Was ANYTHING retained when the Enterprise was refit?

[Lance]

From the Phase II bible:

The refurbished Enterprise is slightly changed, just enough for the audience to say "Yes, it is the Enterprise, and even lovelier than before..."

I wonder if the Phase II versions of the interiors might have retained more of a TOS look, despite the updated TMP interfaces having originated with the abandoned series. Maybe the Phase II versions of certain sets would have retained more of the TOS color scheme? Or maybe they might have had a rougher edge to them? (Presumably the already half built sets got all got a top-to-bottom retrofit when it was decided definitively to blow them up to big screen size.)

 

[Timo]

The complete change in look from 60's TV (with randomly blinking coloured squares for buttons) to late 70's movie (with far more realistic interfaces) is subsitution, not a plausible in-universe evolution.

Nothing about Star Trek can be called "plausible" by any stretch of the word. We witness explicit in-universe evolution as the movies and spinoffs proceed, and it takes place in leaps and bounds just as great as the one from TOS to TMP. Indeed, evolution within each TV show happens much the same way. So that particular argument doesn't really convince.

Sure, the individual artists involved in making TMP might have had ideas that differed from those of the TOS makers. But the same happened again in the transition from TMP to TWoK, and things then evolved "back and forth", occasionally going closer to the TOS origins (or even beyond), occasionally trying out "contemporary" things, occasionally trying to be truly futuristic (and failing). A change in "look", no matter how thorough, is no sign of a discontinuity in Star Trek, by the standards of Star Trek.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Retu]

I'd be curious to know if anyone at the time considered saying it was a new and different starship Enterprise. Although, I could see them being uncomfortable with that idea because it meant either Kirk's Enterprise was destroyed sometime between TOS and TMP, or it was retired. And of course, there would be registry number issues because the new ship couldn't technically be NCC-1701. Guess it could've been NCC-1701-A, though.

But it's silly to rationalize the ship as a refit of the TOS Enterprise. It's just too different in size and proportion. No attempt was made by the designers (of the model and sets, not in-universe designers) to keep bits and pieces of the old look just as a nod to the idea of it being a refit.

I don't see why it couldn't be the same ship. History knows examples, where even a destroyed (or in this case, a sunken) ship has been rebuilt to look completely different than the original one. For example USS Merrimack was rebuilt as CSS Virginia:

 

[Amasov]

The name and number.

And its crew.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

A change in "look", no matter how thorough, is no sign of a discontinuity in Star Trek, by the standards of Star Trek.

Timo Saloniemi

True. Additionally, this is sci-fi, where changes in the design or surface details of a ship within a short amount of time are not a sign of continuity problems or reimagining the entire series. It was no more reimagining (because it was not) than the very 80's-design sensibilities of the panels/controls of 2010's Leonov were because of its obvious differences to the technology seen aboard Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In 2010, the Leonov had be under construction in the same era as Discovery, but the tech of the former screams an advancement of decades (as in the real world passage of time), but we accept it, because in sci-fi, the impossible is possible.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Apparently, they kept some computer files:
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=46&page=2
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfs/ch2/tsfs0154.jpg

They kept the destruct sequence, too.

 

[Timo]

In 2010, the Leonov had be under construction in the same era as Discovery, but the tech of the former screams an advancement of decades

Or vice versa. That is, the backward Russians would have obvious 1980s technology aboard a 2010s spacecraft, whereas the advanced Americans would have much more elegant technology of the sort that never existed in our universe (even if it had the aesthetics of future tech as imagined in the 1960s), is timeless, and in this particular universe is attributed to the 2010s.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[mos6507]

Apparently, they kept some computer files:
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=46&page=2
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfs/ch2/tsfs0154.jpg

They kept the destruct sequence, too.

Good one. That's a wonderful homage.

I think the main problem with the refit idea was that the Phase II enterprise model looked a lot more like the original than the final TMP one, but by then the script revolved around the idea of a refit Enterprise (rather than a successor) sitting in dry dock. So they were committed.

I think it was better that they redesign it more aggressively than to have gone with the Phase II enterprise, as the final refit model has aged a lot better. The Phase II model kind of looks like it's in a half-way metamorphosis and carries over too many 60s-isms.

 

[Marsden]

I there an easy place to see a pic of the Phase II Enterprise?

 

[SeerSGB]

I there an easy place to see a pic of the Phase II Enterprise?

A couple links: Forgotten Trek, Forgotten Trek: Phase II Enterprise Page

 

[Marsden]

I there an easy place to see a pic of the Phase II Enterprise?

A couple links: Forgotten Trek, Forgotten Trek: Phase II Enterprise Page

Thank you.

If you use that model as a guide, it seems like it could be the same ship with completely new nacelles, a new "ring" around the outside of the saucer built on for additional room afterwards for the movie. The "neck" support was also built up and the torpedo area added on.

The phasers are a little harder to explain.

So if they did completely remove the engines and install a new engine system, that seems like the Phase II version, but then they "bulked" it up for TMP.

We don't really know how modular the basic structure is. It could be as simple as taking the edge of the saucer and adding more structural units and reinstalling the edge bulkhead. Same thing for the upright support, split it in the center and add framework to the new sections to make it wider, add more to the back to make it longer.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I there an easy place to see a pic of the Phase II Enterprise?

Skip the bad acting talky bits and enjoy the fantastic CG launch sequence here:
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xim_PuEgRRc[/YT]

 

[Shawnster]

That Phase II launch sequence was awesome.

As already shared, you can compare the TOS vs. Refit Enterprise here:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution-refit.htm

Superimposed comparison: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution/constitution-superimposed.jpg

Visual animation of refit: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution/connie-ani.gif

The refit Enterprise overall is longer, the saucer is bigger, the bridge and interior are different and the nacelles are changed.

