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DS9's pilot holds up surprisingly well.
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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
DS9's pilot holds up surprisingly well.
DS9 space battles in HD... Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJs0-hhOZFQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJs0-hhOZFQ
The Librarian
Banned
That is eye candy if I've ever seen it. Looks even nicer than Abrams' films.
Now all it needs are shields.
Yeah why did DS9 forget that shields were a thing in 90% of its episodes?
The Librarian
Banned
Budget + fights can't be that long in a show, I presume. Though Atlantis proved the latter wrong.
This is amazing. I can't wait to see more.
Yeah, and they didn't want the screen to be just a mess of shields popping up left and right.
All over my face.
Brilliant.
The Librarian
Banned
I keep watching it again and again. Glorious.
Davey Cakes
Member
I agree. It's still one of my favorite pilots and sells the show pretty well, IMO.
GameplayWhore
Member
Got back from STID. Fun, and I still like how they handle the characters a lot. Story was fairly tight initially but started going haywire.
was pretty laughable, and I thought the
was groan-inducing and way premature given that the crew hasn't been together enough to evoke that level of emotional response, imo, and its solution was pretty obvious even from this daft fellow.
But overall I liked it a lot (especially since I've always wanted to see more
). It's still causing the same trouble to the "bigger picture" that the previous film did, especially in that
, both things that put them rather far beyond TNG in technological capability and kind of limits potential for future drama a bit. I suspect that both elements will be ignored when necessary.
Now I finally get to go back through the last twenty pages and read the black bars.
Say, since you're chatting about DS9, has DeCandido's DS9 rewatch, recently started and quite insightful, been mentioned?
Gravity existing in freefall
death of Kirk
But overall I liked it a lot (especially since I've always wanted to see more
Section 31
the Federation now has the technology to pretty much destroy all its enemies in seconds from the comfort of home with some mass produced transwarp bombs (hell, why even build a super ship when this technology exists??), and they also have the ability to cancel death
Now I finally get to go back through the last twenty pages and read the black bars.
Say, since you're chatting about DS9, has DeCandido's DS9 rewatch, recently started and quite insightful, been mentioned?
The Librarian
Banned
Thanks for this. I'll be keeping an eye on this. I've been following Zack Handlen's review over at the AV Club of DS9 episode by episode.
lastplayed
Member
The thing that bothered me about seeing all those Galaxies was how they only took single pot shots at passing ships. They're littered with phaser banks, you'd expect them to be all lit up firing all over the place. Surely a phaser beam can't stretch the special effects budget too much.
This is more like it.
Well virtually nothing about the DS9 battles makes any sense, but they sure are pretty.
The Librarian
Banned
I think overall they do make sense, but there is some weird stuff here and there.
Well I have issues with why the ships are flying in such tight formations when they have such long range weapons, or why ships are scattered so haphazardly sort of like someone grabbed a random group of ships and flung them against another random grouping. I know narratively they talk a lot more about strategy, but it doesn't really come across in any of the battle footage. That being said, it's a quibble and doesn't really bother me very much, and much like the absence of shields, it doesn't really detract too much from my enjoyment.
The Librarian
Banned
Well, the range of Star Trek weaponry has never been fully disclosed, as I understand it, and different parts of fleets engage different part of fleets.
Got back from STID. Fun, and I still like how they handle the characters a lot. Story was fairly tight initially but started going haywire.was pretty laughable, and I thought theGravity existing in freefallwas groan-inducing and way premature given that the crew hasn't been together enough to evoke that level of emotional response, imo, and its solution was pretty obvious even from this daft fellow.death of Kirk
But overall I liked it a lot (especially since I've always wanted to see more). It's still causing the same trouble to the "bigger picture" that the previous film did, especially in thatSection 31, both things that put them rather far beyond TNG in technological capability and kind of limits potential for future drama a bit. I suspect that both elements will be ignored when necessary.the Federation now has the technology to pretty much destroy all its enemies in seconds from the comfort of home with some mass produced transwarp bombs (hell, why even build a super ship when this technology exists??), and they also have the ability to cancel death
Now I finally get to go back through the last twenty pages and read the black bars.
