Star Trek V and the rock man creature. What are your thoughts?
- Thread starter urrutiap
- Start date
You'll always have Lower Decks...
… and Galaxy Quest
Well...
It needed some work and maybe some more background fog... shrouding the monster can help sell effectiveness when showing the full design at point blank range can't. Apparently the original idea was to have many of them. I think the idea could have been made to work, but they had already cut down the number of desired units to just one due to numerous constraints... and after the test footage they nixed it entirely because it looked lacking. Maybe it couldn't have worked, and if one is shrouding monsters then chucking a zillion dollars at it makes the point half-moot from the get-go.
If that rock monster from "The Savage Curtain" (1969) wasn't compelling because all it did was just to sit there and belch smoke coming up from under it*, why would a gaggle of them be for STV-TFF?
Am also not sure on the "Six 'C' Batteries required" glowing eyes trope... Again, the gassy rock fritter from "Savage Curtain" had glowing eyes and didn't do much to terrify the audience to substitute their jeans as a bathroom either.
At least they didn't try to have the big finale with the rock monsters to the tune of "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s in that post-post-post-postmodern sort of way we're all used to nowadays anyhow. (Not to mention, when done with some tact, the melding of a musical song CAN work, but it's not merely a matter of chucking in a song for the song's sake...)
* it needed to lay off the beans, which was one of the movie's other running gags too... never mind that "Blazing Saddles" did the same joke the best and more than a decade earlier already
It needed some work and maybe some more background fog... shrouding the monster can help sell effectiveness when showing the full design at point blank range can't. Apparently the original idea was to have many of them. I think the idea could have been made to work, but they had already cut down the number of desired units to just one due to numerous constraints... and after the test footage they nixed it entirely because it looked lacking. Maybe it couldn't have worked, and if one is shrouding monsters then chucking a zillion dollars at it makes the point half-moot from the get-go.
If that rock monster from "The Savage Curtain" (1969) wasn't compelling because all it did was just to sit there and belch smoke coming up from under it*, why would a gaggle of them be for STV-TFF?
Am also not sure on the "Six 'C' Batteries required" glowing eyes trope... Again, the gassy rock fritter from "Savage Curtain" had glowing eyes and didn't do much to terrify the audience to substitute their jeans as a bathroom either.
At least they didn't try to have the big finale with the rock monsters to the tune of "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s in that post-post-post-postmodern sort of way we're all used to nowadays anyhow. (Not to mention, when done with some tact, the melding of a musical song CAN work, but it's not merely a matter of chucking in a song for the song's sake...)
* it needed to lay off the beans, which was one of the movie's other running gags too... never mind that "Blazing Saddles" did the same joke the best and more than a decade earlier already
I went to look up the footage as it'd been a long time:
The clapper board gave me a double take. It's not "Rocket man".
As a silicon-based life form in a role other than one held off until the very climax of a film, and without the anamatronic eyes that just don't work -- the thing makes the Gorn look like a limber Olympic athlete by comparison... and to sell a nimble mobile rock attacking you is not easy to do. The monster would have to be much larger and imposing, and to make up for the deficiency in speed and dexterity. To do all this in - how short a period of time?
I do like how they were trying to hide it with clever lighting against the rock face. That's very cool, rather... But having a bunch of them* and only for one reveal near the end and then they just lumber around? I'd rather see a movie where they're given more prominence. And without the light bulb eyes, that one's truly a cliche. The footage shows they're onto something, but it all feels like another script draft was needed - or a cool idea was brought in but misplaced. The overall design AND how it blends into the cliff face do impress.
* in no order, they're named Jan, Bobby, Marcia, Cindy, Greg, and Peter Tork.
The clapper board gave me a double take. It's not "Rocket man".
As a silicon-based life form in a role other than one held off until the very climax of a film, and without the anamatronic eyes that just don't work -- the thing makes the Gorn look like a limber Olympic athlete by comparison... and to sell a nimble mobile rock attacking you is not easy to do. The monster would have to be much larger and imposing, and to make up for the deficiency in speed and dexterity. To do all this in - how short a period of time?
