|
Anonymouse Mook posted:That said, I think phasers were done better in Khan than most of the TNG era stuff (that I can remember). They just feel so anaemic in comparison. Well, the fact that the shields are down and the phasers in TWoK were all inflicting physically modelled damage certainly helped there. As for the other movies, well, the Bird of Prey looked better shooting torpedoes and the Enterprise doesn't actually do that much firing in any of the other movies. Except for TUC, but plot points required those battles to be torpedoes. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 15, 2025 |
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2025 13:43 |
|
|
I think a lot of it boils down to continuous beam phasers only feeling appropriately punchy if the shields are down. They work in TWOK because you see them cut the hull directly and then it cuts to things exploding in the interior. The models end up scarred and charred for the rest of the film and it really helps sell the phasers as being powerful and dangerous. They never have the same feel in the TNG films because by that point we’re deep in the constant “shields at [x] percent!” era of Trek and nothing the phasers do ends up mattering when it comes to resolving the battle. First Contact has a decent moment of all the ships firing on the Cube at the same time, but you still have plenty of torpedoes giving your audio track that punch at the same time. In Insurrection, the phasers are pretty anemic again and the ultimate solution comes in the form of the Briar Patch explosion. In Nemesis they just ram the drat ship. There’s also an argument to be made that torpedoes are just more cinematic than continuous beam phasers because it evokes traditional naval capital ship combat more effectively.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:38
|
|
|
Also, the travel time of a torpedo can give the characters a moment to dramatically react to one coming towards them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:39
|
|
|
Secret of Vulcan Fury could have been a 10/10 game but that is a stupid loving title for Trek, unless it's a kung fu action game where you play as a Vulcan martial arts master
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:39
|
|
|
It was about an ancient Vulcan superweapon from the time of the Vulcan/Romulan split.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:42
|
|
|
Anonymouse Mook posted:When it comes to the battles in the TOS films, I always thought it curious that WoK was the only film to actually use the phasers. I know they refer to them in TMP, but other than those it's just torpedos after torpedos. I wonder if there was any reason for that, other than torps just having a punchier feel than the beams? Probably easier to do the VFX.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:47
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:It was about an ancient Vulcan superweapon from the time of the Vulcan/Romulan split. We already had that story. Gambit. It was a two-parter even.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:48
|
|
|
Accipiter posted:We already had that story. Gambit. Yeah, the plan was that the weapon was a secret space weapon that had to be mind melded with to use and was used to destroy most of the Romulan fleet as they left Vulcan, and eventually passed into myth, now the Romulans were going to find it and use it against Vulcan. Given the similarities in concept I wouldn't be surprised if it was going to be related to the doodad from Gambit, scaled up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:51
|
|
|
Phasers suck in the TNG films because we never got a film-quality shot of those sweet phaser arrays on the saucer section doing their cool charge-up sequence
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:51
|
|
|
Its modern fan work, but I like the way this guy does the WoK Phasers (and disruptors) showing them occasionally managing to slightly penetrate the shields and leaving burning marks on the target ship's hull. They also make the torpedoes feel appropriately punchy too.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQAjj-WSdJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVrqrWXsYBA
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:52
|
|
|
Yeah, Howard Day's awesome. It's not like they really could have pulled that off back in the day, though.CPColin posted:Phasers suck in the TNG films because we never got a film-quality shot of those sweet phaser arrays on the saucer section doing their cool charge-up sequence It always saddened me that they kept cutting the arrays short on ships after the D so we didn't get the big cool sweep.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:53
|
|
|
That little bit in DS9 when two Galaxies phaser a Cardassian ship so hard it gets pushed around was neat, more of that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:54
|
|
|
Yeah the glowing charge condensing across the whole strip is the best part of the TNG+ Phaser Arrays, otherwise I prefer the little ball turret banks of the TMP-era ships. Phasers (ship and hand) just sounded cooler in the movies with those harsh electric noises rather than the TNG+ sound effect.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 20:57
|
|
|
