Oh, you will...eventually. 
Thanks.
Thanks.
The 11 Footer E flaws, shoddy construction or by design?
- Thread starter darkwing_duck1
- Start date
The model was well-constructed enough for the requirements set forth for it. It simply wasn't built to a standard of remaining structurally stable for decades.
As stated upthread, it certainly wasn't designed to be fully assembled for decades at a stretch.
Dennis,
I'm not sure this is true. NASM had the model assembled and on display long before Miarecki restored it. It's more likely it would be hanging from the ceiling with a gold salad bowl for a deflector dish and turkey-red blinking nacelle domes.
I give Ed high marks for the restoration aspect of his project. He did wonders repairing deterioration and fabricating accurate parts for what had been lost. I only fault his judgment on the paint job.
CRA,
You speak of this as a fact. Do you have any documentation for it? I have never seen any firm information to this effect and I believe this is mere speculation.
I do know some fans have floated this as a possibility that might explain the smaller than 60" saucer. I myself have speculated that it might be a material size limitation. Perhaps the Royalite sheeting only came so large.
Either way, I'd like to know if we actually have proof of the "too small vacuum frame" theory.
M.
You may be right. I was thinking that the continued deterioration of the model's structural integrity would have by now have gotten beyond what they were willing to pay to keep it together, if it hadn't been completely redone in 1992 - no repair/maintenance had previously been done to that degree. But maybe not.
That's fair. I used to be shocked at the kind of vituperation directed at him online, and the personal terms it's couched in, for the 1992 restoration. Now I'm just wearied by it. "Forget it, Jake. It's the Internet."
IIRC, Ed expressed the opinion that the "soft" transition from the saucer rim to the concavity on the lower surface on the big model, rather than showing the more definite edge seen on drawings and the smaller model, was probably the result of the material not having pulled correctly during vacuum forming.
As far as I'm concerned the 11-foot model is a completely accurate representation of the Enterprise as it appeared in TOS. It has to be.
Seeing how the 11 footer is the Enterprise as it appeared in TOS, then well yeah, of course.
I don't have an axe to grind either way, I'm cool with taking the the model at face value as an acurate and faithful representation of the the "real" ship.
But then on the other hand, there's something to be said for diesigner intent as well, vs. the limitations of the model making technology of the time? This should count for something, I would think?
Either way, we're talking very subtle differences, nothing that would be obvious to the average fan. much less the average viewer.
I think designer intent, like authorial intent, is interesting but not as important as it's sometimes made out. The basic reason is that if a work of art or literature endures for any length of time and is appreciated in any context other than the time-bound culture which produced it then it's going to be experienced without knowledge of what the creators' intent was. So I think that ultimately these things are best understood by reference only to what's contained in the work itself.
There's a story that when they made the full sized mockup of the Bell X-1 for The Right Stuff, they followed Bell's original blueprints as exactly as they could. However, when Bell built the real airplane, they deviated a little from the plans where material and manufacturing processes made a change sensible.
So the mockup X-1 for the movie was "accurate" to the real plane's blueprint's, but not accurate to the real airplane itself!
So the mockup X-1 for the movie was "accurate" to the real plane's blueprint's, but not accurate to the real airplane itself!
Yep. "Intent" is a wonderful thing. I intend to lose 20 pounds, but my jeans are still tight.
In 1993, a set from a 1967 Doctor Who story was reconstructed for a 30th anniversary documentary. They followed the plans perfectly, and then found the Emperor Dalek was too big for the plinth it was supposed to stand on.
So the plinth was cut in half and a middle bit added to extend it. When the original designer turned up to see the recreation, he said, "Oh, you had to do what we had to do in 1967", and sure enough, if you look at the photos of the original you can spot the last minute change.
In a more real world example, very few of the models of the Apollo spacecraft are accurate, as all but one depict the Block 1 design, not the Block II which actually flew. The external differences are minor (relocated radiators, etc), but still there.
YARN
Fleet Captain
The same thing can be said for the model. We might ask, "What is the color of the Enterprise?" and find that the color of the model varies from what we saw on screen in the series (due to lighting and processing etc.). If we are concerned with the work itself, however, we aren't talking about the model, but the actual work of art (i.e., the show). At most, we might say that the actual color of the model is "interesting."
Speaking in the broader context, here again I find myself on the fence.
On the one hand, an artist often has greater control of his/her creation, insuring that what others see is what was intended? Even when color pigments or flaws in marble thwart this, obsessive artists have been known to destroy their work and redo it until they get it just the way they want it.
