Grills or balls?

[retroenzo]

Why is it that the rear of the warp nacelles differs in some episodes? In some episodes the aft looks like a grill, but in others it appears spherical? I'm presuming there was some kind of modification to the model but what necessitated the change? And what's the official version? Grills or balls?

 

[C.E. Evans]

They reused old stock footage from the pilot episodes quite a few times. So sometimes we saw an earlier version of the Enterprise mixed into later episodes.

 

[urbandefault]

The model was updated from the first pilot, to the second, to the series. Stock footage was shot for all three, and reused as necessary.

 

[Albertese]

Both versions of the model were used in every production episode of the series.

The model was built for the first pilot in 1964, and was refurbished for the second pilot, and again for the series production. The first refurbishment was mainly changes in painting. Actually, off the top of my head, I forget when the physical changes were made: lowering the bridge dome, the smaller sensor dish, but there were paint detail differences and then for the final refurbishment for the series production, lights were added (which weren't in there at first) and the nacelles were changed then.

The series version is most people's go-to "real" one (with the aft ball structures), at least for the production time period. The earlier versions for Pike and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" tend to identify with the earlier versions of the model.

--Alex

 

[alensatemybuick1]

I recall trying to reconcile the differences in the nacelle rear end caps (the most obvious difference seen at the end of many episodes as the ship went off into the distance) when I was much younger as a "configurational" change having to do with the ship's warp status or somesuch. I can't recall how I reasoned away the other big differences (the painted versus lit front caps or larger antenna) seen in the opening credits. Only fairly recently did I realize that the only time we see the series version of the ship in the opening credits at all is a brief (~3 second) shot in season 1.

 

[Push The Button]

Watching a far-away UHF station on a black-and-white TV in the 70s, I never really noticed these subtle differences in the model, my picture was so horrible.

 

[BJ Wagner]

I recall trying to reconcile the differences in the nacelle rear end caps (the most obvious difference seen at the end of many episodes as the ship went off into the distance) when I was much younger as a "configurational" change having to do with the ship's warp status or somesuch. I can't recall how I reasoned away the other big differences (the painted versus lit front caps or larger antenna) seen in the opening credits. Only fairly recently did I realize that the only time we see the series version of the ship in the opening credits at all is a brief (~3 second) shot in season 1.

I did this too. Funny how young minds try to fix things like that in-story before every considering it was poor creative decisions on the film makers side.

 

[Albertese]

I did this too. Funny how young minds try to fix things like that in-story before every considering it was poor creative decisions on the film makers side.

Hardly a "poor creative decision." Rather, a cost saving measure to have more useful footage while still targeting the budget.

Bear in mind in 1966 these guys were making a TV show that they fully expected to be forgotten by 1972. It just had to look good on-screen for the few seconds it was visible at a time. The fact it's as good as it is is damn near miraculous.

--Alex

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The ball end-caps were probably added to support Roddenberry's edict that the engines never emit rocket thrust. The propulsion was meant to be a whole other thing, an invisible force, so the engines should look like they are not meant to emit thrust. Thus the grills had to go.

The constant re-use of stock footage muddied the waters, but I'm pretty sure that was the thinking.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I've always thought those grills would look awesome with a powerful white glow behind them.

 

[SPCTRE]

huehuehue, the OP said "balls"

 

[Timo]

I prefer to think that the balls are retractable filters of some sort, and the ship purges the warp engines whenever approaching a planet (such as in the opening credits), moving the filters aside for the operation...

Franz Joseph got mileage out of the balls, deciding that they are a matching pair for the forward domes and establish the warp engines as bipolar. As in bipolar magnets, that is (although perhaps this also explains the necessity of lithium in the engine system?). His language about the forward pole being a "sink" later evolved into the forward domes being declared interstellar vacuum cleaners or "ramscoops", although clearly that wasn't his intention; the presence of a corresponding "source" at the aft balls was ignored in later technobabble.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BJ Wagner]

Hardly a "poor creative decision." Rather, a cost saving measure to have more useful footage while still targeting the budget.

Bear in mind in 1966 these guys were making a TV show that they fully expected to be forgotten by 1972. It just had to look good on-screen for the few seconds it was visible at a time. The fact it's as good as it is is damn near miraculous.

--Alex

I agree with you 100% and can understand the decision to reuse stock footage in this case. With the TV's of the time, most people probably wouldn't have noticed the differences in the first place--much less had any means of pausing, or rewinding the footage.

My comment on poor creative decisions has more to do with these inconsistencies in general. Reusing the Bird of Prey destruction from UC for Generations. Simply playing the footage of the boat in Anaconda in reverse to make it look like it was backing up. Things like that. The people behind Trek did a great job with what they had, bigger, more modern productions sometimes get lazy.

 

[J.T.B.]

"Grills or balls?" I guess it says a lot that many of us would know immediately what that subject line referred to!

 

[retroenzo]

"Grills or balls?" I guess it says a lot that many of us would know immediately what that subject line referred to!

I do wonder if anyone was disappointed when they opened the thread.

Thanks everyone for the answers. I really didn't know they'd modified the Enterprise model. I suppose it makes sense that they'd freshen up the look, especially for the 'star' ship in what could have been a long running TV show. I just never expected quite a drastic change so early on. Personally I quite like the grills as they made it look like a working spaceship, although not for 'rocket engines'. I saw them as being vents for some kind of exhaust gas produced by the impulse or warp engines.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Both versions of the model were used in every production episode of the series.

Except one: Charlie X. That episode only contained footage of the second pilot version of the model (not including the one orbit shot in the series' main credits). Until TOS-R, that was a perfectly good trivia question.

 

[UnknownSample]

Bear in mind in 1966 these guys were making a TV show that they fully expected to be forgotten by 1972.
--Alex

It's not going out on much of a limb to say that the makers of a program that dealt seriously with the future hoped their project, that they were expending all this thought and energy on, was actually valued, respected, and remembered in the future.

 

[publiusr]

I like the forward nacelle caps from the production version--but the grills of the second pilot.