Star Trek 1955

[The Lensman]

Welcome to the new Star Trek 1955 thread! The other thread was almost five years old and I resurrected it from the dead when I should've started a new thread. Here's a link to the original thread which has lots of information about the various models and conversations about them. I will repost all of those images here over the next few days.

At any rate, if you're new to this Star Trek 1955 thing, the gist is that several years ago I was watching a lot of 1950's "dawn of the television age" scifi like Space Patrol and Rocky Jones, the latter of which has some great sets and fx for it's day, and wanted to create a version of Trek as if it had been made in that era. Congrats! You're up to speed!

Initially I didn't plan to do "sets", but over time I found the idea compelling since the ship is smaller than the regular ship. Also, once I realized that the some of the "sets" in old space shows don't necessarily "fit" into the ship models properly, that made it easier to do what I wanted without stressing over whether or not it fits right. I'm going to repost the transporter room since it was the post that resurrected the old thread. I plan on playing around more with this set over the weekend as I've got some tweaks and details I want to add.

And here's a modified version of the Klingonian Cruiser. Gave the engines some new fins and fiddly bits. Tightened up the rings on the laser canon, narrowed the main body and made the top fin like bits on the more pronounced (not visible in this image).

For comparison, the original version

 

[scifieric]

This is a VERY neat idea!

 

[fireproof78]

As a fan of Space Cadet I welcome this idea.

 

[Santaman]

I do remember your old thread, really nice work, the 50's indeed had that certain style to them.

 

[Redfern]

Reposting what I said upon Deviant Art where The Lensmn also has an account...

This would an ideal solution from a production POV circa 1955. The door, having an "obscured" window in some fashion, is opened by the performer who then steps inside the chamber. Sound effects are looped into the footage as another actor "operates" the standing console. No opticals needed. Maybe the audience sees a glow from the window.

(Upon DA, The Lensman provided an explanation involving a simple "lapse dissolve" and a stagehand flickering a light illuminating the interior of the chamber. I was thinking of a solution that need not require any special editing.)

The problem is the "destination". Unless the script calls for the character to beam (teleport, whatever) to a locale like another spaceship that also has a similar station, they'll have to contend with some sort of "reintegration" effect.

Likely I'm missing an "obvious" solution. As this is your setting, how would you resolve the production issue?

BTW, it's great to see "earlier takes" on Trek again!

 

[The Lensman]

This is a VERY neat idea!

Thanks!

As a fan of Space Cadet I welcome this idea.

Nice! I haven't watched as much Tom Corbett as I have Space Patrol and Rocky Jones: Space Ranger.

I do remember your old thread, really nice work, the 50's indeed had that certain style to them.

Thanks! They did indeed indeed!

Reposting what I said upon Deviant Art where The Lensman also has an account...

This would an ideal solution from a production POV circa 1955. The door, having an "obscured" window in some fashion, is opened by the performer who then steps inside the chamber. Sound effects are looped into the footage as another actor "operates" the standing console. No opticals needed. Maybe the audience sees a glow from the window.

(Upon DA, The Lensman provided an explanation involving a simple "lapse dissolve" and a stagehand flickering a light illuminating the interior of the chamber. I was thinking of a solution that need not require any special editing.)

The problem is the "destination". Unless the script calls for the character to beam (teleport, whatever) to a locale like another spaceship that also has a similar station, they'll have to contend with some sort of "reintegration" effect.

Likely I'm missing an "obvious" solution. As this is your setting, how would you resolve the production issue?

BTW, it's great to see "earlier takes" on Trek again!

I suppose the most obvious, or at least immediate, solution would be to do what they did often enough in Star Trek, and that was to have the camera focused on a part of the destination (but not the beam down site) and play the transporter sound. Then the camera pans over to the landing site and by the time it gets there, the sound fx have stopped and the landing party is done beaming. So the only thing used for beam down was the sound fx.


Well, I didn't work on the transporter room today, that'll be tomorrow. What I did work on today was the Engine Room. I wanted to kick out the idea that's been kicking around this old head for the last couple of years alongside the transporter room.

Think of this as a "rough sketch". I also wanted to experiment with creating some textures (those oscilloscope panels and the engine lights) in Procreate, which I've been using for awhile now and really love. But I don't love those panels as of right now. The engine lights are supposed to have a sort of counter-clockwise rotating effect, so that's gonna take more work. Really I need to use a more updated program like Blender instead of this dead ass old program because the lighting effects are beyond what I'm working with.

Here's a slightly updated cutaway of the Rocketprise. The transporter machinery and emitter is housed in the underside dome. Looking at the cutaway, the rooms in the saucer are much larger than I like and the "sets" will be smaller.

