It’s been a month since the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard wrapped up, but it still has people buzzing and talking about the artistry that went into it. We have a few new videos giving a closer look at the visual effects and cinematography for the show.
Inside the visual effects
Today Paramount+ released a video called “Textures and Layers” all about the visual effects for season 3 with commentary from visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman.
VFX Breakdown
One of the companies that worked on season 3 was Outpost VFX, who released a breakdown video showing how some of their shots were put together.
Cinematographer talks about Picard’s dark season
Gold Derby interviewed director of photography Jon Joffin, who talked about why the season looks so dark and more.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
The visual effects were obviously not on the level of DSC and SNW. Some of it was downright disappointing to see.
I disagree. I’m so tired of the constant negativity from a few folks here. Good grief.
I’m tired of sub-par productions. The visual effects in Picard is clearly a step down from Discovery, that’s pretty much fact. I think even Matalas admitted it in one of his thirteen thousand tweets or interviews.
He never said any such thing. What he discussed were time constraints and budgets, not that the visual effects were subpar.
Well he would have been correct if he had said that. ;-)
Snooze!
I feel like you might be mistaking “sub-par” for what I think is actually, “the style of the day.”
Regardless of quality in the assets, CGI shots, especially space ship shots, seem to have a style these days which I can only describe as “glossy plastic wrap in a slight fog” look to them. I have no doubt the models are great, the textures are great, the lighting is great… but there’ something about how they dial in the specularity which just comes off less like “this is real” and more like “This is the plastic wrap filter” to me. They’re no longer chasing the “this has to match an ILM practical model in the real world” and seem to instead be chasing aspects which came to being “normal” due to limitations of previous tools combined with advancements in modern software.
It’s not that the VFX artists aren’t doing great work- it’s that the style they’re going for changed.
But I say all this as a hobby 3d artist who just follows a handful of other 3d artists who aim for the “ILM model work” look in their Trek renders instead of the “modern look.”
Great points — for some reason every space series now has to litter the vacuum with particles and atmosphere…so you get this fog thing.
That was a very well worded post, with great content but somehow minus all the vitriol I usually spew on this subject.
I just for the life of me can’t understand why anybody would be striving for a look like this when we see series work that seems to approach GRAVITY or ROGUE ONE levels of credibility with respect to space vessels in their element. It has got me wondering how soon it will be before this current batch of shows undergoes a reworking like TOS-R (in this case, to make the exterior shots more watchable.)
I agree most heartily. Nothing is more beautiful and impressive as a ship in space, until they render it through molten wax. Sometimes vitriol is warranted.
As someone who goofed around with various editions of 3ds Max for years before deciding it was a lost cause (my talents, not the software) and going back to photography, I can relate to your post, and wholeheartedly agree with your conclusions. I think the depiction of huge fleets and space combat in DS9 was precisely the template the producers of “Picard” should have gone for — the backgrounds and lighting were clean and uncluttered; the capital ships looked truly massive, with the kind of intricate camera moves and scope that would have been almost impossible to achieve using practical models on a television budget. That said, the “Picard” FX were, for better or worse, aesthetically consistent with the rest of the show, the ships only being as murky on the outside as they were inside.
Agreed. There seemed to be a sort of diffuse soft lighting with no obvious source, that felt more like a last-generation video game cutscene. Not that Trek has ever been “hard sci-fi” about lighting in space, but the original ILM model shots had at least some element of a single brighter point source casting more defined shadows, similar to what we saw in the SW original trilogy and the Rogue One VFX shots.
I mean, I was as happy to see the Enterprise-D as anyone, but the haze and visible spotlight beams inside the Fleet Museum dock made that scene seem weirdly low-resolution (like it had reduced draw distance / LOD).
The hazy glow around the warp nacelles in the whole series (Titan included) doesn’t make sense at all – even if the nacelles are causing gaseous atoms nearby to glow through an EM field, the density of such particles in space is so low that it wouldn’t be visible unless they were in an atmosphere / nebula. (The visible glow on Voyager’s nacelles as it passes through the gas cloud in its opening credits is an example.)
Many of the choices of virtual camera / lensing made The 1701-D lose all sense of scale. I mean, it’s almost as long as the Burj Khalifa is tall. It’s not going to move like a speedboat.
Similarly, seeing the Enterprise dodge and weave inside the Cube and come to a car-like skidding halt over our heroes strained credulity just a tad. I mean, cheers to Data, but I can’t imagine the strain on the structural integrity field…
Trek doesn’t have to go quite as “hard lighting” as The Expanse, but they really could dial down the fog.
It’s Star Trek. They could do the effects with hand puppets and I’d still watch.
Were having some great fan discussions here on this topic today.
RELAX :-)
They were capturing a different visual aesthetic so ‘obviously not on the level of DSC and SNW’ is a bit of an overstatement.
There were definitely VFX shots in this season of Picard that looked pretty bad. However, I felt similarly about some of the VFX on Strange New Worlds. My guess is that they are really pushing the limits of how many VFX shots they can get for their budget on both shows. Give the artists less time, and you will probably end up with a result that doesn’t look as good.
I’m amazed you can consider the effects work on any of these series as anything other than massively sub-par. The space and ship stuff is like a massive step backwards, like the worst shots in TNG s1 or most of the awful stuff in ENT and later VOYAGER. Look at the work these same houses do for other modern shows, and most of it is tons better, so they seem to be choosing this particular blend of mediocrity, which makes the business seem even more appalling.
Then I would suggest if you can make relative comparisons within your own overall view that they all stink that you would conclude the Picard S3’s are a level down from SNW, which are, in turn, a level down from DSC’s. If you don’t agree with that, we will need to simply agree to disagree, which is fine.
I saw 2 seasons of DSC, plus a horrendous turbolift sequence from sometime later on. Except for the tardigrade, I don’t remember being impressed with anything from that show.
So yeah we’ll have to disagree on DSC.
SNW’s work might be slightly better, or just uses different textures, but the ship movements were still n/g as I recall. The first shot of the -D in P season 3 seemed a little bit less awful, but that didn’t sustain, and the ship looked about HO-scale (1/87th) during the Borg flythrough.
I’d say differentiating between these series for me would be like comparing the VFX in STARCRASH, THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME and STARSHIP INVASIONS from decades past; they’re all unwatchably bad and consistently take me out of the story. My wife has actually complained about me wincing so hard during space shots that the sofa moves, which usually only happens during the painfully bad VFX cuts in the mostly-superb work done for ST-TMP.
The weird turbolift alternate dimension on Discovery always baffled/annoyed me. One more thing on a long list for that show, unfortunately.
I donot see where the special effects where bad or sub par to DSC.
The effects on picard are absolute cinaema level.
Agreed.
Which makes one wonder what Kyrsten Sinema thinks of the effects?
The effects were quite good. I quit watching DISCO after season 3, so I can’t compare the two.
Huh? Sounds like you would have 3 entire seasons of DCS then to compare to one season of Picard? Am I missing something?
