Hacker Cinema
Star Trek Beyond
2016 · Film · 122 min
Part of Star Trek: Alternate Reality Collection
Directed by Justin Lin
ActionAdventureScience Fiction
The USS Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.
1 positive2 negative5 neutralfrom 8 commenters
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8 comments on Hacker News
I think that them going with directors they are happy with is precisely the problem. Amazon has cranked out a lot of mediocre tv shows that don’t have any significant greatness. What’s strange about these directors is that they haven’t directed anything I thought was good at all.
The writers have uncredited writing credits on Flash Gordon and Star Trek Beyond [0]. I like those but it’s just strange that that’s all they have. Like that’s it. Not even a complete screenplay.
I’d love to read the story of how they assembled this team that is free of PR.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/filmosearch?role=nm4260438&job_type=writer
Modern color treatment in film totally drives me crazy, independent of what it does to CGI.
It seems like every film coming out of Hollywood these days is processed exactly the same way:
* Crank down the low end so half the frame is solid inky black.
* Pick one or two key colors, and jack up their saturation.
* Desaturate everything else.
In other words, make the entire movie look like an over-dramatic poster for it. Throw any sense of naturalism or unique look out the door. Once you notice it, you see it everywhere. Here's the top live action movies of 2016:
Rogue One
Cyan and olive: http://www.ramascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Rogue-One-A-Star-Wars-Story15.jpg
Captain America: Civil War
Yellow and red: http://cdn3-www.superherohype.com/assets/uploads/gallery/civil-war-trailer-2-screenshots/cwttss03.jpg
Why they felt the need to make Cap's lip rosy red is beyond me. Even better is this shot:
http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Captain-America-Civil-War-cast-photo-Renner-Johansson-Evans-Sebastian-Stan.jpg
This is a daylight shot. Look at how the characters are all squinting. Look at the big white fluffly clouds that should be diffusing the light and softening shadows. And yet, magically, all of the shadows are jet black and almost all of the color is gone.
The Jungle Book
Green and red (to draw attention to Mowgli):
https://www.moviedeskback.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/The_Jungle_Book_HD_Screencaps-23.png
Deadpool
Another daylight shot with nonsensical shading:
http://turntherightcorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Deadpool-Movie-Screenshot-Brianna-Hildebrand-Negasonic-Teenage-Warhead-Texting.jpg
The light is clearly diffuse, if you look at the shadows on the ground, and yet there is this deep black everywhere. Deadpool took the look further by only picking one color (red, Deadpool's outfit color) for the entire film.
Lest you think this is just an issue with superhero movies, let's ignore those and look at the other top non-superhero movies of 2016:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
More of the same:
http://harrypotterfanzone.com/wp-content/2016/09/fantastic-beasts-trailer-screenshot75.png
It also suffers strongly from the "It's a period movie so we're going to sepia tone everything so hard it looks like you're watching the movie through an aquarium full of pee" effect.
Hidden Figures
https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/hiddenfigures.jpg
More of the period movie sepia along with an improbably jacked up complementary cyan.
Star Trek Beyond
If the past is warm, the future must be cool:
http://www.ramascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Star-Trek-Beyond2.jpg
Blacks, grays and neon cyan, just like Rogue One. Look how unnatural his skin tone is! They wanted to jack up yellow to complement their primary blue so much that the poor dude has jaundice:
http://cdn.wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/star-trek-beyond-trailer-cover.jpg
La La Land
I'll give this one some credit for varying it up a bit. Also, dramatic spotlit stage lighting is a logical part of the movie's look. But it's still prey to the same cliched look in places:
http://henrymollman.com/content/images/2017/01/Screenshot-from-2017-01-18-22-36-49-1.png
Ghostbusters
Ectoplasm green and spooky violet were the key colors for the whole film. Secondary colors tend to come across as magical or eerie to viewers since they're different from the safe and familiary primary colors. Of course, jacking up magenta doesn't do flattering things to skin:
http://www.ramascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ghostbusters2.jpg
Also, what color is Melissa McCarthy's coat? Is it actually black? Who fucking knows.
Central Intelligence
The traditional comedy look is brightly-lit and saturated, so Central Intelligence didn't fare quite as poorly as the above. Whenever they had a chance to dim the lights, though, they revert to the same cliched look as well:
https://i2.wp.com/doblu.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/centralintelligence2944.jpg
The Legend of Tarzan
http://images3.static-bluray.com/reviews/14209_5.jpg
Jesus, we get it, colorist. They're in the wet jungle. We don't need to be physically assaulted with the colors blue and green to figure that out.
...You get the idea.
