A bit late, but as usual here are the new and old shots for The World is Hollow…
A big thanks goes out Rick Kelvington for getting these screecaptures since my local broadcaster changed the schedule without notice. And as usual thanks to Joe for the video clip of the new CGI.
SFX Video
(wmv)
New and Old
The Missiles hurtle towards the Enterprise
The Missiles on the viewscreen
Phasers fire at the missiles
The missiles explode
Course Change
The Enterprise approaches Yonada
Yonada on the viewscreen
The Enterprise stays ahead of Yonada
An alternate angle of the Enterprise in front of Yonada
The Enterprise departs Yonada’s path
Assorted Shots
That hollow sky
Kneeling before the Oracle
Natira consults with the Oracle
The High Priestess Natira
Disobeying the Oracle
McCoy and Natira kiss
A cram session of the Orcale’s secrets while the temperature rises
Nice job with the phasers and the destruction of the missiles. However, the top right 3/4 view looked flat. Very flat. There is simply something about the battleship (haze) gray that defies depth perception and other visual cues.
Oh yeah – that’s what it’s supposed to do! (camoflage)
Still, I enjoyed the story line in this episode much more, seeing through the eyes of an adult. It didn’t make much sense as a kid. And Kate Woodville… vavavavoom!
Yeah, it shows how I’ve grown up with Trek. As a kid, I found the romantic stuff irritating and enjoyed the action and philosophy. The sex adds another dimension to the show, viewed as a grown up. TOS had everything, which I guess is the reason I love it!!!
Anybody notice that the Impulse Engines were finally lit up, if only in one scene? OK, CBS Digital — now that you have finally fixed this oversight at least in one scene, can you now go retrospective and prospective and keep them lit up in EVERY other scene? Thank you kindly!!!!
Supplemental:
If CBS-D was to do this for me (and I’m sure most of the other fans) I would be sooooo happy. So, so happy! I mean, the only other thing I would ask for is maybe the warp engines giving off the blue light in the inner vents, but I know, I know — that’s probably asking too much, so I won’t.
Just light up the impulse engines consistently in every scene, and I could die tomorrow knowing that no matter what else they tweak, they finally fixed this FX oversight. >
Also anybody know when Star Trek airs on Saturday in the Los Angeles area — what channel and what time?
I live in Palm Springs, California — and the only listing I could find is Sundays at Midnight on KNBC Channel 4 (which in Palm Springs they actually turn it into a infomercial network for a while, then switch it back to KNBC at midnight for Star Trek.)
I’m tired of waiting until Monday morning when everybody else obviously sees it on Saturday.
About the impulse engines… not sure why they use them in some and not in others? I can see them not being lit up all the time but why were they lit when traveling with the asteroid but not when it broke away from it?
They have been lit up before (pretty sure when leaving a planet, Arena?) I just assumed it was extra power to “break orbit” and then its not needed all the time. Thats why I wondered why they were like that when traveling and then not later?
I like how they were unlit like the original but I also like seeing them running as they have in all the other shows and movies…but I think I prefer the soft blue like was seen on the Defiant. :-)
Anyway, now another week to wait…
Jeremy KNBC is the LA station…as far as I know, there is no saturday station
by the way…for questions about TOSR people should always check the TOS Remastered tab at the top of the site navbar.
Thought the big E looked pretty good in this one, in spite of the flat lighting (is the majority of the ship in the CBS universe ever in direct sunlight?). I didn’t much care for the credits shot of the turn towards the asteroid, but everything else was fine and of course Yonada itself looked a hell of a lot more convincing than it did in 1968. It’ll be interesting to see how CBS distinguishes this asteroid from the one in “The Paradise Syndrome.”
This was never what you could call a very good episode, an example of third-season decay with non-SF writers mostly abusing traditional SF concepts like generation-ship starflight–but most definitely agreed about Natira’s charms. Probably only a gay man like Bill Theiss could make a actress look that good. ;-)
Overall I thought it was OK, not great but the added effects were quite good. If this had been an episode of TNG we would never paid that much attention to the lighting.