I find this comment interesting. I suggest that the effects shots were done with nostalgia in mind and how it was filmed. Ships launching from Spacedock, the Enterprise D, the Cube, etc. I saw nothing beneath DSC and SNW. In fact, the image of the Enterprise D approaching Jupiter was probably better and more detailed than anything that I have seen on DSC and SNW.
I guess we could also say ‘why is the bridge on the Ent D not as detailed as the Ent in SNW?’ I think the answer is obvious.
I appreciate your opinion but I respectfully disagree.
The visuals effects were poor. Even worse than Discovery/Strange New Worlds. TNG ships look better than any new Trek. And that series doesn’t need a million ships on screen in (yet another) season finale fleet sequence to make compelling viewing.
Even worse than Discovery
There you go again — so over-the-top with your DSC bashing that’s it comes across as downright silly…lol
DSC has won/been nominated for multiple VFX awards. You may like not the series, but the VFX on DSC has been the best sf space VFX on any tv series over the past several years, with the possible exception of Foundation S1.
But we agree on Picard — well said on that
The space visual effects on Discovery (and SNW) ‘can’ look good on occasion, but the majority of the time looks incredibly cheap. Terrible lighting, low detail, high amounts of blur. The Starfleet HQ bubble for instance looked awful. Conceptually cool, but execution wise bad. Go look at the opening episode of Strange New Worlds, the Enterprise in space dock. The dock has multiple massive spotlights emitting light on the Enterprise, but the ship looks like it’s being lit with candles. Now go watch Andor, the second or third episode from the end, Luthen’s ship being stopped by the Empire. THAT is beautiful visuals effects, done right. It’s high detail, well lit, and you can actually see what’s happening, instead of the jumble of high constrasty visual noise DSC is renowned for.
What? Making starships a dime a dozen doesn’t up the drama when you can follow only one starship crew?
Anyone enjoy how Picard and David Marcus Picard enabled the Borg to take down Earth spacedock?? I thought it was exciting, one of the few times throwing clusters of starships at each other actually had some dramatic impact.
Okay, I’ll play. This show was littered with TNG era ships, Just how can the E-D be great, but also suck, in the same sentence?
The ship scenes on TNG look more real than the ship scenes in Picard. The latter has video game quality visuals.
You’ll be glad to hear that the VFX studio shut down and everyone lost their jobs.
That’s unfortunate.
While it seems likely that those employees will find new berths with another vfx house, it is still disruptive and distressing especially when the streamers aren’t producing.
Such is the nature of the VFX business. Sad, but true.
Each series captures a different visual aesthetic and even SNW moved away from the visual aesthetic of Discovery.
Watching the second video, it genuinely looks like video game cutscene graphics.
Yep
Agreed
The vfx weren’t the season’s strength.
Matalas has spoken to capacity constraints in the industry. Basically, even if they’d had more budget, the vendors didn’t have availability.
This isn’t the only show that’s suffered from inconsistent vfx quality, with the weaknesses often coming exactly where you least want to see it.
So, it suggests that writing to more realistic limits and avoiding over reliance on big and busy effects-heavy season finales is the way to go.
SNW’s episodic format makes it easier to balance the vfx across episodes, and Discovery’s fourth season finale relied more on virtual staging than traditional vfx.
Definitely suggests that writing to rely on the AR Wall and less on traditional vfx and busy multi ship battles is the way to go.
Matalas has spoken to capacity constraints in the industry. Basically, even if they’d had more budget, the vendors didn’t have availability.
That’s a cop out — I am not buying that. You pay for what you get, and if there are capacity constraints, you just have to pay more to get the quality you want.
When you are willing to pay what the market demands for the highest quality vendors, you will find that issues like “capacity constraints” suddenly and remarkably aren’t a problem in obtaining those services.
Cash talks, bull-shit walks.
It’s not a cop-out at all. VFX houses are being stretched to the limit right now (if not past their limit), both due to a ton of movies/TV shows being VFX heavy as well as simply not having enough people-power to get things done. Like pretty much all industries across the globe right now, VFX houses are having a hard time hiring enough employees to handle everything.
You can look directly at MCU movies, or the various Star Wars TV shows (both of which have huge budgets) to see the lackluster VFX quality.
Seriously? Every MCU movie over the past year, plus every SW TV show I have watched — while there have been some quality issues versus previous years — has significantly better space VFX scenes then what I saw in Picard S3. This proves my point, actually.
But we’ll also see on SNW coming up shortly. If this season of SNW has crappy VFX like Picard S3 then I will admit this might be the case. But I seriously doubt it.
I think Matalas did the best he could with the cut budget he was stuck with on Pic S3 due to the cost of all the actors sucking up most of the budget. But he needs to just admit that instead of giving us this total BS that “well even if I had more budget it would not had mattered due to capacity issues.” He’s making excuses and perhaps he’s even convinced himself of this, but I’m not buying it.
Yeah, I think it’s a cop out. But we’ll seen soon on SNW — that will definitively prove this out one way or the other.
There have been some fairly harsh criticisms of vfx in Marvel phase 4 streaming shows.
Budgets aren’t infinite.
How little budget Matalas had or didn’t, there are more shows chasing vfx services now and cinematic features take priority in the marketplace. He wanted a big splashy finale and lots of space scenes throughout the season. Quality gave way to volume.
The way I see it Discovery and SNW have done a better job of making the most of their vfx budgets since the pandemic. That has to be a reflection of planning by the showrunners from the way the season is broken and planned, the episodes written and onto the way the supervising directors manage the production with the episode directors.
All that being said, we will get a full measure of this when we all see SNW S2 shortly. If the VFX are much better than Pic S3, then Matalas was BS’ing us with a lame excuse (instead of just being straight with us that he had to go low budget on the VFX), but if not, I will be the first to fully buy into his excuse as a legitimate one.
He was straight with us – he flat out said the VFX suffered due to budget constraints. In his statement though, he acknowledged that even if the budget was increased, there simply wasn’t enough capacity within the various VFX houses to make much of a difference.
This isn’t a BS statement, this is true across the entire industry. You could have an unlimited budget, but if there aren’t enough people to create your VFX, no amount of money will change that (unless of course the VFX houses break contracts with other studios to solely focus on your one thing – which wouldn’t happen for a number of reasons).
We can all agree that the [some] of the VFX in PIC season 3 were subpar (albeit I would argue they were still good, just not great). But the reasons for that isn’t as simple as not enough budget.
In regards to SNW, I have no idea what its VFX budget is, or how much time everyone was given to create and render the CGI. But, if it’s VFX is better than PIC, that doesn’t prove your point that Matalas is BSing us (which, again, he is not). It simply proves that VFX is a hard thing to do, and a number of variables come into play in regards to its quality.
In his statement though, he acknowledged that even if the budget was increased, there simply wasn’t enough capacity within the various VFX houses to make much of a difference.
This is the BS/cop-out that I am not buying from him.
And in regards to this, so your saying it’s basically, “just trust noraa on Trekmovie because, believe me, she just knows,” and you can’t draw any conclusions from watching SNW, in which the VFX would have been done about the same time as the VFX in Pic S3, under similar constraints of access to vendors and staff?