The movies were by and large doing Age of Sail but Space, and torpedo's = cannon balls. MikeJF posted:Also, the travel time of a torpedo can give the characters a moment to dramatically react to one coming towards them. Also this. Like, ST6, Chang orders a torpedo fired while lounging confidently in his chair and spouting Shakespeare, you get the shot of the torpedo being fired, you get the heroes bracing for it, you see it flying through space, you see the collision, you see the characters getting jolted around, Kirk looks concerned, Bones makes a quip, you see a couple of random stunt people go flying, some extras leg it down a corridor, you see the damage scarring the Enterprise, you see Chang spinning in his chair celebrating. You've got a build up of tension, release, and a whole bunch of character moments. There's more actual story in a 10 second torpedo hit sequence in ST6 than like 10 minutes of Nemesis, which is why the latter felt so dull despite so much 'more' happening. Trek used to be really really good at this, even going back to TOS, but even by the end of DS9/VOY battles were turning into empty pew pew over tension building / release and character moments. Oddly the only show since early DS9 to really get it right is Lower Decks.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 22:24
|
|
|
The one cool thing in Nemesis was sweeping around with all phasers firing to find the cloaked ship. Would've been cool to see that again in something that didn't suck.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 22:26
|
|
|
Waffleman_ posted:That's the secret They're always angry?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 22:39
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:The one cool thing in Nemesis was sweeping around with all phasers firing to find the cloaked ship. Would've been cool to see that again in something that didn't suck. Kind of although you'd think once they found the Scimitar they'd just keep a low-medium power phaser beam constantly tagging it so that they could get an accurate bead with torpedoes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 23:19
|
|
|
Galaga Galaxian posted:Yeah the glowing charge condensing across the whole strip is the best part of the TNG+ Phaser Arrays, otherwise I prefer the little ball turret banks of the TMP-era ships. I feel like hand phasers are almost loving pointless in modern Trek, it seems like anything that isn't human can just shrug them off. Sound effects in general have become largely gutless over the past couple of decades, it's even infected Star Wars.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2025 23:21
|
|
|
DavidCameronsPig posted:The movies were by and large doing Age of Sail but Space, and torpedo's = cannon balls. This makes me think of why i hate all the annoying nerds who are always "Real space battles would be fought out of visual range and flinging asteroids at each other, its stupid that all these movies and shows have everyone shooting lasers at each other right next to each other" and i'm thinking how that sounds boring as gently caress for an extended battle. It lacks the drama and excitement of what we normally see. There is a reason they're done this way. Go hang out with other CinemaSins watchers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 11:23
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:This makes me think of why i hate all the annoying nerds who are always "Real space battles would be fought out of visual range and flinging asteroids at each other, its stupid that all these movies and shows have everyone shooting lasers at each other right next to each other" and i'm thinking how that sounds boring as gently caress for an extended battle. It lacks the drama and excitement of what we normally see. There is a reason they're done this way. Expanse proves it's possible to do that in a coolass watchable way, but yeah, that's a certain very specific vibe that Trek just doesn't want. And The Expanse has a much more limited audience appeal.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 11:36
|
|
|
CPColin posted:Phasers suck in the TNG films because we never got a film-quality shot of those sweet phaser arrays on the saucer section doing their cool charge-up sequence Best part of the Star Trek 2009 video is watching the Kelvin, upon going into general quarters, pop a fuckton of point defense clusters, phasers for secondary fire and torps for primary.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 13:11
|
|
|
One thing new Trek does not understand is that a slow and sustained laser blast is so much cooler and visually interesting than a million pewpewpews. The animated ones get this right at least
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 13:23
|
|
|
Freespace 2 showed that you can have really dramatic, intense action with beam weaponry, they could absolutely do that kind of thing with phasers if they wanted to.DavidCameronsPig posted:The movies were by and large doing Age of Sail but Space, and torpedo's = cannon balls. Even the phaser attack in WoK is very reminiscent of a broadside cannon attack.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 13:53
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:This makes me think of why i hate all the annoying nerds who are always "Real space battles would be fought out of visual range and flinging asteroids at each other, its stupid that all these movies and shows have everyone shooting lasers at each other right next to each other" and i'm thinking how that sounds boring as gently caress for an extended battle. It lacks the drama and excitement of what we normally see. There is a reason they're done this way. REAL space battles also take place at a speed too quick for an unaugmented human to follow, which is why you just play them back later
