Happy New Year to you too Brainbin. If it doesn't end in 2014, then maybe 2015. Given that Hubert Humphrey had the opportunity to appoint 5 liberal justices to the Supreme Court, it looks like Lucasfilm might be heading for a victory. There's a good chance that Bluhdorn could die earlier ITTL, due to stress resulting from the court case. After all, Rod Serling died earlier due to stress ITTL. And I have the feeling that Bluhdorn's shady dealings might come out in the Supreme Court also.
 
Lucasfilm v. Paramount, meanwhile, reached the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, before which it was argued in early 1982, nearly two years after it had been decided by the California District Court. However, the verdict was not reached by a jury, but by a panel of three judges, who voted 2-1 to overturn that ruling.

There was only one place to go from there: the Supreme Court of the United States

Like every good trilogy, the heros have to experience a set-back in the second part. I'm looking forward to The Return of the Judiciary.


[1] In many markets, the 1963-69 run of Doctor Who airs in the middle of the night, if it airs at all, because there’s nowhere else for it to go. For this reason, coupled with the … unfortunate quality of the visual effects and rather slow pace of the narrative, it does not have a reputation for fully engaging its audience.

It almost sounds like you think wiping the tapes wasn't such a bad decision! If pacing is a problem, did anyone come up with the idea of editting the episodes of a story into a single show, like PBS did IOTL ?


[7] Yes, Ted Turner has exactly the same big ideas which earned him no small amount of notoriety IOTL

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly are Ted Turner's crimes against cinema ?


Have a Happy New Year, everyone, and I’ll see you all in 2014! Perhaps, perhaps, the year in which That Wacky Redhead will come to an end

And a Wacky New Year to you too !


Cheers,
Nigel.
 
Looking at Wiki, it seems to be mostly colourisation of black and white movies.

Oh, of course. Mind you, if he tries it in 1980 ITTL (as opposed to 1985 OTL) then the techniques are going to be less advanced. That could lead to a greater backlash and slow down the move to colorise films. Every cloud has a light-grey lining.


Completely changed my mind about Moonbase3. Its amazing the different perspective another 40 years of life gives! Still want more Blakes 7 though!

If you want more Blake's 7, have you tried the Big Finish audio dramas made with the original cast ?


Cheers,
Nigel.
 
Last edited:
It almost sounds like you think wiping the tapes wasn't such a bad decision! If pacing is a problem, did anyone come up with the idea of editting the episodes of a story into a single show, like PBS did IOTL ?

I remember seeing a "movie" about Dr. Who battling the Daleks, created by editing together episodes of the show.I believe this was some time in the 60's and aired in the wee hours of the morning.
 
Just a quick update with a picture that wasn't quite ready for yesterday:

studio-4a.png
 
Perhaps, perhaps, the year in which That Wacky Redhead will come to an end…

Quizás, quizás, quizás . . . :p;) (I've been having a Coupling fix as of late - the original UK version, not the atrocity that was the US remake.)

Great update, Brainbin!
 
They used green screen back in the 70s? I thought blue was more popular.
Because you're picking up the color of the screen and removing it for replacement, you have to match the background color to the foreground model: if the model has the same colors that're in the model, those parts of the model will also be picked out and replaced, which you don't want to happen. The model has a lot of blue, so green is probably used instead.
 
Because you're picking up the color of the screen and removing it for replacement, you have to match the background color to the foreground model: if the model has the same colors that're in the model, those parts of the model will also be picked out and replaced, which you don't want to happen. The model has a lot of blue, so green is probably used instead.

You've nailed it there. Brainbin was quite keen on blue for the nacelle endcaps ("Blue is futuristic"!), and that theme spread to some of the surface colouring, so bluescreen would have been a problem. In fact up until quite late in the process the model had red and green navigation lights on the saucer, but these had to be sacrificed since the green light would cause problems with the greenscreen.

One thought that did occur is that the use of bluescreen in TOS gave the model effects a slight blueish tinge - which Andrew Probert tried to emulate in his Enterprise-D model by painting it the notorious "Duck-egg blue". However, for whatever reasons (lighting or deliberate rebalancing) this colouration didn't come through on TV for TNG. So for The Next Voyage there could be a slight greenish tinge to the model shots - but I've instead assumed that Desilu Post Production's greater experience and budget in TTL's 1970s could mean they're able to rebalance it (who wants to see a green Enterprise?!).

However am I the only one who thinks the 1979 and onwards film version is a bit clunky.