This all has the incredibly surprising benefit in that you can never be wrong if I buy into this subjective logic…lol
No, I don’t think I will go with this, but nice try. ;-)
I am going to watch SNW, and we’ll just see for ourselves, regardless of your self-reinforcing logic where you would always end up being right, regardless of anything we actually see for ourselves.
• I’m a he, for whatever that’s worth (noraa is my name backwards).
• I actually replied to another one of your posts with a bunch of links backing up what I’ve been telling you about the plethora of issues within the VFX community, but it appears it got flagged for moderation (probably due to all of the links), and quite honestly I don’t feel like re-writing it without linking to the links. Just google “VFX industry issues” and you’ll find everything I’m talking about.
• Why would Matalas lie and BS us? What does he have to gain from it? It would be one thing if PIC S3 was not well received, and he was trying to blame it on the VFX, but he’s not. PIC S3 was very, very well received, and outside of this website (and even this article), I haven’t seen a lot of people complaining about the CGI.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I really don’t care whether you believe me or not. There’s honestly not even an argument here – Matalas said what he said, whether you believe him or not is your problem not mine (or his).
• Which leads me to a small aside, there’s a great interaction in the Matrix Reloaded b/w Commander Lock and Morpheus that seems somewhat apt here:
I love that quote! And I do really enjoy our discussions here as well, even though we seldom agree on stuff.
BTW, you yourself said above:
You can look directly at MCU movies, or the various Star Wars TV shows (both of which have huge budgets) to see the lackluster VFX quality
See, that’s all I want to with the comparison with SNW when we see it is to make this same sort of comparison that you made. This comparison should be a good one, since the VFX for both shows were done at the same time, and the shows have the same studio, management, etc. Show it should be a much better comparison actually then the Marvel and SW shows that you used for your own comparison.
Why would Matalas lie and BS us? What does he have to gain from it?
I don’t think it’s intentional, and I doubt he thinks he’s lying. As I mentioned to Stockworth in another post here today, I’m not saying the guy is lying but I know from having to juggle stuff in my own job that you sometimes go overboard with the excuses when you don’t have budget to do something the way you want to do it — and at some point you actually convince yourself that you’re excuses are accurate when they’re really an exaggeration of reality. That’s what I expect happened here. So yeah I’m calling BS on it. But at the same time I understand it and have nothing personal against a man — even though I think he’s overrated as a Star Trek creator/showrunner
Wow, you found a good line in a MATRIX sequel! Didn’t remember there were any, or at least that they were probably “lost in time like an undifferentiated sum in a null set of tears in rain,’ if you’ll permit me to mix my franchises.
So in case the vfx in SNW S2 will be better than PIC S3, THIS may be the (one of) the reasons they had much capacity focused on it SO THAT there were less capacity for other things, AS PIC S3..
Two different VFX companies, plus Picard’s VFX started before SNW though.
So could be the “better” company were chosen for SNW.. (Despite, I for myself enjoyed the vfx of Picard a lot!)
google: “MCU effects house complaints” and you’ll see a myriad of stories and links from about this time last year about the third-party effects house workers complaining about working conditions and work load in the field
Sure, I never said otherwise.
The VFX industry needs to unionize. I’m not sure why that’s not happening?
Unless you’ve worked as a line producer, produced visual effects or juggled budgets for a weekly series, trust me, it’s not a cop out.
We’ll see when we view the VFX in SNW over the next two months. That comparison will prove this out or not.
Strange New’s VFX are fantastic. They look better in the trailer than most of the shots in ST:P-S3. The two shows also have different expense structures, even if the per episode budgets are the same (though, I don’t think they are). Picard shoots in LA (which costs more than shooting in Toronto by virtue of being in California) and has a more expensive cast (more so in s3 than s2, of course). I’m gonna guess Patrick Stewart makes at least 2x Anson Mount, and getting back the TNG cast — whatever you might think about their relative standing as stars in general, they had all the leverage in these negotiations to come back for s3 — cost easily 2x the rest of SNW’s main cast when you combine them all.
One really weird/dumb thing about the streaming era is that shows can’t rollover budget surplus like Trek/shows could in the old days. If you have $10 million an episode and the episode costs you $9 million, you can’t rollover that $1 million to the next one or spread it out. It’s probably because of the way studios have to now conform to digital media practices of instant cost / instant profits instead of amortization, or just STEM-brained zero sum management, I don’t know, but it certainly influences how shows get made, too.
Yeah, exactly — great post!
If you can pay more, you typically get better VFX. So their is no reason to make a false claim that you would not get better VFX if you had double the budget to spend due to capacity issues — that’s not believable to me, and is my whole point here.
I would be surprised if streaming shows can’t “roll over” budget between episodes because there are definitely “smaller” and “bigger” episodes in the shows. Also, some of the larger sets are built to be reused over several episodes to spread costs out.
Think about it this way tho. There have been soooo many SciFi streaming shows in production trying to get movie quality VFX in. Each show has like 10 hours of content where a movie has like 3 – 4 mours max. and there are more shows than there used to be movies. We have shows like Marvel, Star Wars, DC, The Boys, Appke (who have God like money), etc… Supply and demand is a real thing, no matter what you can pay. And frankly Paramount can never hope to pay what Disney can let alone almighty Apple. And companies like ILM are not going to drop Star Wars for Star Trek.
Sure. But we have SNW S2 coming up, in which the VFX was done roughly about the same time as Pic S3 and so would be under the same industry and staffing constraints that you just mentioned — so we will be able to compare the quality of VFX in SNW S2 to Picard S3 and make a judgement there regarding Matalas’s claim.
It’s funny that I when I bring up doing this straightforward comparison how some are already so defensive about this approach before they have even seen SNW S2. This certainly makes me believe that they suspect I am not far off on calling BS on Matalas’s comments — they are kind of expecting the VFX to be superior in SNW S2 already….they suspect I am right, so they want to dismiss my comparison suggestion before we even see the new season…lol.
So in case the vfx in SNW S2 will be better than PIC S3, THIS may be the (one of) the reasons they had much capacity focused on it SO THAT there were less capacity for other things, AS PIC S3..
Wrong. I know several CG artists and producers within the Hollywood dynamic who are literally working through severe burnout and non-union hell hours to get contracts completed. There are massive capacity constraints. Work which is farmed out overseas is often not production-ready. Even some VFX artists in the US do not always possess the skillsets for the work requirements which they are tasked with–with monies burned through, poor outputs, need to re-do/re-work, and rejections from the production companies/studios, all of which results in “how can we get this done with reduced margins and lack of the right talent?” It is a VERY difficult industry. Add to that, chip shortages post-pandemic and higher HW and SW costs have continued to impact.
Your comment is bullsh!t.
