IGN has recently posted a developer dairy by Star Trek Online Visual Effects Lead (VFX) Artist Michael Cavallaro. The new diary talks about the visual design for Star Trek Online and what he and his team faced in developing the Star Trek universe. Given that the Star Trek Franchise stretches over forty years and 11 movies and incomposes visual styles from the low budgets on TOS in the 1960’s to J.J. Abrams slick high budget reboot of 2009 you can imagine the difficulties of fusing it all together into one style that pleased all the fans.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             ” The effects changed from series to series and from movie to movie, and of course you have the J.J. Abrams version, which is different than all of them. If there is one thing we learned from Abrams it is if you make it cool enough, the fans will like it. “  said Cavallaro  ” The first step in visualizing an effect is to meet with the design team to see exactly what something does, when it’s used and how much damage it inflicts. From there we scour old episodes and movies to find all the reference for that particular effect. Sometimes we have several versions and sometimes it just doesn’t exist. In the case of different versions from different time periods, we try to find the most iconic one to build off of and give it a modern look. For new effects, we work closely with the Art Lead and Concept Team to make sure that what we are creating looks and feels like it is Star Trek IP. It’s kinda cool to think that a future Star Trek movie or TV show might use something we created as canon ”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Judging from what I have seen so far Michael and his team have done a Great job the game looks better than I was anticipating  when Star Trek Online was first announced. To read the full article go to Michael Cavallaro’s dev blog hosted on IGN.

Come un bimbo felice sono andato a prendere la mia copia di Star Trek (XI) che esce oggi in Italia.

L’edizione speciale in dvd (2) comprende, ovviamente, il Film, il commento da parte di regista e sceneggiatori (che leggo essere fatto molto bene), più svariati speciali …

Un po’ di foto della Edizione Speciale … (che non è niente di che)

Get your copy today while it’s cheap and help make Star Trek XI the top-selling DVD/Blu-Ray of the year. which I have no doubt it will be and enjoy It all over again in the comfort on your home Visit the “official” site to see the basic chooses you have of course every retailer will have their own exclusives see the links on the right under Star Trek.

Esce oggi negli Stati Uniti l’attesa versione home-video di Star Trek XI. Dopo il successo al botteghino Usa si attende una risposta decisamente positiva da parte dei trekker americani. Il film esce in tre versioni: dvd singolo, doppio dvd e blu-ray disc. Tra sette giorni, nelle medesime versioni, sarà disponibile anche in Italia.

Trailer di lancio:

(via)

Martian 8 - A personal project of creature/character designer Neville Page. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

Like many Sci-Fi fans, creature/character designer Neville Page sat in a darkened movie theater when he was a child and watched in anticipation as the opening credits for the original Star Wars feature film began to roll. Having seen the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca, his mind wandered in a direction that would forever change his life.

“I began to wonder what people did in order to make a movie like that,” recalls Page. “I didn’t understand that they went to school to learn how to be creature designers, sculptors or artists for that matter, and could then go work in films. Then, however, I began to collect all sorts of Star Wars magazines – I was really addicted to the film – and in one of the magazines there was this article on [make-up artist] Rick Baker. When I saw a picture of him with a lump of clay and a sculpting tool, it suddenly occurred to me that, ‘OK, people actually do this stuff,’ and that’s where my interest [in the craft] first began.”

When he was 17, Page moved to Hollywood and, after trying his hand at acting and stand-up comedy, enrolled in the Art Center College of Design where he studied industrial design. “I did that for several years, but all along I craved to work in films,” says the designer. “The more seasoned I became as an industrial designer, it became more apparent that if I wanted to make monsters and do animatronics, it would require a huge career and lifestyle change.

