Annoying Star Trek Battle Videos

[Crossroads Inc.]

"Spanish Flea" doesn't get enough usage these days.

I absolutely concur wholeheartedly.

Apparently it's still in use.

That was deeply satisfying as wel las amusing. Though for raw Sillyness, THIS is also a good bet

[Kamakazie Sith]

Slightly off-topic, I like how the Federation apparently organises Defiant, Excelsior, Galaxy, and Miranda(!)-class ships into a single squadron

Yeah, it's part of the whole total force concept. Think you can have a pair of GCS escorting a Defiant! What did happen in the series is Sisko, who is a Captain, commanding an entire fleet of warships from the Defiant. IIRC Admiral Ross also took orders from Sisko during later conflicts, and his flag was an Intrepid. General Martok's flag was a lousy BoP.

Doesn't it get any better?

[brianeyci]

I spent a lot of the night before watching nBSG clips on youtube before noticing this thread.

Compare Poe's Trek video to something like this. Of course the Adama Maneuver and Pegasus charging in is probably in the top ten most epic moments in space opera history, but I'm sure some Star Trek fans think Sacrifice of Angels should be up there too.

DS9 shows its age; not only did the visual effects guys forget about shields, but there just isn't enough phasers and/or torpedoes for that many capitals. It's like watching twenty fat guys fight for half an hour, seeing those Galors fire one or two shots before totaled by snubs.

I can't bring myself to watch that Sacrifice of Angels video twice, but I've watched this nBSG clip at least five times now.

[Bounty]

not only did the visual effects guys forget about shields, but there just isn't enough phasers and/or torpedoes for that many capitals.

Remember that the technology available to the FX people on nBSG is a decade ahead of what could be used on DS9. It's not so much a case of "forgetting" as it was one of not having the time and money to render all the extra effects.

[brianeyci]

That's a good point. DS9 still won visual effects awards for SoA if I remember right. But you look at the choreography of the fight, and you wonder if they deserved to win at all. It's one jumbled mess.

The problem is, even if you compare it with later Trek... the Enterprise-E ramming Scimitar, it has nothing compared to Pegasus ramming a Basestar. And compared to BSG dropping like a rock from orbit and the old man going "Jump!" you have to go back all the way to Search for Spock for an emotional equal. Maybe Generations, and that's a big maybe because Enterprise-D dying to a Bird of Prey is stupid beyond belief.

I don't think Trek ever got starship porn right.

I think Wong put it best. Battle videos, if all they have is fighting starships, aren't very good. A viewer should have very low tolerance for a video that only has fighting ships, and be very critical of mistakes like not enough torpedoes or bad tactics if fighting is all it's about like the Trek video. While the video I linked had an attempt at a story, so it's actually watchable. Sisko playing King Henry so doesn't cut it anymore.

I'm watching it again .

[andrewgpaul]

I still think the final sequence of Star Trek II was the best bit of 'starship porn' in the franchise so far. Granted, the "he only thinks in 2D" bit was stupid, but it was nice and tense, even though the ships didn't actaully move much.

Partly, I think it was because the movie-era ship designs are the high point of Star Wars starship design; comparing the refit Enterprise to the 'D and 'E models is like comparing a HMMWV to a Porsche Cayenne (or, for that matter, to a Hummer H3). I mean, you watch those Galaxies swooping around the Dominion ships, and you can't quite picture the bridge crew sitting in their beige-leather-andwood-panelled interiors driving the things

[Lord Poe]

Hell, one of my favorite moments in Trek doesn't even involve FX. When Kirk tells Beel that he'll destroy the ship rather than turn control over to him, and Beel dares him.

[brianeyci]

I mean, you watch those Galaxies swooping around the Dominion ships, and you can't quite picture the bridge crew sitting in their beige-leather-andwood-panelled interiors driving the things

You're probably right. DS9 honestly shouldn't have happened. I thought set piece battles were so cool when I was a kid, but it's not entertaining for an adult at all, probably because gritty war drama is not Star Trek.

It's the same problem with the boxy phasers... they made "assault rifles" for ST:FC so they didn't have to go in with those boxy pieces of shit, but it just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel Star Trek, at all.

A stationary space station "exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new civilizations" is to put it bluntly, rather stupid. DS9 used to be my favourite series, but it's getting worse as I go older. It's got great lines and sometimes good writing, but the premise was shit from the start.

[Stark]

Call me crazy, but if you're not an nBSG fan, Exodus has zero emotional impact. You get out what you put in, emotionally.

But comparing modern CGI to TNG stuff is retarded. Real-time ingame graphics in home computer games are now better than TNG CGI, for crying out loud.

[brianeyci]

Why is it retarded? Because you say so? It's the same logic I hear from classics wankers who say you can't compare older to newer writings. Things that might look good before can now look like shit, and I don't see any problem saying so.

Whether you like it or not A. there should have been less ships per frame if the special effects team knew they couldn't render enough phasers and torpedoes and B. it's as if the writers didn't tell the special effects team that the Dominion shots didn't bypass shields anymore. These are at least two things that have nothing to do with level of technology.

I don't see the point in bringing up that you have to be a "fan"... that's almost implied, and my meaning of fan is probably different than yours. I'm a fan of Star Trek too, and sat through TNG and DS9 and VOY and part of ENT and I watch Enterprise-E ramming Scimitar and I feel nothing. I'm actually laughing. Meanwhile I have watched maybe a quarter of the nBSG episodes and I see Pegasus ramming and it means something, probably because the fucking thing stays dead.

