Cool Pic

[Captain Seafort]

Indeed. *points to sig*

[SolkaTruesilver]

Did I once claim Enterprise was killed entirely due to CGI?

I made a comment about my preference. Enterprise had a whole host of other reasons that I really haven't the time or patience to get into, besides Tyyr has already done it to great effect.

My bad

[Graham Kennedy]

Personally the quality of the effects neither makes nor breaks a series for me.

I was always impressed by the FX in Enterprise, it was routinely better than any of the other Trek shows. I especially liked that it got to a point where they could ditch the stock footage for a multi-episode run and have the ship with long term apparent damage. Very nice.

But for me FX generally falls into two categories. "Good enough" and "not good enough". For example, Babylon 5's early CGI footage wasn't great... and their CGI sets and planet landscapes pretty much always sucked, even into season 5. But it was always good enough, largely because I was interested enough in what was going on in terms of how it affected the story, the characters, etc. Hell, I grew up on the likes of Doctor Who and Blake's 7, and you haven't seen cheap FX until you've seen those. Hell, half the scenes of the Liberator flying by were very clearly a drawing of the ship being pulled across a black background! But again, the story pulled it though (sometimes!)

In the SW prequels, I was so damn bored by the story that even the cutting edge FX wasn't enough to sustain my interest. Give me twice the integrity and half the budget any day.

[kostmayer]

Personally the quality of the effects neither makes nor breaks a series for me.

I was always impressed by the FX in Enterprise, it was routinely better than any of the other Trek shows. I especially liked that it got to a point where they could ditch the stock footage for a multi-episode run and have the ship with long term apparent damage. Very nice.

But for me FX generally falls into two categories. "Good enough" and "not good enough". For example, Babylon 5's early CGI footage wasn't great... and their CGI sets and planet landscapes pretty much always sucked, even into season 5. But it was always good enough, largely because I was interested enough in what was going on in terms of how it affected the story, the characters, etc. Hell, I grew up on the likes of Doctor Who and Blake's 7, and you haven't seen cheap FX until you've seen those. Hell, half the scenes of the Liberator flying by were very clearly a drawing of the ship being pulled across a black background! But again, the story pulled it though (sometimes!)

In the SW prequels, I was so damn bored by the story that even the cutting edge FX wasn't enough to sustain my interest. Give me twice the integrity and half the budget any day.

Have to agree. Blake's 7 had special effects that TOS would have been ashamed off. Less realistic computers too It was all about the characters, and the story.

My fave Blake's 7 'special effect' was the Android in Project Avalon. The evil Federation created an android replica of a top Rebel. For reasons unknown, the producers thought it would be a good idea to show the inner workings of the Android, even though it was a replica droid and sideview of the actor would have sufficed :-



More over, they decided to throw in the accompanying line "This is the best robotic engineering I've ever seen.

But anyways, I too prefer real life models and actors over CGI, I think they stand the test of time better. However, certain things can only practically be done with CGI.

[Mikey]

Good call, GK. I remember the original Cybermen, complete with silver-painted earmuffs, and "laser" which shot from K-9's nose - but the laughable quality of those effects had literally zero impact on the quality of the show.

[Sionnach Glic]

I'm inclined to agree with Graham here. Good CGI should be treated as little more than a bonus. If something looks spectacular, yet has a shit story, it's still a terrible movie. If something has shit CGI yet a great story, it's a damn good movie.

ENT's effects shots were easily above any of the other shows. Yet that didn't save it. It gave us some nice battle scenes, but that's just not enough.

[mwhittington]

The Transformers movies are other examples of where CGI is the only really practical way of characterization in a movie. Sure, they did build life-sized models of some of the characters, but when they transformed or were in battle, the only way was CGI. And I do agree with GK. When it comes to actual people, backdrops, locations, and props, realistic is much better, perhaps using CGI for enhancements. Using CGI on everything can be poo-poo.

[Graham Kennedy]

The next of their cool pics relating to Star Trek, this one from ST II.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

"Mister Montalbam? You seem to have a... thing... here..."

[Graham Kennedy]

The latest from the same source. Gotta love this one...

[Atekimogus]

I always wondered were the starfleet symbol he wears around his neck comes from inuniverse. They salvaged uniforms but why would he wear a starfleet arrow around his neck?

[Graham Kennedy]

And another one...

[Mark]

That would make a great caption comp pic, Graham

[Vic]

"Damn it Bill, go that way!"

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

"Cut, cut! Shatner's ego just eclipsed the sun. Reset!"