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 14:08
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:REAL space battles also take place at a speed too quick for an unaugmented human to follow, which is why you just play them back later Or you just do the occasional slow motion bit like halfway through this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0dR-82s9aQ&t=95s
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 14:36
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:This makes me think of why i hate all the annoying nerds who are always "Real space battles would be fought out of visual range and flinging asteroids at each other, its stupid that all these movies and shows have everyone shooting lasers at each other right next to each other" and i'm thinking how that sounds boring as gently caress for an extended battle. It lacks the drama and excitement of what we normally see. There is a reason they're done this way. That's the tightrope TUC is walking though that's part of what makes that battle work. Distance is undefined but it's a unspoken assumption that space is big and you can't just do the Nemesis thing of shooting where Chang shoots from because that's silly. But ultimately a space fight in a film is just like a real fight in a film, the point is not to emulate a real fight, it's to dramatize the conflict between the characters. That's what you judge them by. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Apr 16, 2025 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 14:49
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:TUS The Undiscovered Sundries
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 15:20
|
|
|
CPColin posted:The Undiscovered Sundries This gagh is excellent, but would go better with some blood worm ketchup. Do you have any? ....no, we even looked in the Klingon Food aisle at Star-Mart. Ah, that's why, Star-Mart just keeps them in the condiments aisle, beside the aioli. STAR TREK THE UNDISCOVERED SUNDRIES
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 15:41
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Or you just do the occasional slow motion bit like halfway through this God, the Expanse, despite being an amazing show in many ways, had a dogshit VFX director. For casual viewers it must of been nearly impossible to tell what was going on most of the time. I'll always remember that the way they portrayed the flip-and-burn in the first episode made it near impossible to parse what was being done to the ship.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 16:09
|
|
|
John Wick of Dogs posted:One thing new Trek does not understand is that a slow and sustained laser blast is so much cooler and visually interesting than a million pewpewpews. The animated ones get this right at least Especially if it's got that PULSE action, or it builds in intensity the longer it fires. Get that thing off us RIGHT loving NOW
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 18:57
|
|
|
John Wick of Dogs posted:One thing new Trek does not understand is that a slow and sustained laser blast is so much cooler and visually interesting than a million pewpewpews. The animated ones get this right at least That’s because modern filmmaking forgets there is story telling in the little things like that. TOS hand to hand combat, Kirk punches with one fist and it does nothing, has to use two fists to emphasize that the enemy is strong. Modern show, everyone is literally an acrobatic master martial artist. While I don’t like Star Wars, same case with old lightsaber things versus new lightsaber things. Choreography is story telling, not just spectacle.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 19:39
|
|
|
It's not about Beam lasers vs Photon Torpedos or whatever, it's about building tension and then releasing that tension, and how the characters are reacting to that tension. You can do the flinging asteroid sequence! The mechanics of the fight don't matter at all, it's the character and the drama around who is flinging the asteroid, who is reacting to the asteroid being flung, and why they are reacting that way that matters. It's the old Hitchcock quote about 3 people having a conversation in a bar about baseball being boring - but now tell the audience there's a bomb under the table and the characters don't know there's a bomb under the table and suddenly you have drama. WoK was amazing for that - the audience knowing Khan was on the Reliant and out for blood and is slowly creeping towards an unaware Kirk and will our heroes figure it out in time is the story. All that build is why 10 seconds of the Enterprise getting shot up felt more impactful than any number of 'Shields Down to 88%' pew pew sequences the shows fell into so often later on. e: A lot of modern films, JJTrek included, went the other way, throwing as much visual poo poo and loud noises at the screen as possible in order to set off people's fight or flight responses and get an adrenaline surge out of them that they mistake for excitement. It's why so many films genuinely feel fun to watch while you're watching them and then you seem to forget them about 20 seconds after. DavidCameronsPig fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Apr 16, 2025 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 19:39
