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There have been plenty of epic space battles in sci-fi movies and television, but at the end of the day, the best space battles come between two of the greatest franchises: Star Trek and Star Wars. Perhaps Babylon 5 would have been run with a bigger budget and modern computers. If you’ve seen the 2004 reboot, battlestar galacticayou know how exciting Viper battles can be.
But in the end, it’s a battle between Star Trek and Star Wars, and their approaches couldn’t be more different. Star Wars space battles are exciting dogfights in which fighter jets fly through space against a stationary giant ship. Star Trek’s space combat has more weight, with cruisers considering tactics and acting with maximum efficiency and drama.
Which is better? This channel is siding with Starfleet, and we’re about to explain why. These are Star Trek’s best space battles.
4. Battle of Sector 001 in Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: Generations With disappointed fans, first contact It wastes no time righting the movie’s wrongs by opening with a big-screen starship battle generation Delivery failed.
As the Enterprise departs, a desperate fleet attempts to stop the Borg cube from approaching Earth. The task force will be led by deep space nines The hero ship, the Defiant, is under the command of everyone’s favorite Klingon, Worf. Despite leading a fleet equipped with Starfleet’s latest combat technology, Earth’s defense forces are completely overwhelmed and the situation is desperate.
Worf, on the brink of destruction, orders Ben as follows: park and rec There is no doubt that he enjoys driving the Defiant at breakneck speed and imagining an honorable death. At the last moment, Enterprise appears out of nowhere and blunts the Borg Cube’s attack. It’s not just any Enterprise, it’s a new Enterprise-E designed specifically to defeat the Borg.
The Borg are an old enemy of the Federation, and they’ve always had the upper hand in previous encounters, and that’s what viewers expect when this shiny new Sovereign-class Enterprise takes on them. . Instead, the Enterprise tears the Borg cube to shreds, forcing the Borg Queen to escape and embark on a dangerous time-travel plan instead, kicking off the film’s story in the biggest way possible.
3. Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Battle of Jupiter
Hampered by TV budgets in the 1980s, Star Trek: The Next Generation Very little ship combat was visible on screen. If this happened, it was either terminated immediately or filmed in a way that circumvented time constraints and the difficulty of using a physical model.
time next generation The crew finally got their hands on the movie, which most thought meant that Enterpice D could finally see what it could do with a big-screen budget. but, Star Trek: Generations In the script, a technical glitch regarding the shield’s frequency and Riker’s bad decisions causes the Enterprise-D to erupt into chaos.
when Star Trek: Picard Season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas decided to bring back the Enterprise-D, and it was a chance to right that wrong. Using the latest in CGI, Mataras drops the Enterprise-D into a once-in-a-lifetime battle with a Borg cube so massive it could be called the Death Star.
Not coincidentally, the path to defeating the Enterprise would be similar to the Millennium Falcon’s confrontation with Death Star II in the 1990s. return of the jedi. It might be a little silly in the context of Star Trek, but it’s a lot of fun, and by the time it happens, everything else in Picard Season 3 has been so good that it’s completely earned.
Star Trek has never done anything quite like this before, and probably never will. This is one of the most energetic space battle sequences in the series.
2. Battle of the Mutara Nebula in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
everything that happens inside Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan It leads to the Mutara Nebula.
Captain Kirk is on the brink of defeat, and he knows it’s his fault. he failed. He ignored Saavik’s warning and punished Khan. People are dead, and the crew he leaves behind is only breathing thanks to luck.
Enterprise and Reliant are both damaged and limping, but Enterprise is in worse shape, which means Reliant has the advantage. The crew of the Enterprise is faced with a brilliant madman who will stop at nothing to die. It’s the perfect setup for the ultimate one-on-one spaceship battle, and for many Star Trek fans, it’s still the gold standard for space battles.
It’s strange when I think about it now, but before Khan’s WrathStar Trek had never shown audiences a full-scale spaceship battle. movie There’s no real combat, and the original series didn’t have the budget to show more than cuts back and forth between vague models of ships floating motionless in space.
