TOS Constitution Class Model In Marcus's Office!? (Deleted Scene)

U.S.S. Biddeford NCC-0718!

Thanks to a look at Pubert's recent thread on a deleted scene Youtube video from STID, I was lead on to another deleted scene from the movie, where we see a model that looks to be the 'other Universe's' answer to TOS-style Constitution class vessel. Has anybody else seen this? An interesting tip of the hat, but left out of the final version the film!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnVWUce3FHQ

 

Yeah. The scene was available as an Xbox SmartGlass feature for folks who bought the film on that platform.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Biddeford

 

Thanks for that link, BillJ, and also M'Sharak! I suspected that I had missed out what may have been discussed at some point earlier. And my personal state of technology prevented me from seeing that Xbox feature!

....... A thread from September 2013?! I am very disappointed in my Trekself for not knowing about this sooner.....

 

The scene is available on the Star Trek Compendium Blu-ray set now.

 

The beeping on Marcus' phone sounds kind of like it came from the TNG-movie era, like a communications beep on the Enterprise-E.

Wishful thinking, I know, and if true, that's neat. But to me it definitely doesn't sound like something that would come from a recreated/imitated TOS sound file.

 

Also interesting is how Khan's alias here still is the Viking-style "John Erickson" - I didn't realize they shot most if not all scenes with that name and had to loop the less revealing one there afterwards...

Timo Saloniemi

 

^^Yeah, allegedly because they were afraid fans would recognize "John Erickson" and figure out the twist. Pretty funny we still figured it out anyway.

 

Excellent deleted scene Rob. In ST09 the Kelvin was destroyed in 2233. In TOS the classic constitution Enterprise was first commission in 2243. In ST09 the Enterprise was built starting in 2255 and commissioned in 2258. That gives us approximately 22 years from the destruction of the Kelvin and the building of the Enterprise. So if they started building classic Connies in the new universe in approximately 2240 and commissioned them in 2243 that would give us about 12 years of use. Yeah its off from the TOS series but it could work. I think they could have left. We could have presumed that Starfleet engineers were pouring over the Narda scans during the shorter period of the Connies and then built the advanced Enterprise. Possible. I wish the writers would have given an explanation like that or similar to it. I would have like that. This is another short scene they could one day put back. It would integrate the original Connies into NuTrek and even with the alternate time frame it would more closely resemble an alternate universe that was borne out of the Prime Trek universe.

 

Yeah, it took about two seconds for fans to say "John Harrison? Sounds like John Erickson... Wait a minute!..."

 

It does take a special breed of fan to recognize an unused name for the TOS character, tho. And of course, ENT already gave us an Erickson of optional spelling, utterly unrelated to supermen

I don't see the new NCC-1701 as a successor to the TOS Constitution design at all. The two designs are in completely different categories, size-wise - NCC-0718 has the familiar window rows and other detail to establish it as a midget in comparison with the 2009 movie flagship.

For all we know, both universes always had these tiny little Constitutions for frontier scouting, and then these massive superships for flagship duties. It just so happens that the Prime universe had a command ship looking more like one of those Starfleet Command computer game ships, even if identical in size to the 2009 movie vessel. And the difference in threat environment meant that in the new timeline, a ship looking like NCC-0718 didn't get the five-year frontier exploration mission under the command of James T. Kirk - the new NCC-1701, more capable of defending herself (even if excessively sized for frontier scouting), did.

Timo Saloniemi

 

In the 80s I worked in an Air Force office decorated with, among other things, artwork and models of aircraft that never got built (some of it probably donated by Grumman, et al).

And here's a lovely picture of the American SST:




There's no reason to assume that a TOS-style Constitution class vessel ever got past the design stages in the Abramsverse.

 

That's a beautiful looking plane nonetheless...

 

Yep, that's why we love to hang models of things that don't get built.

 

It may have been in planning stages and scrapped when the Narada destroyed the Kelvin. The need suddenly arose for larger, stronger ships.

 

...Except the Kelvin already was a larger ship. Many ships of that size and general design were seen in the 2250s scenes, yet the existence of the Kelvin would seem to indicate that those were not a "reaction" to anything, but rather generic legacy ships dating back to the days before the TOS design.

Sure, Starfleet may have considered going midget and then decided not to. But Starfleet may also have decided that both midgets and giants have their role to play, and continued to build both. It just didn't choose to give the registry NCC-1701 or the name Enterprise or the class name Constitution to the smaller design in this timeline.

I'm still having trouble believing Starfleet would have found anything exceptional or worth reacting to in the Narada incident. Shit happens, especially in space. Starships didn't suddenly become larger or more powerful when the Space Amoeba or the Doomsday Machine were encountered; decades after the fact, Starfleet kept building ships of the approximate TOS Constitution size.

Now, as for an excuse to supersize... I guess even the likes of Marcus want to have excuses.

Timo Saloniemi

 

One thought would be that Starfleet in the normal timeline settled for building more smaller ships with less crew as the ships were just about as capable at the larger ships like USS Kelvin. Perhaps is was due to a shortage in trained manpower, or they wanted to keep up numbers against the smaller and numerous Klingon warships.

In the alternate timeline, the Klingons supposedly capture the Narada following the incident with USS Kelvin. This could lead to the Klingons having some more advanced ships or perhaps larger ships. Starfleet decides to continue building larger ships to counter whatever the Klingons might be building (or are building). The older "Starship-class" design may or may not have been built in the late 2230s and 2240s, but their perviously know hull numbers or ship names appear on Kelvin based ship designs in the late 2250s. USS Farragut is not a old style Constitution in this timeline at around the time Kirk would have been serving on it in the Prime timeline. USS Enterprise is built later in a larger design. Perhaps there was another Enterprise built between 2161 and 2258 in this timeline or even in the normal timeline. It was either lost prior to the Prime timeline's Constitition class ship being built, or in this alternate version was built after USS Kelvin was lost and then lost prior to this newer, larger starship being built in the 2250s.


One should always assume that Starfleet builds to counter the Klingons in the 23rd century. It is their main rival and it fits the Cold War parallel from the 1960s as well as similar naval arms races in the early 1900s leading into World War One and to a slightly lesser degree in World War Two.

 

It would help if we knew more about the Klingons of this timeline. We have seen one of their ship types up close, and it's roughly comparable to the Bird of Prey of the TOS movies. The other, from the Academy simulation, was not seen in sufficient detail to establish scale. K't'inga size? Four-five times the size, to compete with the Starfleet vessels? A fictional design created for the purposes of the simulation, absent authentic data? Comparisons with the Kobayashi Maru and her almost-visible window rows help a little there, but they aren't decisive.

Did the Klingons have anything to do with the Narada in the end? The story about them capturing and then losing her was completely cut (and would have been rather implausible to begin with - how could Nero regain control of a vessel the Empire had been tearing to pieces for 25 years in order to learn her secrets?). The remaining references to Klingons (within spitting distance of the teaser battle site, a prison planet of theirs reporting on another battle just before the death of Vulcan) both put the Klingons close to the Romulan vessel, but not in a position to learn much about her. And that's assuming the "battle with 47 Klingons" wasn't just Nero luring Starfleet to a wild goose chase.

FWIW, we see a scale model (existing design, proposed design, abstract art, whatever) of a small ship in the new timeline, but never a model of a large ship in the prime timeline... And our TOS heroes do think that the Excelsior is a "big ship" in ST6:TUC, suggesting that the fact of her being the only large prime design in evidence isn't just a statistical fluke and misleading bias.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Was there ever any confirmation that this was the final shot and that wasn't some placeholder CGI?