A question that I've had for a while: do we have any photos of the Excelsior bridge from angles other than the ones in Star Trek III?
O/T I think there was to be a Captain of engineering with whoever sat in the chair being a Commodore at least...
There wasn't going to be a Captain of Engineering per say. In TSFS, Scotty was ordered to report to the Excelsior as Captain of Engineering. But lets examine the evidence, Scotty was wearing Commanders Insignia in that scene, when we next see him on the Excelsior he is wearing Captain's Insignia. So it was more likley he was being promoted to Captain and reassigned as Chief Engineer of the Excelsior. Who knows following the shakedown crusie he might have been reassigned elsewhere and a new CEO assigned with a rank of Lt. Cmdr or Cmdr.
Here it is: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/bridges1.htm Can't link to it directly. Fourth from the top, at left.
Yep, sure looks like simple extrapolation, the other larger diagram on that page clearly just mirrors the side stations (a simple copy and paste and flip) from the one side to the other.
Horrible bridge. It does kind of have a TOS vibe to it but I remember it looking shit in 1983. I'm pretty sure Nimoy admits (might be in the commentary or one of the books) that they threw it up pretty quickly and didn't have much money. I doubt the rest of the set existed. A shame because the excelsior is right up there with the connie refit in terms of my favourite ships.
Cheap, but effective, that set. Looked bigger that the Enterprise's (that may have to do with the camera lens used) and more modern. "Modern" in 1980's aesthetics, of course.
Well it should've been more detailed, although I understand why they didn't spend much on it. But unlike some other bridge sets we saw later, it looked suitably more advanced than the Enterprise's.
Yeah, that bridge... not so hot. It looks like a middle ground between TOS and TMP, what with the one turbolift and black consoles with colored lights and wrap-around rather than individual stations. And that's odd, since the Excelsior was supposed to be a step beyond TMP.
I thought it did look advanced, at least in '84. And if Bob Morton thinks it's good enough for him, sign me up.
That bridge set the stage for the large, glossy consoles seen on the bridge of the Enterprise-A and D. For the Excelsior to be seen as the next step above the TMP/TWOK bridge design, a big departure was required, and the bright, clinical, sharp-edged Excelsior bridge fit that purpose well.
I always got the impression that The Search For Spock was intentionally much closer to the TOS look with colorful lighting and more cardboardy looking sets. That's the impression I got from the Excelsior bridge in that film as well.