I think we look at these with such critical eyes that we miss the fact that CBS-D did nearly two minutes of effects work in one week’s time. Something none of the other series could have possibly done. Even TOS in it’s day was taking about four weeks to complete it’s final effects shots. However, I have no idea how much time was just spent on exterior shots.
It looked like none of the interior shots had been touched, although I don’t remember at all the shot through the spiral staircase, it sort of surprised me.
Where is the light in the impulse engines????!!!!!
I’ve been reading Trek stuff for about 30 years, and I remember reading in some source or other years ago that one possible explanation for why sometimes the nacelle caps are lit up and spinning, and at other times they’re not, is that the spinning/lit caps happen when the Enterprise is warping and the matter and anti-matter are reacting. When it’s in orbit around a planet, they’re not lit up because the impulse engines are then working. (Does anyone recall where I may have read this rationalization?)
Of course, this is an after-the-fact fan explanation for the discrepancies between the small earlier model and the later, larger, better-lit model. However, I always liked that explanation, and thought that when the effects were redone, they might try doing something like that. I personally would dig seeing dimly lit nacelles when the ship is in orbit, or when it’s travelling sub-light, and only seeing the impulse engines lit up when it’s not warping. Any takers? Or is this the kind of thing that folks are complaining about and I’m just not catching the nuances of their complaints? Do people want the nacelle caps AND the impulse engines to be fully lit ALL the time?
Scott B. out.
The engines also generate power for the ship, so that could excuse them being “on” all the time. Dramatically, I think it would be nice to see the impulse engines light up when the ship accelerates. I think they’re struggling with the history and/or legend that Roddenberry didn’t want visible “rocket thrust”. On the other hand, Roddenberry produced TMP which lit up the engines for the first time. I wish they’d decide one way or the other.
I agree that the inconsistancies are at times agrrivating. I’ll withold my final judgement until they have fixed and/or retrofitted the entire series with all the final effects. I remember reading about the new fx work in Aug 06 and the air date was one month later… considering that the CBS-D team started with, what they claimed, was a super complex model that ate rendering time… CBS-D got started with one hand tied behind their back. On a normal series like this, they spend a lot of time running and rendering test shots in pre-production well before the show ever gets aired or before principle photography finishes. In this case they had to fire up all the new fx from an almost dead-start with a weekly air-date that was weeks, not months away.
I think they are doing some great work with the time contraints facing them. The final jugement comes with Doomsday (which they cannot fail on), Immunity Syndrom and Ultimate Computer. I’d be willing to bet that CBS-D has been letting a lot of things slide in order to get all the sfx work done for Doomsday. My hope is that they will retrofit all the episodes that have already aired with the final, correctly lit, renders and make them available on DVD or on TV land.
Keep on rockin’ CBS-D!
The lit up impulse engines are not new. I’ve seen them lit up a few times in other eps, but they do not do it consistently and I would love it if they did.
Compared to WNMHGB last week. It felt to me like the Enterprise was a little cartoonish in some scenes. This was a substantial improvement. What bugs me a little is the syndicated cuts. I’m really not use to that as i have been watching the DVD’s for awhile or catching the uncut episodes on G4 .*shrugs* cant have everything. I ‘m just use to seeing some things as pieces of dialogue .
My favorite shot is when the Enterprise is running parallel to Yonada. I think the Impulse engine light up is fine but at least it didn’t look like some afterburners coming out of the engines.
Was it my imagination or did they ‘fix” the Third Season Opening credits for this one?
They need to lit up impulse engines consistently. I always liked, fully lit up all the time impulse engines.
3rd season opening credits were fixed, yes. The Enterprise did appear where it was supposed to. Maybe in the last one, the Enterprise was in Scalosian mode? lol Or perhaps it was that cloaking device they picked up from the Romulans during season 3? hee, hee
Why the heck can’t they get the running lights to work?
From what I can make out on the recordings I ahve made of the episodes, the running lights are working. they just light up/flash at a very dim level. This could be because of HD. But, beats me.