Go back and watch a movie from before 2000 and you'll quickly realize how much more pleasant to look at most of them where, and how much more variety there was in look. Compare Alien to The Graduate. But it seems like ever since the rise of digital coloring and superhero movies, Hollywood has decided every single fucking movie needs to look like a comic book page, whether it needs it or not.
One recent movie I really liked that bucked this trend was Her. It was heavily colorized, but in a way that stood out. In shots like these, even though there's a strong color cast and a lot of dark, there's still always some color and detail in the shadows:
https://i1.wp.com/turntherightcorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Her-Movie-2013-Screenshot-Theodore-Apartment.jpg
https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/her-screenshot-14.jpg
> I want those space opera and space ship and hard stuff.
Yeah. The "mainstreaming" of sci-fi has been kind of a mixed blessing. We got all the PEW PEW PEW lasers and blinking computer lights but none of the thought-provoking stuff.
God, I want some space opera. Doesn't even have to be "hard" sci-fi that aspires to realism (though it's a bonus)
I liked the first Star Trek reboot movie, but I saw STAR TREK EXTREME or STAR TREK BEYOND or whatever it's called a few weeks ago and it was just atrocious. Just mind-numbing, generic action. Reminded me of the Transformers movies. I love me some giant robot fights, but the Transformers movies are just a big visual mess to me.
Don't get what's "great" about these movies. According to IMDb, the ratings are: Synchronicity: 5.5 Lazer Team: 5.7 Southbound: 5.9 The Witch: 6.7 10 Cloverfield Lane: 7.3 Midnight Special: 6.7 The Lobster: 7.1 Hardcore Henry: 6.8 Elstree 1976: 6.1 High-Rise: 5.7 TMNT: Out of the Shadows: 6.0 Swiss Army Man: 7.1 Kubo and the two strings: 8.1
Surprised I didn't see any of the following on that list: ARQ (6.4), Project Almanac (6.4), Self/Less (6.5), Chappie (6.9), Star Trek: Beyond (7.2), Ex Machina (7.7), Train to Busan (7.6), The Martian (8.0).
I graduated from art school and am now a software engineer. I went because when you're really good at drawing in high school--everyone tells you that you should be an artist, regardless of what else you may be good at.
I believe my degree was worth it. If you want to learn technical skills, this article is spot on and has some great advice. There are some great resources he gives for learning this stuff fairly cheap.
What I learned in art school was critical thinking, problem solving, perception, and observation. The most important things you get out of art school that are applicable to software:
1. How to critique work and talk about your work with others. Most studio classes are basically just a long critique of everyone's work. I use these skills everyday in software in code reviews and in my role as a manager mentoring others.
2. Problem solving. We regularly had assignments like "Draw a sequence of images defining density" or "Create a sculpture that defines the space between an architectural space and your body" or "Create an invention and build it with only brown paper lunch bags." It takes some novel thinking to come up with creative solutions to that shit.
3. How to deliver. You need to get stuff done and produce a volume of work to get good.
Of the good friends I had in art school:
- One is a paper sculptor and has made work for Facebook, Apple, Google, the Queen of Jordan, and has been a guest on Sesame Street. He also works with research scientists on solar cell development. - One has been the visual effects supervisor for the Harry Potter films, the Dark Knight, and Star Trek Beyond. - One is the director of a glass blowing school. - One is a executive creative director at a large design agency.
I would guess that every one of them would attribute part of their success to the art school they attended.
Since the new series is being exec-produced by Alex Kurtzman, who was a producer and co-writer on both the 2009 Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, it seems pretty safe to assume the series will be set in the new timeline/continuity those movies established. I'd read "not related to Star Trek Beyond" more as them saying it won't be tied in any specific way to the plot/characters of that film than that it'll be completely outside the rebooted continuity.
Unless they put it in the alternate timeline, which it doesn't sound like they will given this quote:
>The new television series is not related to the upcoming feature film Star Trek Beyond which is scheduled to be distributed by Paramount Pictures in summer 2016.
...they'd have to some serious retconning to place it anywhere before Voyager. Too much existing canon to take into account when writing the scripts.
Any word on the setting and how the alternate timeline reset of the of 2009 movie fits into the cannon?
It seems like there are couple possibilities. 1) They act like the reset in the 2009 movie didn't happen, and the new show is just set sometime after TNG/DS9/Voyager, with the same continuity.
2) Everything is reset and we get a new show set sometime after the reset.
I guess there is this: >The new television series is not related to the upcoming feature film Star Trek Beyond which is scheduled to be distributed by Paramount Pictures in summer 2016.