Has anyone seen any pics or effects shots that were done by Robert Abel on Star Trek:The Motion Picture before Dykstra took over? Reading through the of making TMP from online sources and the PHase II Enterprise thread archived on here, I read Dykstra was called in 9 months before the film opening to redo Abel's work, and from the sounds of it there was a lot of fx money spent prior to Dykstra and the effects Abel produced were pretty bad. I was just curious as to what they looked like. Did any of them get into the final cut of the film or did Dykstra redo all the effects shots? I havn't seen the ST:TMP DC DVD for a few months, but I do remember it included footage of the 'Memory Wall' scene that was aborted because it looked bad. Was this a part of Abel's stuff? I would be curious to know or see pics of this stuff. I have seen pics of the Abel refit model, with the different sensor dome, bridge and photonbanks, and I assume the smooth-domed Ktinga pics from the Ertl kit boxtop are the model Abel worked on before Dykstra super-detailed it, but any other pics of the Abel work out there?

Dykstra only took a subcontract to do about 30% of TMP ... the rest was done by principal fx guy Trumbull and his associate Richard Yuricich at their own company (known as EEG at the time of BLADE RUNNER and as Future General when they did CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.)

The wormhole interior fx were started and finished at Abel's even after they were fired, mainly because Abel's animation guy Swarthe was somebody Trumbull knew and had used on CE3K. As far as I know that is the only sequence that has any actual fx work in it by Abel's group, though they designed the bridge probe sequence as well as the trench and memory wall.

There are only a few pics in the bubble gum card set of the trench and memory wall (very FANTASTIC VOYAGE looking), plus a few shots in ART OF STAR TREK. All of that was overseen by Abel.

There are lots of concept art pieces in the TMP DVD issue of STAR TREK THE MAGAZINE .... some are from paramount production, but most are from Taylor's group. Lots of wonderful notions and lots of really bad notions, but no behind the scenes photos or frame blowups, just artwork.

I know a guy who bought a full set of Abel storyboards for TMP direct from Abel art director Richard Taylor (not the Richard Taylor of LOTR, the Taylor from TRON), but he has them in storage somewhere, so I have no idea if/when he will scan them.

Check out the viewmaster reels from TMP (usually on <a href=http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1606754-2202639 target=_blank>eBay</a><img src=http://www.awltovhc.com/image-1606754-2202639 width=1 height=1 border=0>). They have shots of the Abel version Enterprise. Also, the TMP Annual has a centrefold and front and rear covers showing it. There is a real good one in the bubblegum set that no one has posted - a side view showing deflector with no radial lines, unlit Abel style photorps and no decals.
I have been trying to collect as many images of this baby as i can but its rarer than rocking horse do-do!

Where?

Sorry !!!!!!!!
That should have said "ebay".

I must stop talking in HTML. :freak:

My understanding from a Starlog article released shortly after Abel was fired was that he had "spent $4 million dollars on setting up an FX facility without delivering a single frame of FX footage." Hence, the firing. So there is no "pre-firing" Abel footage in the movie, because no such footage existed. But as was pointed out above, Abel's studio was subcontracted by Trumball to do the wormhole sequence.

In fairness, Abel's studio was perplexed by the ever changing scripts that were given to them. They did a LOT of design work for the FX that were later executed by others. They also did tons of FX design work for scenes that never made it into the final filming script. Hindsight is 20/20 vision, and the subsequent Star Trek movies were produced far more carefully.

Well, that particular article was told from Magicam's perspective. Another perspective, that of Brick Price, appears in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS mags in the mid80s, where he mentions that he saw whole minutes of Abel-produced footage the very first day he went onto TMP (his company, in the form of Don Loos, had been working on the discarded 5.5 or 6 ft E refit model when it was phaseII and ramping into tmp)

As far as I know, the Abel stuff was mostly test footage, but they DID produce footage. A guy who used to work in the industry but now is a freelance shooter in the midwest worked for both Abel and Trumbull on TMP, and he mentioned that he tried to spend his time with Con Pederson, away from the druggie aspect that was very pervasive at Abel's company during this era. Pederson had ideas about the energy probe bridge invasion that involved using a physical light sculpture in miniature to put over the on-set lighting, and this guy did some filming tests of it.