posted
It's late, and I'm bored, so the title was cheezified. Apologies.
Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone relatively familiar with the San Francisco area might be able to pass comment on the latest shot of the 2151-era Starfleet headquarters in "Shadows of P'Jem" (pictured here.)
(Before we begin, a confession. Despite my commitment to pay attention to the episodes and enjoy them rather than let my eyes rove the screen looking for obscure details, I did notice last Wednesday that the flag flying looked like the Federation flag. I immediately concluded that after the show I'd go online and find 16 angry threads about them messing up. Apparently no one else noticed. Hmmf. Anyway, on further inspection it may well be some sort of NASA-style Starfleet flag or perhaps even the Flag of United Earth or something. Might be worth getting an email sent to Doug Drexler over, actually.)
Back to San Francisco. Some people have speculated that at this point in time, HQ is on the Northern (Marin Co.) side of the bridge, and so in this picture we'd be looking southwards towards the Presidio over San Francisco Bay, with the Marin Headlands just visible to the extreme right. I'm not really convinced, though... from what I can recall of the Bay Area, we could still be on the Presidio side looking northwards with the Pacific in front of us.
To split hairs, the lighting does appear to be morningish and coming from the right, which would suggest Presidio-looking-north. Of course, I really doubt the VFX guys would be anal-retentive enough to worry about that.
Whatever about that, I think the VFX guys deserve kudos for putting the tree foliage in the foreground in autumn colours. The ep takes place in October or thereabouts. Perhaps they were in a particularly picky mood that day...
Oh, and my guess is that Forrest's office is over the water at the very end of the building. We could see a good chunk of the Golden Gate side-on through his office windows. Perhaps the porthole-type windows in Forrest's office and in the medical centre in Broken Bow are part of the whole sticking-out-into-the-sea nautical motif?
So, um, San-Francisco-philes, where's the building? On the future grounds of Starfleet Academy? On the former grounds of ILM?
[ February 10, 2002, 00:25: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
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posted
Well, with a bit more research, it looks like the building is sitting on pretty much the same real estate as the Presidio Yacht Club, which, confusingly enough, is on the Marin County side in Sausalito.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
Yes, both of those pictures were definitely from the same side of the bridge. So, if that real-life one really is from the north, so's the ENT one, and it must be afternoon. :-)
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posted
Regarding San Francisco geography and the Golden Gate Bridge, I'll provide a few easy pointers to help figure out which side of the bridge you are looking in shots like this.
First and most important, the GG bridge is asymmetrical. The north tower stands right at the Marin coastline, while the south tower is actually well out into the channel.
Secord, the south end of the bridge features a big arch which goes over the old fort at Fort Point below. There is a large concrete structure between the arch and the suspension bridge portion.
In the picture at the start if the thread it appears that the concrete section is visible just to the left of the far tower (the vertical grayish smudge). But given the poor quality of TV screen catures it's tough to be sure.
People who don't realize the bridge's asymmetry often make mistakes. In the TMP-DE there are three establishing shots of San Francisco featuring the bridge: one facing east into the bay with the fort to screen right; one supposedly facing north to Marin, but has the fort's arch on the north side(?!); and then a south facing shot, again with the arch and fort! So, if you take these shots as canon, they replicated the old fort on the marin side, redesigned the bridge approach, etc. Oops.
I have screen caps and can post those at some point if anyone cares.
[ February 10, 2002, 14:26: Message edited by: MrNeutron ]
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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posted
Yes, I'd love to see some TMP:DE screencaps!
Hmm. In ST6, we see a tall building on a hilltop, just before action jumps to a meeting room clearly labeled as being part of "Starfleet Headquarters". This one. And the hill shapes indicate this is the north side, even if details of the bridge are obscured by the angle and the fog. The building would be framed out of the ENT picture, so we don't know if it exists yet in 2151.
In "The Changing Face of Evil", SF HQ placement is pretty much the same as in ENT. The buildings seem all different, though.Right? Again, the hilltop building is framed out. Note that the south side now has lots of skyscrapers that weren't there in 2151.
