Engine room set evolution

[Ryann866]

Has anyone done a comparison or evolution of the Enterprise engine room set from the Phase II configuration, through Voyager?

I find it fascinating to study screen caps and photos of the various incarnations of this set and see how it was artfully altered to represent the various ships. However, I haven't been able to find any article online that focuses on TMP set and how it was changed.

In looking at photos carefully, one can see that Geordi's office walls were made up of two consoles that were in originally in McCoy's office during TMP. The console station directly to the left of the room as you head out of the "core" area towards the pool table seems to be the engine room alcove console that Decker and Kirk conversed by in early in TMP. What else was re-used?

During the early years of TNG the set kept being modified as well. In "The Naked Now" you can see that additional glass walls were placed in the area in front of the pool table separating the "work stations" from the corridor that intersected the set (before it was sealed up). Also one of the circular "reactor units" was used for the engine column behind the main reactor.

I'm confused though by the orientation of the room... in the features, the horizontal warp core extended into a forced perspective room that got smaller and smaller until it hit a painted backdrop. Where was this room located in relation to the TNG warp core? If they sealed it off... did they cut down the steel support struts that held up the second floor? As far as I can tell the glass floors remained unchanged for the most part as long as the set stood...

 

[FalTorPan]

I'm confused though by the orientation of the room... in the features, the horizontal warp core extended into a forced perspective room that got smaller and smaller until it hit a painted backdrop. Where was this room located in relation to the TNG warp core? If they sealed it off... did they cut down the steel support struts that held up the second floor? As far as I can tell the glass floors remained unchanged for the most part as long as the set stood...

Imagine a plan view of the TMP engine room, with the double-door entrance at the "south" end, and the vertical intermix shaft at the "north" end.

Recall that, just outside (south) of the double-door entrance is a curved corridor. The corridor is circular when viewed from above. The double-doors are at the corridor's "south pole." Further south of this corridor is a brief segment of straight corridor, terminating in a matte painting that makes the corridor seem longer.

At the north end, the horizontal intermix shaft runs north for about six or eight feet, at which point it kinks to the east a bit and gets smaller and smaller in diameter. It's two-dimensional forced perspective, and there's really only one vantage point that sells the perspective.

Now it's TNG time.

The horizontal intermix shaft was "severed," and the extended, forced-perspective section of the set is struck. The vertical intermix shaft is disassembled, and its thick metal "O rings" become the "O rings" of the newly constructed warp core. The "pot-bellied stove" of the warp core, containing the dilithium crystals, is constructed in part from the molds used to make the TNG-era turbolift. The branching power transfer conduits and the secondary vertical feed shaft are newly built, as is the wall behind (north of) the new warp core.

The area surrounding the warp core is the main area of the TMP engine room. New outer walls are put in place, and the TWOK reactor room is struck.

The corridor outside of the TMP engine room is widened, becoming part of the overall, expanded engine room, and occasionally being redressed during TNG as a wide corridor. For most of TNG's run, the curved corridor is hidden by "wall plugs."

The curved corridor that once ran tangent to the TMP foyer now directly runs into the middle of the expanded room.

The straight section of the engine room "south" of the curved corridor now has Okudagrams along the walls, and a freestanding "pool table" originally built for Star Trek IV.

The southernmost wall, where the large 1701-D cutaway illustration is positioned, is roughly where the old corridor-extending matte painting from TMP once stood. A new wall is built in this area, and further extensions are added over the years to simulate extra corridor space.

That's it in a nutshell.

 

[Christopher]

You can see blueprints of the Stage 9 sets in movie, TNG, and VGR configuration here:

http://pat.suwalski.net/film/st-stages/stage9.php

The forced-perspective intermix-shaft part of the set is in the top center of the first blueprint; note how it tapers asymmetrically to accommodate an off-center camera position. In the TNG and VGR sets, that area became a corridor and the entrance to the shuttlebay/holodeck/cargo bay set.

 

[ITL]

Ex-Astris Scientia has these, amongst many, many other things:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/interiors1.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/interiors2.htm

Check out the site map for more.

 

[Squiggy]

You can see blueprints of the Stage 9 sets in movie, TNG, and VGR configuration here:

http://pat.suwalski.net/film/st-stages/stage9.php

The forced-perspective intermix-shaft part of the set is in the top center of the first blueprint; note how it tapers asymmetrically to accommodate an off-center camera position. In the TNG and VGR sets, that area became a corridor and the entrance to the shuttlebay/holodeck/cargo bay set.

And from that, you can get this: