If you guys put the effort into solving the worlds problems that you put into detailing a fifty-year old fictional spaceship, the world would be a much better place.
Engineering's curved hallways
- Thread starter jayrath
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If you guys put the effort into solving the worlds problems that you put into detailing a fifty-year old fictional spaceship, the world would be a much better place.
Oh bother.
The Trek sets were re-arranged as needed to accomodate the production needs, which is how it's done when you have to grind out 20+ episodes a year with limited sets representing a much larger setting. One need look no farther than the bridge and how they sometimes rotated the command module (helm and Captain's chair) to accomodate a shot without a concern for the fact that it might be visibly pointing not at the viewscreen. That's TV.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so if anyone wants to make the case that Jefferies intended the engine room to be in a specific place because of how it was aligned for a time to a corridor set, or that he intended multiple engine rooms when they revamped the set or moved some elements of it around, then it's on them to come up with proof, because what I''m suggesting is standard TV 101 and
requires no expert testimony.
The Trek sets were re-arranged as needed to accomodate the production needs, which is how it's done when you have to grind out 20+ episodes a year with limited sets representing a much larger setting. One need look no farther than the bridge and how they sometimes rotated the command module (helm and Captain's chair) to accomodate a shot without a concern for the fact that it might be visibly pointing not at the viewscreen. That's TV.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so if anyone wants to make the case that Jefferies intended the engine room to be in a specific place because of how it was aligned for a time to a corridor set, or that he intended multiple engine rooms when they revamped the set or moved some elements of it around, then it's on them to come up with proof, because what I''m suggesting is standard TV 101 and
requires no expert testimony.
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I have to side with Robert Comsol here:
If you follow his thread (which shows a tremendous amount of work and effort by the way) it is obviously possible to arrange the S1 and the S2/3 corridor sets into a complete deck plan, where corridors actually match and line up, so that the whole thing makes sense.
As Star Trek fans, shouldn´t we be happy about that? That it finally all fits together, making the ship we love so much more realistic?? I really don´t understand, that some people here keep repeating "It´s just a television show!" - we know that! But everything seems to fit together so well, that one is almost forced to conclude it was planned. So why insist that it wasn´t?
Mario
If you follow his thread (which shows a tremendous amount of work and effort by the way) it is obviously possible to arrange the S1 and the S2/3 corridor sets into a complete deck plan, where corridors actually match and line up, so that the whole thing makes sense.
As Star Trek fans, shouldn´t we be happy about that? That it finally all fits together, making the ship we love so much more realistic?? I really don´t understand, that some people here keep repeating "It´s just a television show!" - we know that! But everything seems to fit together so well, that one is almost forced to conclude it was planned. So why insist that it wasn´t?
Mario
As Star Trek fans we are all entitled to our opinions and what makes one fan happy doesn't mean all others do.
Robert's done an admirable job of putting the pieces together but at the expense of notion that the ship is crammed full of multiple, redundant versions of the same rooms again and again. That may seem a good thing to some people, but not to everyone.
Robert's done an admirable job of putting the pieces together but at the expense of notion that the ship is crammed full of multiple, redundant versions of the same rooms again and again. That may seem a good thing to some people, but not to everyone.
You´re right of course, things like screen-accurate layouts (like most things, really) are a matter of taste and personal opinion and I wasn´t debating that.
I was merely pointing out, that to me it doesn´t make a lot of sense to dispute even the possibilty that Matt Jefferies may have had a master plan when he designed the sets. Whether or not someone likes the "look" of what Bob arrived at, one has to admit that it does fit.
I was merely pointing out, that to me it doesn´t make a lot of sense to dispute even the possibilty that Matt Jefferies may have had a master plan when he designed the sets. Whether or not someone likes the "look" of what Bob arrived at, one has to admit that it does fit.
Then who designed the Enterprise?This is just a fine example of folks retro-projecting their mindset of the 21st Century (“It’s just a job”) to people they never even met (at least I can claim that I talked to Matt Jefferies in February 1988). According to my experience people in the 1960’s mostly took their job and profession seriously, I vividly recall one domestic case where a film projectionist of a theatre committed suicide – just because he fell asleep during the screening.
