Mirror Enterprise

[TigerOfDarkness]

...

The interesting thing is that if you look a few frames further into that shot from the original Mirror Mirror, the NCC 1701 on the nacelle is quite clearly the right way round, so did they reverse the decals?

Yes, the decals were reversed to get the "port" side.

Why didn't they just film the other side?

Wasn't it when the nacelle caps were changed to have the lighting effects that the left hand side became unfilmable (because the extra cables had to go in through the side of the secondary hull)?


-- Edit: Aha, I checked startrekhistory.com and they say that the model was only intended to be filmed from the right when it was first built. I assume this was a cost saving?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Yuppers.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Whilst looking for info on the model, I came across a shot of its left side prior to restoration by the Smithsonian - the secondary hull has absolutely no details or markings and is covered in cables but the nacelle has it's go-faster stripe. Could the decision to go for a right-hand side only model have been made late in the construction? I gather it was delivered later than expected so there is only one shot of it in the Cage.

 

[GSchnitzer]

Whilst looking for info on the model, I came across a shot of its left side prior to restoration by the Smithsonian - the secondary hull has absolutely no details or markings and is covered in cables but the nacelle has it's go-faster stripe. Could the decision to go for a right-hand side only model have been made late in the construction? I gather it was delivered later than expected so there is only one shot of it in the Cage.

Much information here:

http://www.startrekhistory.com/models.html

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Yes, thanks. That was the article I read, plus stuff on Memory Alpha.

 

[Maurice]

Whilst looking for info on the model, I came across a shot of its left side prior to restoration by the Smithsonian - the secondary hull has absolutely no details or markings and is covered in cables but the nacelle has it's go-faster stripe. Could the decision to go for a right-hand side only model have been made late in the construction? I gather it was delivered later than expected so there is only one shot of it in the Cage.

The model was designed to be shot only from one side--as Richard Datin told me in an email exchange many year ago--so much so that the boxy structure that appears at the front of the pennant on the engineering hull doesn't even exist on the port side of the model. Likewise, the nacelles aren't symmetrical, as only the port one has the indented section on the inboard side.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Indeed, there are photos of the Enterprise model as restored at the Smithsonian here:

http://joeorman.shutterace.com/Trek.html

You can clearly see the engineering hull is devoid of details: no boxes pennants, windows etc.

You can also see the port nacelle has a go-faster stripe (pennant) on its outboard side.


A photo of the left side of the Enterprise model pre-restoration can be seen here:

http://www.therpf.com/f10/studio-scale-tos-enterprise-11-25-feet-105319/index5.html

which also shows how there is no detail on the engineering hull (but a lot of cables and tape). The go-faster stripe can also be seen on the outboard side of the port nacelle.


There are some more restoration photos here:

http://blog.nasm.si.edu/2009/06/04/starship_restoration/

including one which might show the port and starboard nacelles as having the same inboard details, however this must have been post the first restoration, although it seems unlikely that they would have added extra nacelle details and left the engineering hull undetailed.

(Edit: also in the shot of the Enterprise approaching K7 at the start of the Trouble With Tribbles, you can see the inboard details of both nacelles plus the cables taped to the left side of the pylon joining the saucer to the secondary hull).


It seems to me that it is possible that the model was originally intended to have both sides filmable, but this was changed during construction, otherwise adding a go-faster stripe to the port nacelle outboard side would seem unnecessary.

 

[Alrik]

Here are a few pictures we got of the port side side when we saw her last spring.

 

[The Castellan]

In my own stories, mirror universe constitutions, after their 2270's redesign, would look like the JJ Prise, since an Imperial ship would be that overpowered.

 

[Timo]

...One wonders if we couldn't decide that the starship indeed had a porthole-free port side! Logically, the starship would then always turn her better-armored flank towards the potentially hostile planet.

Alternately, we could argue that all the portholes can be seamlessly shuttered. That'd explain a great many things about the internal arrangement of the ship, making it easier to position certain spaces that appear to have portholes visible on the inside.

A little bit of extra asymmetry would add character to our favorite starship, IMHO. The lack of the portside box flanking the forward dish could be for real...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Castellan]

...One wonders if we couldn't decide that the starship indeed had a porthole-free port side! Logically, the starship would then always turn her better-armored flank towards the potentially hostile planet.

Alternately, we could argue that all the portholes can be seamlessly shuttered. That'd explain a great many things about the internal arrangement of the ship, making it easier to position certain spaces that appear to have portholes visible on the inside.

A little bit of extra asymmetry would add character to our favorite starship, IMHO. The lack of the portside box flanking the forward dish could be for real...

Timo Saloniemi

But why? I mean if you were going to fight in the Crusades, whichever side you'd be on, would you not want to be wearing armor that protects you from all side as much as possible?

Not too big on that bit missing on the side, though.

 

[Timo]

Knights only carried a shield on one arm - having two would have prevented them from wielding a sword. Similar tradeoffs might justify a porthole-free port side. Although that part was more in jest, whereas the idea of two rather than three boxes around the dish would be a simple artistic choice without treknobabble implications.

The shutters, OTOH, are just part of the idea of providing some movement to the hero starship. In addition to that, the dish in front could easily change size to adapt to varying sensing tasks, and the nacelle endcaps could open and close to vent out assorted waste products. The little spikes on the nacelle forward domes no doubt have a perfectly valid reason for telescoping in and out, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[7thsealord]

...One wonders if we couldn't decide that the starship indeed had a porthole-free port side! Logically, the starship would then always turn her better-armored flank towards the potentially hostile planet.

Alternately, we could argue that all the portholes can be seamlessly shuttered. That'd explain a great many things about the internal arrangement of the ship, making it easier to position certain spaces that appear to have portholes visible on the inside.

A little bit of extra asymmetry would add character to our favorite starship, IMHO. The lack of the portside box flanking the forward dish could be for real...

Timo Saloniemi

But why? I mean if you were going to fight in the Crusades, whichever side you'd be on, would you not want to be wearing armor that protects you from all side as much as possible?

Not too big on that bit missing on the side, though.

For your Crusades-type example, sure, one would want as much protection as possible.

But, for a start, More Armour = More Weight = Get Tired Much More Easily = Big Trouble. So, the shield provided extra protection for less weight in a limited arc. Most warriors (from Roman onwards) carried the shield on the left arm, leaving the right (and usually stronger) arm free for weapon use. Added advantage - when face-to-face with another warrior, the shield would automatically be in position for fending off attacks from that other guy. A reason why swordsmen who were both left-handed AND trained that way (extremely rare), could be so effective in one-on-ones.

For a starship, not sure of any advantage from the asymmetrical thing. Makes sense that designs would try to protect especially vulnerable / important areas, certainly. But, as with naval design, a fairly even distribution of protection lowers the odds of shots finding a weak spot - whether by sheer luck or because said weak spot is obvious.

Also, the emphasis has seemed (seems? will seem?) to be on shields and deflectors for defense. If they go, comparitively minor differances in hull thickness may not make much differance (if any) to an incoming photon torpedo.

Finally noting that this idea, if implemented, never carried over to any of the movies or any of the other series.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Irrelevant, thanks to the flopped footage, it's been established that both sides look alike.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Also, the three foot model was detailed on both sides symmetrically, so despite it’s minor differences from the eleven footer, this at least establishes beyond doubt that both sides of the ship were intended to look alike.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ Perzactly!