“At that point I thought, ‘Well, that dream is dead,’ but the very next day, literally, something happened that changed my mind. Colleen Atwood, who’s a major costume designer, was working next door to my studio on the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report. A buddy of mine had left his keys there and she stopped by my studio to drop them off. Colleen noticed that my business partner, Scott Robertson, and I do industrial design, including helmets, and she needed a helmet for a police costume. That’s when she asked, ‘Hey, do you guys want to work on some film stuff?’ and I haven’t stopped since. You can’t plan something like that. It’s like sitting at a cafe and being ‘discovered.’ You can only hope you’re in the right place at the right time, and mine was my buddy forgetting his keys.

Squidleyflat - a personal project of Neville Page. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

X2, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, The Hulk, Cloverfield and James Cameron’s Avatar are just a few of the big screen projects that Page has worked on. “With Avatar I was kind of stretching my skills at creature design,” he says. “James Cameron is a very specific guy and you can just imagine how many portfolios were being thrown his way when it came to his movie. Four people were selected, myself being one of them, and I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s a mistake here, because I don’t have much of a portfolio.’ I had a lot of industrial design stuff, but I guess that’s what Jim wanted. He wanted a very different take on a creature design and I’ve told him many times since then how incredibly grateful and indebted I am to him because he allowed me almost a year to become educated in what he needed to be the best, well-thought out creatures in film. So he afforded us the time to really do it right.

“I’m a huge fan of doing the research and understanding the subject matter, which includes buying animal bones and things of that nature to better understand a creatures’ physiology, and Jim really dug that we were coming in fully armed with all this knowledge. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes. He’s bright on all levels, and it was our goal to help crack the design nut. There were occasions where I would present an anatomical solution to a problem that would genuinely impress Jim. That’s a good day at work! Jim is a strong man who knows what he wants, and if you’re strong enough to survive that, you come out a better person and definitely a better designer, that’s for sure.”

While still working on Avatar, the designer took on yet another new creature challenge in J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield. “When I met with [producers] J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles to discuss Cloverfield, I knew nothing about the project other than J.J. said, ‘I want to make a monster movie,’” says Page. “They explained to me that this film was a big experiment as far as how they were going to shoot  it, with handheld cameras and not a whole bunch of other cameras set up for secondary or tertiary shots. They also explained that the overall budget was next to nothing.

“For whatever reason, J.J. won me over because of his passion for the work and his loveable personality. I thought, ‘I don’t know quite what it [the film] is either, J.J., but sign me up.’ The hardest part of  Cloverfield, though, was that I was also in my last five or six months of Avatar, and the last months of any project are the toughest because you have to deliver all the final elements. I told myself, ‘I’m working with James Cameron and J.J. Abrams simultaneously. Am I the luckiest man in the world or what? You’ve got to make this work, Neville, no matter what.’”

Up close and personal with the Cloverfield creature. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

Another angle of the Cloverfield creature. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

Clearly, Abrams was pleased with Page’s contribution to Cloverfield because he subsequently asked him to provide creature effects and much more for the new Star Trek film. “I was tasked with two creatures right out of the gate, which were the ones on the ice planet Delta Vega,” notes the designer. “J.J. was very specific about what he wanted; he wanted one of the creatures to be red because it would look cool and be a great contrast to the white snow. The second thing he wanted was for it to have several eyes just so it was kind of freaky and scary. J.J. also wanted the creature to have a month that was extremely off-putting, not because you’d be afraid of being bitten by it, but that it might touch or dribble on you.

“If you study enough about biology and animals you can kind of reverse engineer a number of things into a plausible organism. That’s where it’s helpful to have a pretty broad understanding of several different animals as well as zoology and physics, because you’ll be able to take some really wacky concept and make it work by having all these other reference points. So I didn’t have much trouble with the color of the red creature because there are plenty of things in the ocean that are red, such as crabs, lobsters and the Humboldt squid. The creature is actually a cross between a crab and a squid, and it wasn’t necessarily that I thought of that as a means to hybridize something, but this thing just evolved to a point where it started to look like that. So I thought, ‘I can reference those two animals and tap into a little bit more of their physiology.’

