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Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

ex-astris-scientia.org

61–70 of 218 posts

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#61

As I looked through the shots of the chairs in the episodes, I noticed that the old shows had some wild lighting: sometimes like a Halloween set, sometimes like a task light was just set up on a tripod next to the camera, and sometimes like a cube farm. The new shows all seem to go for web developer's / Twitch streamer's dungeon with no overhead lighting, wall-mounted spotlights, and RGB rim lights everywhere.

Lighting in black and white movies was much more important where you didn't have the additional dimension of color. My understanding was the Star Trek lighting team came with black and white experience.

A lot of people were also watching it on black and white TVs.

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#62
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was literally asking my wife last Thursday “Do people actually use arm rests? What are they for besides getting hooked on stuff?” I was talking desk chairs specifically. Apparently some people do! I have an exceptionally tall torso and normal arms though so it’s quite rare for my elbow to actually reach an arm rest.

In my experience arms on a desk chair just get in the way of it fitting under the desk, especially when not sitting in it. When I am sitting in it my arms are on the desk.

On more ergonomic/modern office chairs, the arm rests can be adjusted forth and back for that reason (look for “3D” or “4D” arm rests).

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#63

As a kid, it was fascinating to see Picard drinking tea from the same Bodum glassware we had at home.

My parents had the same octagonal glasses used in TNG. I still have a couple, and often think of the Enterprise when I use them.

https://star-trek.design/glassware/octime-double-old-fashion...

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#64
post #50

As I looked through the shots of the chairs in the episodes, I noticed that the old shows had some wild lighting: sometimes like a Halloween set, sometimes like a task light was just set up on a tripod next to the camera, and sometimes like a cube farm. The new shows all seem to go for web developer's / Twitch streamer's dungeon with no overhead lighting, wall-mounted spotlights, and RGB rim lights everywhere.

I notice in old James Bond movies (and others) the lighting was rather simplistic. A big spotlight casting harsh shadows on the walls behind the main actors that don't make any sense if you stop to think about it. It seems more thought / technique is put into lighting design these days and it's probably better, though of course our current age has its own cliches (the Twitch dungeon style for example)

Visual style of old James Bond movies was heavily influenced by Hitchcock's movies, specifically by North by Northwest

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#65
post #54

I wonder how they chose chairs. I would guess that at least for the most used chairs, like the Captain's chair and the other chairs on the bridge, they had an overall look they were going for on those sets and picked chairs specifically for that. Did they also do that for all those other chairs, or if they needed to have say a meeting take place on some new planet with a new race and needed 5 chairs did they just sen…

Mostly, the meetings didn't happen on the planets, instead the aliens came onto the Enterprise - so they were using the existing sets and chairs rather than building and buying new ones every week.

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#66
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, in the future people don't need or want to rest their arms. By itself, this is uncharacteristically dystopian for Star Trek because it suggests people will relax so much less that arm rests are unnecessary. Strange because Star Trek usually presents a more optimistic picture of the future. That futuristic look is more important.

I guess it is only a design choice. Not so sure about the positive outlook so. The federation is militaristic to the point of the military, Starfleet, running diplomacy. And the objectively bad stuff starfleet does, the prime directive for examole can amount to genocide by negligence, is done in the name of moral superiority. Throw in some hero worshipping and personality cult, after all rules only apply to certain p…

> The federation is militaristic to the point of the military, Starfleet, running diplomacy.

Starfleet, despite the ranks, authority structure, style of discipline, use of “courts-martial”, and the fact it fights wars, is not, as Starfleet personnel are eager to point out, a military force. Also, usually, Starfleet doesn't run diplomacy, they provide transport for diplomats.

They do sometimes fill in when the transported diplomats become unavailable, when an emergent needs happens without time to dispatch a diplomat, or when an individual Starfleet officer is requested by tbe parties to a dispute (where the Federation is a neutral mediator) or the other party (where the Federation is a party), but all of those are implicitly exceptional events that disproportionately happen to the particular officers on whom the franchise focuses.

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#67
This is one of my favourite distractions when watching Sci-Fi films set in the future - spotting objects from now. For example:

- In Luke's home in Star Wars IV there's a lot of Tupperware - https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2014/02/in-praise-of-t...

- In Alien, Ripley drinks from a Tupperware mug - https://twitter.com/EverRotating/status/1156650673972363264

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lighting in black and white movies was much more important where you didn't have the additional dimension of color. My understanding was the Star Trek lighting team came with black and white experience.

A lot of people were also watching it on black and white TVs.

The networks were just switching to color en masse around the time that Star Trek came out and the penetration of color TVs was still pretty low--well under 50%.

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#69
post #46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DS9 had a wardroom, Sisko got promoted there https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Wardroom

Didn't know that. DS9 is the only series in the franchise I was never really able to get in to. I've only seen a handful of episodes.

You should force yourself through the first season or two. I promise the dominion war is worth it.

Re: Commercially available chairs in Star Trek

#70
post #46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DS9 had a wardroom, Sisko got promoted there https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Wardroom

Didn't know that. DS9 is the only series in the franchise I was never really able to get in to. I've only seen a handful of episodes.

DS9 was both darker and more serialized than the other Trek shows. Like TNG (although perhaps not as extremely so) it also didn't really have the strongest start. Personally I think it's in the top one or two Trek series overall but it is distinct from the others.
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