TMP-era Bridges

[Wingsley]

Yes, the appearance and ambient background noise of interior spacecraft sets tended to vary from ship to ship; take a look at "The Ultimate Computer" as an example. Lexington's bridge set borrows the bridge sounds from "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and the TOS-R version even slightly rounded the corners of the bridge viewer to extend this familiarity. A nice little touch.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Though I have to wonder why the Reliant only had one turbolift, while the Enterprise had two.

It's hard to tell, but it may be that the Reliant's bridge was slightly smaller than the Enterprise bridge; hence, the need for only one turbolift.

The Reliant bridge also seemed to have brighter overall lighting than Enterprise did, as well.

Only after Khan came aboard. If you watch the scene in which Reliant first enters orbit of Ceti Alpha V, you'll notice that the bridge lighting seems more subdued. Maybe it's just a matter of what the commanding officer wants.

--Sran

 

[Ithekro]

The Enterprise had only one turbolift prior to her refit. It is not stated why they added a second one. Reliant may never have had a second lift installed, or else because she doesn't have the more distant secondary hull, the designers felt she didn't need another one. (one that services the saucer decks and the other provide quick service to the engineering spaces).

 

[Christopher]

The Enterprise had only one turbolift prior to her refit. It is not stated why they added a second one.

Does it have to be? It's clearly a bad idea from a safety standpoint to have only one exit from the bridge. (And they added a second pair of exit doors in the animated series, just to port of the main viewscreen, although fan blueprints interpreted it as going to a gangway around the bridge rather than another lift.)

 

[Wingsley]

Enterprise typically has at least 400 crew. Reliant, IIRC, was said to have a crew of 300 (at least, in the novelization), so perhaps the smaller crew means reduced demand for turbolift services.

 

[Albertese]

The Enterprise had only one turbolift prior to her refit. It is not stated why they added a second one.

Does it have to be? It's clearly a bad idea from a safety standpoint to have only one exit from the bridge. (And they added a second pair of exit doors in the animated series, just to port of the main viewscreen, although fan blueprints interpreted it as going to a gangway around the bridge rather than another lift.)

Interestingly, Franz Josef added the second door (leading to the wraparound/lavatory/gangway) quite independently of Filmation's TAS. It's just a great coincidence that both chose the same location for another door.

Just goes to show how evident it is that a second exit makes sense.

--Alex

 

[Christopher]

Interestingly, Franz Josef added the second door (leading to the wraparound/lavatory/gangway) quite independently of Filmation's TAS. It's just a great coincidence that both chose the same location for another door.

What's your basis for that? FJ's manual and blueprints were published in 1975, just after TAS ended its run. They were evidently created during TAS's run. It stands to reason that FJ would've been influenced by the then-current screen incarnation of the series.

 

[T'Girl]

Just goes to show how evident it is that a second exit makes sense.

Depends on what you want to accomplish, if you want to channel or restrict access to a room, having multiple entrances makes little sense, anyone wanting onto the bridge has to come through that one doorway.

When Khan locked the turbolift doors on the bridge, would it really have been that difficult for him to also lock any other doors too?

 

[Ronald Held]

One turbolift does not preclude an emergency exit.

 

[Christopher]

]Depends on what you want to accomplish, if you want to channel or restrict access to a room, having multiple entrances makes little sense, anyone wanting onto the bridge has to come through that one doorway.

But what if you need to evacuate in an emergency? Then you want more than one exit.

Starfleet vessels are not designed primarily as combat vessels. They don't prioritize battle tactics over the safety of individual personnel. So I don't believe they'd place the siege logic of "only have one way for enemies to get in" over the safety logic of "have more than one way for our own people to get out."

 

[Wingsley]

For all we know, all Federation starships have trap-doors built-into the deck for emergency purposes like what we saw used in STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT. The ships has all sorts of crawlways and clever access panels for everything else; why not this?