“There are those who question the red color, but the important thing to remember is that this creature is most comfortable in the water, much like a squid would be. It only breaks through the ice for the occasional desperate feeding. That was my rationale, and it actually does make sense; animals do occasionally breach or leave their normal habitat when they’re incredibly hungry. However, there have been a lot of fans of the film that really objected to the fact that it was red, but when you know what its origins are, then it potentially makes sense.

“The fact that this creature doesn’t have fur is also another [deliberate] choice. A lot of whales don’t have fur, but rather excess blubber. It might sound as if I’m justifying things, but I’m trying to explain the fact that it’s an alien planet, so anything should go. But we have a critical Earth audience looking at the movie, some of whom saying, ‘I don’t know if I’d buy that [creature] because it’s red, doesn’t have fur and it’s skinny.’ Well, crabs somehow get away with it, and so do lobsters. There’s no fur on a lobster, so who’s to say that this creature isn’t some sort of hybrid endo-exo-skeletal thing. The most important thing for J.J. is that he just wants it to be cool for the moment so people enjoy the ride. My job is to make sure that it [the creature] is viable enough so fans and other people who may scrutinize it don’t feel insulted or gypped. But I must ask, why does no one question the survivability of the passengers on a ship that leaps instantly to warp speed? It’s all simply entertainment.”

The Polarilla creature from Star Trek XI. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

Those who saw the Star Trek film and also, coincidentally, have an aversion to insects, probably had to look away when Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is tortured for tactical data by Captain Nero (Eric Bana) of the Romulan mining ship Narada, and forced to swallow the mind-controlling bug. Page was the brains behind the look of that particular creepy crawly.

“That little bug was kind of an homage to the earwig that was in [the second Star Trek film] The Wrath of Khan, in that something bug-like is being put inside you that’s going to mess with your mind,” he says. “I felt it would have been far creepier to put it into an orifice that you wouldn’t normally put something in, but we were limited to orifices that were PG [rated],” jokes Page. “So ears and nostrils would have been it. I just thought that putting it in the mouth was, maybe, more like eating it, and not as unnerving.

“We did our level best to make it look upsetting, but I think most people are so bug-phobic that just having a bug near someone’s mouth was frightening enough. I really did want this one to be more like an earwig, which is why I made the tail earwig-like. J.J. was very specific, though, about wanting these claws and little tentacles that would make it look as if it has the capacity, once inside the body, to engage with the spinal cord or lower brainstem.

“So the design challenge was partially just arriving at the appropriate esthetic, but on top of that, we knew that we didn’t have the funds to do a full digital effect and that it had to be a practical on-set one. That meant we had to have something we could actually control animatronically, and that dictated a certain kind of body mass to fit the electronics into. A Japanese gentleman, in fact, made a robot that was tiny enough, or should I say microscopic enough, to go inside a rubber version of our bug. That’s what you see on-screen, this little remote-controlled bug on the end of barbecue tongs. It was quite incredible.”

Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation are well aware that its Klingons as well as Romulans looked very different from those seen in the classic Star Trek series. An effort was made in Star Trek: Enterprise to explain the change in the Klingons’ appearance, and the same thing was done in the new Star Trek movie with regard to the Romulans, including Eric Bana’s Nero.

“The Next Generation Romulans had the V-shaped prosthetic on their forehead, but in the original show, they had absolutely no prosthetics,” explains Page. “So we had to come up with a way to justify how it is that over time, some of them developed the V and others did not. For that, I worked with Joel Harlow, who did a lot of the make-up for Pirates of the Caribbean, and was the head make-up artist for the Romulans specifically. The idea I had involved a bald head and therefore shaving it completely, but in order to convince Eric Bana of this, we needed to do a make-up test first. We didn’t have the budget to hire another actor or a model for this, so I ‘donated’ my head to the cause. We would shave my head, Joel would then do the make-up test on me, and if J.J. liked it, we would move forward and create the look for Eric.