On the other hand, much art is intended to be appreciated "in the eye of the beholder" so that everyone can take away something unique and personal from their experiance of it?
Getting back to the Enterprise, both of these considerations seem to apply? Judging from his many renditions, as far as the finer details go, MJ never seems to have been satisfied with the "final" design, or consider either model definitive, and so cosistantly drew his ship the way he intended it should look?
Yet, he is also on record as saying that fans should exorcise their own imaginations when it comes to things like this.
And, as mentioned in above posts, models rarely faithfully represent the real ship/planes etc. that they are based on. But unlike these above examples, the difference here is that we have no "real" ship to compare the model(s) to!
And make no mistake, we are talking art here, not rocket science, I think this is where the cognitive dissonance is coming from? Everyone's opinion is equally valid, so perhaps it's best to agree to disagree?
YARN
Fleet Captain
Fair enough, but here you have not actually contrasted intention vs. fans/audience reception or intentions vs. products. Rather, you are speaking of one artistic intention vs. another artistic intention. That is, you have pitted the artist's never unfulfilled design-intention against his intention-for-use that fans do what they please.
If you are on the fence between artistic intention and artistic intention, you need not come off the fence -- you are an intentionalist -- whichever you choose would be an endorsement of the artist's right to regulate our interpretations (if we have to "get permission" from the artist to "do our own thing", then the artist is still "in charge").
But we do have the original blue prints for the ship.
Moreover, the "artwork" we are speaking of here is a television show. The Enterprise we saw was a processed image on a television screen. The actual model was simply a means of producing a images that formed a part of that artwork.
And what did we see on the screen? We saw more than one model of the Enterprise and we saw more than one design. We saw the Enterprise with nacelle caps and without. We saw her with glowing nacelles and without. The big model was filmed and so were smaller models.
Everyone's opinion is equally valid, so perhaps it's best to agree to disagree?
What you suggest here is that there are no valid answers to interpretive questions, but this is overly skeptical.
We can certainly be polite, but that does not mean that every opinion here is equally valid.
If I propose, for example, that the correct design of the Enterprise is the TAS ship, or my modified AMT model, you could (rightly) tell me that my proposal is not as good as others.
Well, that was my "intent", to broaden the discussion by using a different -hopefully less contentious- analogy, not to contrast anything necessarily, just food for thought. I'm not trying to win an argument here, I was just "thinking out loud" as it were.
I'm saying I can see and appreciate both sides, I don't have to choose sides. What I endorse is the artists right to have his prefered version, while at the same time allowing everybody else the right to do the same, I see nothing contradicory in this?
I just think MJ's prefered version ought to carry more waight with fans than it apparently does, others disagree, big whooppie, I can live with that.
I niether said nor meant anything about "the artist's right to regulate our interpretations" or having "to "get permission" from the artist to "do our own thing" I think you're reading too much into my post here?
Exactly, which I put a little more value on than some others apparently do, along with MJ's later diagrams that show consistant details that don't appear on either model. But without a "real" ship built to MJ's specs, to use as a standard, these blueprints can, and have been, dismissed as errelevent.
This is exactly my point, both here and throughout all my previous posts in this thread. Hence, why it has been, and should be, subject to interpretation.
Everyone's opinion is equally valid, so perhaps it's best to agree to disagree?
Well, the best way I can answer this is to say that what we're talking about here is subjectivism, i.e. interpretations, opinions, and even the concept of "validity" or relative worth; are subjective ideas and cannot be "proven" right or wrong. Therefore in this sense, everyone's opinion is indeed indeed equally valid (or invalid).
And futhermore, it's a waste of time to try to "convert" anyone over when they have strongly held subjective beliefs, so as I said, it's best to agree to disagree.
If in your personal canon, the TAS ship is the only "correct" design, you're entitled to your opinion, and no one can, or should try to disuade you from that, IDIC RULES!
Last edited:
Only two models of the TOS Enterprise were ever used for filming: the 11-foot hero and the preliminary 33-incher. The smaller model only appeared in a few crude flyby shots in the opening and closing titles of "The Cage."
Not quite. Reuse of some of that footage appeared in later episodes. If I recall correctly we see it in "The Ultimate Computer" (as the Lexington) and in "By Any Other Name" as well as "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" when the ship exits the galactic barrier. We also see it in "Requiem For Methuselah" when Flint shrinks the Enterprise down into a tabletop ornament.