You can make a self-contained video with youtube, with a beginning, middle and end. That's a story, and it can have impact without knowing all the background, even if it's short. Ever heard of short stories? Or poems? Meanwhile the Trek video in Poe's first post... no real attempt at a story.

[Dooey Jo]

Compare Poe's Trek video to something like this. Of course the Adama Maneuver and Pegasus charging in is probably in the top ten most epic moments in space opera history, but I'm sure some Star Trek fans think Sacrifice of Angels should be up there too.

What the hell is that? From the music I get that it's supposed to be something sad, but it would have been a lot sadder without the nauseating imagery. As it is, it's about as epic as some guy's holiday video from 1989. No, actually, it might be less. If you took your average shaky-cam home-made beach film, removed the sound except for a few quotes, and added sad music like that, it would probably have way more emotional impact. Is this really the new Battlestar Galactica, and not some CGI student's first-year project? Ew. Seriously, ew. This is every bit as crappy as the video Poe posted.

[brianeyci]

Suit yourself. What do you consider good CGI? I will have to say though, almost all anime seems like shit to me, because it mostly involves either annoying high pitched girls or katanas or mecha or teenagers with serious emotional problems . The best kind of anime is the funny kind.

Whatever the graphical merit of the video, which some people don't like shaky cam and I totally understand that, the artistic merit is obviously superior to the Trek video which makes no attempt at a story whatsoever other than the usual we're going into a fight speech. The music is original, there is an attempt at a self-contained story, and you don't have ships missing at point blank range.

A work of art that attempts to tell a story is obviously superior to one that does not and is all about fighting, unless you're one of the guys who thinks you can't judge art objectively.

EDIT: Yep, I just watched the DS9 one to make sure again I wasn't talking out of my ass, and sorry it is still shit. Overly pretentious, the "attack formation delta two" like it was some tabletop wargame simulator... and it's harder to pull off a good work of art as epic rather than sad... Maybe I have just started hating Trek a lot, but that is near the bottom of the barrel.

[Aaron]

Suit yourself. What do you consider good CGI? I will have to say though, almost all anime seems like shit to me, because it mostly involves either annoying high pitched girls or katanas or mecha or teenagers with serious emotional problems . The best kind of anime is the funny kind.

Whatever the graphical merit of the video, which some people don't like shaky cam and I totally understand that, the artistic merit is obviously superior to the Trek video which makes no attempt at a story whatsoever other than the usual we're going into a fight speech. The music is original, there is an attempt at a self-contained story, and you don't have ships missing at point blank range.

A work of art that attempts to tell a story is obviously superior to one that does not and is all about fighting, unless you're one of the guys who thinks you can't judge art objectively.

EDIT: Yep, I just watched the DS9 one to make sure again I wasn't talking out of my ass, and sorry it is still shit. Overly pretentious, the "attack formation delta two" like it was some tabletop wargame simulator... and it's harder to pull off a good work of art as epic rather than sad... Maybe I have just started hating Trek a lot, but that is near the bottom of the barrel.

While I'll give you that Exodus was awesome and it was a great way for Pegasus to go out, that video was utter shit. The editing was terrible and the music sounded like something out of an old mans record collection. In fact the editing was so sloppy that I couldn't tell what was happening except for the atmosphere jump and the Beast ramming the Cylons. The music also over-powered the characters voices, so they might as well have been speaking German for all it mattered.

The video is only better than the ST one for the fact that Exodus itself is a far more interesting battle than the one's in Trek.

[Dooey Jo]

Suit yourself. What do you consider good CGI?

Oh the rendering is fine (animating and rendering space ships is ridiculously simple today), it's the camera work and overly fast and almost jump-cut like cuts that turns it all to crap. I watched some of the original footage and it's a bit better, but still really disjointed and hard to follow. But at least what little music there was in the original sort of follows the pacing of the cuts, unlike the music in that video.

I will have to say though, almost all anime seems like shit to me, because it mostly involves either annoying high pitched girls or katanas or mecha or teenagers with serious emotional problems . The best kind of anime is the funny kind.

Yeah, I agree with that, especially the high-pitched girls. What has that got to do with this though?

Whatever the graphical merit of the video, which some people don't like shaky cam and I totally understand that, the artistic merit is obviously superior to the Trek video which makes no attempt at a story whatsoever other than the usual we're going into a fight speech. The music is original, there is an attempt at a self-contained story, and you don't have ships missing at point blank range.

What exactly is that story? A ship is crashing into a planet, then randomly disappears for no reason, and then cut to ships fighting and then some ship crashing into another ship? It's a rhetorical question, because I (kind of) understand the actual story now that I've seen the original sequence, but the attempted storytelling in that clip is destroyed by the music making it impossible to hear what they're saying. In fact, I'm pretty sure the maker didn't at all try to tell a story, but merely put together clips he thought were good, and pasted a song he thought was fitting on it, to appease fans who had seen the actual episode.

A work of art that attempts to tell a story is obviously superior to one that does not and is all about fighting, unless you're one of the guys who thinks you can't judge art objectively.

Not if it totally fails at telling said story, or if the story it's telling is crap. Would you rather watch a nicely choreographed fight scene with no story, or a really boring fight scene with a pretentious story attached? Look at Star Wars fan films. It's pretty obvious that the vast majority of those guys are not storytellers nor actors, but they are pretty okay at doing effects. They would clearly benefit from dropping the story and cut away most of the acting, as it would keep the audience from cringing at the horrible dialogue; would you say doing so actually would make them "objectively" worse? If so, since "better" art can be less enjoyable, and no more meaningful (crap story; gives us nothing) than "worse" art, isn't the premises on which you base your objective judgement, broken?