I saw a picture somewhere showing just how much of the TOS Enterprise could have been left. I can't find the photo now. It wasn't much, just a few decks in the saucer, neck and upper engineering section.

They re-imagined the Enterprise, just like they re-imagined the Klingons.

Well, not really.

After all, they took care to show the old ship as well, in that Rec Deck display of images. TOS wasn't supposed to be "remembered differently", or forgotten. Not in that particular respect anyway.

The thing about the TMP ship is that, backstage measurements aside, every part of her is bigger than the "original" TOS counterpart. The saucer could have been created by adding a new rim and bulging out the bulges a bit more; the secondary hull could have received a new surface layer of spaces; the neck could have been strengthened.

Basically, the old ship would fit inside the new one, save for the engines and the secondary hull bow.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution/constitution-superimposed.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

The pic in the rec room was a cute little nod for fans, but that's about it. Gene Roddenberry himself suggested The Original Series as an inaccurate portrayal of the 23rd century in his novelization of The Motion Picture. And of course, he's on record that the Klingons "always" looked the way they did in TMP and beyond, and that's the way it was until DS9 made a joke of it and Enterprise's fan-wank-tastic final season that said otherwise.

The complete change in look from 60's TV (with randomly blinking coloured squares for buttons) to late 70's movie (with far more realistic interfaces) is subsitution, not a plausible in-universe evolution.

And yet, the TOS Enterprise appears on the Observation Lounge wall displays of the Enterprise D (which Roddenberry signed off on) and E. Plus, the TOS bridge design was presented in Relics. Further, the entire TOS Enterprise interior and exterior appeared in Trials and Tribbilations. The 24th Century must not have gotten the memo that it was just hand-wavey homage to the fans.

 

[arch101]

I visited the USS Constitution right after an extensive restoration in the '90s. I asked one of the officers just how much of the original ship was still here and he said very little. However, he also said she was still the Constitution and where can you see another one like her.
The detaily stuff about the TMP refit is interesting. Like how the transporter room is located in the same place in an axis corridor just off a circular corridor that it was in TOS. Also, when Kirk and Decker are conversing in a corridor intersection, you'll notice over Kirk's shoulder that you can make out the rectangular shape of the old corridor at the intersection. Nice set design to make the new corridor set look like a retrofit.

 

[Flake]

Did anyone say the bowling alley yet because clearly that is the most important part.

 

[Nightowl1701]

David Shaw, I think, did a study in 2007 comparing the TOS/TMP Enterprises and how one could have flowed into the other. His conclusions (which I've boiled down) were:

"In 1978, there were NO accurate plans [of the TOS Enterprise] on hand when the movie version was being designed...the designers [Andrew Probert & Co.] started with Matt Jefferies' Phase II plans. The Phase II Enterprise was supposed to be a slightly upgraded version of the starship we saw in TOS, [but the designers inadvertently] further exaggerated [basic structural] changes that [Jefferies himself made, and] thought would be unnoticeable in the Phase II Enterprise [since most of the exterior details would be the same].
"So yes, the TMP Enterprise IS a refit/upgrade of the TOS Enterprise - but the production designers didn't START with the Enterprise we saw in TOS. The end result is that when the TMP Enterprise is held up alongside the TOS Enterprise, we see no clear-cut upgrade from one to the other. But when Jefferies' Phase II changes [to the TOS ship's basic lines before anything was 'upgraded'] are taken into account, the upgrade path becomes quite clear."

 

[Lenny Nurdbol]

While the new Enterprise Class looks great on screen, I've always bitched about how it was Too different from the old ship... Too many liberties were taken with resizing and reshaping the hulls... Plus when you look at the different deck plans (compare, for instance, FJ's blueprints to, say, Strategic Design's 1701-A Deck Plans) with the addition of airlock lift hatches, the vertical intermix shaft, antimatter pods... It simply would have been more efficient to built a brand new ship from the keel up rather than "deconstruct" the Enterprise... If there's anything of the old ship left, it's got to be the innermost structural supports, because all the outer hull skin is Gone, interior compartments are rebuilt and moved around... The redundancy of the secondary hull having duplicate systems of the primary hull are gone... Instead they opted for consolidating things: instead of multiple little rec rooms scattered about, they have one huge one... Instead of various different cargo holds on different decks, they have one huge cargo facility in the secondary hull, etc...

 

[Nerys Myk]

In the real world, they used a TOS earpiece in TMP, so yes.

 

[gottacook]

I'd be curious to know if anyone at the time considered saying it was a new and different starship Enterprise.

Well, Decker says to Kirk in TMP, "This is almost an entirely new Enterprise," doesn't he? Thus setting up Kirk's screw-up with the wormhole, etc.

[Of course, I've now committed myself in other recent threads to the idea that, whereas the TMP ship was a refit/rebuilt/essentially new ship with the same name and general layout, the Enterprise of TWoK et seq. was the same ship as in the old TV series but shown at higher resolution for the cinema. This simply has to be the case if the "20 years old" line in TSFS is to make any sense. Assuming for the moment that any continuity exists between TMP and the later movies, an "almost entirely new Enterprise" (as described by its own up-until-then captain, Decker) with a few years on it would never be spoken of as 20 years old - or older, for that matter, as alleged to be the case in earlier versions of the TSFS script. This is just one reason why I say that NO continuity exists and that the filmmakers wanted not to imply any.]

See the Wikipedia entry "Ship of Theseus" (which I just came across while looking for the "grandfather's axe" way of putting this) for further explorations of the topic.

 

[Therin of Andor]

In the real world, they used a TOS earpiece in TMP, so yes.

Beat ya!

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7788760&postcount=8