In "Homefront" and the recyclings of that footage, we see a prominent organ-like building and an ugly water reservoir- or lighthouse-style tower, which both ought to be visible from afar.Right? We don't see the lighthouse in "Changing Face", so perhaps this is the north end, and the west side, of the bridge? It would make sense to have a lighthouse on that side... Then again, we see hills to the right of the organ-like building - shouldn't there be just ocean there if this is the north end? Either way, the ST6 building would again be framed out.
Then there's the question of where Starfleet Academy is located. The two images here would almost have to be from the north side, and the lower one even has a memorial and a building recognizable from the "Changing Face" image. The upper pic probably shows an area more to the east.
So virtually everything is probably in the Sausalito side, judging by this. The old HQ and the Academy to the east, the lighthouse and the organ-like house of unknown function to the west, and the lone building atop the hill at the center.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: In "The Changing Face of Evil", SF HQ placement is pretty much the same as in ENT. The buildings seem all different, though.Right? Again, the hilltop building is framed out. Note that the south side now has lots of skyscrapers that weren't there in 2151.
Oh, god, I hate that shot. Whoever did that matte doesn't have the slightest understanding if how a suspension bridge works. If the main cables were cut in two -- as seems apparent in that image -- none of the roadway would remain. The cables bear the entire weight of the bridge (minus the towers). And that doesn't take into account that mangling one of the towers as shown in that shot would make it unlikely that much of the bridge other than the other tower would remain intact.
On the other hand, that shot is CLEARLY from the north/Marin side, as you can clearly see the big concrete section between the water and the Fort.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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quote:Originally posted by Jack_Crusher: In Sausalito with the nuclear wessels?
That's in "Al-a-me-da".
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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Shik
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posted
quote:Originally posted by MrNeutron: Oh, god, I hate that shot. Whoever did that matte doesn't have the slightest understanding if how a suspension bridge works. If the main cables were cut in two -- as seems apparent in that image -- none of the roadway would remain. The cables bear the entire weight of the bridge (minus the towers). And that doesn't take into account that mangling one of the towers as shown in that shot would make it unlikely that much of the bridge other than the other tower would remain intact.
Of course, that makes sense given 20th-century loadbearing physics. But for all we know there could be an SIF generator or 7 working overtime to keep the bridge from collapsing in upon itself.
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quote:Originally posted by Shik: [QBOf course, that makes sense given 20th-century loadbearing physics. But for all we know there could be an SIF generator or 7 working overtime to keep the bridge from collapsing in upon itself.[/QB]
That's kind of a reach to justify a badly designed matte shot.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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posted
Not really. It was the first thing I thought of, too. The bridge is over 400 years old in that time period. Do you really think they wouldn't have done something to reinforce it by then?
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: Not really. It was the first thing I thought of, too. The bridge is over 400 years old in that time period. Do you really think they wouldn't have done something to reinforce it by then?
Reinforcing a structure is one thing, but what this would suggest is a system that would replace every aspect related to the structure's load-bearing. You'd have to use antigravs or tractor beams to hold up the pieces seen in that matte shot.
The idea is hard to believe, and it's even harder to beleive than an attack that critically bends one 700 foot tower and cuts through BOTH main cables that bear the enrire weight of the structure also somehow manages not to disrupt the mechanisms and power source required by the reinforcement suggested.
I stand by my assertion that it's just a stupidly designed matte shot by yet another artist who didn't do his/her homework.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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posted
I in turn am convinced that the bridge was actually accidentally sold overseas in the early 2100s, and hastily replaced by a plastic replica before the fog cleared to cover up the blunder. This forced the city to develop an air tram system to span the inlet, while the "bridge" was closed down infinitely for "repairs and restoration to historical monument status".
Over time, the air trams became a nostalgic tourist attraction, while the bridge "repairs" proceeded at a snail's pace (involving, among other things, a quiet replacing of the original and inaccurate, symmetric piece of plastic with a more realistic asymmetric structure, some time between ST:TMP and the TNG era). Of course, the replica didn't behave quite in the expected manner when hit by the Breen weapons (a factor, incidentally, that helped Starfleet prevail as the Breen did a double-take and frantically readjusted their weapons).
posted
Now THAT is what I call ingenious thinking!!!
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