Matt Jefferies was given the opportunity of designing an interior layout that made sense and followed an internal logic, he obviously seized that opportunity to make a talented and foresighted contribution (same as later Andrew Probert, whom I met in 1988. He definitely cared a lot about a credible presentation to ensure what audiences saw on screen is credible, believable and gives you a realistic feel of being there. Frankly, I was positively amazed and impressed how much Andrew cared about internal consistency. Of course he was aware that “It’s just a show” but obviously there’s nothing wrong with it, if you bring yourself in with effort and passion to make it as realistic as possible to enhance the illusion it essentially is – which is what Gene Roddenberry tried to accomplish).
@ BillJ
You are absolutely right, I did have this kind of conversation with the owner of a huge SciFi merchandise store at a convention when we stood on the balcony and looked at the convention goers. However, it apparently is a hobby you, too, are participating in talking about.
My weakness is that I do have a soft spot for everything concerning the TOS Enterprise (still my favorite spaceship after all these years) but in my defense I’ll say this
· Rather than endlessly lamenting about the inaccuracies of the Franz Joseph plans I’m trying to be a role model / an inspiration by not just complaining but instead drafting and presenting a different and screen-accurate version. If there’s something you don’t like, you either shut up or you move your a** and come up with something different to present an alternative.
· While doing this I’m trying to encourage fans and people in a broader sense to think for themselves, get back to the source and examine the original materials rather than slavishly submit themselves to a conjectural bulk of work that has become some kind of pseudo-canon and petrified dogma (even with unhealthy consequences if we look at individuals like Mr. Nerdball), although it obviously is not compatible with what’s actually onscreen because it apparently is mostly derived from a book (!) about the production, but not the actual TV series.
@ Maurice
I believe I partially reflected your comments in my reply to Mr. Buzzkill. Where I’m at a loss is why you need “extraordinary evidence” that Matt Jefferies was a talented, gifted, competent, foresighted and extraordinary genius who was a blessing for the TOS production and whose contributions require still proper acknowledgement (IMHO)?
I illustrated the evidence on his behalf. If you don’t see it, I have to assume that you feel he was either an automaton controlled by the collective unconsciousness (according to Jung and Campbell) or inspired by some or the cosmic consciousness (according to Clarke) and the work was not of his own.
Alternately it’s just some colossal coincidence or pure luck (though I personally don’t believe in either of these). So what is it going to be?
Of course there is an undeniable repetition of corridor layout given the inevitable budget restrictions and limitations of the available set, but considering sets like the briefing room that was redressed as the recreation room, the hearing room, environmental engineering, the chapel and others I’m still amazed at the multitude variations Matt Jefferies and the art directors came up, especially given the financial restrictions.
If you want to give fans and audiences a usable deck plan guide (my mission goal) you have to be screen-accurate, otherwise it’s a work of fantasy that’s only of value to the author and/or those who sympathize with him.
@ Mario de Monti
THANKS!
You asked a fundamental question and I can only provide a personal theory to answer it (feel free to agree, disagree or ignore it)
The works of Franz Joseph, despite being vastly incompatible with what’s onscreen, have achieved some pseudo-canon status to the extent (already a problem in the 1970’s and compelling Mr. Joseph himself to discourage such attempts!) that they are regarded as some form of treknological “bibles” which serves fans as a base of reference and means to have endless small talks discussing the content and trivial details.
Despite being obviously onscreen-incompatible no fans since (as far I'm aware of and except for blssdwlf) have ever attempted to come up with an onscreen compatible alternative and one that is not influenced by FJ but exclusively by the actual footage.
I presume the reason for this to be, that back in those days without the worldwide web, every treknological fan with talent and interest was sitting on the fence, expecting some other fan to come up with an onscreen-compatible alternative – which didn’t happen, because everyone was afraid that somebody else would do something first and steal the thunder (why invest the time and effort if there’s a probability somebody else might beat you in this “race”?).
Therefore the works of Franz Joseph remained basically undisputed and given the lack of an available alternative, the later Star Trek productions made references to Franz Joseph works – which had the undesirable effect that fans now interpreted the work to have been “canonized”.
Mr. Nerdball provided an extreme but graphic example in my deck plan thread, accusing me of being a “TOS revisionist”. Not for one second did it occur to this individual, that actually and in the first place it had been Mr. Joseph who is the actual, first and true revisionist here, as he (involuntarily, IMO, because he didn’t have all the materials he would have needed) had altered and changed what’s actually visible onscreen and/or according to the Season One studio blueprints into something else.