Like, DUH, that’s why you have to pay top dollar to get it done right — that is my freaking point! Otherwise, you get farmed out stuff and backburner approaches to getting the workflow done — which is why you can’t go low budget in a high market demand environment for VFX services. This is not rocket science, it’s a classic supply and demand issue, and this is exactly why you can’t go low budget in the area like Matalas did for Pic S3 — you need to devote a higher budget to get qualify VFX in this environment like SNW is doing — and I predict that we are going to see much better VFX in SNW later this month which will fully prove out my point.
BTW, if you were following the trades, you would know that new VFX orders have been slowing down significantly this year, so your info is out of date as well.
Pay attention!
You have no idea what you are talking about or how the VFX industry works. You spout ignorance and use passive aggressive non sense to get your point across.
if you knew anything about the industry you’d know capacity problems are a huge HUGE problem. There simply aren’t enough vendors with enough artists to fill the demand and these companies are booked far in advance. So really, it should be you who aught to pay attention.
and your little theory about Strange New Worlds looking better than Picard S3 is also ridiculous. If they had come out at the same time? Ok. Maybe. But they had different production schedules. Different delivery dates. That will have a massive impact an every facet of production. Strange New Worlds also gets Canadian Tax Credits for shooting in Ontario, which means if they use a Canadian VFX vendor they get a rebate. Also, the Canadian vendor gets a break on taxes for doing business with a Canadian based production, so that vendor is more likely to work with..SNW over Picard. And there are ALOT of VFX firms based in Canada.
Look, I didn’t like most of Picard S3. I’m not even a fan of Matalas. Dude is arrogant as shit. But you should take a lesson from history.
this isn’t the first time Star Trek has had its visual effects affected by other productions. It happened on Star Trek 5. Different era, similar idea. ILM was completely booked up and 1989 was a crazy busy year for VFX houses. So what happened? Well I’m sure you’ve seen the results.
Are Picard season 3 FX bad? No. I don’t really care for modern trek aesthetics to begin with but they were fine. Nothing special but acceptable.
Here’s something else to consider:
15-20 years ago it was common for big budget movies to have about 350-500 visual effects shots. A big epic 3 hour fantasy movie like Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring had 570ish VFX shots. That was considered a BIG project. One company could pretty much do all that work(WETA. Tho another company did the Water Horse effect sequence)
Now? Movies like Antman, a 2 hourish movie, can have over 2,000 VFX shots. On a production schedule less than a year.
the original Jurassic Park movie had 58 CGI shots. The sequel had just over twice that if memory serves. The latest had over 1,000. And schedules haven’t gotten any better. That’s 1,000 is on the lower end.
here’s another example. Zack Snyder’s Justice League? They had 2,700+ VFX shots to complete. In 8 months. On a movie that had finished sequences already completed.
So the demand and the time is so insane that there just simply isn’t enough artists or vendors that can handle the workload. If Matalas was BSing, I’d be the first to admit it. But this is completely true.
Look at Marvel and Disney. They have all the money and big budgets to play with. And the VFX in those movies are still often TERRIBLE. Have you seen the examples from Dr. strange 2? A movie that cost over 200 million dollars? Or Black Widow? Or Black Panther? These are movies that can afford the best of the best. ILM/WETA Top shelf talent. And it looks looks like shit. Why? Time. They have a release date to hit and no amount of money will make that time any longer.
Fast X cost 350 million dollars and looks like a video game. Little Mermaid cost 200+ million and looks so fake. Why? Because these movies have 2,000+ shots to complete and only so much time allotted. Now if a 350 million dollar movie can’t get photoreal quality FX, how do you expect a Star Trek TV series to?
The issue that nobody seems willing to take on is WHY do you need 2000 VFX shots to tell the story? Another one: why do you need five short shots to tell the story when one sustained one is often better at conveying the scope and emotion of the moment?
The shots are shorter because they don’t hold up quality-wise, for one thing. Short attention span is I guess another. But why are older film that don’t have this as an option still so entertaining?
When I watch TUC, I don’t feel that the film is missing many points by not having a ton more shots, and I think it has something like 130 (I think ILM did about 85 model shots, and then there were Matte World’s paintings, plus a lot of animation by VCE, which did beam weapons, just like they did on TWOK and TFF.)
The issue that nobody seems willing to take on is WHY do you need 2000 VFX shots to tell the story? Another one: why do you need five short shots to tell the story when one sustained one is often better at conveying the scope and emotion of the moment?
Agree 100%
Guy So is it Guy or Voyage On or the DK rises? Frankly, I can’t keep up. Maybe just go with Sybli or Split? ;-) You have no idea what you are talking about or how the VFX industry works. You spout ignorance and use passive aggressive non sense to get your point across. Nope, I read the trades and know multiple people in the industry. if you knew anything about the industry you’d know capacity problems are a huge HUGE problem. There simply aren’t enough vendors with enough artists to fill the demand and these companies are booked far in advance. So really, it should be you who aught to pay attention. I never said otherwise. What I said was, given that, you have to pay top dollar to get the best effects you can in that environment, or you end up with subpar outputs from firms that are juggling too much and farming out too much. and your little theory about Strange New Worlds looking better than Picard S3 is also ridiculous. If they had come out at the same time? Ok. Maybe. But they had different production schedules. Different delivery dates. That will have a massive impact an every facet of production. The VFX work was done roughly at the same time — fact! Also, if you look at all the reviews and fan comments on the VFX or SNW S1 from last year, and do the same for Pic S3 this year — it’s conclusive that the majority popular opinion is that the VFX on SNW is significantly superior. You may not like this, but it is what it is. Strange New Worlds also gets Canadian Tax Credits for shooting in Ontario, which means if they use a Canadian VFX vendor they get a rebate. Also, the Canadian vendor gets a break on taxes for doing business with a Canadian based production, so that vendor is more likely to work with..SNW over Picard. And there are ALOT of VFX firms based in Canada. I knew that, but it’s not important to my overall point. Tax credits or not, you need to pay top dollar in this over-capacity environment to get higher quality VFX, regardless of where the employees are located. Also, if you really understood the VFX industry, you would understand that work is done internationally, and many VFX firms in the US have both remote international staff, plus international subcontracts working for them Look, I didn’t like most of Picard S3. I’m not even a fan of Matalas. Dude is arrogant as shit. But you should take a lesson from history. This isn’t the first time Star Trek has had its visual effects affected by other productions. It happened on Star Trek 5. Different era, similar idea. ILM was completely booked up and 1989 was a crazy busy year for VFX houses. So what happened? Well I’m sure you’ve seen the results. That is freaking hilarious. Do you even know the real story behind that? The real story is the Paramount didn’t want to pay the higher price tag that ILM wanted, and Shatner and the studio used the excuse of ILM not being available because of capacity constraints. Sure, they had capacity issues, but for the right price, they would have done it for Paramount. THIS IS EXACTLY my major here on Matalas/P+ going cheap on the VFX and using the capacity constraint thing as an excuse — you just unintentionally proved my key point — thank you! Are Picard season 3 FX bad? No. I don’t really care for modern trek aesthetics to begin with but they were fine. Nothing special but acceptable. Yes, as compared to other recent Kurtzman-Trek series. I’ll mention it again, if you look at all the reviews and fan comments on the VFX or SNW S1 from last year, and do the same for Pic S3 this year — it’s conclusive that the majority popular opinion is that the VFX on SNW is significantly superior. You may not like this, but it is what it is. So the demand and the time is so insane that there just simply isn’t enough artists or vendors that can handle the workload. If Matalas was BSing, I’d be the first to admit it. But this is completely true…Look at Marvel and Disney. They have all the money and big budgets to play with. And the VFX in those movies are still often TERRIBLE. Have you seen the examples from Dr. strange 2? A movie that cost over 200 million dollars? YES, THANKS FOR THAT EXAMPLE — THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO PAY TOP DOLLAR…It’s simply supply and demand economics. There is a reason why the WETA-led special effects on Avatar The Way of Water look so much better… Read more »
There is probably a little more to the ILM TFF thing than you indicate. For one, ILM had ‘consented’ to recomp a bunch of old ship shots to ease the model load for Ferren, but the elements could not be accessed (except for the two stock shots outside and inside spacedock, and I guess the starfield from TWOK that shows up during a malfunctioning log entry.) Now WHY they couldn’t be accessed is an interesting question. Was it that Paramount didn’t send them back to ILM to get comped, or did ILM have the elements in-house and lost them? Either way, it sound wonky to me.
