TFF vs. TUC Enterprise Shots

[Ray Hardgrit]

It never occurred to me that it would've been a particularly tricky shot to pull off, though I have always thought it was strange how bright the ship was.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

It never occurred to me that it would've been a particularly tricky shot to pull off, though I have always thought it was strange how bright the ship was.

I can't say that I'd ever noticed any strangeness about that shot in the past 33 years, and if I had I'd probably have rationalized it with, "Oh, we're seeing the Enterprise on a Klingon viewscreen, and that's just how it looks on a Klingon viewscreen." We don't know what a Klingon's visual frequency range is or how their viewscreens are lit or tuned. For all we know, Chang has his viewscreen's black point tuned way out of whack.

 

[David cgc]

It never occurred to me that it would've been a particularly tricky shot to pull off, though I have always thought it was strange how bright the ship was.

If they just shot the part we saw, it wouldn't have been. I'm not sure why they would've done it that way, anyway. It's a strange shot in terms of choreography as-is, because it seems to imply the Bird of Prey is just spinning in place while the Enterprise flies past it (or, at least, the camera connected to the viewscreen is pivoting, but the normal assumption is that the screen is a window and we're looking straight out the front of the ship).

If they wanted a POV shot of the BoP flying past the Enterprise and coming around, it'd be easier to do it in two halves (a trick they'd used in The Empire Strikes Back for some extreme Millennium Falcon shots), where the first shot has the camera going past the Enterprise from the front, then a second shot pivoting around from behind. Doing it all in one go would imply the BoP is drifting like a racecar as it passes by to keep the Enterprise on its nose.

 

[Vger23]

From the Cinefex article:

Also, not every transfer of the film has her looking so starkly white in that shot.

Looking at the Klingon foreground and the level of blackness in space, perhaps the most recent remaster has this shot with a little less contrast than it should really have.

Oh that bottom shot tells a MUCH different story. Very nice!

 

[Corran Horn]

I actually own the book "The Special Effects of Trek" by James Van Hise, and while not exactly comprehensive and a bit sarcastic in spots (he takes a lot of shots at Shatner & Trek V in what is ostensibly a Trek reference book) the only CGI use in VI mentioned is the Klingon blood globules.

 

[CoveTom]

I actually own the book "The Special Effects of Trek" by James Van Hise, and while not exactly comprehensive and a bit sarcastic in spots (he takes a lot of shots at Shatner & Trek V in what is ostensibly a Trek reference book) the only CGI use in VI mentioned is the Klingon blood globules.

What about Martia's morphing effect?

 

[Corran Horn]

What about Martia's morphing effect?

Good catch - the morphing is mentioned to have been done by ILM's John Benton.

 

[Tosk]

The Praxis shockwaves that open the film were also accomplished with computer graphics.

 

[JamesRye]

it's not great but it's still better than insurrection.

That is absolutely not the AMT model. Every distinguishing detail matches the hero model; the size of the airlocks and bridge, the windows on the rear-quarter of the saucer that are filled in on the AMT kit, the self-lighting (the real self-lighting that's actually part of the model, like the spotlights shining up from the base of the neck on to the impulse drive), the overall level of detail. It's just bad lighting in the shot, coming directly from the camera and making the model look small and flat.

An AMT model was used by ILM for distance shots, reputedly the same one in TWOK, TSFS, TFF, and TUC (another small model was used in TMP, but that one obviously wasn't a commercial kit, though it was used as a template for the South Bend toy Enterprise). It looks like the little one was done up for TUC, the only tell-tale I can see in that shot that makes me sure it's not the eight-footer is the position of the registry decal at the back of the nacelle is too high. But, then, it's also a quicker shot with softer detail than that TSFS shot, in particular, which really lets you see the model in detail.

As I went to bed last night, I realised that I was wrong. The small one is seen fleetingly side on. You're right, it's clearly the hero.

 

[Ssosmcin]

No, none of the TOS films had budgets that high. Even TMP, with its runaway costs, capped out at $47 million. Meyer's book quotes TUC's budget at $30 million. And he says they tried to cut him down to $25 million but he fought it.

Thanks, I must be jumbling the memory with something else.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Where are the various shooting models from TMP+ these days?

 

[CoveTom]

Where are the various shooting models from TMP+ these days?

The main hero model was auctioned off and is in private hands now, I believe.

 

[Tosk]

Didn't Bezos buy it? I seem to remember a thing about him having on display in his lobby.

 

[somebuddyX]

I never had a big problem with the special effects in either film but I guess I could kinda see why people would. The only thing that ever bothered me was the torpedo going through the ship vertical but then it goes horizontal across the dining room.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The main hero model was auctioned off and is in private hands now, I believe.

Didn't Bezos buy it? I seem to remember a thing about him having on display in his lobby.

Bummer. I'd love for it to be on display with the TOS model.

 

[David cgc]

Didn't Bezos buy it? I seem to remember a thing about him having on display in his lobby.

The lobby of the Blue Origin office in Kent, Washington, specifically, though the report of that is nine years old, so it's possible it's been moved since then.