10 Best Uses Of Special Effects In Star Trek

7. As Beautiful As Crystal

The Crystalline Entity was a burden in 1987 that reared its head again when The Next Generation was being remastered. The original effect was created by The Post Group, a VFX company based in LA. For the Entity's introduction in Datalore, the results were mixed.

Ronald B. Moore recalled that when the episode aired, he was told that painting a tumbleweed white and shooting that would have achieved the same result as the final edit. However, when the entity return in Silicon Avatar, the effects were updated slightly.

The biggest jump came from the remaster, due to the necessity of completely rebuilding it. The 3D files had long since been lost for the original, so it was built from scratch by CBS Digital artist Niel Wray, with the result being, in Mike Okuda's opinion, 'more beautiful than ever.'