I’ve always thougt that TFF could have benefited from the Skotak Brothers doing the VFX (they bid on TWOK and lost out, which is something else I regret happening … if not Trumbull, then I’d have preferred the Skotaks’ low-budget ingenuity over ILM’s oftentimes-too-slick operation.
Yea, I have read some of what you are mentioning. Your “Trek history details” info like this always amaze me, dude. Impressive!
One of the very first people I ever interviewed, Mike Wood, during my first article, about Spielberg’s ALWAYS, told me something about TFF that felt very honest. He said he was amazed at the limited resources Shatner had at his disposal on TFF and that considering those, his work directing it was really solid and creative. (Wood handled the physical FX on the movie after working on POLTERGEIST and INNERSPACE, and had to come up with some pretty elaborate stuff on short notice.)
I’ve always made a point of bringing up TMP and TFF when doing interviews since, as those two films are the ones I’m eternally interested in uncovering more details about.
Lol. First of all, this is my only account. It’s a little weird and paranoid you’d assume other people would be making accounts to talk to you.
And you are incorrect about the TFF scenario. ILM had Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones 3, Back to the Future Part 2 and The Abyss all in 1989. In fact when Ghostbusters 2 had reshoots completed ILM had to subcontract work out to Phil Tippet & John Dykstra’s company. They literally couldn’t take on anymore work for a film they had already been booked on. So again, you are incorrect. Ghostbusters 2 had a big budget but they were running out of time. They couldn’t just offer ILM for money. They were at capacity! At a certain point the amount of money you spend become moot when that deadline approaches.
Also…dude. “Roughly the same time” is the difference between a shot looking good and a shot looking bad. I’ve seen a shot go from shit to amazing within a matter of hours. So again, you can’t compare the effects like that on SNW. Well you can, but you’d be doing so from a place of ignorance. You’d know this if you actually knew anyone in the industry.
“I read the trades” LOL. Thanks for the laugh. He reads the trades everybody. He knows because he reads the trades.
I also think you need to look up the word “bad”. It seems you are unaware of its definition. If you want to see what “BAD” FX look like, go watch a show on the CW. That looks bad compared to SNW.
and Yes to the person who said it’s ridiculous that a movie had 2,000 VFX shots, I agree. If LOTR can get away with less than 600 surely most movies can. All these big budget studio movies look like video games. Even shit like someone standing outside a building has become a VFX shot. Everything looks so faux.
The point you are saying is if they had more money the VFX would be better, despite Matalas saying otherwise. I used the cost of those other movies to show you are incorrect and that Matalas is right. Fast and Furious movies have all the money to play with but they still run into the same problem. A compromised product due to lack of time.
One thing this season did prove tho was how much better model photography looks Vs CGI. The D model just looks better imo. The way the blue lights fill up the nacelles?
I wish companies would go back to model and motion control work.
So if SNW comes out and looks better or looks worse, it will tell you absolutely zero about Picards post production process & budget. Why? Again, TIME. The only way you could positively say this is if the shows were released at the same time. But they were not.
Of course an AR wall is still just a tool that has to be used properly both on paper and in practice. Shows are still learning how best to use the technology – Discovery, Mando, Obi Wan and SNW have showcased both its advantages and its limits.
I agree. It’s just another way to create the illusion.
The point is that production design, practical effects, vfx and virtual staging are all resources that have to be balanced by the showrunner, writers, directors and line producers to create the entire experience.
My inference is that Matalas put a lot of the budget into paying for the legacy cast, but also wanted big movie quality space engagements with lingering vfx shots.
Doesn’t sound like he was willing to cut back on the planned storyboards. There were limits on what he could contract for (tight capacity and high rates) so he settled for the planned amount with lower quality.
Decks&Necks wish to compare to SNW or Discovery isn’t reasonable because other things aren’t equal here. Writing a season without extended or complex vfx scenes means the vfx quality can be higher for the same contracted time. Using virtual staging with different contractors takes a load off of post production vfx filling in green screens and saves it for space scenes.
There were limits on what he could contract for (tight capacity and high rates) so he settled for the planned amount with lower quality.
Exactly! My issue is that there was no reason for him to claim he could have not gotten better special effects with a larger VFX budget because of the capacity excuse. You usually get what you pay for, especially in saturated markets where you are willing to pay top dollar. Just be straight with the fans — I don’t need that lame excuse.
I know you hate Terry, and it’s a cool opinion to have because it makes you unique, a hard thing to be in fandom, but one last data point that could still give some veracity to his claim you say he’s lying about: time. Terry has no control over how much time P+ allotted this project, and the fact that they shot the seasons back-to-back and it was in the can nearly six months before it premiered strongly suggested that financing and production were mapped out with a very specific timeframe. FX houses bid on these projects and their current and future schedules are certainly a component of those bids. It’s plausible and there’s even a degree of probability, if one is willing to extend some grace, that they got the best FX house they could get with the money they had and the schedule they had.
But also, everybody lies about everything all the time in Hollywood, even your favorite Star Trek showrunner, whoever that may be. It’s the nature of the business. I get though it’s also the nature of the business that there’s always gonna be somebody who hates you and wants nothing but the worst for you, so, I don’t begrudge you your point that TM is a trash person, but I do offer this one other data point you’ve overlooked up to this point.
As Trek fans, we should be intimately familiar with the scenario of producers feeling they could get more bang for their buck by looking to alternative vendors. It worked with ILM, Digital Domain and DNEG on TWOK, NEM and STB respectively, and didn’t quite pan out for TFF and INS.
And then creatively there were noticeable differences in the VFX remasters of TNG seasons 2 and 4 versus those handled exclusively by CBS, and in the quality and style of what Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse produced for DS9 and Voyager. There’s got to be some artistic subjectiveness factored in along with theories about economics and production.
100%. I don’t know that TM had the ability to choose that vendor/those vendors, ultimately. That seems like something that would’ve been handled at the Secret Hideout-level. But, yeah, to afford the cast and the rebuild of the D bridge and everything else they had to do, it’s just as plausible and even more probable that they just decided, “We’ll get what we get with the VFX.”
For what it’s worth, I thought the recreations of the older ships were fantastic and I didn’t think the VFX were any worse than the previous seasons of the show (and I think the previous seasons of Picard are some of the worst TV made this century).
I agree, I thought they were *fun* which is far more important and timeless. The CGI of DS9-ENT is out of date in terms of realism, but not artistic merit.
I don’t hate the dude. I think he did a reasonable job on a one-off TNG reunion season that got the fan service closure some TNG fans seemed to desperately crave. He served his purpose and delivered that, and I give him credit for that accomplishment.
I certainly think he’s overated though, and I don’t think he should be heading a new Legacy series based on what we got in Pic S3, which fails when you take out TNG fan service elements that are it’s saving grace…what’s left is junk plotting and action adventure, not TNG-type Star Trek with problems being solved by intelligent and mature adult characters.
And frankly I don’t see much difference in the type of Trek that Matalas gave us versus what JJA gave us…the only difference is that Matalas plays the fan game with all of his tweets and “news” that is non-stop at times. But they both give us Star Wars masquerading as Star Trek — Matalas just sells it a lot better because he is much more willing to engage with the fans and to go more fan service sentimental in what he gives to us.
One thing about the wall: what it really does is move some post VFX up into preproduction or even actual production and **in most shows** it always needs post work done to fix issues or the finnicky filmmakers make changes on the fly that blow up the entire point of having everything setup in advance. It certainly has *the potential* to deliver the way you describe it and the way the company’s word of mouth marketing has gone, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s worked with it who’s done anything other than shake their head at the first sound of conventional wisdom about it — not even vaguely suggesting that you’re saying something wrong or bad, just adding some more info.
I did not notice this, but that’s spot on.
I would dearly love to get a sneak peek at the budgets and production schedules for Obi Wan vs Andor and see how they stack up with such different approaches to location filming.
That’s interesting and an important insight.
I had hoped that both the pandemic protocols and the upfront design requirements of virtual staging would raise the bar on preplanning – writing ahead, more complete storyboarding, more disciplined direction etc.
I think they have in some shows. In others, the ingrained behaviours have been too deep to really change in response to what should be two coincidental major disruptions in the way production needs to be done.
True, but AR walls shunt a similar amount of VFX labor into previz and prepro while freeing up time (if not money) for post production work that doesn’t have to involve composting.
I’m sure there’s truth to your theory. Picard season 3 is pretty blatantly an exercise in writing around its budgetary constraints. Overall it still looks glossy and expensive (because it is), but there’s no location filming outside of episode 1, and most of story takes place on the same standing sets. The majority of the episodes in the nebula are basically bottle episodes. We know they had to nix multiple cameos for budget reasons and original Picard cast members as well. Rebuilding the Enterprise D bridge was expensive. COVID safety protocols are expensive. Production was not rushed like it was with season 1, so any VFX that look less polished aren’t a result of running out of time. It’s all an exercise in compromising where they needed to while trying to focus on what mattered most, and I was happy overall.
Wow! Great visual effects! We have come a long way since using models in 1966!
Sure, for the 1966 models. The models in TOS movies were vastly superiorr though to the CGI ships we just saw in Pic S3 though.
In my opinion, models are always better than CGI due to the fact you can actually see the depth and better scaling with them.
The problem today is that everyone is used to video games. So when they see CGI in a TV show or movie, they feel it is lacklustre.
Don’t forget, they create everything for a video game and then don’t have to change anything. They have a bigger deadline to get their release. More time to work with it.
In a TV show that has limited time and budget, you will not get the same quality as a video game. And think that is where people have to stop comparing the two. Apple and Oranges. Or… Macintosh Apples and Granny Smith Apples. Know what I mean?
True, unless you have James Cameron $$$ to spend. But then again, he mixes as much real stuff with CGI as possible given he has the budget.
I agree with all of your post — well said.
I found that the ships based off the TOS movie era (Intrepid, Titan-A) looked great.
The dime a dozen TNG era starships I felt were lackluster… though that happens since they operate like fighters just running at each other, flying around with little drama due to the limitations of television.
That being said, I did like the scene where Picard and David Marcus Picard enabled the Borg to take down Earth spacedock. I thought it was exciting, one of the few times throwing clusters of starships at a target actually had some dramatic impact is something that makes tactical and strategic sense like taking down a starbase.
The FX were fine. For the suspension of disbelief that was required to watch this season, the FX served its purpose. I’m sure there will be an Emmy nomination or two next year.
I’m sure there will be an [VFX] Emmy nomination or two next year.
And have I got an great investment deal for you with a Condo project in Mariupol.
LOL
Emmy nominations and final votes are from industry peers. not fans. They have a keen understanding of what went into creating the visual effects so a nomination seems likely.
Of course, and it is for that EXACT REASON that a nomination seems incredibly unlikely to me. Those peers know great work vs. just passable VFX when they see it.
I would be willing to bet in Vegas that Pic S3 gets no Emmy nomination for it’s VFX work (I am not including make-up). It’s mediocre VFX as best, and pales in comparison to what we have seen on DSC and SNW S1.
We’ll see.
I’ve worked on a number of effects heavy shows over the years and a lot of factors go into determining which shows are nominated and what ultimately wins. It’s a fairly tight knit community and they approach nominations with a much different eye.
Yep!
Nominations and wins do not reflect the quality of work in most instances. When SILENT RUNNING came out, there was not even an award that year … but a couple years later, LOGAN’S RUN and KING KONG both got one, and the work in those films was (except for LR matte painting) just terrible, they obviously ‘bought’ the awards somehow.
APOLLO 13 getting beat by BABE for the fx Oscar is one of the great travesties of our time in this field. And I still don’t get how ET beat out POLTERGEIST (and especially BLADE RUNNER!!!!!!!) in that year either. Right up there with TMP losing best score to A LITTLE ROMANCE, and Ken Adam never being nominated for DR STRANGELOVE art direction and only once being nominated for a Bond film!!!
The fact that a Trek series won a VFX award in the last year or two utterly flabbergasted me, but given these other weirdnesses, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. TNG got screwed over early on, with lesser TV movies winning vfx awards, but eventually they got some of their due.
As a Ukrainian I’m pretty sure I should be offended. Now I’m safe in the USA because my grandparents came to this country but you are trivializing it.
Yeah, that was wrong. My apologies.
Yeah, not cool to trivialize a war torn nation that has resulted in the death of thousands
Yeah, that was wrong. My apologies
👍❤️
Other than the space jellyfish scene and the later Enterprise-D slow flyby towards Jupiter, I can’t remember being in awe of anything else in season 3. Pretty standard stuff.
