Donny’s Late TOS Movie Era Interiors

[Donny]

Oh I see with the lived-in look. Perhaps then the TFF-Ent-A was too experimental (or advanced) and had so many bugs that Kirk or Scotty reverted many of the ship's systems and interiors to what the other starships were standardized on (the harder edged aesthetic.) What we see on the TUC-Ent-A is closer to the fleet standard and the TFF version was the aberration? Thinking about just swapping another new ship seems to be kinda of extravagant

I'm leaning more and more towards just saying there was a massive refit of the ship after TFF due to its many problems, which coincided with Starfleet's new aesthetic mandate, explaining the starkly different interior appearance in TUC. I think that solves the problem without injecting too much wild theorizing.

 

[Rusty0918]

Well, whatever you say.

 

[137th Gebirg]

The sarcasm there seems... misplaced and unnecessary, maybe?

 

[plynch]

I sure like the Navy's bright-n-visible design ethos upthread. In music, SO many panels/knobs/jacks, everything is matte black and SO hard to read, esp if you're playing somewhere with dim light. Even in my music room yesterday, a bedroom w/ an overhead light, but unfortunately a window behind my "box" that goes to computer, I had to go get a flashlight to see where the level knobs were set.

 

[danellis]

Perhaps a bit of a tangent, but a google of "navy interior design" lead me to this article on the interior fittings of HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's equivilant of the E-D

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/busine...interiors-royal-navys-biggest-warship-1069939

dJE

 

[TOMFAN]

The thing which bugged me about TUC Ent, was the change of Kirk's quarters, from the nice, pretty decent sized one in TMP/TWOK, to the cramped little cubby hole one he had here!

 

[Donny]

The thing which bugged me about TUC Ent, was the change of Kirk's quarters, from the nice, pretty decent sized one in TMP/TWOK, to the cramped little cubby hole one he had here!

Yeah. I have similar feels, but it fits with the whole “submarine” aspect Nicholas Meyer was going for.

A theory I have is that for whatever reason, perhaps more complex systems on the Ent-A requiring more crew members, the crew complement requirement has thus expanded, meaning for a downgrade in size for officer’s quarters.

 

[STEPhon IT]

The Hunt for Red October was definitely an influence but his aspect has always been Hornblower, and I also think Meyer wanted to distance his movie to TFF and started changing things just for the sake of changing things. Besides that, Donny, I think your stuff is incredible and wow the images are spot on and fantastic but I don't believe Meyer was a visual genius like you think he was.

 

[Donny]

The Hunt for Red October was definitely an influence but his aspect has always been Hornblower, and I also think Meyer wanted to distance his movie to TFF and started changing things just for the sake of changing things. Besides that, Donny, I think your stuff is incredible and wow the images are spot on and fantastic but I don't believe Meyer was a visual genius like you think he was.

I never said he was a visual genius? An amazing storyteller and a capable director. But I do like the aesthetics of the film, but I in now way attribute this solely to Meyer nor am I saying that the aesthetic is necessarily genius. It fits the tone of the film, and it’s one I particularly like, along with many other aesthetic directions across Trek from the 60s to the 90s.

 

[STEPhon IT]

From Meyer's entire resume he was capable but I understand you like his work very much and your images represents that and it is spot on.

 

[Lt. Washburn]

Interesting to bring up The Hunt for Red October. Also a Paramount production and some Star Trek stuff featured throughout...those freezer spacers used all over modern Trek, the carafes from ST6 Starfleet briefing, Gates McFadden...

 

[cardinal biggles]

Interesting to bring up The Hunt for Red October. Also a Paramount production and some Star Trek stuff featured throughout...those freezer spacers used all over modern Trek, the carafes from ST6 Starfleet briefing, Gates McFadden...

And on the flip-side of that you've got the Russian sub's radiation alarms which got scavenged by Mike Okuda after Red October wrapped and were later used in the cockpit of the Bajoran fighter in DS9 "The Siege":

 

[Firebird]

I’m pretty sure TUC reused some of the sound effects for the October’s silent drive activating as the warm up sounds for the Enterprise when it goes to 1/4 impulse for the trip out of Spacedock.

 

[137th Gebirg]

And on the flip-side of that you've got the Russian sub's radiation alarms which got scavenged by Mike Okuda after Red October wrapped and were later used in the cockpit of the Bajoran fighter in DS9 "The Siege":

View attachment 24064

Never noticed that before - they’re scaled-down Jeep grilles!

 

[David cgc]

Never noticed that before - they’re scaled-down Jeep grilles!

Must be from those one of those little electric ones for kids. I’m surprised they’d be found objects, I’d think those things would be pretty expensive in 1990 (they’re pretty expensive now, for a toy for five-year-olds), but maybe somebody knew somebody at the factory and could get rejected parts for cheap.

 

[Tallguy]

The thing which bugged me about TUC Ent, was the change of Kirk's quarters, from the nice, pretty decent sized one in TMP/TWOK, to the cramped little cubby hole one he had here!

I thought someone said on a commentary or something that it was the same quarters, they just didn't show as much of it.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Those quarters were a reuse of the junior officers quarters on TNG, but by the time you get to Season 4, they had extensively modified the set to the point where they were almost unrecognizable as Kirk's quarters from TMP and TWOK (whereas in the first two seasons its origins are pretty obvious, especially with the curved wall).

 

[Donny]

I thought someone said on a commentary or something that it was the same quarters, they just didn't show as much of it.

The set still had the same layout as in the early TOS movies and early seasons of TNG, but was split in two by the “replicator” wall they placed between the two halves of the set. The half we see representing Kirk and Spock’s cabins in is the “bedroom” half of the set, yet the “living room” half of the set became the crew bunk where the gravity boots are found and crewman Dax is confronted later in the film. I’ll post pics when I’m back at my PC later.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

1) There was an extensive refit of the A after returning home from the Barrier.

This seems the simplest and most logical explanation to me.

2) There were so many issues with the A we saw in TFF, that after returning home from the Barrier, it was scrapped for parts, and another Connie that was in production was christened as the Enterprise-A for the crew to immediately transfer to. This newer Connie had the newer, more hard-edged aesthetic we see in TUC.

I don't care for this, as there's no reference to them getting yet another ship between TFF and TUC. It also begs the questions of: 1) Why they didn't just call it the Enterprise-B and: 2) Why it was decommissioned after less than a decade's service, even with all of its damage. This explanation creates more problems than it solves, IMO.

3) The TFF Enterprise-A and the TUC Enterprise-A exist in two completely separate parallel universes

This requires to completely discount TFF, though... Wait, you know what? I'm actually okay with that.

I'm leaning more and more towards just saying there was a massive refit of the ship after TFF due to its many problems, which coincided with Starfleet's new aesthetic mandate, explaining the starkly different interior appearance in TUC. I think that solves the problem without injecting too much wild theorizing.

Glad to hear it. The simplest explanation is the best. Occam's Razor and all.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Never noticed that before - they’re scaled-down Jeep grilles!

Must be from those one of those little electric ones for kids. I’m surprised they’d be found objects, I’d think those things would be pretty expensive in 1990 (they’re pretty expensive now, for a toy for five-year-olds), but maybe somebody knew somebody at the factory and could get rejected parts for cheap.

There's a passing resemblance to a Jeep grille, and maybe they were found objects, but not from a Power Wheels toy. None of the ones back in the 80s (or since) ever had a grille that looked like this. They always had more and longer vertical slots (like their real-life counterparts), and the headlights were flush with the grille rather than the grille sticking out in front of them.