Hey everyone, this is my first ever post so be kind. Now I see a lot of hate for the original Excelsior bridge from Star Trek: TSFS, be it on the forums and on other trek related sites. In my personal opinion, it was a great tip of the hat to TOS in its style and simplicity. It size could be up for debate, but I believe it looks bigger than it should due to the completely flat floor. With some good old fashioned railings and some movie era details it would have been a great starship bridge...maybe replace those seats (ugh). I'd love to hear everyones thoughts on this.
The original Excelsior bridge...
- Thread starter Aubster2863
- Start date
The Excelsior bridge looks like a lot of the sets built for TSFS: cheap, and slapped together at the last minute. But it did what it needed to: serve as a bright, shiny contrast to the older, scarred-up Enterprise bridge in that film.
I liked it, and wish they had kept something in that spirit for VI, instead of the cramped TNG style one we got.
Maybe that's true in-universe as well - meaning, the original bridge was meant as a temporary one until the real bridge was finished. The Excelsior was a prototype, after all, and starship bridges are hot-swappable, so this doesn't seem like a big deal.
At least it didn't have pink chairs.
The only real problem I have with the original Excelsior bridge is those huge lettered signs right next to the turbolift denoting ship's status. Surely it'd be more efficient to just use lighting?
I didn't mind the original Excelsior bridge, although I would have liked the captain's chair to have been a raised platform. Otherwise, I could appreciate it as being of a slightly different design philosophy than that of other bridges.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3575/3304522922_5e792a5385_o.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3575/3304522922_5e792a5385_o.jpg
Agree. The difference between the 1701-Refit Bridge and the SFS Excelsior Bridge is vast like from TOS 1701 to TMP 1701-Refit.
Did you mean "not-swappable"? From what I understand, starship bridges are modules that can be removed and replaced.
Yes, that is what I meant. They can be swapped. (The "hot" refers to the fact that you can do it while the ship is still in use. Kind of like RAID arrays in which you can replace one of the drives in the setup while still using it.)
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I like it very much. Cheap set or not, for some technical and/or cinematographic reason it seems much larger and advanced than the Enterprise bridge.
I dislike all the starship bridges in V and VI (Excelsior and Enterprise). They seem (were) too much designed as theatric sets and don`t feel so 'real'.
I dislike all the starship bridges in V and VI (Excelsior and Enterprise). They seem (were) too much designed as theatric sets and don`t feel so 'real'.
That seems much smaller than the bridge we see in STIII. I think the artist tried to downsize it to conform to the "replacement" bridge of VI. The Excelsior is a bigger ship, and needs a bigger bridge.
Looking at this screen cap the Captain's Chair is raised on a platform. You can tell becasue the feet of the woman in the background are missing. It looks like a circular platform to me.
Edit: Watching the clip of stealing the Enterprise I think the whole Captain's Chair, Helm, and Navigation consoles are on the platform. And there is another platform that the Captains Chair is on becasue he steps up again to go sit down.
Edit: Watching the clip of stealing the Enterprise I think the whole Captain's Chair, Helm, and Navigation consoles are on the platform. And there is another platform that the Captains Chair is on becasue he steps up again to go sit down.
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Every time I see that bridge now, I get the impression it's so full of controls that they can program the food dispensers in the rec deck from there. Sort of that they felt they needed immediate responses from the entire ship for each phase of testing, so they bypassed the human element and went straight to "It's all run from here".
I think the strong lighting makes it hard to determine whether the platforms exist or not. Regardless, I think they should have kept this bridge design, with a few tweaks, for VI. I just don't like how similar the Enterprise bridge is to the Excelsior in TUC (out of universe this is due to the bridge simply being a redress) but in-universe there is no reason for the similarity.
I'd never noticed it before, but I think the Captains chair, and the helm, are both raised up.
As Styles leaves the turbolift you can see him take a step up:
Then you see a crewmember walk behind him, and you can't see her feet as they are hidden by the raised platform:
And again, her feet are obscured by the platform:
He also appears to take a step up after talking to the helmsman, so perhaps the Captains chair is on another level again.
As Styles leaves the turbolift you can see him take a step up:
Then you see a crewmember walk behind him, and you can't see her feet as they are hidden by the raised platform:
And again, her feet are obscured by the platform:
He also appears to take a step up after talking to the helmsman, so perhaps the Captains chair is on another level again.
