okamoto@ucbvax.ARPA (Jeff Okamoto) (11/19/84)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** In the TV series, the words "shields", and "deflectors" were used interchangeably. They referred to the one layer of protection that the Enterprise had. In ST-TMP, there were suddenly three layers of protection. Sulu remarked "The new force fields held" after surviving one hit from V-Ger's green bolts. Later Decker recommended, "I recommend a defensive posture -- screens and shields." I realize that the words "shields" that Decker used could mean the same as Sulu's "Force fields". In St-TWOK, it seemed that we were back (or still) at two layers. When Kirk ordered yellow alert when first confronted by the Reliant, Saavik said, "Energize defense fields." Unfortunately for the Enterprise, these were not enough to stop Khan's point-blank phaser barrage. Remarks about "shields" seemed to refer to the major defense against attack. In case anyone's interested, the extremely tentative title for ST 4 is "The Trial of Admiral Kirk." Shades of "Court Martial?" And are they going to read off all of Kirk's numerous decorations? Trivia question: Name all of Kirk's decorations. Answer: Impossible. Lt. McGivers (?) cut off the computer in "Court Martial" so we'll never know (unless they finally do it in ST 4). An interesting observation: The color of the Enterprise's photon torpedoes changes color between the two movies. In ST-TMP they are blue and the Klingon's are orange. In ST-TWOK, not only are the photon torpedoes red, but the phasers, which used to be blue (and even before that they looked like the photon torpedoes), are now also orange! What's next? Chartreuse? :-) Also notice that in the series, the Klingon's disruptors looked like little missiles that supposedly came from the front of the engine nacelles. Now they come from where one would expect them to, from the tube in front. Anybody also notice that the color of the main sensor dish in front of the secondary hull also changed color between the two movies? One really wonders about the "ponn farr" scenes in ST-TSFS. Did Spock and Saavik actually consummate the mating? Or did they just leave off rubbing fingers together? Who knows? And what will become of the USS Excelsior? With it's superwarp whose drain can easily be stopped up, will it ever fly? That's all for now. Jeff Okamoto okamoto%ucbvax@Berkeley.ARPA ucbvax!okamoto "Don't call ME Tiny!"
ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (11/20/84)
Did Saavik and Spock consummate pon far? According to George Taki in a lecture in San Francisco not too long ago, this is going to be a major point in ST IV. Like I said before, 'Search for the Son of Spock'. Ick. -- "Where can you find Ron Christian a stale work environment Watkins-Johnson Co. with excellent pay?" San Jose, Calif. --bay area newspaper (...ios!wjvax!ron)
rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe) (11/20/84)
> Trivia question: Name all of Kirk's decorations. Answer: Impossible. > Lt. McGivers (?) cut off the computer in "Court Martial" so we'll never > know (unless they finally do it in ST 4). That was Areel Shaw who cut it off first. Smauel Cogley had it restarted and then stopped it. -- "It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess." Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
dwhitney@uok.UUCP (11/24/84)
Very minor correction to the original posting, quoting Sulu from Star Trek I as saying "The new Force Fields held." Not quite correct,. Having seen that one at least 50 times by now (and that's a conservative estimate) I can assure you he said "The new screens held." Followed by Scotty saying, "Engineering to bridge, cannot hold full power on force fields. Deflector power is down 70%!!" Also, where did you hear about the title for Star Trek 4? Later, David Whitney ctvax!uokvax!uok!dwhitney
markv@dartvax.UUCP (Mark Vita) (11/26/84)
> An interesting observation: The color of the Enterprise's photon > torpedoes changes color between the two movies. In ST-TMP they > are blue and the Klingon's are orange. In ST-TWOK, not only are the > photon torpedoes red, but the phasers, which used to be blue (and even > before that they looked like the photon torpedoes), are now also orange! > What's next? Chartreuse? :-) Also notice that in the series, the > Klingon's disruptors looked like little missiles that supposedly > came from the front of the engine nacelles. Now they come from > where one would expect them to, from the tube in front. > Anybody also notice that the color of the main sensor dish in front > of the secondary hull also changed color between the two movies? Actually, I don't think the