“As far as the concept of getting that V-shape to work, I went with tribal scarification,” continues the designer. “If you scar yourself over and over again in the same place, over time it turns into a keloid mass. I thought it would be interesting if we could use that to create the natural V justification. So we put together an array of designs that Harlow sculpted to replicate that look, and we had a number of tattoo and hair ideas as well. In the end, what you see in the movie is not unlike the basic concept that I wore in our presentation to J.J. The final design, however, has more character nuances in it; there’s a scar on Nero’s face, because I always liked the idea of chopping his ear off to make it look like he’s even half of the Romulan he used to be. Ultimately, J.J. decided to make it more of a bite that Nero probably got while he was imprisoned with the Klingons.”

The original scarring went through a bit of a metamorphosis before filming began, but Abrams liked the design that Page first tested, so much so that he asked him if he would like to play a Romulan in the film. The designer wasted no time in accepting the offer. “I joke with people that that was my plan all along as a child, that I wanted to be a movie star. However, I had a whole different way of achieving that. It would be through the backdoor. I’d study design for years and work and work and then finally get my break while testing the make-up. It was a very strategic and circuitous path,” he says with a laugh, “but now that I am a huge celebrity, wasn’t it all worth it? Although J.J. did say, ‘Keep your day job.’ What could he have meant?

“Seriously, the best part about doing it was two-fold. I had to go through the make-up process many times, including having to wear full scleral contact lenses. They aren’t just the small lenses that cover the iris, but the ones that extend over the eye in all directions. I can’t stand the idea of contact lenses, but I thought, ‘If I’m going to be designing this stuff for people, I should at least know what I’m asking them to subject themselves to.’

“So seeing the sculptors interpreting my designs and then seeing the make-up applied step-by-step was, for me, not only fun, but also a wonderful education in the hope that I do more work like it. The other get part was getting to be on the other side of the camera. I’ve been around long enough to know what that’s like as a designer, but being ‘an actor’ on-set and watching them direct me and everyone else was another amazing learning experience.”

Caudal luring - a personal project of Neville Page. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

Carnivor glow - a Mattel concept illustration. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page

Besides Star Trek, Page’s other recent work includes Watchmen and Tron 2.0, the sequel to the 1982 Sci-Fi film Tron. “I started off designing a bit of everything [for Tron 2.0] with everyone else, but I quickly gravitated towards the costumes,” he says. “From there, I ended up moving from the art department to costumes and developing the hero and specialty costumes. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but it’s a hard thing to break into because it’s a totally different department.

“I recently came back from Vancouver where I watched some of the shooting [for Tron 2.0] and, my God, it looks really good. From the last script I read, I think it’s going to be an interesting film with some neat twists, and aesthetically it’s looking phenomenal. It’s right up there with James Cameron’s Avatar in terms of delivering really fresh and new imagery on-screen. If you watch the original Tron now, it’s important to note what a major achievement that it was then, and at the helm of it all was Steve Lisberger. He was the original director and conceiver of Tron and one of the producers for the new movie. Lisberger is very involved in the production and it was cool to see him and the new director, Joe Kosinski, brainstorming. It’s one of the more exciting projects I’ve ever been on.”

While some people who work in film and/or TV might take it for granted, Page sees his involvement in the business as very much the opposite. He is also happy for the chance to give back something to audiences. “When I sat watching Star Wars as a kid, my parents were going through a divorce, and the movie was an amazing escape for me,” he says. “It’s sad to say that R2D2 was my therapist at age 12. Having said that, whenever I meet someone who is moved by something I’ve done in the same way I was moved by Joe Johnston [Star Wars effects illustrator/designer] and Ralph McQuarrie [Star Wars production illustrator], that’s when it really hits home that what you do is relevant. And it’s such a priviledge to be able to do that.”

