IIRC, the last FX shots of the model were filmed for Season 2. All appearances of the 11-footer in season 3 were stock footage.
AMAZING NEW PICS of the Big E getting refurbished!
- Thread starter spockboy
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Same.
The thing is, the model has decayed over the decades, so restoring to exactly how it looked when it was last filmed could be impossible without replacing parts of it with new materials. If it comes down to a choice between preserving the original materials and replacing them with visually accurate replicas, I favor preservation. After all, there's more to history than surface appearance.
I doubt the Mona Lisa looks exactly the same today as it did when Leonardo finished painting it. A balance has to be struck between preventing the deterioration of an artwork and preserving its authentic physical history.
I doubt the Mona Lisa looks exactly the same today as it did when Leonardo finished painting it. A balance has to be struck between preventing the deterioration of an artwork and preserving its authentic physical history.
I think these pictures speak volumes.
If someone on the restoration team could obtain any more (properly scanned) color pictures from Craig O Thompson, they could see what the ship looked like without the bright production lights.
It's weathered but much more subtly and NO hard airbrushed lines under the saucer. Just penciled lines like on the top.
Greg Jein did a nice job of weathering on HIS Enterprise.
If someone on the restoration team could obtain any more (properly scanned) color pictures from Craig O Thompson, they could see what the ship looked like without the bright production lights.
It's weathered but much more subtly and NO hard airbrushed lines under the saucer. Just penciled lines like on the top.
Greg Jein did a nice job of weathering on HIS Enterprise.
Prepare to be inundated with questions now that you've outed yourself as a member of the committee.
Also just a brief correction to my original remarks: technically speaking, I think I should have used the word renovation instead of restoration. A renovation would would use modern materials to return the model to its original appearance. But I believe that the term restoration should be used if the original appearance is restored using original materials. A small but crucial difference.Respectfully, I would strongly disagree with doing that. To do so would add detail to an artifact where that detail did not originally exist. In a way, that would be an even worse example of the kind of modifications made during the early 1990's "renovation".
And that's why I don't envy the team in charge of working on the model! You put 50 Enterprise aficionados together in a room and you're guaranteed to get 50 strong and divergent opinions on how the work should be done!
Or just mothball the 1701 after scanning, then producing a perfect replica for display. In that way, the original can be protected, while the public can see a stronger model free of the deterioration and stress of a 51 year old miniature.
True, but we know that "in universe" the port side is complete. I know it's a tough decision to make but maybe a compromise would be something that can be clipped on or somehow easily attached so that the ship looks complete but can be removed in order to preserve the original model.
See my explanation above. I don't think it would be that difficult, considering what was done to bring the Galileo 7 back into existence. And if people really insist on keeping it "original" then may as well add all the external lighting cables that were used too.
Yes, that could work, but then folks wouldn't be seeing the actual filming model.
Agreed. Remember, this isn't just a model of a fictional starship. It's THE model, used fifty years ago when filming the original Star Trek television series. It's the face that launched a thousand careers in astronautics and science. A thousand thousand, at that. The 11-footer is literally a priceless historical artifact of man's conquest of space.
We should no more add windows to the port side of the model than we should insert modern avionics into the National Air and Space Museum's Concorde. If we add detail to the port, we might as well have NASM paint a modern livery over the (admittedly hideous) original brown and yellow paint scheme of their Boeing 367-80 (the test article for the 707).
Restore the model to its shot-from-starboard-only appearance during the production run of the series (first, second or third season; take your pick). But please, I beg the conservators... nothing beyond that.
The unfinished port side should be preserved for being a feature of the real miniature, something we almost never got to see on television (we actually did get a glimpse of it in "Metamorphosis.")
It's a historical aspect of the model. If you want to see an idealized representation of the fictional ship, that's not the Smithsonian's mission.
It's a historical aspect of the model. If you want to see an idealized representation of the fictional ship, that's not the Smithsonian's mission.
That would be materially changing the model to be something it wasn't. The fact that the port side is blank but for holes for wires, and that there's no "trench" in the inboard starboard nacelle, and the rectangular details under the nacelle domes are only on the camera side and bottom all tell the story about how the model was used. I wish they'd left the wiring in place because that's part of its history, and could be explained on a plaque.
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Whatever they do, I hope they get rid of the horrid painted grid lines. Miarecki should be flogged for defacing the model like that. 
I can think of at least one shot of the Enterprise that had to be shot in season three.... the one where it approaches the camera on a level plane and seemingly speeds up the closer it comes. Until it gets close to the camera, the right warp nacelle strut is not visible. I know it is seen at the beginning of the teaser in "Spock's Brain," and also a number of other episodes...
No clue why they'd have even bothered making the decal for that side, since it was essentially unfilmable.
It still could have been filmed during second season and not yet used.