color of the ship's phasers was constant even in the television series. Usually the beams were blue, but I seem to remember a couple of episodes wherein the beams were a sort of orangy-red color. (In "Who Mourns For Adonis?", I believe, for one. At the end, when they hose Apollo's abode. Anyone else remember this?) The hand phasers were even more inconsistent. Not only did the beams change color, but I seem to remember that in "Operation: Annihilate!", when Spock goes beserk and tries to take over the ship, someone stuns him with a phaser, and what comes out of the gun resembles a "torpedo" more than a beam. Of course, one could come up with plausible explanations for why the beams are different colors at different times. It seems pretty apparent that the whitish-blue beam is "disintegrate" (i.e., when Kirk zaps the Abominable Snowman in "A Private Little War"), and that the red-orange beam is "heat" (i.e., when McCoy heats up rocks in the same episode.) Another explanation is that the optical house that did ST's effects messed up every now and then. (Also, according to the Technical Manual, the hand phasers have a setting called "disrupt", which is different from "disintegrate". I wonder what effect this has? Maybe it's the aforementioned beam that kills but leaves the body intact [like when Miss Karidian kills her pop at the end of "The Conscience of the King"]). About the changing appearance of the Enterprise model between the first and second films--I heard a story that might explain it. The special effects for the first film were contracted to Douglas ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind") Trumball, but I guess he did kind of a botch of a job, overran his schedule and budget. So sometime during the filming he was fired and someone else finished up. When the time came to make ST II, Industrial Light and Magic (part of Lucasfilm) was hired to do the effects, but they wanted to use the model from the first film, which was still in Trumball's possession. They asked him for it, and I guess he was still a bit miffed at having been fired, so he shipped them the model via 4th class U.S. Mail in a cardboard box. It arrived not in the best of shape, and the ILM people had to do some work on it. Perhaps this is why the Enterprise appeared differently in ST II than in ST I. By the way, can anyone confirm the above story? I heard it quite a while ago, and don't know if it's really totally factual or not. -- Mark Vita Dartmouth College USENET: {decvax,cornell,linus,astrovax}!dartvax!markv ARPA: markv%dartmouth@csnet-relay CSNET: markv@dartmouth
eich@uiucdcsb.UUCP (12/02/84)
[re: ST-TMP FX] Douglas Trumbell and his Entertainment Effects Group, working along with John Dykstra's group (those who split from Lucas's ILM after Star Wars and worked on the Battlestar Ponderosa pilot), completed ST-TMP effects under horrendous pressure and parted amicably with Paramount. The story you heard sounds like a corrupted account of ST-TMP's original effects plans, which involved Robert Abel & Associates (the innovative 7-UP and Levi's commercials people). Abel and co. dropped out after their grandiose plans for fancy motion-controlled photography preprogrammed from graphics terminals came to naught. Apparently they had software that allowed an effects designer to set up a model shot at a workstation, run a program to translate the move into code to drive the motion control rig. After convincing himself that the shot looked right, the designer would dump to a floppy, run over to the stage next door, set up model, lights, camera, and floppy, and get the intended action on film. They ran into problems right away: their software assumed a point pov, and the camera housing rammed part of the model rig! Back to the software development building for another run through the edit-compile-debug cycle... Anyway, Trumbell (and Dykstra to a lesser extent) came on the scene after Abel's and another group's failures (details of the latter attempt escape me), and did well enough considering the tedious number of shots required. As for ILM receiving a slightly less than mint-condition Enterprise from EEG for STII, ILM people (Ken Ralston, I think) did blame Trumbell. Apparently Trumbell had made a lower bid for TWOK than ILM, but Paramount opted for Lucas's people. I seem to recall Trumbell himself griping about how overpriced ILM is, etc. at some point. Personally, I think ILM effects have a distinctive flair, a stylization of movement that makes STII & III effects superior to those of TMP. And nobody can do soft mattes like Lucas's optical people (the Bird of Prey's landing on Vulcan). Brendan Eich uiucdcs!eich