Why are they so insistent on making it monochromatic. The original show was really really colorful, now it looks lame. Also way too flat and bright. We know you’ve created a nice semi-accurate model of the Enterprise. Now stop showing off every inch of it with the overly bright lighting. In ten more years this stuff will all be either redone again or restored back to the true original material. Such a misfire…
Ok, I just watched a bit of “World is Hollow” … Maybe Anthony can find out why there is such a level of inconsistency from week to week. Does CBS Digital work in two teams, each responsible for alternating episodes or something??
This week looks sooooo much better than last week. What gives? I’d love to hear some comments from the animators as to how they feel their work holds up from week to week… where they feel they fall short, and where they feel they excel.
Would be a cool article. Doug
While admittedly I’m catching these things in teh resolution of YouTube. I have to say. Dead on. The ship looked real to me and it moved realistically which is what I’ve been looking for the whole time. So, Kudos to CBS digital.
It’d be nice to read an article here about the effects shop people. It would be very interesting to know alittle more about the process. After all, this is TrekMovie.com TM. Not just some run-of-the-mill Trek site! Anthony’s connected! ……Ok, anyway, I’d surely like to know some details about the process and how they decide what effects, shots to redo…..
I liked the shot of the Enterprise slowly making its way past the camera. Shots like that give a better impression of scale like the films had, instead of the ship just looking like an effect. That looked nice. Unfortunately, this isn’t a very strong episode. Found it pretty boring. And while I generally think Kelley is one of the best actors on the show, his romance was pretty flat.
I sometimes wonder if they are way ahead on these episodes, or barely keeping up. It would be interesting to see just what the process is. Sometimes I wonder if the inconsistent effects have something to do with when they were actually completed/done. Perhaps the ones that look “flat” were done earlier on and “put on the shelf” as filler episodes that aren’t so “effects heavy”. Maybe other episodes need a lot more TLC and are worked on over a longer period of time and right up until the deadline (we’ve pretty much been told this about “Doomsday”). The fact that the entire season one is supposed to hit dvd before Christmas ’07 really makes me wonder if they aren’t further ahead on SOME of these episodes than we realize, yet, behind in others.
Funny thing happened. I went back and looked at the episode “Miri” which I recorded when it aired way back during that first week. I swear the ship looked lots better than I remembered. Heck, I think maybe the deflector dish even had more color. The nacelles were off, just as I remembered, but didn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought they would. Perhaps that shows the power of suggestion: nacelles are off, Daren’s balls are too big and shiny, the deflector isn’t colorful enough, and so on. Maybe we oughta just sit back and enjoy all of this. I look at these effects vs. SOME of the originals…and WOW, what an improvement MOST of the time. It’s a great time for TOS fans! Soak it in!!!!
“For The World…” has some great effects now. What a nice set of shots this week. Can’t wait for the next two weeks! Could be lots of fun, or a big let down, who knows?
just because I am italian-american and have a name like Tony, does not mean i am ‘connected’…and anyone else who implies that will get whacked
baddabing!
anyway we did a behind the scenes article on the fx house 2 months ago:
https://trekmovie.com/2006/11/20/behind-the-scenes-at-cbs-digital/
The one thing that needs no help from CBS-D; Leonard Nimoy. I have always loved the “needs of the one” plot lines in TOS. Even as a kid, I really dug that these people were so loyal that they’d throw away everything just to help one of their own in distress. This was of course most true of Spock. I mean, you just live for those moments where you see a crack in his armor and the human emerges.
Case in point, the scene in this episode where Spock learns of McCoy’s illness. The moment where McCoy catches Spock helping him up and the following close-up of Nimoy is brilliant. Without a word or emotion, you see the depth of this relationship. Nothing else is needed. I’ll say it again, Brilliant.
Even in it’s less-than-stellar moments, this show is great!
With all due respect to Joe’s video captures, I have to say how surprised I was at how much better these shots looked on TV than YouTube. I still think CBS-D’s lighting is too flat, but the ship was nonetheless quite colorful (less a flat gray than the bluish-white we remember it to be), with lots of nice paneling and specular detail. The shot of it turning slowly in Yonada’s orbit was especially impressive, with a sense of mass only rarely seen in the original series’ FX. My only (*sigh*) gripe, especially after the disappointment of last week, is that such solid work was essentially squandered on a pretty mediocre episode.
