Enhanced TOS - anyone else really hate the swirling lollipop on the front nacelles?

[ChristopherTrekTOS]

Just started watching the bluray enhanced versions of the original series. The quality is great except for one horrible thing they did. The swirling lollipop on the front engine nacelles just kills the reality of the ship. At least every time I see it, that's all I can think about. Makes it look .. like a toy. The CGI ship looks okay, although they could have made it better - I personally enjoy how real the old ship looked without the CGI but again the swirling lollipops? Really?
Anyone else dislike that or am I alone here on that one?

 

[I am not Herbert]

It's definitely a cheesy, toy-like effect, but it strikes me as the kind of effect they would have included in the original effects, had it been feasible. I guess I'm saying it's the right kind of cheese. And (to me) it makes the ship look a little more 'alive,' which is much more than I can say for some of the other added effects. But I see your point.

 

[BillJ]

The brilliance of the Blu-ray discs. I just watch the show with the original effects.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

If the lollipops you have been putting in your mouth are shaped like a phallus with glowing end… they might not have been lollipops.

Just sayin’.

 

[NCC-73515]

The USS Lollipop is a good ship.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

It's a really hard effect to nail as the original model used a fan, Christmas lights and broken bits of mirror to give it a chaotic look.

They used two different CGI models for the remastered series and neither quite gets it right, though I definitely prefer their second attempt (bottom right).

 

[Metryq]

Overall, the Star Trek Continues animators did a better job than CBS Digital in making a CGI ship look like the TOS VFX—texture, lighting style, everything.

 

[publiusr]

There will come a point where a curved video screen can go on a model, I hope.

 

[Warped9]

The cgi version never looked as good as the original. That said dedicated fans have struggled for years to mimic the original vfx exactly.

 

[Ssosmcin]

It's definitely a cheesy, toy-like effect, but it strikes me as the kind of effect they would have included in the original effects, had it been feasible.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying a worse looking effect could have been done in 1966 if it had been feasible? The actual lighting in the nacelles looked great.

 

[Nerys Myk]

They always reminded me of this

 

[I am not Herbert]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying a worse looking effect could have been done in 1966 if it had been feasible? The actual lighting in the nacelles looked great.

I'm saying that it strikes me that a more "active" version of the effect actually used would have been used in 1966, had it been feasible (or cost-effective). I wasn't there and I don't have any special insight into the design approach (having read "The Making of Star Trek" once, approximately a million years ago) but it seems probable that a show trying to maintain the suspension of disbelief as to spacefaring would add some bells and whistles to its spacecraft models, and would do it in a way that aesthetically seemed bright, 'fun,' and almost carnivalesque, as consistent with the hopeful space exploration outlook of the time. (And, knowing Gene Roddenberry, in a way that might move an additional few units of Star Trek themed toys). That's all I'm saying-- although I, too, prefer the original effect, the new effect seems plausibly 1966 in mindset, if not technological capacity. So although I don't personally prefer it, I don't find it as jarring as some of the other new effects

 

[Warped9]

I am likely in the minority here, but I have long been glad the TOS E didn't have a glow along the sides of the nacelles as modern Trek ships do. Somehow it makes it look more believable in my eyes rather than having showy day glow lighting. The TMP had lighting along the inboard of the nacelles, but it was rather subdued especially compared to what came later with the 1701D onward.

It fits with my preference I wish they hadn't added a visible beam to Scotty's phaser when he is cutting open the bulkhead in "The Naked Time."it looked more magically futuristic when we imagined an invisible beam. From the first time I saw that I never questioned it given how many energy wavelengths are not actually visible to the naked eye.

 

[Maurice]

Also, in TMP those grills only lit up when the warp drive was on, which isn't friendly to stock footage where you want to reuse shots in different circumstances, warp or not.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I wouldn't have hated a bit of a glow on the TOS ship, as long as it was always there in the original footage and not added for the remaster. Though I suppose it would've depended on how it was done.

I always liked how the TNG glow came from behind the copper strips on the side, like it's some internal effect that we can only see when it shines through the gaps. I'm less keen on how Picard does it, with the waterfall of colour-cycling gradients. It looks very fake and sci-fi, just a row of arbitrarily shaped panels with a glowing texture applied to them.

 

[Tosk]

Yeah, I also found the nacelle glow on the Titan-A to be less-than. Nothing specific, I just don't like the feel of it.

 

[Warped9]

Roddenberry did inquire about the feasibility of adding some sort of lighting effect along the nacelle inboards, but they decided it was too expensive to bother with.

 

[NCC-73515]

That was even shown in one of the TMP concept drawings of the view from the lounge, IIRC