The Rocketprise herself with astronauts for scale.

The Klingonian ship (original version) with astronauts for scale

And the Romeulan ship with astronauts for scale

Space Station-7 with astronauts for scale

And Space Station-7 with Enterprise for scale

 

[publiusr]

That makes sense to me:

“Captain, the Sub-Aquarians require the high pressure materializer….”

 

[The Lensman]

Updated version of the transporter room. Widened the control console as it takes two people to operate it. Added a door and alert status lights above it. Gonna take a break from this and refine the engine room next.

 

[scifieric]

I absolutely love this! I would watch a show that was designed like this!

 

[The Lensman]

I absolutely love this! I would watch a show that was designed like this!

Thanks! Yeah, it would be pretty cool!

 

[publiusr]

I absolutely love this! I would watch a show that was designed like this!

There is a mystery element... storytelling is helped by not knowing quite what might be on the other side of that door....

 

[The Lensman]

Found an early draft of the cutaway as well as the space station and after some minor tweaks to both, generated a few images. I used the cutaway just to get a sense of the size and scale of things.

And the models scaled to each other.

The station isn't a whole lot bigger than the ship, but these are the primary starbases. Right now I tend to think there's about 3-5 of them.
Like Rocky Jones: Space Ranger, I haven't decided if this is all confined to the Solar System or just a handful of stellar systems. In Rocky Jones, the area of space they operate in is never clearly defined and the Solar System in this show seems, like the system in Firefly, to contain myriad small moons and planetoids,

It's certainly not as expansive as the real show.

 

[Atolm]

You really do some amazing work bro!

 

[Nightowl1701]

Incredible work!! *claps*

If we're doing a shuttlecraft in this version, I'd suggest taking a page from the 70's Dinky toy and having it launch from bomb bay doors on the underside of the secondary hull (put it between the engine room and the laser control room).

Like Rocky Jones: Space Ranger, I haven't decided if this is all confined to the Solar System or just a handful of stellar systems. In Rocky Jones, the area of space they operate in is never clearly defined and the Solar System in this show seems, like the system in Firefly, to contain myriad small moons and planetoids,

It's certainly not as expansive as the real show.

Since this is set in 1955, pre-Sputnik, I'd say the Solar System plus the four or five nearest stars to us (Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Procyon, Epsilon Eridani, Bernard's Star). You can assign the Andorians and Tellarites to any of them (in this one, Spock would explicitly be half-Martian). Beyond that, the Klingons/Romulans are much closer to our neck of the woods and stand squarely in the way of us exploring any further out.

 

[Redfern]

Incredible work!! *claps*

If we're doing a shuttlecraft in this version, I'd suggest taking a page from the 70's Dinky toy and having it launch from bomb bay doors on the underside of the secondary hull (put it between the engine room and the laser control room).

Didn't a pre-production note in "The Making of Star Trek" suggest a "bomb bay" door arrangement upon the keel of the engineering hull before they decided upon "clamshell" doors at the stern? Your idea closely aligns with that and I love it!

Yeah, Archer's Enterprise used ventral "bomb bay" type hatches, but they were housed within the primary saucer hull (mainly because the ship didn't have an engineering hull as we'd recognize it).

 

[The Lensman]

You really do some amazing work bro!

Thanks!

Incredible work!! *claps*

If we're doing a shuttlecraft in this version, I'd suggest taking a page from the 70's Dinky toy and having it launch from bomb bay doors on the underside of the secondary hull (put it between the engine room and the laser control room).


Since this is set in 1955, pre-Sputnik, I'd say the Solar System plus the four or five nearest stars to us (Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Procyon, Epsilon Eridani, Bernard's Star). You can assign the Andorians and Tellarites to any of them (in this one, Spock would explicitly be half-Martian). Beyond that, the Klingons/Romulans are much closer to our neck of the woods and stand squarely in the way of us exploring any further out.

Re: Shuttlecraft....The 1955 Enterprise doesn't have one. I did use a bomb bay style hangar on this 1940's Enterprise though. IIRC I was thinking of the Dinky toy

Re: Known Space...That sounds about where I'm thinking. I lean on Rocky Jones: Space Ranger a lot for inspiration on this particular project, with some Space Patrol thrown in. They really didn't define things much in terms of territory, at least Rocky Jones didn't. Any time they point to a map, it's the same wall sized Solar System, but the distances in some shows are dangerously far and fuel has to be taken into account.


