TOS's largest one time prop.

One episode that I wish had some sort of on-location shots is Amok Time.

Although I'm not sure they had the technology to make the sky red if they had done some of it on location.

Another episode that seemed to have great use of nighttime sets, if I remember correctly, is Alternative Factor. (Or am I remembering it wrong?)

So there's no sign of the Obelisk?

 

I'm not recalling night scenes in that ep. Not that I've seen it that much, or lately.

 

Placing a red gel in front of the camera lens might have worked, it would have given everything a soft red cast.

T'Pol in ENT said that from the surface of Vulcan the sky was occasional blue. Earth is blue and white from space, but all last week Seattle's sky's were very grey.

 

Considering every Admiral, Governer or simply authority figure on TOS throughout it's run, he had some major competition.

Someone please write a TOS novel where the nickname for SFC is 'the toolshed'.

 

The undercut has always bothered me since I bought the original blueprints for the TOS Enterprise!

I'm not visualizing about the bit about the turboshafts, unless you mean the two lighted shafts either side of the past Enterprise displays that Admiral Kirk stands in front of to give the crew briefing?

At any event, the original point about the Obelisk being an impressive 'object' stands. It sells itself as out of place compared to the Amerind village.

 

Yes, exactly. Compare them to the exposed turboshaft columns in the cargo bay matte painting just after Kirk boards the ship.

The thing is, the rec deck was originally meant to be in the secondary hull, corresponding to the rows of windows along the underside. In that context, its proportions would've made sense. But for some reason, before filming, they made the decision to relocate it to the rear of the saucer, perhaps for the sake of the nacelle view.

 

Your mean a filter. Gels are used on lights.

 

The distance between the turboshafts on the Cargo Deck is greater than that between the turboshafts on the Rec Deck.

If they really had intended to locate the Rec Deck on the lower part of the secondary hull (I understand it was one of several proposed locations) then the decision to place it in the saucer was made well before set construction began.

 

^Well, they're not supposed to be the same turboshafts, since the Rec Deck would've been further forward in the secondary hull. My point is that the design is the same, so therefore both pairs of columns were meant to be turboshafts.

And yes, I did say that they changed their minds before filming, which is obvious since the rear windows match those on the back of the saucer and there was a huge backdrop of the nacelles. My point was that elements of the initial design plan were carried forward into the final design, and that's why they don't quite fit the saucer placement. I think that Probert suggested starting over from scratch and doing a different design that would fit the saucer placement, but the filmmakers just settled for a partial modification of the existing design.

 

Well obviously they had settled on the location prior to filming, but I said it was prior to final set construction. Which is also obvious. Ah, whatever.

From what I've read elsewhere, the original intention of Hal Michaelson (TMP set designer)was to place the Rec Deck along the centreline of the saucer, until someone pointed out that there was already a honking great set of Impulse Engines there!

Poor Hal - in many of the anecdotes about him he doesn't seem to "get" why he couldn't build the sets he wanted simply because there was no corresponding part of the ship model. The giant window in the Cargo Deck he wanted also springs to mind...

 

The decision was also made to have the Big Three sort out their troubles in a room that has "virtual" windows, corresponding to nothing found on the outside of the model (they're the rough shape of the portholes on the saucer rim, but the view isn't a match, either in TMP or TMP DE). In that context, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to accept the Rec Deck as being at the very center of the saucer, with those twin turbolifts coming down directly from the bridge. The windows at the back would be just as unreal as the windows at the Officers' Lounge, Bar and Hairdresser's, and only incidentally superficially similar to the portholes on the saucer aft starboard rim.

Virtual portholes are a Trek staple anyway: it wouldn't be until the next millennium that the Main Viewer on the bridge would become non-virtual...

As for massive props, we have two on-stage items that were a thousand feet long! Before they were shrunken by the villain of the week, that is...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Well, prop representations of a massive thing anyway.

 

I also think the centreline of the saucer is probably the best location for a large open space like the Rec Deck (although the turboshafts are considerably further away from each other than on the main Bridge, so clearly something has happened on the way down).

Given that the the view out of the Rec Deck "windows" is that of an early pre-production Spacedock (which does not match the final version) I have no problem seeing them as holographic viewers that only superficially resemble the ones on the aft starboard saucer. However if that the case, what's with those small circular ones to the left and right of the main "eight cluster"? What could their purpose be I wonder, visual communication alcoves? Control port to alter the view?They're a bit low for either, TBH, unless you were seated (and there's very little room for chairs on that balcony).

Regarding the room where the "big three" have their catchup, is there any reason why it can't be located at the cluster of 8 windows on the starboard aft saucer? Obviously this would only work with the Director's Cut edition, but the presence of the pylon and warp pod would correspond rougly to that location, wouldn't it? There's even a slightly slanted wall!

 

Those eight windows are the same ones we see in the rear of the rec deck in the briefing scene. All eight are accounted for there.

The private briefing was, of course, meant to be in the officer's lounge that was seen in miniature when Spock's shuttle was approaching, the one with the four oblong windows at the rear of the bridge module. But they didn't have the budget to build the set, so they had to slap one together from leftover parts of the rec deck. Andrew Probert came up with the idea that it was an enclosure with virtual windows located within the officer's lounge.

 

But, conversely, if we dismiss all the eight seen at Rec Deck as mere display screens, then the rim of the saucer could feature eight smaller rooms of which the Officers' Smaller Lounge is one.

Why have viewscreens shaped like portholes or vice versa? Perhaps the illusion of being able to see out of the tin can is psychologically so vital that this subterfuge is necessary. But that would then call for a few real portholes of that shape to get the illusion going, which is what we may be seeing in the Really Petty Officers' Lounge. If the portholes on the aft rim of the saucer exist for psychological reasons, then I would find it likelier that intimate spaces such as the Mini-Lounge be found behind them, for a soothing and private anti-claustrophobia session.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The Rec Deck as presented in TMP requires the viewer to either ignore the floor (because of the saucer undercut) or to ignore the windows (instead interpreting them as holographic viewers).

Or thirdly, don't be one of those audience members who goes to the cinema with a slide rule in your hand"

The actual location of the Rec Deck in TMP was never concretely established, and given the inconsistencies mentioned above, I think the audience really are free to pick and choose, on this occasion.

 

This was always my most troublesome part of the ship shown in The Motion Picture:



I mean, the ship is pretty big, but big enough to waste that much space in the secondary hull?

 

^It's not wasted space; it's hangar space and cargo space. If you look closely, you can see that along the side walls of the cargo section, there are parts of a retractable floor that would theoretically close over the cargo deck and create another layer of cargo floor space (although it's hard to see how it could retract that far, given how close those walls are to the outer edges of the hull; there'd have to be some kind of garage-door rolling or folding involved).

 

Ah, I see what you mean, Christopher. I hadn't noticed that retracted floor before. Yes, it would seemingly have to act somewhat like an old fashioned roll-top desk to retract that way.

 

A nifty bit of thinking on Andrew Probert's part, since the otherwise cavernous Cargo Deck did tend to strain common sense a little.

He also included segmented sliding doors at the shuttlebay end of the room, so that the forcefield wouldn't be needed all the time once the cargo loading was complete.