Steve Eramo

As noted above, all photos courtesy of and copyright of Neville Page, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Walmart is giving you the opportunity to pre-order top movies for only $10. Here’s your chance to own the movies that you may have missed.  For this great deal,  think Christmas presents, stocking stuffers or maybe a gift to yourself, etc.  This offer is online only and not available in stores.  Here are the top 10 for $10:

1. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smitsonian
2. Star Trek XI
3. Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince
4. G-Force
5. Angels & Demons
6. Four Christmases
7. My Sister’s Keeper
8. Santa Buddies
9. Julie & Julia
10. Terminator Salvation

Order your movies!!!!

Image from www.drexel.edu

Senaste DVD inköpet var något så ovanligt som senaste Star Trek filmen, ovanligt för mig i och med att jag är så långt från en trekkie man kan komma. Här är det Star Wars som gäller utan tvekan, men iom att senaste Star Trek filmen är som första Star Wars filmen “A new hope” så funkar även denna för mig.

Vad är det då jag har köpt? Jo, nämligen specialutgåvan “Enterprise Edition” där man fick med ett litet skepp “på köpet”, fast på köpet vette fan. Hutlöst dyr är den, men iom att den redan är slut hos filmbolaget och detta är en utgåva som verkar vara extremt begränsad köptes den direkt. De vet allt hur de skall tjäna pengar på oss filmälskare. Har du inte bokat dig ett exemplar av denna utgåva så får du vara snabb, discshop hade den men där är den slut sedan länge. Jag hittade min på homeenter.com men fann att cdon.com har några exemplar kvar. I alla fall om man får tro på deras lagerstatus.

Star Trek utkommer på DVD i morgon, men min hittade hit en dag tidigare och det tackar jag för.

Star Trek XI: 7/10

Som sagt, jag är absolut ingen Trekkie så mitt betyg är inte alls rättvist om detta nu är allt som betyder något för er. Medioker film, men helt klart värd att äga.

MediaSverige: Aftonbladet 3/5, Expressen 4/5, GP 3/5, SvD 4/6, DN 4/5

www.experience-the-enterprise.com

Davvero imperdibile la “gag reel” pubblicata questa mattina su Youtube riguardante gli errori e le scene più divertenti realizzate dagli attori sul set di Star Trek XI. Il video fa parte degli extra dei Dvd e dei blu-ray disc in uscita ai primi di novembre. Come sia finito sulla rete non è dato saperlo: di certo è un filmato che va visto in fretta… A breve, molto probabilmente, la Paramount farà di tutto per “eliminarlo”…

[Fonte]

Als Appetithappen zu der bald erscheinenden DVD/BluRay des J.J. Abrams “Star Strek” Reboots  hat jemand (aus welchen Quellen auch immer) ein Video mit sogenannnten “Bloopers” von den Dreharbeiten auf YT gestellt. Wird wahrscheinlich bald verschwinden, also anschauen solange es da ist:

UPDATE: Wie erwartet bei YT verschwunden, aber bei scifinews.de gibt es noch eine Flashplayer Version: —> Hier

Senza parole …

Se algum trekker estiver lendo isto, é absolutamente imperativo que assista ao vídeo abaixo.

Ele ainda termina falando bem do James Cawley, que faz a ótima série New Voyages Phase II.

Por hoje era só.

EOF

This is kinda a bonus post in this category.  Obviously, I didn’t make this ship 2 years ago, I made it yesterday.  It was jut too irresistible.  The only bad thing is that I lost my .psd files (probably deleted them by mistake) for the textures, so I had to start from scratch on the saucer section textures.  I didn’t even have the panel pattern saved anymore, I had trace the pattern from the Connie’s engine section specular map.  However, I think I matched up the new textures pretty well to the old ones.  I did still have a .psd file saved with my Larson-class files for the nacelle.

Yes, I did make one of these a while back but that one was made using parts from a different Enterprise mesh (the one I built using Casimiro’s blueprints.)  The style of the other Enterprise and its textures don’t match my 2007 fleet, so I decided to redo the Kelvin with the 2007 Enterprise & Hermes/Saladin-class parts.