Because he apparently did not have the Season One studio set blueprint (with the Engineering Control Room allowing for turbo lift passage) he erroneously assumed that the Season Two studio set blueprint illustrated in The Making of Star Trek (showing the centered warp drive engine room for the engineering hull) was supposed to present the saucer (impulse) engine room, mentioned in TMoST.
He correctly (but erroneously) concluded that this is a design mistake (“The producers didn’t know what they were doing”) and shifted the engine room towards the stern of the saucer, to allow for that turbo lift he incorrectly assumed the producers and/or Matt Jefferies hadn’t thought of.
Now, if only Gene Roddenberry would have at least sent Mr. Joseph a copy of the Season One studio set blueprint (which he later sold through Lincoln Enterprises), the outcome would have been probably quite a different and better one.
But if the producers didn’t know what they were doing, then designing the Enterprise’s interiors is up for grabs for everybody and a playground for a multitude of different interpretations.
And here I vehemently disagree as I’m trying to prove that on the contrary the producers (and especially Matt Jefferies) knew exactly what they were doing or at least had a pretty good essential idea what the basic internal layout of the ship was supposed to look like.
Apparently, this is not compatible with the belief systems of many individuals around here and expectedly I’m not making many new friends.
This started as a private project my friend Andy and myself embarked upon to provide ourselves and finally after all these decades with screen-accurate deck plans, but I felt I could and should share this in public with other “Accuracy Aficionados” that still might have an interest in that.
What’s really encouraging is the amount of new accuracy-driven TOS threads here at the BBS and, of course, comments like the ones you provided.
Bob
The TMP set plans...
http://pat.suwalski.net/film/st-stages/stages/stage9-tmp.jpg
... show that Kirk's quarters are across the hall from Sickbay, just down the hall from the Transporter Room as well as Main Engineering.
Starfleet engineers were so fond of this layout that they kept officer's quarters, Sickbay, the Transporter Room, and Main Engineering together on the same deck (and added a Cargo Bay) for Galaxy-class...
http://pat.suwalski.net/film/st-stages/stages/stage9-tng2.png
... and Intrepid-class vessels.
http://pat.suwalski.net/film/st-stages/stages/stage9-voyager.png
Hmm, going by your logic, wouldn't the Bridge be just adjacent to main Engineering, and all on the same deck?
Robert_Comsol's argument was based on the relationship between the placement of the Engine Room to the adjoining corridor, and the internal layout that seemed to be indicated because of it.
Whether that was intentional or not on behalf of Matt Jefferies is of course freely debatable. However, using the physical soundstage to try and disprove it is somewhat wide of the mark. What next, insisting that Starships are made of wood because that's what the sets were made from?
STOP!!!!!!! My chest is tighter than an alter-boy's arse before confession with Father Flannigan!!!!!
Air,.. I need AIR!!!! Must get outside!!!!!!
LOL!
Wow. Talk about an inappropriate comment...
Hmm, going by your logic, wouldn't the Bridge be just adjacent to main Engineering, and all on the same deck?
Robert_Comsol's argument was based on the relationship between the placement of the Engine Room to the adjoining corridor, and the internal layout that seemed to be indicated because of it.
Whether that was intentional or not on behalf of Matt Jefferies is of course freely debatable. However, using the physical soundstage to try and disprove it is somewhat wide of the mark. What next, insisting that Starships are made of wood because that's what the sets were made from?
My thoughts exactly.
But where does it end?!?!?
For the love of ptomaine, are you also going to make sure the walls of the corridors actually bend and move in your plans when someone slams into them ... or are you going to make every single curved corridor have exactly the same radius and degree of arc? After all, that's all we saw onscreen! The same corridor at the same curvature over and over and over again. If you're going to say that there are other corridors on other parts of the saucer that are at different curvatures, then that's not being true to the onscreen evidence. That's making a bigger pie than we were shown
And I like pie.
I started this thread, but even I can't read through the umpty-nine comments and makes sense of all the (many excellent) comments. One thought I have -- and it very well may have been brought up by others, and even by myself, but I can't read it all:
What if the secondary hull is 90 degrees off from the primary hull? That is, it's basically a tapering tube. It could be filled with curved hallways that -- to the viewer -- appear to be arranged vertically rather than horizontally, stacked from right to left, tapering toward the shuttle bay. Think of it as a deck of cards stacked on end, from right to left, rather than top to bottom.