 

[Christopher]

Because an actual door is simpler? Trapdoors are something you concoct if you're trying to retcon a single-entrance set design into something more, well, fire-code compliant. But if you're actually designing a facility from scratch, you'd just put a second door in the darn thing. No need to be convoluted.

 

[Wingsley]

I just want to add one minor editorial thing. Keep in mind, this is my personal preference, YMMV.

TMP's refit of the Enterprise was really interesting for me. I especially liked how all the standard crew chairs become permanently-fixed, bolted to the floor, and how they all had logical safety-restriant armrests as well. This made sense. It was also neat that they had a kind of Recaro look to them, with structure that supposedly gave the occupants work-shift-long support and maybe warmth.

But there was something that was missing in this new generation of starship seating that left me wanting: the bombastic style of Kirk's TOS-era captain's chair. TOS started a style statement here that I feel TMP-era movies ignored; that was a mistake in my opinion. The TMP captain's chair's only difference from other bridge officers' chairs was a slightly different shape and a darker color. Blah. This clearly wasn't enough, especially considering that Kirk was by then a flag officer. And to make matters even more blah, for TMP2 all the chairs switched to the same, bland, bright color. So now there was very little, if anything, to distinguish the captain's center seat from the rest. (I honestly didn't notice any difference between any of the chairs until I recently inspected some of TrekCore's "screencap" video frames.)

Then TMP3 came along, and we got to see an all-new ship, the Excelsior. Yes, there were aspects of it that made it look illogical and obnoxious. But wait a minute: those bridge chairs had personality! They combined the TMP-era's safety armrests with a new kind of style. Of course, true to form, movie production crew fumbled the ball by giving everyone on the Excelsior bridge the exact-same chair, complete with silly glowing floor-mount. I wish they had used the new design only for Captain Styles' chair and left everyone else with the established pseudo-Recaro-style chairs from TMP. They would've set the captain's chair off from the rest and it would've injected a measured dose some new style into the Excelsior bridge. It would be neat to see some 3D artist re-imagine the Excelsior bridge, restyled with the officers using TMP chairs, and the outer work-stations set up like the Bozeman from TNG's "Cause and Effect", but leave Styles' chair alone.

That's just me. As I said: YMMV.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^I never had a problem with the chairs being the same style during the films; why should only the captain be comfortable?

--Sran

 

[Wingsley]

For me, it wasn't a question of someone being more or less comfortable. It's a question of the captain's chair having a conspicuous style to set it apart from the others. (R.H.I.P.) That's the way it was in TOS; why not the movies as well?

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Kirk's chair was different in both TFF and TUC. As to why that wasn't the case before, who knows?

--Sran

 

[WarpFactorZ]

For me, it wasn't a question of someone being more or less comfortable. It's a question of the captain's chair having a conspicuous style to set it apart from the others. (R.H.I.P.) That's the way it was in TOS; why not the movies as well?

For what it's worth, the President of the US's chair in the Cabinet Room (and others) it the same as everyone else's, only an inch or two higher in the back.

 

[Ithekro]

Kirk missed his old chair.

 

[Christopher]

Starfleet is supposed to be a meritocracy, favoring egalitarianism over elitism. The producers were always adamant about downplaying the distinction between officers and enlisted personnel -- for instance, I saw a memo recently (thanks, Harvey) in which a producer rejected the idea of an "officers' lounge" aboard the ship because it would be unduly segregating. So the idea of giving a captain a special chair just as some kind of status symbol is an obnoxious, elitist, ego-feeding notion that has no place in Starfleet.

Presumably the reason the captain's chair was "special" in TOS was because it required more specialized functions. The armrests were large because they contained control consoles that the captain needed to have. But later on, the technology became more miniaturized and the command chair didn't have to be that much bigger.

 

[Tomalak]

But then the Enterprise-A and Excelsior go back to the other bridge staff sitting on basic office chairs (with poor lumbar support by the looks of things), and the captain having an enormous throne in the middle.

A century later on the Enterprise-D and especially Voyager, the captain's station looks like just another chair. It's not even central on Voyager.