I thought the effects looked pretty good this week — but at the same time wondered how much of the ship work itself was recycled from earlier efforts. A lot of the moves looked familiar to me, recomposited with the asteroid model.
I don’t mean that AT ALL as a criticism either. They have to have some “stock footage” or they’d never finish an episode. I was just curious if others had a similar reaction.
I loved how the Enterprise actually looked like it was hauling ass in the opening shot following the teaser/credits. I’m so sick of, “Warp 5 Mr. Sulu!” and cut to an d exterior shot of the shit puttering along.
I meant to say ship. Tired…
I too, thought the space stuff was pretty durn good this week with just a oddity here and there. I also think that CBS Digital have probably built some momentum up on the space stuff… no more re-inventing the E! Still, we have those more complex space episodes coming.
I missed the colored lighting on Yonada.
a big thanks to Matt, Rick and Joe
sorry for the delay folks
Hmmm… if you look below the shuttlebay on the original shot there’s these cool funky lights (red and blue), but if you look at the remastered picture, there’s no lights and the shapes are wrong. Now I never noticed those lights before, but I like ’em. The lighting in the windows of the original look better too. On the new version it’s difficult to tell if the windows are even there.
I think the lights are actually red, yellow(or orangish) and green. The two outer and center rectangles with a verticle one between the center and outer ones… Anyway yeah i’ve noticed you don’t really see them, or the light above from what I can recall.
Well with this episode I will say it for the first time: I prefer the old effects.
Sixties style (yes, with warts and all, and psychedelic colours) over computer game blandness!
To me the only problem with the E is how flat and lifeless it is.
Sorry to all you purists out there about how it really looks out in space.
This is a space opera…
Look at the wrath of khan…the E was jazzed up with colored lighting.
Not that I expect it to be flooded with color, but the original E 11′ filming model now in the Smithsonian, had a greenish-blue cast to the gray.
The CBS-D model is TOO neutral gray and looks lifeless.
I love the texturing and panels visible in the closeups.
I love the reflections from phaser/photon shots along with planet color casts that the original model didn.t have.
Just cool the neutral gray! All else is fantastic!
I can’t wait til The Cage comes out. The original pilot E with the spikes and large senor dish is way too beautiful.
Agreed Nelson, I’m slowly coming to the unhappy realisation that although it has been a great idea to upgrade various effects and shots for High Definition presentation… the new effects have NOT been able to match or convey the original, VIBRANT, CREATIVE, COLOUR seen in various comparisons on this site. From a design viewpoint, I think it would have been terrific to see new, improved effects featuring the original, 60’s STYLIZED, LIGHTING…which would have continued to tie in with the rest of the show’s 60’s stylized, lighting, which now seems jarring alongside the now more “realistic” (?) lighting schem
Yup, I agree Cervantes. These effects would fit just fine if this were another show, but this is sixties Star Trek and they certainly don’t match the stylized look. As I said in another post, where someone disagreed with me, they are far more contemporary looking in their approach to the lighting styles. Their approach is reminding me more of Treks 3 – 6, than the T.V. series. They’re great artists, no doubt about it, but from the word ‘go’…this project hasn’t gotten ‘the look’ of the original series. It’s a shame really. Still, good looking work this week.
I’ll join in with the regret over the lack of color on Yonanda, and now that it’s pointed out, the missing landing lights (put some higher wattage bulbs throughout that the Big E, please!) — but I’ll stop short of agreeing that the entire affort is not cutting it.
In fact, I went back over the last couple of days and looked at all the FX reels again, and was struck by how many strikingly beautiful shots have been acheived: the leaving-orbit shot from “Catspaw,” pretty much everything from “Space Speed,” those wonderful CGI mattes… and lets not forget the fly-in from “The Menagerie.” So I’ll agree with Cervantes that some shots have missed the mark in terms of matching the vibrancy of the original, but for me at least, the project has been a resounding success overall.