All it would take is flipping the gravity. There is no "up" or "down" in space anyway -- it's all artificial. Turbolifts could easily flip 90 degrees before arriving in the secondary hull, and flip again when reaching the shuttle bay (which obviously shares the viewer's "up" and "down").
Presto, all curved hallways in the secondary hull would then be easily explained.
What if the secondary hull is 90 degrees off from the primary hull? That is, it's basically a tapering tube. It could be filled with curved hallways that -- to the viewer -- appear to be arranged vertically rather than horizontally, stacked from right to left, tapering toward the shuttle bay. Think of it as a deck of cards stacked on end, from right to left, rather than top to bottom.
All it would take is flipping the gravity. There is no "up" or "down" in space anyway -- it's all artificial. Turbolifts could easily flip 90 degrees before arriving in the secondary hull, and flip again when reaching the shuttle bay (which obviously shares the viewer's "up" and "down").
Presto, all curved hallways in the secondary hull would then be easily explained.
While there's no evidence of deck plans, we do have a cutaway drawing reproduced in The Making of Star Trek. Rotating the decks in the secondary hull 90 degrees, as you and at least one other in this thread have suggested, would be contrary to that cutaway drawing.
^^^
And you'd still have to contend with the Hangar Deck that is oriented the same direction as the primary hull. While it might solve the curved hallway problem, it would introduce a lot of other totally unnecessary logistical problems for the crew and Starfleet enginners in general.
And you'd still have to contend with the Hangar Deck that is oriented the same direction as the primary hull. While it might solve the curved hallway problem, it would introduce a lot of other totally unnecessary logistical problems for the crew and Starfleet enginners in general.
If you guys put the effort into solving the worlds problems that you put into detailing a fifty-year old fictional spaceship, the world would be a much better place.
What do you mean fictional?
You mean to tell me it ain't real?
Interesting idea. But I think you´d have a very hard time making sense of the rows of windows in the secondary hull, which are clearly arranged horizontally.
Not to pick a nit, and I agree that I think Jeffries knew what he was doing but just had to do it on a schedule that's not really understandable to us and would seem unbearable today (tons of post production sound work necessary, flimsy sets, ridiculous limited budget because of Lucy and Desi, everything including video editing being analog or "longhand" back in the day, and only 6 days to do it all!). So when you think about it, isn't this ...
... one of the most neat and interesting aspects of all of this?!?!
In other words, the Enterprise was fleshed out really well considering the time schedules they all worked under, but still to this day there's not really any ONE answer to exactly how its laid out, so IMHO it's really cool that everyone can participate in having their own interpretation of it. I can't stand Dr. Who but in some ways you could say the Enterprise is like a TARDIS- - you can never be sure how big it is or where everything really goes. The confusion about where everything 'fits" actually contributes to including more fans and more ideas and more creativity and on and on and on ...
It's like a benevalent screw-up that gives us more stuff to talk about for almost 50 years now!!!
Hi Mario. Again, welcome to the BBS. Your ideas are sensible. I said basically the same thing in the "Franz Joseph Blueprints Revisited" thread! It doesn't make sense ... UNLESS you say, ironically like Franz sort of did, that all those lights aren't really 'windows' at all, but environmental system reactors (or whatever he called them --I forget exactly at the moment). That way NONE of the "windows' have to mean ANYTHING to the layout of the ship!
Cool beans.
... one of the most neat and interesting aspects of all of this?!?!
In other words, the Enterprise was fleshed out really well considering the time schedules they all worked under, but still to this day there's not really any ONE answer to exactly how its laid out, so IMHO it's really cool that everyone can participate in having their own interpretation of it. I can't stand Dr. Who but in some ways you could say the Enterprise is like a TARDIS- - you can never be sure how big it is or where everything really goes. The confusion about where everything 'fits" actually contributes to including more fans and more ideas and more creativity and on and on and on ...
It's like a benevalent screw-up that gives us more stuff to talk about for almost 50 years now!!!
Hi Mario. Again, welcome to the BBS. Your ideas are sensible. I said basically the same thing in the "Franz Joseph Blueprints Revisited" thread! It doesn't make sense ... UNLESS you say, ironically like Franz sort of did, that all those lights aren't really 'windows' at all, but environmental system reactors (or whatever he called them --I forget exactly at the moment). That way NONE of the "windows' have to mean ANYTHING to the layout of the ship!
Cool beans.
Just to be clear, Desi was long gone, the editing was film and not video, and episodes were shot in six days, not completed.
