Why do Admirals always use Excelsior Class ships?

Every Admiral we see on TNG and DS9 always use Excelsior Class ships. Why?

 

They're resting on their laurels, eternally stuck in the glory days of their youth.

Kor

 

It would make sense to use older, non "front line" ship for moving them around.

It's also cheap to re-use that model a lot XD

 

Well, were I a Starfleet admiral, I'd choose one, too. Long, sleek lines and a beautiful silhouette. Absolute galactic pimpmobiles. The vintage Chevy impala of the Alpha Quadrant. Don't tell Scotty I said this.

 

Thet had the stock footage available?

 

It's the 737 of starships.

 

They had a contract with Boeing

 

Plus, for visuals' sake they needed a ship that looked different from ENT-D, but not too different. Excelsiors were different but still familiar to the audience.

 

Budget.

 

I wonder if the knew when they were filming those shots in Farpoint and The Child just how much use they would get out of them?

 

I sense a story in which we see a non-Federation race's view of the Excelsior. That ubiquitous, ominous shape that looms into view to spoil all the profitable shenanigans. Thousands of the brutes sailing around the galaxy, imposing the Feds' will. Perhaps from the Ferengi pespective?

It would be as iconic and grudgingly respected as the Huey was in Vietnam, or the F-16 as a symbol of NATO air power.

 

Because they're the backbone of Starfleet, in service for around a century for good reason and have been a driving force of the Federation across the galaxy, why travel in anything else?

 

The Admiral Games.

It's hardly a fair competition if they're all in different types of star ships.

 

Admiral Ross was an outlier...

 

Was it ever established what Ross's ship was? IIRC, the fleet commander's conference call in WYLB they just used the Defiant bridge filmed at an angle to hide what it was.

 

Wasn't it an Intrepid class, or did he use it only in "Inter arma enim sillent leges"?

 

Because there's no Enterprise Rent-A-Starship in the future.

 

The Bellerophon.

At least in "Inter Arma..." it was. True, we don't know what ship Ross used in WYLB. But if other Admirals like using Excelsior-class ships...maybe Ross just likes Intrepids?

 

My understanding was the Bellerophon was specifically selected for the mission to Romulus. I didn't realize it actually was Ross's flagship.

I think in the novels his flagship was the Prometheus class USS Cerberus. Which, BTW, is an awesome name for a ship of that class.

 

Correct on both counts. I for one virulently hate when stock footage is used. In my opinion, it makes Star Trek look cheap. I get the cost-savings, and yes, it isn't always necessary to have a new ship model just for one scene. But let's say that instead of reusing the Excelsior for the scene in "Encounter at Farpoint," they actually had built another new ship for the Hood. We would then be seeing that new ship in all the ad infinitum stock footage shots, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.