Andromeda Ascendant - Rommie's destruction & reconstruction (supercut)

[@enilenis]

This series was one of my first big jobs after school. We had 5 vendors, as I recall, handling post production and none of us even talked to eachother. We didn't have an effects bible, defining the visual style of the show. People complain about the interior of Andromeda being angular and totally not like the outside of the ship. Well, many of us just winged it. Sometimes written shot descriptions were one sentence long. You'd email supervisors asking what was meant by the request and they'd respond: "Give us something and we'll go from there." That was literally one of my notes that I got, indicating that even they had no clue what they wanted. But just as a TV project, it was fun as hell, because of total creative freedom. You could do whatever you wanted to do. The more the better. If you could design and finish your own shot start to finish, no one would stop you. People were positive. Bruce Turner was our post supervisor. The nicest guy in the world.

[@MTTT1234]

That is truly one of the great things of the internet, to read comments from people who actually worked on such large projects, who were directly involved in all the big and small things. Thank you very much for sharing your insights here, that is truly cool of you!

[@catalindamian4354]

@enilenis Please give more info about this show, it was my favourite scifi and I still watch it from time to time. Season 5 was not the best, but it had amazing VFX. Do you know why the ship extending blades were removed from the 3D model. Was it on purpose or just by accident?

[@spaceman9599]

A dream set up to work on, and it shows with some cool creative episodes!

[@enilenis]

​@@catalindamian4354 I don't know much about exterior shots. They were done by some vendor in Lightwave, while the rest of us worked in Maya. We couldn't even share assets, because there was no good way to port things between different competing 3D packages. So, all outside angles exist in their own separate universe from the rest of the show. On the interiors, some stuff was shared. Internet was slow, so to move data someone had to drive around with a hard drive, or tape even. I was shot on a 24P Panasonic camera with fields, and recorded on tape. We all had to de-interlace (do pulldown) on all the material we received. It was still done according to the 90's standards of interlaced TV signal. Making shows today is a bit easier, but color space is its own headache. All these ways to color and encode. I wish we had something like DV, that's just one fixed standard with no variation and everything conforming to it. Instead we have a VFX revolution every year, when people decide to change the way shows are processed. I'm getting kind of tired of trying to keep up.

[@enilenis]

​@@spaceman9599 I got into a company that at the time had bad reputation for not paying people, but I didn't care. I needed my name in credits. Fresh out of school with nothing on the resume, to go onto something that was actively being aired and watched on TV was something I couldn't miss. And it worked out fabulously for me. I had multiple shots in every episode. I did a ton of work. And it felt like it mattered. People still watched Hercules and Xena. Kevin Sorbo had a good reputation. I also worked a movie with Linden Ashby around the same time. Just a few years prior, me and my high school friend are having our mind blown watching Mortal Kombat, and there I am, on the set with Johnny Cage. It mattered so much! And now television and streaming is all just meh. I rarely enjoy content anymore, even though I keep producing it, and it's hard to make good things, when you do not care about it personally. When it's all synthetic work. No personal... anything. Just agendas and mass production of slop. Haven't felt proud of a show since Continuum, and upon rewatching it, even I start questioning if it was worth it. It was ahead of its time for a while and now it's obsolete.

[@Snowdragon.]

I have always thought Romie was the most beautiful actress of the whole show !!!

[@MrAvant123]

Lexa Doig was and is gorgeous !

[@TheCormTube]

This series could have been so much better with really good writing. Some bits were great but some were just so all over the place and nuts.

[@johnwang9914]

Of course Doyle is equally an avatar of Andromeda or at least the portion that Harper could get working without it trying to kill him.

[@cuddlepaws4423]

Whoever played Rommie showed far more expressions and emotions in this clip, rather than just being an AI. She was also one amazingly attractive android. In the Polity Universe by Neal Asher, there are androids known as Gollums. The early ones, people found a little unnerving because they were made supernaturally attractive and to my husband, this is what Rommie looks like. He views her as an incredibly well constructed android. Gollums were made more human looking and less perfect as their series of manufacture went on, so you couldn't tell them from a normal human. Naturally, they are super EVERYTHING, i.e. speed, strength, senses and are built with a large emulation set up. This means that they are 'fully functional' in every way. They started off as being nurses for the elderly, but then took on more and more job roles as they were so good. They are capable of being as emotional as a human, and can be a partner in every sense to a human.

[@g8ymw]

She is Lexa Doig. Played the doctor in the later series of Stargate SG1 and is married to Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson)

[@MTTT1234]

@@g8ymw Didn't Michael Shanks also play a role in one or two episodes in Andromeda?