Say, since you're chatting about DS9, has DeCandido's DS9 rewatch, recently started and quite insightful, been mentioned?
Yeah I dunno why they reminded everyone about the transwarp nonsense, and not only that but made it apparently more powerful.
What was really groan-inducing is how they surpassed the "we're the only ship in the quadrant!" lunacy of the original series movies. You're telling me they can get a message to New Vulcan, but not call Earth for reinforcements 20 minutes away by warp?
There's just so much obvious stupid in the script it's mindboggling.
Well Star Trek is a special case because they treat battles really in two ways: submarine warfare (Wrath of Khan, "Starship Down", etc.) or like naval vessels going at it. Neither really makes sense for space combat, especially not trading volleys up close, because then you're just going to get peppered with the shrapnel that has no atmosphere or gravity to stop it. Also, from a tactical standpoint having your ship lit up like a Christmas tree is pretty stupid.
Star War's "it's WWII... in spaaaaccee" approach isn't really much better, though. The naval feel of a lot of Trek is something that I really enjoy about it, too, so I don't really want them to change. I give them leeway on that stuff not making sense as long as they maintain continuity and try and keep the science this side of stupid.
lastplayed
Member
They were great to watch. My only major criticism is the liberal use of stock footage towards the end of the series. I'd rather have shorter battles than see the old Defiant back from the dead flying around.
Right, I enjoy how they look despite it not making much sense. Realistically, they probably should be fighting with shuttlecraft sized drones with phaser banks and torpedo launchers mounted instead of giant space malls filled with hundreds of people. But that probably would be pretty boring to watch.
I always felt bad for those two doomed Miranda escorts
GameplayWhore
Member
They also pulled a "Broken Arrow" and made Qo'nos seem incredibly close to Earth. Or maybe since "Star Trek: Enterprise" is the only historical canon now, they accepted the Klingon homeworld being just half a week away at warp as being permanently the case.
I've always just in general took in in my mind that the ships were much (as in by a factor of 1000 at least) farther away than we see, but being able to see two ships on screen at the same time when fighting is something that helps audiences relate, so they strain credibility for ease of watching. Of course, TOS didn't do this, as most combat scenarios had two ships fighting from uncertain distances, as you only see one ship on screen at a time.
Every time I see a ship banking, man, I just want to rage a little bit. There are so many interesting ways to handle combat in space that it's embarrassing that they made the ships follow the same orientation and make them seem gravity bound and in an atmosphere when they turn.
lastplayed
Member
IIRC, they actually tried to address that in the DS9 technical manual, most if not all of the Galaxy class ships were either rushed out of space dock or vastly emptied out of their scientific/exploration equipment, and none of them had families on board. I think that applied to many other ships too.
Yeah, I remember reading that before, I meant more in general, like how 1500 people die every time a warbird explodes.
The Librarian
Banned
I don't understand how that's realistic, but those types of shuttles wouldn't be more powerful than a starship. They'd just be fighters.
Forget drone fighters, why wouldn't people be using warp kamikazes? I mean, I understand why the Federation wouldn't, but get something moving at warp, even something relatively small like a ship, and the resulting damage to a terrestrial ecosystem would be massive.*
*This is assuming that slamming into something in subspace is possible and bad. From most indicators this is the case; I'd expect you can crash into objects not in FTL at warp.
Well, the matter of torpedoes not utterly destroying an unshielded vessel is another issue, considering how we've seen volleys destroy entire cities.
*This is assuming that slamming into something in subspace is possible and bad. From most indicators this is the case; I'd expect you can crash into objects not in FTL at warp.
Well, the matter of torpedoes not utterly destroying an unshielded vessel is another issue, considering how we've seen volleys destroy entire cities.
lastplayed
Member
If the new Trek movies are anything to go by, they don't even need starships any more. Apparently you can just beam to any planet you want!
And they don't need beaming anymore either, because you can just land starships on planets.