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Expanse proves it's possible to do that in a coolass watchable way, but yeah, that's a certain very specific vibe that Trek just doesn't want. And The Expanse has a much more limited audience appeal. Yea, going full Submarine in combat is one way, but even the Expanse ships get up each others asses a lot. I think if you had a space battle that was just everyone waiting around for the next shot, that can be stressful for a bit but eventually its just "get on with it!". Science is all good and such, but when you're going for spectacle and excitement, translating ww2 fighter combat or big gun battleship fights is way more exciting. Alchenar posted:That's the tightrope TUC is walking though that's part of what makes that battle work. Distance is undefined but it's a unspoken assumption that space is big and you can't just do the Nemesis thing of shooting where Chang shoots from because that's silly. Yea, it works within what has been established in Star Trek and also works as a visually exciting battle.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 19:43
|
|
|
DavidCameronsPig posted:It's not about Beam lasers vs Photon Torpedos or whatever, it's about building tension and then releasing that tension, and how the characters are reacting to that tension. You can do the flinging asteroid sequence! The mechanics of the fight don't matter at all, it's the character and the drama around who is flinging the asteroid, who is reacting to the asteroid being flung, and why they are reacting that way that matters.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2025 20:11
|
|
|
First Contact's probably gotta be the best feeling continuous-beam phasers. As someone mentioned, the torpedoes punctuating helps that too, but it's just got a really nice screeeeee noise and they sustain the beams for just the right amounts of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAT3os74Nrc MikeJF fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Apr 17, 2025 |
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2025 05:04
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Yeah, the plan was that the weapon was a secret space weapon that had to be mind melded with to use and was used to destroy most of the Romulan fleet as they left Vulcan, and eventually passed into myth, now the Romulans were going to find it and use it against Vulcan. Given the similarities in concept I wouldn't be surprised if it was going to be related to the doodad from Gambit, scaled up. It still kinda annoys me that the Romulans have this huge star empire and Vulcan is a member of the Federation who don't seem to have anything beyond the one planet but Romulus wants to gently caress up Vulcan with all these things. Why? Surely they could have done all this ages ago
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2025 10:03
|
|
|
DavidCameronsPig posted:It's not about Beam lasers vs Photon Torpedos or whatever, it's about building tension and then releasing that tension, and how the characters are reacting to that tension. You can do the flinging asteroid sequence! The mechanics of the fight don't matter at all, it's the character and the drama around who is flinging the asteroid, who is reacting to the asteroid being flung, and why they are reacting that way that matters. Also how the music references what's happening, like the Enterprise theme only showing up for the first time when Kirk gets his poo poo together and actually starts being Kirk.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2025 14:44
|
|
|
Taear posted:It still kinda annoys me that the Romulans have this huge star empire and Vulcan is a member of the Federation who don't seem to have anything beyond the one planet but Romulus wants to gently caress up Vulcan with all these things. I would assume that there's a decent number of Vulcan colonies out there. We know P'jem exists, but pre-UFP the Andorians had a dozen or so colonies and it was implied the Vulcans were of similar spread, I think? The Vulcans and Andorians had been tense for a long time and had been at full blown cold war the early 21st century, IIRC, and the Vulcans had a pretty big 'defensive' fleet because of the Andorians, so depending on how long it took the Romulans to get out there (it was mentioned at one point that they had to redevelop warp tech, so there was probably a fall back and knowledge loss after they colonized Romulus) the Vulcans might have been too militarized by the time they would've been able to strike them. It was implied that there were a fair few other species that the Vulcans had mentored over the past centuries in the same way they did humanity, too, so they probably had allies who would've come to their aid too. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Apr 17, 2025 |
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2025 17:32
|
|
|
There's also that protovulcan group from that one TNG episode, maybe at some point vulcan was in to seeding random planets lol.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2025 17:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2025 13:43 |
|
|
I mean, the whole point of the schism was that the aggressive, expansionistic Vulcans hosed off and renamed themselves Romulans. So it makes perfect sense that the remaining Vulcans didn't, you know, aggressively expand.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2025 17:59
|
|