as an adult, but partly because I think I've reached my limit in terms of pace, serialization, and darkness.

I thought DS9 hit the sweet spot of not being too fast, not being too serialized, and not being too dark, while also pushing the envelope in all three of those ways for its time. But YMMV.

 

[JD]

The big reason I like having as realistic special effects as possible is that it really helps with the suspension of disbelief. I find bad, cheap looking special effects to be really distracting, and tend to take me out of the story even just for a second or two. Now it's usually not enough to totally ruin something for me, I still enjoy things like B5, but if give the option I would definitely prefer a show or movie go for the best possible SFX they can afford. If someone on an crazy looking alien planet, I want it to look like a crazy alien planet, not like someone dropped them in the middle of a cartoon. Unless the story is actually about a person dropped into a cartoon. If we are getting a crazy CGI alien, it should actually should blend in well with the physical people are it and not be obviously fake.

 

[Anglachel]

Bull. By the standards of its time, TOS had top-notch production values and cutting-edge visuals beyond anything ever achieved on television before. Its spectacular, high-quality look was one of its main selling points, and it was Emmy-nominated three years in a row for its visual and technical effects.

Ditto for TNG. It was a prestigious, high-budget production whose sets, props, makeup, and visual effects were all top-of-the-line for their era. Take it from someone who was there in first run -- the updated, more sophisticated look and more elaborate, nearly feature-quality effects and production values compared to TOS were among TNG's primary draws, especially in the early seasons when the writing was less than amazing (although the writing was still better than most of the schlock that constituted American SFTV prior to the late '80s). Sure, a lot of TNG's visuals haven't aged well, but compare them to anything else on TV at the time and they're exceptional.

And every other Trek show has followed suit. One of the hallmarks of ST in the Berman era was that it was always consistently just about the best-looking show on TV with the most cutting-edge VFX, the most impressive sets, etc. So to say that Discovery somehow fails at being Star Trek if it continues the tradition of being one of the best-looking things on television is just ridiculous.

(And the reason TNG feels like a stage play is because of how it's written, and because it featured so many accomplished, theatrically trained actors like Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner.)

I think this thread is done now.

 

[Christopher]

The big reason I like having as realistic special effects as possible is that it really helps with the suspension of disbelief. I find bad, cheap looking special effects to be really distracting, and tend to take me out of the story even just for a second or two.

But what about effects that aren't bad or cheap, but just old? What if they were the best, most realistic effects that were possible with the technology of the time, but just look artificial by today's standards because the ceiling has been raised so much farther now? Is it fair to lump those into the same category as effects that look bad due to lack of talent or effort?

If something is completely convincing, if the creators do 100% of the work for you, then you don't need to suspend disbelief. The full phrase is "willing suspension of disbelief" -- meaning, you know that what you're seeing is unreal, but you choose to pretend and play along. Some things about movies and TV are always going to be artificial -- like the fact that they're taking place on a screen in your living room or in a theater, or the fact that there's a whole orchestra playing music that the characters don't seem to notice, or the fact that they cut from one scene to another in a way that real life manifestly doesn't. If you can choose to suspend your awareness of those dead giveaways of fakery, then you're capable of suspending disbelief about effects that merely suggest a thing rather than perfectly simulating it. Willing suspension of disbelief means being a participant in the fiction -- letting your own imagination pick up the baton the filmmakers hand you and carry it the rest of the way. This is something we all do when reading prose fiction and imagining what it describes, or reading a comic book and imagining the characters moving and speaking. Exercising our own imaginations is a basic part of experiencing fiction. So it can't be that hard to look beyond the surface of an old-school visual effect and visualize the underlying idea it represents.

 

[SPCTRE]

I was thinking about this and wondered if it's possible for a Trek show to look so good it hurts the very spirit of what Trek has been or should be.

J-dog - homes - if you were any other man I'd commend you for stealthily throwing shade at Trek fandom in such a brilliant way