If anything shows the glaring stylisiic differences between the original and CG re-dos, it’s this series of screen caps. The shot of the E firing phasers is probably the best of the original phaser-firing sequences. The CBS version- while exhibiting proper beam angles and interactive lighting- just lays there. (And is the CBS deflector dish too big?) Same with the rear shots. Why are they not bringing up the levels of the practical lights on the ship? Dead, dead, dead. This is 2007 for God’s sake! ANYTHING CG is possible now!
This learning curve is getting a little long, guys. Especially when SO MANY people are noticing the same things over and over- and probably could do better on their laptops.
PS- Anthony- this site is great- thanks again.
Just make the ship look as it was….only clearer. Sure, add the impulse engines sometimes, show some lights on that never were, but show it as it was, give it the colored windows below the shuttlebay and lets move onward.
The old Enterprise shot at the beginning is much better than the new CGI The rear shot of the ship and the lighting is fantastic. Hopefully they fix this in future shows.
Most of the old Enterprise shots look better in the above screen shots. You can see the CGI Enterprise doesn’t have the hangar lit correctly, the lights are off, and the “landing marker lights” are off as well.
i like the old enterprise shots better from season three simply because they look better, have more feel f weight reality and depth than the cgi enterprise by faa!
It really shows uop here in the by then third season 1968-1969 episode with new exsterior shots of the big -e, as aposed to sayy the lame shots from seasons one and two espessially!!
compare..i DARE you!
thank yee!
This episode’s FX were wonderfully done, especially that long shot of the Enterprise in orbit of Yonada as Kirk contacts Starfleet Command. The ship looked HUGE and the length of the shot gave me time to look at the details of the ship. If memory serves, the original FX shot was a porrly slowed down version of the same shot used throughout the episode.
My only gripe (and there has to be one, doesn’t there) was the destruction of the missiles at the opening. Wish those had been more explode-y.
Not sure what’s up with the impulse engines. Seems to me that if the ship is traveling through space, but not at warp speed, the impulse engines should be ON. They aren’t necessary if she’s in orbit of a planet, but they’re needed to enter or break orbit for certain.
Of course, CBS Digital has decided to retain the TOS ambiguity of exactly when the ship is at warp. The only way we ever knew was through dialog because there were no “warp effects” as in the films and later TV series. It would be nice to see the TOS Enterprise actually “go to warp,” but the powers that be prbably feel that would betray their mantra of updating rather than redefining the the FX shots.
Finally, the bickering about how the Enterprise looks is becoming a little tedious. We’ve gotten past the nacelle issues (thankfully), but I believe there is still too much quibbling over little details. In my view, the Enterprise looks much more realistic than it ever did in TOS. The plating highlights are nice but not overdone and she seems to have some real mass to her. Considering the huge time constraints on the FX team, they’ve done a great job of producing and integrating the scenes into the show. They’re never going to please everyone, but by and large they have pleased me. Yeah, there are things I wished they had fixed that they didn’t and a few opportunities I think they missed, but sometimes I think we fall into nitpicking and “splitting hairs” here.
The Enterprise looks fine. Stop scrutinizing her so much or she’ll develop a mental disorder ;-)
A bit about “deep space lighting.”
IMHO- and no doubt many others- Trumbull’s self-lighting concept of the TMP-E made the most sense AND looked great. Later, ILM, largely due to their reliance on blue-screen, and tight schedules, matte-sprayed the miniature and threw bunch of fill light in, ruining the ideal look of that version of the E.
Unlike the refit version, the classic version NEEDS appropriate fill light to capture that “look.” Yes, you could say that CBS’s lighting is more “realistic,” displaying illumination originating from multiple fill sources, BUT it STILL needs that stylization that we’ve all gotten used to over 40 YEARS.
CBS should honor this aspect, since they are charged with creating what will be held in the future as the definitive version of the Enterprise.
HEY!……….whatever you wise ones say!!!
all i know is alot of the new third season recration shots done are NOT up to par…with the originals in “FTWIHAIHTTS”
This one is FAR better than they recreated!
Well, ain’t it GREAT then for all you “the original looked better” critics that the originals ARE still available? I wonder how the original matte lines and compositing degredation will look in high def? I wonder how grainy those original shots will look compared to the interior footage?