Alright, it's a silly rabbit hole to jump down, but the fact that something is possible doesn't necessarily imply it's efficient. Beaming Khan may have required the equivalent energy to flying a starship all the way to Kronos for all anyone knows.
Really almost nothing Starfleet has ever done has made sense energy-wise anyways. It's a post-scarcity future, people go on space ships because they want to.
lastplayed
Member
Well, I suppose it can be overlooked. I mean we've had a super weapon (Genesis), travelling to the centre of the galaxy, a BoP that could fire when cloaked... all of which have pretty much been forgotten about.
Well this does raise the question of why fighters are so shitty in Star Trek when they're firing the same torpedos as the capital ships. They should also be much more mobile and be capable of avoiding phaser fire like we've seen capital ships do. Perhaps they're susceptible to tractor beams? I wish there was some writing on this kind of stuff, it'd be fascinating.
I never liked that in Voyager either. Starships are supposed to be built in a zero-gravity shipyard in space (I know, Star Trek 2009 already threw that out the window), because they're designed for space travel, not atmospheric. That's why they're made of assorted saucers and tubes.
Assuming that Voyager can survive on a planet and not be crushed under it's own weight or have it's motorized nacelles fall off or something, those tiny little feet should snap like twigs. And assuming they're made of adamantium or unobtainium or whatever so they don't snap like twigs, they should have sunk into the earth right up to the ship's belly.
The entire concept of the transporter was invented by Star Trek as a simple way to embark/disembark from a starship without the need for a shuttle trip. Abrams Trek seems to think it's good for anything but that.
Well here's the thing. Once you can manipulate gravity and create bubbles of spacetime, it's getting to be a silly time to start worrying about how heavy your starships are on the ground.
I guess it just doesn't feel "science fictioney" to me unless they inject the right amount of science into the fiction, even if the fiction doesn't strictly need it, scientifically-speaking.
And it doesn't seem right for them to cross the "starship" line without reconsidering things that were based on it, like shuttles and transporters. But then again, they apparently just did reconsider the transporters. So I guess I'm saying that I want shuttles to become fighters. Oh no, did I just think that?
Well Voyager was an Intrepid class science vessel. Perhaps there's some reasoning why a science vessel would need to be on land to do super-scientific technobabbly stuff.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Yeah, Voyager landing never felt out of place for me.
That part up to when it warps away revealing the title screen:
I reaaaaally like the new pixie dust warp effect.
Been watching the TNG S3 Blu-Rays. It's been so long since I watched the show in any semblance of its original order, so it's amazing to me how you go from S2, which is still pretty raw and awkward, into S3 where it seems over the production break the actors just suddenly were actually possessed by their characters and I'm seeing the characters I'll see the rest of the series.
Not to mention the SFX in this set are amazing. The four-foot Enterprise-D model just looks absolutely stunning in this remaster. Unfortunately, the increased details makes it a bit more jarring when an episode uses shots of all three differently sized models, because the four-foot just looks so different (though i've always liked how the saucer's edge windows are actually to scale on the four foot and the increase in hull detail of the model).
I think my jaw actually was on the floor as well as I watched Yesterday's Enterprise. The lighting and redressing used on the sets of the alternate Ent-D are absolutely amazing, and I agree with one of the commentators on the new commentary with that episode, that I'd have liked the show to be lit like that all the time. It's so much more interesting than the standard lighting. Actually, I find it rather amusing that the alternate Ent-D bridge pretty much has the same added consoles on the side of the bridge as they added for the first TNG movie.
Oh yeah, and "The Offspring" - still tears. The woman playing Laul in that episode was great!
Not to mention the SFX in this set are amazing. The four-foot Enterprise-D model just looks absolutely stunning in this remaster. Unfortunately, the increased details makes it a bit more jarring when an episode uses shots of all three differently sized models, because the four-foot just looks so different (though i've always liked how the saucer's edge windows are actually to scale on the four foot and the increase in hull detail of the model).
