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Wolf 359 Prelude, Parts I and II

I was replying to the comment by @David cgc, but I wasn't meaning something like STC. I was thinking of something more documentary-like: a simulation of the battle based on telemetry transferred by the fleet.

I'm not going to tell anyone what film they should make. My observations are merely about how the battle would most likely play out (en masse attack) and that if you wanted to actually tell a story, this isn't the approach to take.
 
It's been long enough that I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but I kind of liked another take on Wolf 359 (I think it's called "We Have Engaged the Borg", or possibly just Wolf359 Project) in which the fleet was never supposed to engage the Borg, but rather was a plan B...because Plan A was to destroy the Borg by detonating the star (trilithium? protomatter? I don't recall...).
 
DonIago said:
It's been long enough that I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but I kind of liked another take on Wolf 359 (I think it's called "We Have Engaged the Borg", or possibly just Wolf359 Project) in which the fleet was never supposed to engage the Borg, but rather was a plan B...because Plan A was to destroy the Borg by detonating the star (trilithium? protomatter? I don't recall...).
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That was me heh, yeh had to try and square the circle of there only being 40 starships at 359 when by the time we get to DS9 they have multiple fleets of hundreds of ships, theres another thread in the fanfic forum here i think, or you can read it at wolf359project.com
 
Andy3E said:
That was me heh, yeh had to try and square the circle of there only being 40 starships at 359 when by the time we get to DS9 they have multiple fleets of hundreds of ships, theres another thread in the fanfic forum here i think, or you can read it at wolf359project.com
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Is that project still under development? I'm in your Discord, actually, but I admit I've been pretty bad about looking at Discord.
 
DonIago said:
Is that project still under development? I'm in your Discord, actually, but I admit I've been pretty bad about looking at Discord.
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The Book itself is done and released, the 'Fighting Ships of Wolf 359' is ongoing, the text is all done but still getting art from Pundus, soon as thats done it will be released
 
I just skimmed through it but spotted some familiar (non Trek) faces. A bearded Brian Glover, and what seems like maybe a brunette Victoria Tennant?
 
I'll be honest, I felt something when the Klingons showed up. The whole episode was damn good. The suicide run of the Agincourt definitely pulled at the heart strings
 
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There's a surplus of Doctors in Trek this year, methinks. :) Incredible work, really pulled out all the stops, possibly to the detriment of the whole project - they just really wanted to put EVERYTHING possible in there regardless of how it fit into the overall narrative.

It's a fantastic effort, but it's a little like mashing together Saving Private Ryan AND The Longest Day AND Storming Juno AND Band of Brothers AND Call of Duty WWII AND every movie, TV show and video game ever made about D-Day. It's just a lot, and the 30 minute run time shows it.

I'll probably have more to say about it after another run-through (possibly watching it from the start of "Prelude"). Who knows when we'll get "Aftermath", the final chapter, but it's been a heck of a ride.

Edit: Apparently "Aftermath" is already done, and will be released soonish.

Mark
 
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I enjoyed that. I have been meaning to do a table top game version of Wolf 359, I will take some inspiration from this I think. Particularly the arrival of the Klingons.

Ships? We will use what we have from any number of game systems and miniatures made in the last forty years or so.
 
Airmandan said:
I'll be honest, I felt something when the Klingons showed up. The whole episode was damn good. The suicide run of the Agincourt definitely pulled at the heart strings
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Me too. I actually cheered out loud when they arrived, even though I knew the outcome.

I think my favorite part of JTVFX's story is that the fleet actually made a real fight of it, at least once Captain Amasov took command. With more time and more ships, they might have succeeded in stopping the Borg.
 
Some quick notes on a second (third?) rewatch of the whole series to this release:

- I maintain that the project loses narrative focus in this installement. The first three parts track along the stories of the Enterprise, Righteous, and to a degree the Saratoga and Auriga. But by the end of "Massacre Part 1" all those ships are absent or destroyed, leaving "Part 2" to be a mishmash of vignettes from the battle itself.

- The closest thing to a narrative through-line is Captain Amasov and the Endeavour, but the ship and her crew are only heard of in snippets, and of course based only on one line of dialogue quoted from one episode of Voyager. Unfortunately, compared to the use of all the other existing clips and footage, it's not really enough to maintain the storytelling momentum established in the previous parts. Honestly, this segment could have been half the length it was, to keep the pace going. Not complaining though!

- JTVFX is an "Aliens" franchise fan: The Sulaco is the name of the Marines' ship in "Aliens", while the "Patna" is the ship that came at the end of "Alien 3" (per the novelization) and the "Auriga" was the ship in "Alien Resurrection". If there's a Nostromo or Betty, I missed it but wouldn't be surprised. :P

- The Klingon portion was very cool. So too was the functional copying of certain scenes from DS9 "Way of the Warrior" showing weapon perspectives of Klilngon ships getting blown up. It tracks with the effective copying of other shots (notably the Borg Cube approaching the Federation fleet at the beginning of the battle, but several other places too).

Still, a remarkable achievement and one I hope will be concluded soon with "Aftermath". Everyone involved should be really proud. :)

Mark
 
Mark_Nguyen said:
So too was the functional copying of certain scenes from DS9 "Way of the Warrior" showing weapon perspectives of Klilngon ships getting blown up. It tracks with the effective copying of other shots (notably the Borg Cube approaching the Federation fleet at the beginning of the battle, but several other places too).
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I don't know if there's a name for it, but I've noticed in recent years a technique of simulating obsolete technical limitations in film for dramatic effect. The first time I noticed it was the end of the Doctor Who episode "World Enough and Time," where the first scene of the two version of the Master on-screen together was shot and edited as if were a 20th century "twinning" shot duplicating a single actor, with the both of them only appearing on-screen one at a time except for a single shot where the camera was totally still and there was an obvious empty space between them. IIRC, the Transformers movie "Bumblebee" also had a shot where the car passed behind a light post before transforming, which is something that would've been done pre-CG to hide a transition from an actual car to a transforming miniature, as if the movie didn't just take place in the '80s, but was made then.

I think there's a similar element at work here, with JTVFX quoting TNG and DS9 shots not just to have some shots that perfectly emulate the style of '90s TV Trek modelwork, but also to subconsciously evoke it on another level, as if this were a secret episode or TV movie we'd just all happened to miss before. Like, some of the shots of the torpedos flying towards the Klingon ships in "Way of the Warrior" could've been reused footage from this imaginary episode, or the one of the the Birds of Prey strafing DS9 could've been reused elements from this, just shooting a new DS9 background to replace the Borg cube element. Obviously, it's not what really happened, but it's the sort of thing that did happen in reality, where VFX elements were modified and reused in new contexts.
 
I guess it's a tonal thing. The Orville production gang clearly sat down in some early tone meeting and declared internally that they wanted the cinematography and model work to evoke TNG-era lighting and model work... To the point that they hired a lot of people from those shows to make sure it did.

Here. JTVFX's shot choreo is a real love letter to that sort of VFX effort, with a healthy majority of the shots looking like they can be peeled out of late TNG-era episodes without much effort. I recently rewatched clips of Voyager fighting the Tactical Borg Cube, and the NX-01 Enterprise pew-pewing away at the Xindi planet killer, and that sort of early CGI work is on par for sure. When you compare it with the sort of choreography seen in Babylon 5, Star Wars, or Battlestar, you can easily pick out the "flavour" that Trek developed and stuck to. This Wolf 359 series has it down almost to a tee.

Mark
 
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