New Mission Log: Okudas Talk TOS Remastered + How ‘Spock’s Brain’ Influenced Effects For Star Trek V

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Now that the original series Star Trek movies have been dissected, this week’s Mission Log podcast takes a pause before starting in on Star Trek: The Next Generation. This ‘Supplemental’ pocast revisits some of the TOS movies and includes a conversation with Mike and Denise Okuda. Listen to it below.

Mission Log: Supplemental 018

Today’s Mission Log Supplemental episode follows up on our coverage of the original six Star Trek movies with listener feedback primarily about movies IV, V and VI. Also included is part 2 of the interview with Mike and Denise Okuda, who share some more stories on their approach for the Star Trek Remastered project. The hosts and the Okudas also debate the merits (or lack thereof) for derided TOS episodes like “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Mike even reveals how "Spock’s Brain" influenced the visual effects for Star Trek V.

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In new podcast Mike Okuda talks about how rear-projection shots from "Spock’s Brain" helped convince Shatner to use the same process for Star Trek V

 

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“Spock’s Brain”????

OH MY GOD!!!!

Hi Harry,
Star Trek V??? OH MY GOD!! But wait, what does God need with a….

Does that mean you WOULD do a podcast on The Questor Tapes or Earth II? Or… and I know it’s a stretch… TekWars (sp?) or Andromeda?

I cant’ believe “Spock’s Brain” was used as a reference for……………..anything.

I mean………..anything.

The RP in SPOCK’S BRAIN is very very effective, much better than that dead painted star backdrop at end of DOOMSDAY MACHINE. Might be the only thing that is effective, but yeah, I think the RP use on TFF and TUC is also very effective.

Star Trek 5 is nothing compared to the Star Trek 5 press conference. Have you guys seen this? It’s a train wreck. Probably Trek’s lowest point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgLobm_cbvc

@ 6
STV press conference was the single best extra ever included on the TOS movies DVD/BD as it showed the actors as they were in costume on the set. No PR enhanced sugar coated BS.

As for the Okuda’s…..hey Mike why not get your buddies @ CBS Digital to revisit STV now & redo all the VFX I am sure Paramount would allow that as you did such a good job on the TOS episodes!

brain and brain! What is brain?

Apparently Benedict Cumberbatch is up for the role of Dr. Strange. Good choice.

#7

And it proves why that PR sugar coating exists—Shatner forgetting Walter Koenig’s name. Shatner strutting around like a rooster. Everyone looking awkward. Harve Bennet’s jokes. Winter’s sweater. The tacky party balloons.

Not their finest moment.

I have been listening to Mission Logs for over a year. Love that It is now part of Trek Movie…. Let’s hope that the 50th year will be something to remember… Let’s hope.
For the Great Bird.

“Spock’s Brain” was a turd.

Star Trek V was a turd with a bigger budget.

Wow, does anyone still listens to podcasts? They are so 2005… Give me a written out text I can scan quickly and at will any time!

#8. P Technobabble – July 24, 2014

Single best impression of a Paramount suit ever!

You are not Morg. You are not eymorg!

#13. Vulcan Soul – July 24, 2014

Would you believe the legally blind?

# 15. Andy Patterson – July 24, 2014

And her I thought “iMorg, another case of Trek prescience.”

Look at the photo at the top of this thread.

Shatner looks slim. It must have been early in the filming of that season.

He hadn’t developed his famous GUT yet, after long hours on set and poor diet.

# 10
I will take the raw real thing everytime most PR on these movies was boring/tedious same old QA staged cannot answer this or that avoiding the conflict etc etc.

Shatner forgot his name on purpose it was part of the act they obviously rehearsed beforehand…… must have been the same time Koenig leaked info to CFQ which is why Shatner played around with him. Winter is the one who came across really bad he was very nervous & kept looking at his piece of paper in his hands….in his head he must have known that the VFX were going badly & the movie was going to suffer. How he kept the job for ST6 is only because Bennett had enough after 5!

Interesting about the rear projection … If this is rear projection, what’s with the electric blue outline around the screen? I always thought that was the matte line used to make compositing the screen effects easier. Was that blue outline a physical feature on the set then? Did it glow when lit? It’s not there in episodes like Enemy Within, which shows a black screen outline on the physical set.

Yeah it did glow blue on the actual set – The Enemy Within was really early in the run and it may not have been lit blue for that episode. The best episode I can think of off hand is the Doomsday Machine early in the episode – Kirk walks in front of the screen.

9. Harry Ballz

Best news I’ve read today!

You’re TrekMovie score is at 100% today, Harry!

19. Paul – July 25, 2014

I agree. It really doesn’t come across so badly to me.

Harve Bennett seems a bit creepy. And Winter was not graceful.

But the cast were fine. The bit between Shatner and Koenig must have been rehearsed just like all the other cast members’ bits were obviously rehearsed. Shatner pronounces Takei’s name correctly! And Shatner was candid about his contract being the only reason that he got to direct the movie, and nobody had ever wanted him to direct a movie before.

De Kelley had the best line; it actually drew a chuckle from me.

@4: Spock’s Brain can be used as a reference for how not to do something.

#23 – The late Joan Winston was on set during the filming of “Turnabout Intruder”; she wrote about her experience in a publication called “The Monster Times” back in 1972. (I feel old just remembering that long OOP publication). Her on-set experience was also a chapter in a 1975 book titled “Star Trek Lives”. As she wrote it, NBC passed on their option for the 25th and 26th episodes for the third season; Shatner was supposed to direct the 26th.
#18 – “Spock’s Brain” was (IIRC) the sixth episode in third season production order. “Spectre of the Gun” was the first. The Trek wiki Memory Alpha lists the episodes in production order. Watch them that way, and see the rise and fall of Shatner’s gut.

#25. Adam Bomb 1701 – July 28, 2014

From the 2008 NYT Magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/magazine/28wwln-consumed-t.html?_r=2&scp=3&sq=Joan%2520Winston&st=cse&

“Clearly the active approach to media consumption that Winston and her fellow superfans pioneered is more vital and widespread than ever. In his most recent book, “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide,” Jenkins writes that fans have moved from the margins to “the center of current thinking about media production and consumption.” And this is undeniably true: content creators are now desperate to find Joan Winstons. As Jenkins told me, events like Comic-Con, a convention for comics fans, draw not only hordes of costumed attendees but also Hollywood stars sent by entertainment conglomerates to court them. These days, he summarizes, the fans are the ones telling the content creators to get a life. ” — By ROB WALKER, Published: December 23, 2008, STAR TREK FANDOM, NYT magazine

And if the content creators are desperately seeking Joan Winstons, then all this folderol about superfans getting in the way is just a knee-jerk reaction to the “get a life” (which itself was originally spawned by a content creator) shoe now being on the other foot.