Phase II (1978) Stage 9 Photos?

[Joe_Atari]

I can't believe that female extra on the bridge has a skirt so short that the entire bottom half of her buttcheeks stick out.

Yeah, she looked thrilled to be there; GR must've been on the set that day... The Lost Series book has a closer, lower angle version of the same shot, but in B&W. I like this one better because you can see more of the original viewscreen and the area to the right of it that was greatly simplified for TMP. This is part of the fun of PII research -- seeing the TOS uniforms in what would become the movie sets.

Makes me wish Phase II were produced instead of TMP

Along with TMP, I think of seasons 1 & 2 of TNG as the closest we ever got to the PII concept. GR's involvement was at it's height before Piller came on board, and the similarities have been well documented elsewhere (including major influences from Questor and Planet Earth). I consider the Berman-era from TNG S3 and all of the other shows to be much different animals from what came before.

 

[Joe_Atari]

There were some great clips of these shots as well as Xon and Ilya's screentests in the TMP-DE. Does anyone know if these are expanded upon in the BD release of TMP?

Sadly no. There has to be tons more of this stuff laying around Paramount or (as it so often happened) Lincoln Enterprises. I don't know how often the Okudas or Reeves-Stevens make it here, but I'm sure they'd have some ideas.

The most help the TMP BD provides is more high-res looks at the bridge set so you can make out some of the leftover PII markings a little better.

 

[number6]

Based on the storylines and the people who would have been involved, PII might have been an even smarter version of Trek than the first two seasons of TNG.

 

[Joe_Atari]

The colour scheme is very STIV/STXI. It's a shame it's not from a little further back - I'd love to know if they ever built that hideous plush sofa captain's chair from the concept art in the Phase II book!

Yeah me too; it was the '70s after all. That painting (here) is noteworthy for several reasons. Aside from the captain's far-out capsule chair and the aztecing on the ceiling, it's cool to see how much of Mike Minor's concept design for the bridge survived all the way to TMP and beyond. Another interesting thing that was abandoned (supposedly for acoustic reasons) is a huge targeting sphere that would've used miniatures inside during battle scenes. In some of the construction photos you can see the big hole in the wall to the right of Uhura's station where this was going to go (it's cropped out of the image above). I remember reading a quote from Joe Jennings where he talked about every set piece that was abandoned from PII being used somewhere else, so maybe the chair will show up as well...

Speaking of the chair, a similar one is visible here...

 

[F. King Daniel]

Wow, the backs of the other chairs in that shot look suspiciously like toilet seats

I never knew the targeting bubble was gonna have little models inside. I'm not sure that would have been practical (of course, with CG it would be nothing to do nowadays, all in post production).

 

[number6]

That could be a real time saver.

 

[Joe_Atari]

I never knew the targeting bubble was gonna have little models inside. I'm not sure that would have been practical (of course, with CG it would be nothing to do nowadays, all in post production).

You can read more about the bubble and the reasons for its removal here.

Speaking of chairs, the Reeves-Stevens TNG Continuing Mission book shows this chair as leftover from the PII bridge set, but this chair looks more to me like the ones in the Mike Minor concept art.

 

[Joe_Atari]

Based on the storylines and the people who would have been involved, PII might have been an even smarter version of Trek than the first two seasons of TNG.

Possibly, but the verisimilitude advocated by those brought in by GR for TNG surely contributed to some of that show's early "stiffness", particularly in S1. A couple of things come to mind that David Gerrold brought up in his 1973 World of Star Trek book. Everyone knows about the "away team" concept that would have been part of PII (Decker-led) and was carried forward to TNG (led by Riker), but not everyone knows that was a direct lift from Gerrold's book (to paraphrase, the captain would never knowingly place himself in danger, his training is too valuable, comparisons to the captain of a Naval aircraft carrier, etc.). This was (unsubtly) hammered home in a few early TNG episodes but then Patrick Stewart wanted more action for his character so it was downgraded to lip service or forgotten in later seasons. Surely if Shatner had stayed on in PII he would have had the same complaint.

A less-well known thing that Gerrold brought with him from World of Star Trek to early TNG was his novel observation that the TOS space battles were unrealistic because the ship would list and shake, sparks would fly out of the consoles, and people would fall out of their chairs -- not because of the lack of seatbelts but because energy weapons would drain the shields but not cause the ship to shake or even the lights to dim. During the attack the bridge staff would dutifully feed the captain information as to the nature of the weapon, shield status, etc. This concept was quickly put into practice almost verbatim in the fourth TNG episode aired ("The Last Outpost") and the result was a listless, unsuspenseful Ferengi attack on the Enterprise (and I specifically remember making the connection to Gerrold's comments back in 1987 before I even knew he was on staff). So by the next battle in "Arsenal of Freedom" (well after Gerrold's departure from the TNG staff) we were back to the old days.