From the beginning, Star Trek II Director Nicholas Meyer set out to change the course of Star Trek by making a film inspired by naval tradition. The first plan he wrote for the battle of the last ships was Khan’s Wrath Like an ancient sailing ship, it unfolded like a cannon-firing slugfest. Reliant and Enterprise were to sit in an open space and exchange sides until one won.
Production designer Joe Jennings pointed out that this was a mistake. He thought that the spacecraft would collide with each other in high-speed passes in open space situations.
So, with the help of art director Mike Miner, he came up with a battle in the Mutara Nebula where both ships would be limping and visibility would be limited. This allowed Meyer to film the final game of Enterprise vs. Reliant like an intense submarine battle, or a Master and Commander-type navigational chase shrouded in dense fog. The fact that we did it without any CGI, just using physical models; Khan’s Wrath The battle of Mutara is even more impressive.
The environment is beautiful and visually unique. The strategies involved are interesting, but also easy to understand.
Both commanders find themselves in a situation where they are called upon to put into practice the lessons they should have learned over the course of the film, bringing the plot of the film full circle.The battle is won or lost when Khan fails to adapt, while Kirk learned from previous mistakes, took the advice of executives, and won. A victory that came at the cost of his best friend’s life.
1. Star Trek Return: Deep Space Nine’s “Angel Sacrifice”
Victory only brings more death and war to the heroes. Losing this fight means losing everything. That’s the setting for Operation Return, Star Trek’s greatest space battle.
it happens in season 6 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine The conclusion to one of the biggest and best story arcs in the history of the series. This episode is called “Angel’s Sacrifice” and is the last of six interconnected episodes, with all previous episodes ending with “To Be Continued.”
The battle takes its name from Captain Benjamin Sisko, Starfleet’s chief strategist. He plans a desperate attack to break through enemy lines and retake Deep Space Nine before the Dominion clears the way for reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant.
The irony of Operation Return is that Cisco’s plan fails. Gul Dukat, commanding the Dominion fleet, saw through all the strategic maneuvers and succeeded in luring the inferior Federation fleet into a trap. Cisco was able to survive and break through the enemy lines due to the unexpected surprise of the Klingons, who flew out of the sun in formation, like Han Solo taking on the Death Star or Gandalf arriving at Helm’s Deep. Thanks to last-minute reinforcements. But not until it’s too late.
The hopeless futility of that death and destruction only adds to its impact. The good guys win in the end, not because of Cisco’s battle plan, but after witnessing one of Star Trek’s most spectacular, explosion-filled, starship-shattering conflicts. Only.
Over the course of the episode’s long space battle sequence, over 200 Federation ships and Klingon Raptors engage an even larger enemy fleet consisting of both Karthassian and Dominion ships. This was technically impossible in the era of motion-controlled working models.
deep space nine began experimenting with using computer-generated effects for space sequences as far back as Season 3. By the time Season 6 began in 1997, they had mastered it and were so confident in their abilities that the show decided to do something new with CGI. technology.
“Angel’s Sacrifice” was the first Star Trek episode to use exclusively computer-generated imagery. This was such a large undertaking that two separate digital effects companies were hired to work together on the series. Digital Muse created the new ships needed for the Federation side of the battle, and Foundation Imaging created the Dominion fleet. Digital Muse then put together the first half of the battle, while Foundation Imaging animated the second half of the sequence, in which the Defiant enters Deep Space Nine.
To ensure a degree of tactical realism, DS9’s producers consulted military expert Dan Curry and former pilot Bradley Thompson to develop strategies for use with the struggling fleet.
Cool special effects and exploding spaceships alone don’t make for great space combat. “Sacrifice of an Angel” combines them with the incredible stakes the show has built up over six episodes, creating the ultimate payoff for patient fans as the tension reaches a boiling point amid mounting tension. Ta.
It worked. Everything. When this scene aired in 1997, it was watched by 6.4 million viewers. “Angel’s Sacrifice” is now considered one of Star Trek’s greatest episodes.
This fight scene was so popular that when showrunner Ira Stephen Bear had to choose one scene from DS9 to remaster in high definition HD, he chose this scene for his retrospective documentary. what we left behind. that’s the only deep space nine It’s a remastered sequence and the best space battle in Star Trek to date.
