10 Best Uses Of Special Effects In Star Trek

4. Give A Girl Chance Captain - It Takes A Lot Of Effort

Martia was the first Chameloid introduced in Star Trek, appearing to 'save' Kirk and McCoy from their icey prison on Rura Penthe. Her transformations featured some of the earliest morphing work in cinema, while simultaneously proving that sometimes - less is more.

Films like Willow and Terminator 2: Judgement Day had employed morphing to great effect but for The Undiscovered Country computer graphics animator John Berton wanted to push things a bit further. He envisioned a version of the morph that would adapt to a moving camera, adding a new level of trickery to the scenes.

For Martia's switch between her large alien form and the small girl, as well as her speaking switch between Iman and William Shatner, the shots had to be painstakingly aligned to allow the scene to flow perfectly. The end result was a simple to the eye, yet extremely complicated, effect that looks just as fresh more than thirty years later.