It was J J Abrams!

[vilakins]

So it's J J Abrams who gets the golden spork from me for the annoying Star Trek lens flares that bugged me throughout what was otherwise a great and fun film. Have a look at the video on that page for just how maddeningly intrusive they are, those of you who didn't seem to notice them. No, J J, your explanation doesn't wash with me.

5,000,000 negative points and a spork in the eyes for that.

Comments

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Huh, that could be really cool! That's a really evocative lighting effect. It does seriously cut down on the "this is fakey-fake CGI and models" problem a lot of big SF movies have.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but in every shot so that it obscures the view? Also if I'm reminded that there's a camera and I'm not a disembodied observer, it totally ruins the suspension of disbelief thing.

I really hated the shaky hand-held cameras in BSG--even the CGI--for the same reason. Making things look slightly grotty and used worked really well for the original Star Wars.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Grotty and used tends to imply some socioeconomic overtones that'd really change the tone of an ST film - setting ST in the dingy backwaters of a crumbling empire would really change the premise significantly. Haven't seen this film yet, so it might well be overkill, but it seems like a really interesting way to make it look like they've documented a real time and place, rather than green-screened some actors in front of some CGI. Same with hand-held cameras, really interesting use of the visual language of film to create the feel of a documentary rather than a studio creation.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Admittedly a new Enterprise isn't going to look used, but as they already changed the whole look of the interior, they could have gone more functional and less shiny.

Creating the feel of a documentary is only useful if you're making a mock doco, in which case I would enjoy it. It gets in the way of the narrative of a story there aren't supposed to be any cameras at.

It's like experimental writing. Feersum Endjinn worked well because the spelling was part of a character's POV--and didn't obscure the text for me. I haven't found the effort of reading some other unusually laid-out stories worth the effort though.

It was an artificial barrier I could well do without.

[sorsha-khan.livejournal.com]

thnx for posting - that clip they showed was enough to put me off :-/ slyar looks very promising, but if the number of flares shown in that one scene was anything to go by, i'll be either walking out or committing murder quite early on.

otoh, a decima! :-D

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Noooo, you should still go and see it. The film's vastly entertaining and the cast is great, but I wish they hadn't done that to it. It was so damn distracting.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I don't even understand his explanation and I certainly couldn't watch much of that if it's like the clip. I haven't seen it, nor likely to, but if I did, without knowing that was deliberate, I would have assumed it was Something Wrong With The Camera.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I still enjoyed the film a lot, but I couldn't stop noticing the flares. It's such a weird thing to do: partially obscure the actors and the sets.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

wow, there were so many in that clip - really off putting :0( I am still looking forward to it

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It was still a great film! Lots of fun and the cast were wonderful, esp Quinto as Spock, and Simon Pegg made me smile when he was on screen. He must have loved playing Scotty, and a Scotswoman tells me he got the accent absolutely right.