[@joakimbarkstrom9679]

@@MTTT1234 It's true. He played the Balance of Judgement's Artificial Intelligence avatar Gabriel (and then Remiel, the second avatar to Balance). Balance was a smaller ship than the Andromeda Ascendant. Gabriel fell in love with Rommie but she later had to kill him. He appeared in "Star-Crossed", the 20th episode and "Day of Judgement, Day of Wrath", the 21st episode of season 1. Michael and Lexa met during the filming of Andromdea and have been married since 2003.

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

​@@joakimbarkstrom9679the balance of judgement was basically a missile plattform and capable of winning a straight up throw weight match with andromeda. Its 180 missiles per volley versus rommys 40. Its got a heavier pdl setup as well. Andromeda is a multipurpose warship, a significant all around setup including a fighter load. In the state she was in, especially crew wise, she was no direct match for the Balance. The Siege Perilous class was, after all, designed as a fleet killer. To sit behind an escort and blap targets. Which is why its funny to never see them employed this way.

[@darrendavidson9645]

@@MTTT1234yes apparently rumours have it that’s where they met for the first as I say rumours may or may not be true

[@TheHawaiianc]

Heh one main reason she left I think she was pregnant right at that time..I mean the actor

[@CaptainMarkReed]

Yes, you're right

[@CamosAmos]

​@@CaptainMarkReedOk pregnant by Who?

[@andromedaone3640]

​@@CamosAmosMicheal Shanks his pony i bet from Stargate SG1 😅

[@Ralnon]

Yep - when she came back they even inserted a comment in the dialogue about her new body “How does it feel” “Sturdy” Post pregnancy makes some changes that show:

[@johnwang9914]

Which is also why she said her new body was a bit thicker when they finally built a new avatar for her.

[@Fenris77]

18:57 This show was so full of superhot ladies. Other than that it was like a more mature "version" of Star Trek. 26:05 She was REALLY ornery in this episodes...

[@markvt5418]

Where can we see the show? I loved it and would like to rewatch it.

[@rursus8354]

No, the initial conflict isn't right. If she's an android, they should approve of what Harper is trying to do.

[@Gollammeister]

Youdve thought the ship would’ve come to Dylans aid

[@AlexDiesTrying]

17:05 not bad. There are much worse depictions of fast movement than this.

[@Gollammeister]

Wouldn’t the ships nanites repair her

[@theo-jamesmoulton2000]

They would have if they'd been online.

[@nickpond9337]

I ALLWay ' s felt sorry for Harper NEVER ANYLUCK WITH THE LADIES ;

[@spaceman9599]

Ah, now I understand - this is where Sorob started to fry his brain ;)

[@chromedog68]

I think he got 'accidentally' punched in the head a few too many times on Jercules. TBIs aren't to be sneezed at.

[@NeoMorphUK]

The last season sucked. I loved the others.

[@CamosAmos]

Hmm.Too much dialogs?

[@neilclark2245]

...and it had one of the most anti-climactic climaxes ever seen

[@CamosAmos]

@@neilclark2245 Where my dear♥️🌹🎇

[@neilclark2245]

@@CamosAmos Season 5/series ending

[@enilenis]

I worked on Seasons 2-5 in effects. After season 4, we all wrapped and were absolutely confident that the show was going to get canned. Everyone said goodbye, made plans and were ready to move onto other contracts. Suddenly, the network comes back and says the ratings are high enough to warrant a Season 5 and it's rare to for people to go: "Oh, crap!" after hearing they get renewed, but that's what most of us did. Nobody wanted to be there. In former seasons, a shot would take 2-4 revisions to approve, where we went back and forth with alterations. On season 5, everything was approved on version 1, which is yet another indication of everyone just wanting to go home. VFX used to be set up with rehearsals, line of site stand-ins (where they hold a ball on a stick and tell actors where to stare, when having a dialogue with something CG). Didn't even do that in Season 5. They'd just roll cameras with all the actors imagining their own thing and looking wherever they want. So yeah, last season sucked for many good reasons and you're not imagining it.

[@ActJack]

Kevin sorbo cool dude 👍a goood actor

[@raven4k998]

meh he's on Hollywood's black list now so good luck seeing his in another show or movie you thought Hollywood didn't discriminate you thought wrong there is more there then anywhere else in the world😭😭😭😭😭

[@Thurgosh_OG]

@@raven4k998 Being on Hollyweirds blacklist must be quite a good feeling for many actors. Now they can go for roles where real films and television programmes as made.