As for cinematography, Mr. Joffin mentioned being inspired by Rogue One, but I don’t think they quite reached that level, to put it mildly. I think I’ve said this on here before, but for me much of the season was like watching TV at midnight through a dirty screen door under the light of a bug zapper. Although, the lighting did improve in later episodes.
I forgot about the Titan leaving Spacedock. That looked nice.
VFX were good because someone understood cinematography. That shot of the ‘angry’ Intrepid, the Enterprise D looked fantastic. Some of the ship models were obviously very low poly. Especially some of ships in the museum.
The two shots you mention were indeed very well done. The more it baffles me that the hero ship itself, the Titan, seemed so low res. Often times covered in haze to hide imperfections or lit weirdly.
Perhaps the budget was cut after the lacklustre response to season 1 and 2. I agree with you about the Titan. If they’d understood that it would be a smash hit, maybe they’d have spent more…….
“Not only did the Season 3 premiere perform well for Paramount+, topping the Season 4 premiere of “Star Trek Discovery” by more than 40%, but momentum built week after week”
The Wrap
It’s difficult to know because the metrics are murky and the ones from different firms measure slightly different things.
What we do know from Marina Sirtis and others speaking a beyond the approved lines, is that the pressure TNG reunion a direct response on subscriber drop off in season two – something the article doesn’t address. There’s a possibility that even the budget Matalas had for S3 would have been pulled if they hadn’t gone flat out for a nostalgic reunion.
The Wrap likes to pull in and cherry-pick interesting metrics from a variety of different metrics firms for its articles. Unless you subscribe to all these different services, which none of us non-professionals can, we’re usually just getting the top line stuff.
In the article you quote, The Wrap was citing SambaTV numbers which are pulled from smart TVs in the US and other countries.
This is really hard and reliable data, but only represents households watching on relatively new televisions, ignoring those who watch on other devices. The demographic skews older, more affluent and perhaps more male due to sports viewing. SambaTV is however one of the metrics services that Paramount has contracted with, so it’s definitely being taken into account in their decision-making.
So, the hard facts that we can pick up from this particular article are that the segment of the market that’s watching primarily on new smart TVs watched much more Picard S3 than Discovery S4, and that Picard S3 built viewership over its run.
Another recent article in The Wrap, citing Parrot Analytics’ demand metrics, gives us another angle – in 2022, the two franchises, Star Trek and Yellowstone, accounted for about half Paramount+‘s viewership.
It sounds as though SNW, Lower Decks and Prodigy (Paramount’s two most in demand digital animated originals last year) accounted for more of the viewer demand in 2022 than either Discovery S4 or Picard S2, and that Trek demand remains make or break for Paramount. This has surely led to the decisions that have been announced so far.
What decisions will come out of the 2023 Trek shows’ runs are yet to come, and there’s collective bargaining and contracts in play.
Complain about special effects all you want. These streaming services don’t have endless amounts of cash. All you have to do is read the news to understand that. In fact, they’re losing money on these services.
I enjoyed Picard season 3, and enjoy the other shows. I think the special effects are great for streaming television. Are they perfect? No. But I’m enjoying the shows and in the end that’s all that matters to me and my friends.
Complain about special effects all you want. These streaming services don’t have endless amounts of cash. All you have to do is read the news to understand that. In fact, they’re losing money on these services.
Agreed, yet I get killed here for being a tad skeptical of the writer’s financial demands given these very poor financial conditions for the streaming services that you have brought up?
Besides all that, I wasn’t complaining that Matalas had to go low budget on the VFX out of financial necessity. What I was complaining about was it lame excuse that even if they had more money they could not have procured better VFX — I am simply not buying that and I believe it’s a cop-out.
the argument that “the business pivoted to streaming to pay everybody less and have fewer middlemen between content and consumer to realize the lost profits from licensing/other viewing windows but their projection modeling didn’t mature before money stopped being free; therefore, writing for film & TV should no longer be a profession” is worth getting some pushback on a message board, I think, especially for a property like Star Trek, which is all about the writing.
That’s fair.
I get your skepticism, and I won’t try to refute it, it’s a reasonable take. FWIW, I don’t have any particular reason to doubt Matalas, but it’s probable that with enough extra money they may have been able to buy more/better VFX. But then there’s timelines to consider, if it can be done in time, and how much more they’d need to get in order to make a worthwhile difference. There’s lots that goes in to it.
All that aside, however, I don’t think it’s your skepticism in and of itself that gets you “killed” here.
My intuition is that saying that TM (who is pretty beloved of both the fanbase in general, and many folks on this board) is spouting BS is what’s doing it. That he’s trying to “cop-out.” That, without being in the room where the decisions were made, you’ve got a better understanding of how the industry worked right as stuff was being produced.
I know you’re a person of strong opinions and that’s fine! But, like, do you see how maybe effectively calling TM a liar (or at least disingenuous) on a board that quite likes him might ruffle some feathers? I know you can get set off easily, and I know you like to push buttons, but is it surprising that you’re getting that response?
I know tone doesn’t come across online well, and my ADHD brain is bad at noting what tone I’ve got, so I’m explicitly stating that I’m not trying to come at you. Just like, general conversation, kind of inquisitive. You’re not unreasonable for being skeptical.
That’s a good perspective and I agree with most of it. I’m not saying the guy is lying but I know from having to juggle stuff in my own job that you sometimes go overboard with the excuses when you don’t have budget to do something the way you want to do it — and at some point you actually convince yourself that you’re excuses are accurate when they’re really an exaggeration of reality. That’s what I expect happened here. So yeah I’m calling BS on it. But at the same time I understand it and have nothing personal against a man — even though I think he’s overrated as a Star Trek creator/showrunner
Amen! You don’t need “perfect” VFX if you enjoy the show.
As a fan of Babylon 5, I can assure you that this is always true :P
To me the (space) VFX were mostly disappointing for a series this high end. They ranged from mediocre to fine. Only a handfull of shots were truely awesome and of great quality (the Intrepid and the D). Oddly enough, one of the worst CGI this season was of the hero ship itself. The Titan often lacked surface detail, had too much haze (to cover the lack of surface detail) and/or was lit weirdly. It looked really low res. The poor CGI took me out of this amazing season a lot of the times. Quite frankly I don’t understand why some of the ships looked so low res, when you’re seeing amazing ‘amateur’ CGI projects on YouTube that are often times really really good. My opinion maybe sounds harsh, but with CGI it’s either hit or miss. You buy it, or you don’t.
Foolishly, I’ll wade in.
The VFX for PIC S03 were perfectly fine. World altering? Not really. Nice enough to look at, though. I could have used more “stately” movement from the D, rather than it Millennium Falcon-ing its way through the MegaCube, but that’s a direction choice.
Maybe I’m an old man (I am) but I just don’t see what folks are complaining about in either direction, saying that PIC has either the worst VFX in Trek, or DSC has terrible ones. They look more or less the same to me.
DSC has had lots of things that are really pretty, but also lots of overly busy laser pewpewpew bits (thinking of the battle against Control at the end of S02). Similarly I think Picard has had some really good stuff. The nebula was great and I bought both the Titan and Shrike in that setting. On the flipside it also had transdimensional robot tentacles and the busy laser pewpewpew back in S01 which I did not care for at all.
