I was going to post a video tutorial tonight but a lack of time and watching the latest Star Trek movie led to a review post so I will put the video up on Sunday.
Green alien babes *do* figure in this movie (c) Paramount Pictures
Firstly, let me say my knowledge of Star Trek is pretty much limited to whatever comedy shows have mentioned in their piss-takes. I know the main characters catchphrases as I am a child of pop-culture but other than that I don’t really know anything about the story or characters. Frankly, I kind of wanted to keep it that way as I feel that once you start actively watching Star Trek, you are branded for life. I may have lost a few readers there, but come back! I love the latest movie! I know some Trek fans might hate it, but something like this is what a franchise needs to keep things fresh and moving in new directions.
This is Sci-Fi done right. Actually, this is blockbuster movie done right. Given the recent drought of decent entertainment, I give Star Trek the double thumbs up. I was interested in the characters, the dialogue was good, there were a few in-jokes, the catchphrases were there and the plot skipped along. All around, good stuff.
It's no Falcon, but it'll do! (c) Paramount Pictures
From a Visual FX perspective I found the movie pretty much faultless. If you are a matte painter or set designer, Star Trek delivers in spades. I haven’t seen a decent Sci-Fi movie for quite a long time and Trek delivered some great environments. Earth was suitably futuristic without being ridiculous and had some great city scenes.
The star ships were excellent and thankfully had more of that “used Universe” feel with banged up edges and grime. The lack of grime in Star Trek always bothered me.
Lucky I packed those brown snow pants - (c) Paramount Pictures
Personal highlights included the nice matte paintings/set extension in all the Iowa scenes and the snowbeast vs Kirk fight on whatever the glacier planet was (I am sure I will be corrected on this by someone 
Compositing was uniformly excellent. I admit I was trying to find faults but really, nothing stood out at all. The integration of set extensions was seamless and the comping in front of full 3D environments looked very natural.
An overlooked area in a lot of Sci-Fi movies is all the interfaces for the computer gear and the guys who did the work on the movie did a fantastic job. Not too over the top, but suitably cool looking.
Finally, a nice fan image by Tobias Richter. A shout out to Tobias as he was a major influence in me getting into computer graphics. I recall as a young teenager looking through the gallery pages in Amiga Format magazine and seeing Tobias’s amazing 3D images and wanting to do the same thing myself:
Tobias Richter - ex-Amiga legend
@@UPDATE: Daniel Broadway notes that the ice planet was called Delta Vega . . . that was quicker than I expected. Also, check out Dan’s awesome spec trailer for Star Trek on his blog over at http://danielbroadway.blogspot.com/
Michael Bay doesn't own the rights to anamorphic lens flares (c) Daniel Broadway
Tags: Review
The ice planet was Delta Vega, and the courtesy on your images should be Paramount Pictures. I guess I’ll have to be the one to correct.
All that out of the way, I loved this movie. I’m a Trekkie, and loved it.
Dagnabbit! I knew it was Paramount, I am not too sure where I got Columbia. Thanks for the correction on Delta Vega. I have much to learn in the ways of Star Trek
Ahh still havent gotten around to it. From what ive seen though (I work at a cinema and have been working every day for 2 weeks straight) J.J seems to love those anamorphic lens flares.
ILM does those space war battles so intensely. wow
A lot of people have been complaining about the lensflares but I think they look fine. I have to say that ILM’s stuff on his one was pretty much faultless to my eye. I might be watching it again this Tuesday so I will give it another once over
Saw it in full today and very impressed.
I thought I might find myself judging all the lens flares but wow was I wrong.. they enhanced the film so well and brought a mood to it that separates it from alot of films out there. I will agree that the effects look faultless.. the scene with the young Kirk driving the car off the cliff and climbing up on to the surface was the only part of the film that I thought wait..what? But that didnt have anything to really do with the work on the shot.. more the logistics it. I have to admit that one of the most enticing vfx pieces I saw was the new trailer for Transformers 2.