[@grizzlynad]

Complete fruitloop

[@raven4k998]

@@Thurgosh_OG nope because what's the last show or film Kevin Sorbo starred in? and when was it?

[@ActJack]

@@grizzlynad lol i might a fruitloop haha🤪but does not mean im wrong mr half baked

[@MisterMarin]

Do not fist android girls... ✊

[@professorpantherhardraad3921]

you lose a few things, chasing a dream.

[@Red_Shift_Blue_Shift]

This probably would have been a great show if it wasn't for, you know, Kevin Sorbo. I just couldn't get into his extremely limited acting abilities post Hercules which i loved... then there's the whole current knob stuff he's into and saying/announcing. He needs to go retire on a farm to save us from his "acting" lol.

[@t3h51d3w1nd3r]

It was a great show, special effects were lacking compared to others of the time but they didn't have the same budget but what has he been saying?

[@ll7868]

@@t3h51d3w1nd3r Since Andromeda ended nobody will hire him because he's a conspiracy theorist (edit - he only does straight to streaming Christian propaganda like God's Not Dead). He's been a Trump supporter since 2015 and was an anti-vaxxer during the Covid pandemic. He also appeared on Rosanne Barr's podcast a few months ago "Kevin Sorbo Saves America", they share a lot of the same conspiracies and beliefs, bitch and moan, whine and cry that they were cancelled for being Christian and say dumb shit like a college education is Satanic grooming for communists.

[@SoonGone]

I remember this show looking naff. But not this naff.

[@kerethmakura4502]

Sorbo is still one of the world's most wooden actors. ;)

[@lovipoekimo176]

What's more annoying is he thinks he's charming.

[@CamosAmos]

​@@XennialTVNo Way😢

[@Thurgosh_OG]

@@CamosAmos Way.

[@theldraspneumonoultramicro405]

@@XennialTV not even close, Sorbo's "acting" is more wooden and stiff then that of a literal tree.

[@spaceman9599]

The other tank top dude here was making a good go of overcompensating for him :)

[@dannawaldman3175]

USo, Harper and Hunt used Rommy as the ship's servant/slave. Harper perved on her and Hunt saw her as simply a tool, an extension of the ship's tech. I watched the whole series, and this never changed. She was blown up saving the ship, and when she was rebooted, Hunt makes it clear that she serves him. As for the android Doyle, she was mostly Harper's sex-bot, built with emotions and of course, big boobs, a cheap ploy to keep viewers on the ship when Sorbo's assumption of the producer's chair started the timer towards self-destruction of the series. Oh, and Doyle wears a sexy sheep skin coat. Very robotical. As Eastwood's character Harry Calahan said, "A man's got to know his limitations." Or maybe it should have been a PA standing beside Kevin and holding a laurel wreath over his head while whispering, "You are not a god." Either way, their uses of both "avatars" often bordered on the...flaccid. And yet, I found the character of Trance Gemini to be exceptional, as she balanced what appeared as cutesy manic pixieness with the unstated and only occasionally seen potentials for galactic destruction. She was powerful as an unpredictable and random factor under only her own wishes and morals. Captain Bekka sided with Hunt with also an uncertain commitment to his cause, and had the potential to act as a wild card, although it was more as a threat than an action. I know the show was produced at a time when women character's empowerment was (and still is) a foreign concept to the almost entirely male producers, directors, and writers in film and TV. I also understand and have experienced, military hierarchy and command structure. But for all of science fiction's promise, in practice it has usually reflected the creator's limitations of scope and imagination when dealing with prejudices, narrow-mindedness, sexism, genderism, classism, and ageism. It's all too common a paradox of all possible futures being imagined through the filters of the present day's restrictions, further enforced by the whims of advertisers that dictate which future will sell the most laundry detergent. I live for the wild and infinite promises of Sci Fi. More women producers, directors, and writers are getting us into the story as more than dead/dying/refrigerated mothers, daughters, lovers, leaders, subordinates, nemeses, and plot devices to make male characters feel guilt and rage. It is and has been up to us to create our own fictional heroes. We are finding more allies and supporters in our fight to create and maintain the characters of girls and women whom we want to see. But we still will have to oppose and undermine the stagnancy of old and archaic artistic imaginings that serve only the fears, hostility, jealousy, rage, and ignorance of generations of men who live deeply immersed in the assumptions and dominance based white skin, big money, and external genitalia. I'm just sayin. And these opinions and bus fare will get you downtown.

[@Kaffeestrudel]

What a crap, and even the dialog is even much.....