Mood: Amused
Listening to: “Utsukushiku Moeru Mori” – Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra
Reading: Nothing
Watching: Extreme Restaurants on the Travel Channel
Playing: Nothing
Eating: Nothing
Drinking: Mountain Dew Baja Blast

So my grandma may have cancer. I have no idea how to go about this.  At all. Same kind of cancer one of my mom’s good friend has. Incurable. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all really. I mean, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here. We don’t know for sure if she has this and even if she does she’s in the early stages. Maybe she doesn’t have this. According to my mom my grandpa has taken a trip to Egypt and is swimming in denile (… this doesn’t seem as witty out of spoken word form). At the moment I’m just hoping for the best. We may or may not see them tomorrow for the 4th of July.

Finally saw Star Trek XI last night and despite it’s AU-ness I approve.  Went with Alia and we, of course, had to provide inappropriate commentary. “Ooohh shit!” “Live long and prosper bitches!” “I find Spock and Uhura highly illogical.” “… It’s a good thing I don’t have epilepsy.” It was a late showing with not a lot of people, we didn’t bother too many folks. x’D Some, but not too many. Leonard Nimoy’s appearance filled me with glee. And while I was interested in seeing more of Spock’s human side at the same time it felt all wrong and slightly dirty. And his relationship with Uhura had the same feel-  interesting but wrong and slightly dirty and highly illogical. I was sitting there like “What the Hell happened to Pon Farr? STOP IT SPOCK, YOU HAVE TO WAIT 7 YEARS! YOU’RE NOT IN HEEEEEEAT!! *flail*” I like my Spock to be emotionally repressed, kthx. But considering Vulcan is gone I guess he has no planet to have Pon Farr on. And not exactly any female Vulcans in which to have it with… I can’t believe they blew up Vulcan. T___T

And then today I went out to eat with my parents, aunt, and uncle at Out Back and saw The Hangover. Awkward as arse to see with family I’d have to say. A decently funny film though. Annoyingly enough when we got out my dad was all “this wasn’t appropriate for my daughter.” Oh for fuck’s sake, whyyyy? I’m nearly 19 years old! There’s nothing in that flick I didn’t already know about. While I could’ve lived without seeing Zach Galifianakis getting a blow job it really wasn’t that big of a deal.

No soy exactamente un Trekker, pero si respeto a gran manera a Star Trek como obra de ciencia ficción de culto admitiendo que me gusta mucho y viendo los trailers de esta nueva película en la que muestran al pasado de la tripulación de la serie original  me empecé a poner a la defensiva, pensando en que iba a ser otro fiasco hollywoodense de esta era cinematográfica de sacar un montón de precuelas que escupen sobre la excelencia de lo ya existente.

Fue entonces que me armé de coraje e hice de cuenta que nunca vi los trailers, ni siquiera un solo avance de la película, incluso obvié haber leído los comentarios y criticas que se hicieron sobre ella y me dispuse a verla sacando las siguientes conclusiones:

• La película mas que centrarse en la trama de como van evolucionando los hechos se centra en los efectos especiales y los excesivos dotes de superacción que le añadieron, si bien las anteriores películas de ST poseían escenas de acción, no estaban sobrecargadas con estas.
• La historia se respeta, a diferencia de lo que se dice por ahí, lo que sucede es que justamente la película NO trata del origen “natural” de la serie sino que se produce una alteración en el tiempo por los problemas que trae una tripulación romulana proveniente del futuro.
• Si el que ve la película es un Treker, lo mas probable es que no le vaya ni le venga, pero que no merece el respeto que hasta ahora añadieron el resto de las películas. Fue una película del montón hecha Star Trek.
• Si por el contrario quien la vé es una persona NO Treker será una película de ciencia ficción y acción mas, eso si, requiere un mínimo conocimiento de la historia de Star Trek.
• La conducta de algunos personajes como Kirk, Spok y Scotty puede resultar algo chocante para un Treker ya que se sale del normal que poseen naturalmente, pero hay que entender que está mostrando a los personajes en el inicio de su carrera, con muchos años menos y cierto grado de inmadurez.
• Se respeto por suerte bastante la fisionomía de los personajes, Chekhov es el menos parecido pero dentro de todo safa. Resalto esto porque ahora está de moda cambiar totalmente las apariencias (vaya uno a saber por que).
• Cabe destacar la aparición del viejo Spok (Leonard Nimoy) el cual deja a la película mejor parada.