Here's an updated cutaway:

Still needs some work, but it gives me a clearer idea of what the sets will look like. I tend to think of it both as "real" (as in how would all this work in the fictional universe) but also as a tv show where the "sets" may not realistically fit inside the "model" of the ship. If that makes sense lol. This ship would be very tricky to realistically film. The ceilings would be much lower than what we're used to. The "sets", however, won't reflect that reality. The Transporter room "set" has a much higher ceiling for example. Naturally the diehard "fans" of this fictional show would spend countless hours, especially in the internet era, discussing this fact in one long tedious post after another ad nauseum.

 

[Redfern]

Thanks!


Naturally the diehard "fans" of this fictional show would spend countless hours, especially in the internet era, discussing this fact in one long tedious post after another ad nauseum.

Given this hypothetical series was produced in 1955, there'd be a depressing chance many episodes were lost to time (ala Doctor Who). A home media collection might contain only a handful of episodes. And depending upon how well the production of documented, it's possible a lot of the info' about the series is based upon the diminishing memories of elderly viewers. (I'm drawing comparisons with "Captain Video".) The bulk of the segments were possibly aired only a single time, maybe second broadcast during the summer before another season (if more than one was made) debuted the following September.

 

[The Lensman]

Given this hypothetical series was produced in 1955, there'd be a depressing chance many episodes were lost to time (ala Doctor Who). A home media collection might contain only a handful of episodes. And depending upon how well the production of documented, it's possible a lot of the info' about the series is based upon the diminishing memories of elderly viewers. (I'm drawing comparisons with "Captain Video".) The bulk of the segments were possibly aired only a single time, maybe second broadcast during the summer before another season (if more than one was made) debuted the following September.

Sadly, that would be spot on. Some surviving episodes would be sold as part of syndication packages and end up as segments in kiddie shows on the local channels or part of Saturday morning offerings in the mid to late 60's. By the time home video hits the scene we've lost about half to three quarters of the episodes and those episodes (or grainy, degraded copies of copies of copies of episodes) get released as cheap fodder in the burgeoning home video market. Eventually getting cheap DVD releases as well (with the same low effort packaging as the VCR tapes) before finally ending up on a low view count YouTube channel.

Captain Video, Captain Z-Ro, Tom Corbett, and Space Patrol, all fall into that category. IIRC, Rocky Jones: Space Ranger wasn't aired nationwide back in the day as it was the Dawn Of The Television Age. I've seen comments from guys who were kids in the 50's who say they'd never even heard of the show, much less seen it, even though the watched Space Patrol or one of the others.

I had a book on Space Patrol years ago and yeah, while it was informative, a lot of the people who worked on the show had passed away and of those that may have still been around, their memories were pretty fuzzy with the the passage of time. My love of Rocky Jones: Space Ranger comes from the fact that it was filmed instead of airing live, had great sets and continuity and the FX are pretty revolutionary for television and frankly it's a damn shame that it isn't recognized as a pioneer in television FX. As with many scifi shows, it's budget killed it. I wish I could get it that recognition.

I'm not unaware of it's flaws in the story department (In one story the sun gets an icy crust lol) but it's all good old fashion all ages space adventure. Recently someone uploaded the unaired pilot and it's freaking gorgeous! Nice, clear definition that is sadly marred by a timer and a watermark as it's an unaired pilot. But damn, if all the episodes could be found in good condition (assuming they still exist in a vault of someone's collection) like this I'd be in heaven.

Check it out:

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It's like a cool alternate universe version of the show. Secretary Drake and Vena Ray are played by different people. Vena's mini-skirt is shorter, her car is less cool and futuristic looking, their chest insignia's look like they're made of glitter, and the Orbit Jet's cockpit and main controls look much better than at the start of the regular series. It did evolve as the show progressed, but I don't know why they just didn't stick with this.

The bridge of the 1955 Enterprise has always looked pretty much like the Orbit Jet cockpit, and this more detailed version here is pretty much spot on and close to what it will look like.

 

[Ricky Spanish]

This is awesome. Always fun to mix history with creativity.

 

[The Lensman]

This is awesome. Always fun to mix history with creativity.

Thanks Bill! I do seem to mix a lot of history (fictional or otherwise) with my Trek stuff.

A traditional shot:

Touching back on my bridge comments, a few of pics of the Orbit Jet cockpit and it's evolution...(Roddenberry may have taken inspiration from Forbidden Planet, but I swear some of his production people must have worked on this show...a lot of similarities like the og cockpit design which is already like a proto-Trek design)

This pic is, design-wise, in the neighborhood of what my bridge will look like.

The controls are almost nonexistent in the first chapter of the first story (although when I was looking to capture a better angle, I saw that in part two the controls were more complex, a continuity error that you wouldn't catch unless you were looking for it).

By the time we get to the end of season one, they have a lot of buttons and dials.