Actually this was one of the first comments I got from Brainbin, so you're in good company with that opinion! Personally Probert's Ent-A is my favourite incarnation of the grand old dame, but then I grew up with the movies, not TOS. The starting point for the TNV version was Matt Jefferies' OTL Phase II design (hence I used that for the background image in the orthogonal views), and that does have more rectangular nacelles, but we can well imagine that with more of the Big Five involved in TNV, plus the longer original run making that design even more iconic, there was a stronger direction from On High to keep closer to the original look.
 
Because you're picking up the color of the screen and removing it for replacement, you have to match the background color to the foreground model: if the model has the same colors that're in the model, those parts of the model will also be picked out and replaced, which you don't want to happen. The model has a lot of blue, so green is probably used instead.

In Tom Baker's first Doctor Who story, the giant robot was filmed using a yellow background. Unfortunately, the reflections of the studio lights on the robot's legs registered as yellow, so the legs became transparent when over-layed onto the main film.


Cheers,
Nigel.
 
Once again, Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you all, as always, for your responses to my latest update. And now for my replies to your responses!

As for politics, maybe someone such as hcallega could devise the TL. Work with the info you have given, and write events and legislation based on that.
I already have consultants with whom to discuss political issues ITTL, and many of them have been quite vocal about their ideas (which I greatly appreciate).

As an example, Liz Sladen's auto-biography relates that once they couldn't film a scene for Doctor Who because a chair was in the wrong place. The scene shifters weren't there and if anyone else tried to move the chair, it could trigger a walk-out due to demarcation. In the end, Liz pretended to have a coughing fit, sat down in the chair and "accidentally" moved it to the correct position.
Thank you so much for sharing that story, Nigel! I love it :D

NCW8 said:
Maybe something along the lines of committing to other series with an equal amount of special effects work. So we could see another series of Quatermass or an extra season of Moonbase 3 ITTL.
Perhaps. That does sound like a reasonable compromise.

NCW8 said:
I hope that things are going more smoothly for you now.
Indeed they are - thanks for your concern :)

Have finally read the bits about Star Trek and the Doctor. Oh dear I'm really not worthy (but its not going to stop me trying!)
Welcome aboard, Lindseyman! And thank you very much for your kind words.

Aaaaah, that goes down nicely as a postyule pickmeup.

Cheers BB

PS still not a full jeroboam yet tho ;)
You're welcome, Professor, although I wouldn't advise you to consume a jeroboam unless you were making about a dozen coqs au vin ;)

Hi everyone. For quite a while Brainbin and I have been discussing what the refitted Enterprise from The Next Voyage might look like. After many PMs back and forth, we managed to dust off our old CED collection and we're now ready to present to you with a screen-grab from the show. I await the Puritan backlash ;):D
I don't have too much to say with regards to nixonshead's renders that he hasn't said already, although obviously I think he did a fantastic job bringing the refit Enterprise to life - while tolerating some rather exacting demands from yours truly in the process. In-universe, miniatures of this model went into unit production shortly after the airing of the miniseries in February, 1978, and was a smash seller that Christmas; re-invigorating the product line was always considered a key benefit of producing the miniseries in the first place. The other models that went on sale - and sold like hotcakes - were the Excelsior and Artemis designs, the first to depict models other than what properly becomes known as the original Constitution-class starship (primarily known, prior to the miniseries, as simply the Starship-class).

Looks well by 1970s TV Standards. The beautiful Andrew Probert design for the Enterprise refit IOTL could only be achieved on film.
Well, that level of detail could only be achieved on film at that time, anyway. One thing that's largely absent is the "Aztecing", not to mention the pearlescent coating.

Agree with the first part and its infinitely better than the Abramsverse version.
Thank you. As far as I'm concerned, the ship featured in the reboot films, whatever its virtues, is not the Enterprise - it just so happens to share the same name.

Lindseyman said:
[Also it should really have been called the Enterprise class rather than the refit Constitution. That was like the LMS claiming that the first Patriots were rebuilt Claughtons when all they used were parts of the wheels. (sorry non railway fans of this amazing thread but its the best analogy that I can come up with at the moment)]
Well, there are nautical examples, and they've shown that it could go either way. Many of the WWII-era carriers were extensively refit (to include, among other things, angled flight decks) but retained their original classes; on the other hand, ships such as the Baltimore-class cruisers were indeed reassigned to new classes post-refit. Although many people would describe the Enterprise as a "cruiser" if they were forced to use 20th-century terminology, it's clearly intended as a capital ship, so those responsible IOTL decided to follow the carrier precedent. ITTL, the Enterprise and the Excelsior are different classes of starship (analogous to a ship-of-the-line), while the Artemis is a frigate.

There's a good chance that Bluhdorn could die earlier ITTL, due to stress resulting from the court case.
Well then, he'll just have to live long enough to see the Supreme Court hand down its ruling, now won't he?

Like every good trilogy, the heros have to experience a set-back in the second part. I'm looking forward to The Return of the Judiciary.
Ooooh, that's a really good title - perhaps I might be forced to appropriate it ;)

NCW8 said:
It almost sounds like you think wiping the tapes wasn't such a bad decision!
The opinions of the narrator, especially when quoting a sound-byte-happy television journalist, do not necessarily reflect those of the author :)

NCW8 said:
If pacing is a problem, did anyone come up with the idea of editing the episodes of a story into a single show, like PBS did IOTL?
I can't imagine that arrangement working on a private, commercial-driven station, with the syndication rights having been purchased from Desilu as opposed to the BBC.

NCW8 said:
And a Wacky New Year to you too!
Thank you, Nigel!

Oh, of course. Mind you, if he tries it in 1980 ITTL (as opposed to 1985 OTL) then the techniques are going to be less advanced. That could lead to a greater backlash and slow down the move to colorise films. Every cloud has a light-grey lining.
Well, let's put it this way - Turner has a strategy. And how it unravels will form one of the major storylines for the remainder of the timeline.

I remember seeing a "movie" about Dr. Who battling the Daleks, created by editing together episodes of the show.I believe this was some time in the 60's and aired in the wee hours of the morning.
That sounds like an interesting experience, Chuck - obviously, programmers were very creative with their content, even (perhaps especially?) that long ago.

Just a quick update with a picture that wasn't quite ready for yesterday
For point of reference, that model is six feet long. The original Enterprise model was, of course, eleven feet long - the smaller size here (as IOTL, for The Motion Picture and all successive films) allows for the camera to maneuver about the model more effectively, and that pays dividends for the effects work.

Another great update, Brainbin -- and apparently it falls to me to be the first to nominate That Wacky Redhead for the Turtledove Award it so richly deserves. :)
Thank you very much, Andrew - I appreciate your support, and your vote of confidence :) It's an honour to be nominated amidst such an august crowd.

Quizás, quizás, quizás . . . :p;) (I've been having a Coupling fix as of late - the original UK version, not the atrocity that was the US remake.)
I have to ask. Did you actually ever see the American remake of Coupling? It was on the air for such a short time, after all!

Dan1988 said:
Great update, Brainbin!
Thank you, Dan!

You've nailed it there. Brainbin was quite keen on blue for the nacelle endcaps ("Blue is futuristic"!), and that theme spread to some of the surface colouring, so bluescreen would have been a problem. In fact up until quite late in the process the model had red and green navigation lights on the saucer, but these had to be sacrificed since the green light would cause problems with the greenscreen.
An unfortunate sacrifice - I really wanted to keep the navigation lights, but this model must represent what was feasible with the technology of the time.

nixonshead said:
So for The Next Voyage there could be a slight greenish tinge to the model shots - but I've instead assumed that Desilu Post Production's greater experience and budget in TTL's 1970s could mean they're able to rebalance it (who wants to see a green Enterprise?!).
You can definitely assume they corrected for that - I imagine they'd devote resources to doing so even if they hadn't yet figured it out.

nixonshead said:
The starting point for the TNV version was Matt Jefferies' OTL Phase II design (hence I used that for the background image in the orthogonal views), and that does have more rectangular nacelles, but we can well imagine that with more of the Big Five involved in TNV, plus the longer original run making that design even more iconic, there was a stronger direction from On High to keep closer to the original look.
This was certainly my rationale; that said, as an intriguing WI, one interesting thing nixonshead and I discovered is that Jefferies even included rectangular nacelles as part of his original design proposals in 1964! :eek: That certainly would have made for a very different aesthetic.

Thanks for the New Year present BB!
You're welcome, Professor :)

The Professor said:
Indeed - and this time, if all goes well, the sooner the better.
 
I have to ask. Did you actually ever see the American remake of Coupling? It was on the air for such a short time, after all!

Snippets of it, max. Wasn't anywhere close to being funny as the original. I mean, where else could you get gems like this, from the original]? (NSFW)
 
Oh man, the Supreme Court! I guess this is where Hubert Humphrey's legacy is really going to become important.

Amazing stuff as per usual. :)
 
Top