I think my jaw actually was on the floor as well as I watched Yesterday's Enterprise. The lighting and redressing used on the sets of the alternate Ent-D are absolutely amazing, and I agree with one of the commentators on the new commentary with that episode, that I'd have liked the show to be lit like that all the time. It's so much more interesting than the standard lighting. Actually, I find it rather amusing that the alternate Ent-D bridge pretty much has the same added consoles on the side of the bridge as they added for the first TNG movie.
Oh yeah, and "The Offspring" - still tears. The woman playing Laul in that episode was great!
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Probably the only other time that ENT-D had different lighting was Generations. Whoever directed that went overboard with the fact that they were shooting a movie. lol
David Carson directed both Yesterday's Enterprise and Generations, so the somewhat similarly stylized lighting makes sense knowing that. I still think it works better in Yesterday's Enterprise though because they replaced alot of the bridge lighting with blues and reds in the episode which worked better with the darker lighting scheme.
Keeping the earth tones of the original set and dimming the lighting didn't work quite as well in Generations, but I still found it a nice breathe of fresh air to see the ship lit differently after all those years - and honestly, the TV lighting would have looked absolutely horrendous on a film screen.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Oh, I don't disagree. It was just silly to see how everything was suddenly dimly lit with lamps all of a sudden. It's like they were trying to save power or something!
lastplayed
Member
I think on the original six foot version, the rim of the saucer was supposed to be one deck. But then they built Ten Forward with only the lower half of the windows and the rim suddenly became two decks, so they had to make it thicker. Overall I think I prefer the aesthetic of the six foot version, but yeah the four footer has way better detail.
The Librarian
Banned
Well, for me that's kind of like asking why we have aircraft carriers when we can design smaller boats that can fire the same missiles.
So I guess I'm the only guy who really liked Voyager's production design? I can see the "why's it so dark during combat situations?" argument, but I think it was effective for its purpose and it helps give you an instant understanding of the situation, whereas in TNG you had to look around for the little lights. Also, I just really liked Voyager's use of metal and cool blues. Engineering set is the best one in the franchise to me, perhaps tied with the TMP one.
That part up to when it warps away revealing the title screen:
I reaaaaally like the new pixie dust warp effect.
Yeah in terms of overall looks I think it's a decent one, the dust effect is sort of a hybrid of the TOS movie streak effect and the (kind of bad) Nemesis one, but it's still got a bit of the rubber banding from TNG too (which I liked but only in moderation, there was always a bit too much of it for me.)
Enterprise-D Bridge will and always will be my favorite. It still amazes me they didn't incorporate the horseshoe into the E's bridge design, but I guess it makes less sense in a more battle-ready vessel (though I find the E's bridge boring as a result though the layout is nearly the same as the D's - the detailing and materials used on the E bridge are obviously better though).
Voyager's production design is ok, but the bridge layout itself seems bland and doesn't read particularly well on television IMO. Voyager suffers from being another starship, so you have a bunch of standard starship sets that are still just variations on a theme - in Voyager's case, they tend to be smaller since the ship itself is smaller. This is why I like DS9s production design so much. It was something different with architecture from another culture. I think DS9's ops layout suffers from not reading very well on TV just like Voyager's bridge though.
The Librarian
Banned
Looks so much worse than the effect in DS9/Voyager/Enterprise.That part up to when it warps away revealing the title screen:
I reaaaaally like the new pixie dust warp effect.
Well wouldn't it be more like the fighters/bombers on those aircraft carriers? The smaller boats are more like shuttlecraft because they have to maintain their own long range propulsion systems and life support. Interestingly, Star Trek Online has carrier vessels that field fighters in both Starfleet and the KDF.
Haha I don't think we'll ever agree on anything, but to each their own
The effects are certainly more enjoyable. Abrams has the benefit of making his look 'prettier'.
By the way, in terms of a Kickstarter people might be interested in supporting (only has 15 days to go):
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/791163687/these-are-the-voyages?ref=search
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/791163687/these-are-the-voyages?ref=search
lastplayed
Member
The Enterprise-A bridge from VI will always be my favourite. It looks sleek and futuristic, and also looks worn and realistic, the layout's perfect, the clock, and that creepy intercom chirp.
