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 Post subject: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-02 08:03pm 

Courtesy of Chris O'Farrell finding it on youtube.

Recreation of the VFX in the first battle from The Wrath of Khan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDyZ-cMlnlQ

That is an incredible piece of work. He maintained the scenes as exacting as possible. Ship movements and relations are perfect. Weapon effects are 95% or better. I would love to see a Hi-Def release on TWOK with recreated CGI with this level of care.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-02 08:21pm 

Wow. Just wow.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-02 10:53pm 

Well what would have looked 'perfect' to you pray tell? It was a massive improvement over the original visuals.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-03 03:57am 

Adam, I think you're being serious, but I have a hard time looking at your VHS screenshots and going 'yeah shitty VHS looks way better than 720p CGI effects'. I mean I agree that on the whole the video looks dark for some reason, and I don't think the CGI is perfect at all, but it's damn impressive IMO.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-03 05:35am 

They fucked up the frame rate I think. Movies are shot at 25-30 Hz, usually, and the FX shots seem to be more around 60 Hz.

And yeah, the bridge shots are kinda dark. I still think its better.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-03 08:50am 

I think Ryan hit the nail on the head on what was bugging me about the effects, sure the CGI was not bad per se but it just seemed "off" for some reasons and I'm not in the "CGI sucks no matter what camp", also there was some pointless additions that made no sense.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-03 10:04am 

I'm not gonna go overly critical here.I thought it was a nice recreation of the sequence in CGI. Nothing terribly radical was added, and frankly nothing was needed to. The only slight tweak that caught my eye was when Enterprise gets nailed by Reliant's opening volley the hull damage looked like debris was coming off the Enterprise's hull, and the ship seemed to roll very slightly to starboard with the hit (although if you look at the next shot of the bridge, I suppose the roll should have been slightly to port...since that's the way everybody tumbles).

It also gave me a reason to re-watch a pretty awesome scene.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 05:06am 

It's a nice amateur effort, but it's nowhere near the quality I would expect as a replacement for all of the effects in a movie. It looks cheap; a lot of that is due to the lighting, and also by the inconsistent prominence of certain details between the original. The models scream "hey look I'm CGI!". Also, the juxtaposition of the ultra-sharp CGI fidelity with framing and effects designed to accommodate the limitations of motion-control photography is somewhat jarring.

There's really no need to replace the TWOK starship effects either. They're completely satisfactory in depicting a duel between two crippled starships, and the contrast between crisp new CGI and aged live-action film segments isn't particularly desirable. The TOS CGI (which I'm not a big fan of, either, and that was made by actual professionals) was a product of necessity; no such need exists for TWOK, as evidenced by the original big-screen presentation of the film, and the current Bluray transfer.

Also, jesus christ Adam don't post VHS screenshots.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 05:16am 

I'm too generous. Here are Adam's screencaps from a much higher quality source. Click the image for full size.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 05:22am 

I'm pretty sure that was just him being his usual obnoxious self. I wouldn't worry about it too much since he's just looking for attention.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 07:35am 

Destro does have a point about the new sequence being too dark (assuming this isn't just a graphics driver issue. As the feeling seems to be universal I assume it is not but I know it has happened to me in the past). Other than that, he's delusional.

And whether or not the effects from TWOK needed redoing was never part of the question. They have been redone. The question was does the new look better than the old, to which any sane person's answer is 'other than the low lighting, hell yes'.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 08:31am 

Wait, wait: the pics U235 posted- even they look a shit-ton darker than D13's VHS screens. What's with that?

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 08:32am 

Shut up.


Yeah I don't think you can speak with confidence on what any sane person's answer would be. Uraniun posted screengrabs from the bluray, and the original effects still look excellent even decades later. Who knew that high definition would make old films look great?

Which is not to say that the CGI in the video isn't impressive, it is given it's an amateur job. Parts of it would be an improvement, but on the whole I agree with uraniun on the matter.


VHS is absolute terrible shit.

I am sure there's a technical explanation, but jesus. We're talking VHS man.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 01:29pm 

Battle of the Mutara Nebula (starting with the run from Regula) has some interesting elements. You can actually see where they added the ships to the stars. Black boxes follow the ships. And some times the stars bleed through on the black elements of the warp nacelles. Any work done to TWOK would just be digitally cleaning up the effects really.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 04:55pm 

Agreed, tidy up the boxes (think they were in ESB as well?), maybe remove some of the "softness" but other wise the VHS effects are fine.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-04 06:26pm 

I'll happily agree the Bluray caps look better than the youtube stuff. They also look a lot closer to the youtube stuff than to the VHS caps Adam claimed were oh so superior do, including the strange blue hue of the hull?
Stofsk is also right in that I'm not exactly qualified to determine what a sane person would think.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-03-14 12:36pm 

I'll add my voice to the camp of "good attempt, especially for non-professionally done, but...". The lighting is a huge factor in those shots, but I also think the difference between the solid and CGI model is just too noticeable, and I prefer the solid model. That isn't to say I always prefer it that way, or that I'm a "no CGI ever" person, but in this case, the details aren't conveyed well through the model used. It seems sterile.

If the model is good enough, perhaps the proper lighting (and color) would work. There's the little details that I can see in the original that I can't see in the CGI version (slight smudges, hull panels, the Reliant's torpedo tubes in the bow shot as it comes towards the camera, etc) that might be better if it wasn't so dark. And I'd also agree that what the director was going for (Innocent Enterprise vs Vengeful Reliant) was lost in these shots.

 Post subject: Re: Reliant in our sector, this quadrant sir

Posted: 2012-05-15 01:09pm