The Borg lights and James Doohan’s scret surprised me. GNDN made me laugh.
Lots of good production trivia here.
Your link is not working for me.
Works fine for me. You can also visit http://thechive.com/ for a list of articles. Star Trek is on the first page today.
The James Doohan and the Missing Fingers thing really bugs me. I mean, Scotty is an engineer, right? Why would we find it utterly shocking to the core to find out that he lost a couple of digits to a warp plasma phase inverting coupler (or whatever)? That could be easily worked into a scene where someone notices and asks Scotty about it, and he responds, “Well, lad, it’s a long story…”
It wasn’t done by the directors or producers. James Doohan was self conscious about it.
The man was part of the greatest amphibious assault in history and he’s self-conscious about it?
People is weird.
At least one thing is correct but the implication is wrong.
TOS transporter effects were made via gold glitter in water. However, TNG and beyond transporter effects were made via an (Amiga) Video Toaster card, iirc. It’s the same thing that was used for Bab5.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=27
Video Toaster - Wikipedia - Hm. That says it came out in 90, obviously later than TNG.
CGI | Memory Alpha | Fandom - that link says they started using the stand alone Video Toaster but for Voyager, not TNG.
So, maybe I was wrong and TNG used an ILM created effect put on top for the transporter? or they used silver in water and something else? Nope. Best I can tell, they didn’t use a lot of CGI for TNG but models or other F/X done the older way. It wasn’t until '93 that CGI did a lot more.
edg
Be aware that some of the stuff on the side is somewhat NSFW. Not enough to block, but enough scantily clad women to maybe cause a problem for some.
The ST stuff is great.
The one about Worf’s head strikes me as odd. I’m pretty sure those things are single-use. you wouldn’t use the same one for a whole season. Maybe the mold to make them was stolen?
It could have cost him work.
Somebody that knows Morse code needs to check out the Borg flashing lights and see what names were used. The article said it was production crew names.
I wonder if that was only TNG or did they do it in the Trek movie and Voyager too?
The Chippendale dancers in Wrath of Khan made me laugh.
That’s the most unintentionally ironic thing I’ve read on the board this month (given that it is election season, that’s saying something).
I love how the producers tried to stiff Wil Wheaton when the actors lobbied for a salary increase. “We’ll promote Wesley to lieutenant.” “Great. What should I tell my landlord, ‘Don’t worry, I made lieutenant’?”
I became friends with a gentleman named Al Smutko, who worked on TNG and Voyager as construction co-ordinator (head of the setbuilding team). (I was one of the founders of the “Al Smutko Fan Club” mentioned in his IMDB profile.)
Al took my wife and me on a tour of the Voyager set in '96. When we were on the Engineering set, he noted that the warp cores for the movie Enterprise, the Enterprise-D, and the Voyager, were all built in the exact same place, on the same set – when they built the set for ST:TMP, they dug a hole in the floor of the soundstage, to create the appearance that the warp core extended well below the main “floor” of engineering. Every succeeding engineering set used that same hole in the floor for the same purpose.
Similarly, Gary Burghoff, (Radar from MAS*H) has a withered hand. And Matthew Perry is missing a fingertip.
Fanboys love to point out that they were all also the wrong age. They were too young to be Khan’s comrades from the 20th century, but too old to be their grown up children.
Also the James Horner one, I thought he was in an earlier scene right at the beginning of ST:II when Kirk leaves the Kobiashi-Maru simulator he was the extra with the ‘futuristic’ backpack vacuum cleaner. Pretty sure this was on the DVD commentary.
Also, the Ferengi were supposed to be TNG’s main villain (being that peace had been made with the Klingons). The fans’ reaction to their appearance & behavior however resulted in them being more comic relief instead (and lead to the creation of the much more menacing enemy The Borg!)
I also don’t really believe the ‘Worf’s stolen headpiece’ story. It was more likely replaced in the second season simply because the first season one looked awful (it was probably stolen & deliberately smashed by one of the show’s F/X guys!)
What makes you think that? Hell, the cheap ass ones they sell in the Halloween stores are reusable. Why would professional grade latex prosthesis be less durable?
Because that’s how they’re made – very thin, so as to be flexible and look natural on camera, particularly around the edges where they’re glued to the performer’s face. They’re also glued firmly so they don’t come off easily, and often layered with other latex pieces and then makeup applied on top. There’s usually no way to remove them without tearing them.
Now imagine him playing that scene right after Doctor McCoy grows someone a replacement kidney.
Spock’s ears were recreated from scratch for every episode too. And from what I read, painful to wear.