I do like how they were trying to hide it with clever lighting against the rock face. That's very cool, rather... But having a bunch of them* and only for one reveal near the end and then they just lumber around? I'd rather see a movie where they're given more prominence. And without the light bulb eyes, that one's truly a cliche. The footage shows they're onto something, but it all feels like another script draft was needed - or a cool idea was brought in but misplaced. The overall design AND how it blends into the cliff face do impress.
* in no order, they're named Jan, Bobby, Marcia, Cindy, Greg, and Peter Tork.
It looks like a man in a rock suit. Seriously unimpressive. Not using it was the right call. Only 99 other calls needed making to improve the film.
sometimes i wonder about Galaxy Quest though and its giant rock creature by CGI, they probably borrowed that rock creature idea from William Shatner or something.
Wasnt it William Shatner's idea where he was trying to get the rock man creature put into the movie but the other movie producers folk they said no?
Wasnt it William Shatner's idea where he was trying to get the rock man creature put into the movie but the other movie producers folk they said no?
I think it looks alright? There are worse examples of SFX to be found in 80s movies.
Agreed. Filmed and lit in the right way , you could easily create multiple era appropriate rock creatures. This whole movie had major issues, this wouldn’t have the the most egregious of them were it included
Saying there are worse things in the film and saying there are worse things in other films are hardly ringing endorsements! 
*shrug*
Sticking the boot into Star Trek V is nothing new either.
Sticking the boot into Star Trek V is nothing new either.
The rock creature in Galaxy Quest looks great, but that was an entirely different approach that was feasible ten years later but not at the time of STV.
At the time of STV, a practical puppet was probably the most cost-effect option that could have looked decent. But then the question is, would it have been worth it? Would it have added anything, to the story, to make the movie more successful, etc.?
At the time of STV, a practical puppet was probably the most cost-effect option that could have looked decent. But then the question is, would it have been worth it? Would it have added anything, to the story, to make the movie more successful, etc.?
There is an image from the Rosetta mission where a feature kinda looked like a rock man looking at Philae.
Is there?
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By the way, the Excalbian (Yarnek) in "The Savage Curtain" is easily one of my favorite TOS aliens in appearance. The head, not being humanoid, is one of its most distinctive and effective features.
I guess the other "rock creature" in TOS would be the Horta.
That looks way better than it did in my imagination but it would definitely have been very jarring and Final Frontier is better off without it. They should have rented it to Masters of the Universe though, to get some of their investment back.
I don't know. If they'd had the technology at the time to do a "Deep Roy in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' type effect, with the guy in the suit not being so slow and lumbering, it may have worked.
I was surprised they actually filmed the rock monster – and even more so at the deleted scene about young Spock’s pain when he cries out to Sybok,”Take me with you!”
I guess Shatner was really into rocks in the script, starting with El Capitan. The curved stone monoliths that erupt from the ground on Sha Ka Ree looked like a giant rib cage…which fits with Kirk’s line at the end, tapping his own chest - “maybe God isn’t out there, maybe he’s right here, in the human heart.”
I guess Shatner was really into rocks in the script, starting with El Capitan. The curved stone monoliths that erupt from the ground on Sha Ka Ree looked like a giant rib cage…which fits with Kirk’s line at the end, tapping his own chest - “maybe God isn’t out there, maybe he’s right here, in the human heart.”
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Great points! Heck, in some ways the curved stone monoliths probably suited the scene better. The rib cage metaphor is interesting as well.
Watching two fire ants copulate* would be better than that level of comedy. Scott knows the ship but immediately whacks his head on a metal pipe. Chekov and Sulu, the navigator and helmsman, get lost. Maaaybe initially it had a chuckle, but the ship they're communicating has sensors and they know that. It's aimed at the audience and against the story narrative and it's cringe. Replacing the comedy scenes' time with developing the Uhura/Scotty shipping would easily have been a better use of script time; they act as if they had been going out for a while so some backstory or something other than... two tinfoil bags (as another joke - a sight gag) might have been a plus. Never mind the stupid log book going "boing" and popping up, which reduces the ship (the unsung character) in a bad light too. In fairness, after STIV, the demand for more comedy was not exactly Shatner's fault - I'm not sure he wanted to do all that either, and the more serious scenes are genuinely fantastic IMHO. And Kirk's line about God being in the heart is poignant. And probably the best way to end the movie considering its premise.
* a neat, partial anagram of "couple at work"