I wonder if some of it comes down to response to design and direction choice. I will forever think that Discovery’s spinning jump drive thing looks more hokey than cool, and even if it’s rendered in the best possible way, it’ll never look “good” to me. Same goes for its super cavernous interior, or the transformers-style morphing that Book’s ship did. But like, that’s just my taste. It doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the rendering, and it seems foolish to conflate the two.
As another old man I happen to agree with everything you wrote. After DSC S1, I’ve gotten spoiled by ‘awesome for a TV show’ effects but not so jaded that I would nitpick.
I’m an oldster too, but I find pretty much all of these VFX awful, in almost a seaQuest-level way (in keeping with most of VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE not looking any good either, but VOY at least had good black levels some of the time.) If PicS3 were taking place underwater, maybe I’d cut it some slack.
Since I don’t know when there will be another thread about Picard to post this, I’ll do it here.
Firstly, if Changelings were SO desperate to capture Jack Crusher, WHY did they keep coming at him and Bev as FOES, like Klingons and other antagonistic species, rather than as FRIENDS?
THEY’RE CHANGELINGS!
They could have posed as Riker and Troi, or Worf and Geordi, and used subterfuge to lure Jack and Bev into a trap.
Secondly, on Deep Space Nine’s “Chimera”, Laas was able to transform into a space-dweeling creature. Why couldn’t, or didn’t, Vadic do the same on Picard when they tossed her out the airlock? Why did she let the “fraking solids” kill her when she could have just as easily survived?
Klingons aren’t foes though but you have a good point there. Probably because something something plot.
Indeed.
Jack did mention Klingons, no?
I honestly don’t remember anymore
As per the Memory Alpha summary, “Picard asks who they were, but Jack admits he doesn’t know, only that whoever was piloting the ship has resources; the Fenris Rangers came after the Eleos first, then Klingons a day later, and then three Starfleet officers who tried to “prime direct [him] into an early grave”, as Jack puts it.”
Oh. I think I forgot it because it just made no sense to me. There’s always the rogue Klingon that’s obsessed with their old ways but otherwise it made no sense.
The Changelings pretending to be anyone other than Picard himself or anyone else from the Enterprise-D made no sense, heh.
The VFX for Picard season 3 were fun, and they let the shots linger, which I really appreciated. One reason why the ships of TOS-ENT made real impressions was not only that there was a lot of stock shots being reused, but also they took their time with simple beauty passes. I loved that they honored that a little here while having more leeway with what the camera could do.
This is not to say the CGI wasn’t uneven – the textures for the Shrike and Titan, the cloud effects and the lighting looked too artificial to my eye during the nebula/anomaly episodes.
But the Enterprise D looked great in almost every shot, M’talas IV and all the set extension work was flawless, the CGI creatures and the shapeshifters were stellar, and nearly all of “The Last Generation” was a showcase for opulent and exciting VFX IMO. I feel no need to get bent out of shape about any of this and don’t really think that these artists deserve that.
Those who complain about the current batch of Star Trek writers, just be glad Damon Lindelof was fired from Trek after Into Darkness. This week, half the cast and writers of Lost are accusing him of being blatantly racist. We dodged a bullet when he was removed from the Star Trek franchise.
Thanks for flagging.
This stuff seems to always come out eventually.
I found the VFX to be somewhat inconsistent, but most of the shots were great. The worst that stood out for me were all of the scenes inside of the space dock. I don’t know if it was all the added haze or what, but those scenes had a video game look to me.
My absolute favorite scene, that I thought was done well, was when the Enterprise D was firing on the Borg cube. That scene looked great and instantly reminded me of Voyager attacking the tactical cube at the end of Unimatrix Zero pt.1. That was one of my favorite battle scenes from Voyager and was cool to see something similar in Picard. It was done really well.
Most of the crew on special effects teams are vastly underpaid. That is all everyone needs to know. Personally, I always prefer a few good effects over a ton of sloppy ones. Too few people are being asked to create far too much. That is happening on almost every show.
The industry desperately needs a union.
Even a union isn’t always enough … the WGA doesn’t seem to achieve anywhere near the gains of SAG or DGA. In fact, DGA has already won concessions about AI and live rounds and all sorts of other stuff that the producers don’t even want to engage about for the writers.
Right. I think the issue is just that the vfx artists are just overworked and underpaid and need to be treated better. Maybe then we’ll start seeing better effects across the board if the industry allows them to take their time with it.
i loved the effects
Some of the VFX shots were great, like the exterior of Space Dock, but I still think nothing beats a good real old fashion model.
Time is money, first thing to go is sections of the plot hence why you feel there is something missing when watching the show. next thing to lighten is VFX. Common for every high end action sci-fi show.
Also see Final Frontier as the ultimate example lol
Not really, because the VFX costs for TFF were more than the costs for any of the three previous films, and I think more than the costs for ILM’s part of doing TUC (a friend of mine had access to the budget sheets and posted them on the bbs site about 15 years ago.) Pretty sure that’s why TFF wound up costing 33 mil, because of the 5 mil or so that went to those largely cruddy VFX (for sake of comparison, ILM’s work 7 years earlier on TWOK cost about 2.8 mil, and that includes the Genesis tape stuff as well as the traditional fx.)
I think it’s worthwhile to mention that TNG got a lot of mileage out of its stock library of large-model starship “flyby” elements that were filmed at ILM (and reusing models created for the TOS feature films, like the Reliant and Excelsior).
Lots of episodes without a new ship-of-the-week or starship battle, reused library elements, relatively simple onscreen static shots.
That meant they could invest in a lot of high-quality film originals, and then spend relatively little over the course of a season on any new VFX elements.
This also meant that whatever lighting style they set up for the original filmed model elements had to be matched in later shots, so there was a more rigid shooting / lighting style.
Contemporary CGI is both a blessing and a curse in that you can theoretically do anything onscreen, given enough planning, time, staffing, render farm capacity and budget, but trying to match feature film expectations on TV budgets and timescales means there’s always going to be corners cut.
The serialized miniseries nature of each season of Picard means there wasn’t really a set of standardized HQ ship shots etc. in each episode (e.g. the “ship orbiting the planet of the week” etc.) so to produce that number of original VFX shots, assets, textures must have been a crunch for all involved.
I can imagine that some of the trade-offs – the foggy lighting style, the reduced render distances, etc – were made to be able to render sequences faster. Indeed, it’d be possible, if all those assets and sequences are properly archived, to re-render them later with more depth / detail / crispness, but that’d require a big monetary commitment from Paramount.
I was totally satisfied with the effects specifically because it gave this season a different feel than any of the other current treks. I like SNW as a show, but I feel like the effects are almost too sharp/detailed to the point that they feel like a high end video game.
As someone who grew up on Star Trek shows using primarily physical models, I haven’t been able to adapt to the ultra-HD, highly processed aesthetic. It’s neither good nor bad, in my mind. It’s just not my taste.