En definitiva, no es una película de ciencia ficción con ese cierto trasfondo filosófico-científico que solían tener las anteriores, es mas acción que otra cosa en el universo de Star Trek, lo cual no es malo. Lo realmente malo sería que sigan sacando productos en esta unica linea de pensamiento y dejen atras el verdadero universo de Star Trek.

Another image from the new Alternate Reality Star Trek. Just to clarify, I feel that, since the alteration of the Prime Universe timeline (supposedly) didn’t happen until 2233, there would be certain ships and registry numbers that will appear in both timelines. However, since the development of the Enterprise was delayed by the changes in the timeline, these ships obviously wouldn’t be the same class as the Enterprise (which is, presumably, still Constitution-class.) So, they would be different classes. My original intent for the Constellation wast to have it be the same class as the Moonracer (hence, the NCC-1016 registry for the Moonracer.) However, I find that I like this kitbash better, so it became so.

A little fun with the Moonracer and a few kitbashes.

Star Trek XI is a very successful project for Paramount Pictures. When I saw the studio logo flash, I thought that everyone associated with the movie must be very proud of their contribution. As I was getting settled in to watch and be enthralled, my mind whispered, “Cinema. Neptune.” Not surprising because movies are ruled by Neptune. And isn’t that what cinema is about: fantasy, illusion, escape? It seduces our senses and, for some time, we suspend disbelief and allow ourselves to experience an alternative reality.

The experience you have when you watch a movie is pure Neptune, but it takes all the planets to create the product that holds you under its spell for a few hours. Mercury, especially has a huge role to play. The entire editing process falls under its domain. It takes a team of skilled experts to cut and compile the footage, to get the color and sound right, to ensure that the text on-screen is error-free.

Venus lends a hand in creating the right aesthetic appeal and loaning her make-up to the actors. Mars makes things happen and presides over the hive of activity that characterizes a movie set. Jupiter provides the big dream that starts it all, not to mention the funding. And Saturn keeps everyone on their toes ensuring that deadlines are met, the costs are kept within the budget and that everyone’s nose is close to the grindstone. The many gadgets and technologies that create a reel or a digital image are surely possible only because of Uranus. And I give the director the role of both Pluto and the Sun: He takes his vision, his interpretation and then creates it by the force of his will, by the power he holds over everyone involved in a project.

Whether it’s movie-making or keeping the U.S.S Enterprise on course, it is team effort that makes it possible. Look at the Enterprise crew and the various skills they bring to the Bridge: There is the dashing Kirk who’s Mars and Sun. Spock with his logic and restraint is a blend of Mercury and Saturn. Uhura, who is the communication whiz, is Mecury personified. Bones is an emotional man (Moon) and a healer (Jupiter here, maybe?), Scotty and his equations and gizmos are Uranus (I just did a random check on Simon Pegg, the actor who plays Scotty, and it turns out he is an Aquarian!). There are other crew members and planets I’ve left uncovered here, but you get the picture: it takes a team, folks, to make great stuff happen. So while Neptune gets all the credit for bringing you goodies on the big screen, please remember he had a lot of help.

And about Star Trek XI: I’m going to take a friend’s sentence used in another context and reuse it here: Dear God, I’m so glad to be alive for this! (Can you tell I loved it?)

Some more eye candy of the new mesh.

Here are some images of my now complete Star Trek XI-type ship. 

I’ll try to do some more exciting images in the next few days.  I’ll probably also start building a new ship (or return to one of my open projects) before too long.