To his credit GR took much of the '70 analysis and criticism of TOS to heart and incorporated it into his later work (but still seldom giving credit where its due), but while it might have been smarter it might not have made for a better show. I'm not sure who was responsible for much of the "dumbing down" of early-TNG (probably more committee than anything), but GR was certainly very much involved at that stage with relatively little executive interference. The overt sexuality that plagued episodes like "Naked Now", "Justice", and "Angel One" (shades of GR's Planet Earth with its matriarchal society) have his name all over them though.

 

[number6]

While I agree with a lot of this..

TNG came along in 1986. PII would have premiered at least 8 years earlier..
Those story treatments were written by Trek veterans and sci-fi writers, much like the original show. While GR incorporated a lot of ideas you discussed for TNG, his edict to the writers was to ignore TOS so they could have a fresh take on this new show. I don't think this would have happened had PII come to fruition..

But then we wouldn't be discussing the longevity of the franchise as a result of the success (and fresh start) of TNG.

 

[Maurice]

Caveat Emptor when encountering information about Planet of the Titans and Phase II. They're often confused and conflated. It's one of the reasons I started and occasionally resurrect a thread called "Planet of the Titans" Revisited (linky), where I've tried to put all the verifiable information about that production in one place, and to clarify misnomers that appear on other sites (for instance, Ex Astris claims the study models from Titans were built was McQuarrie, when it's not even necessarily true that McQuarrie designed the ships --they appear to be the work of Ken Adam--at all, let alone built the models).

 

[Praxius]

Praxius: That link to the Enterprise-C concept art is hotlinked and won't show. However, here's the link to the page in question:

http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/1701-c.html

I remember reading somewhere that this matte painting of Probert's version of the Ambassador class was actually going to be shown in "Encounter at Farpoint," representing the ship that Admiral McCoy transfers from. However, Rick Berman stated that he didn't want to use matte paintings to represent other ships, so they went with the model shot of the old Excelsior, now labeled as the Hood.

Yeah I noticed the site says it's the Enterprise C, but in my previously mentioned book, it stated that is was one of the early rejected concepts... mind you that book is also a few years old and from the above link, there is information that confirms this error in the book:

"..... Of course, Probert left the show at the end of the first season, and in his absence nobody knew exactly what the small color sketch he had produced was meant to be. Rick Sternbach, who took over all of Probert's duties, says that he thought it was one of the rejected designs for the Enterprise-D,"

which is probably where the writers of the book originally got their information on that drawing, thus out dated.
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[Admiral Buzzkill]

Mr Probert has posted on occasion - either here or at www.probertdesigns.com - that there's a fair amount of mislabeling and other inaccuracies in The Art Of Star Trek.

It's still one of the nicest, if not the nicest, all-around collection of Trek design art in print.

 

[Praxius]

Mr Probert has posted on occasion - either here or at www.probertdesigns.com - that there's a fair amount of mislabeling and other inaccuracies in The Art Of Star Trek.

It's still one of the nicest, if not the nicest, all-around collection of Trek design art in print.

Agreed..... and I believe the book has a note at the beginning that their information might not be 100% accurate.

Which kinda sucks, but they still have some really nice photos/images as well as information in the book.

 

[Maurice]

Praxius: That link to the Enterprise-C concept art is hotlinked and won't show. However, here's the link to the page in question:

http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/1701-c.html

I remember reading somewhere that this matte painting of Probert's version of the Ambassador class was actually going to be shown in "Encounter at Farpoint," representing the ship that Admiral McCoy transfers from. However, Rick Berman stated that he didn't want to use matte paintings to represent other ships, so they went with the model shot of the old Excelsior, now labeled as the Hood.

It wasn't Farpoint. It was designed to be seen in the last shot of an Episode when the Enterprise met up with another ship.

 

[Praxius]

Yeah I just looked into my art of ST book and the picture of the suspected Enterprise C (which I thought was a D concept) is noted as a proposal of the D... so either the book is wrong, or the other source claiming it to be the C is wrong...... Hmmm.

I'll change my view and say it's a C concept.

 

[Dukhat]

It wasn't Farpoint. It was designed to be seen in the last shot of an Episode when the Enterprise met up with another ship.

Really? Would you happen to know which episode that was? (I'm asking because I wrote an essay about all the instances of ship models/stock footage of ships used in TNG, for TNG-R purposes).

I'll change my view and say it's a C concept.

Well, it is a C concept, because that's what Probert said it is on his website. Actually heck, Mr. Probert posts here. Perhaps he'd like to give us the info right from the horse's mouth, so to speak?

 

[Maurice]

The Art of Star Trek is wrong about the painting mentioned: it is NOT a "D" concept. It was Andy's Ambassador class rendered for an unused matte shot. When he autographed my copy of the book, he crossed out part of the caption and corrected it.