Star Trek: TMP questions and observations

[Therin of Andor]

Picard used to drink out of a very novel-looking tea cup. It wasn't china, it was made of glass and had a sort of black-wire handle that gripped the cup, just under the lip. I found out, too late, that there was an entire set to this that you could buy - and wanted it badly.

Keep your eyes on eBay.

The set designers and prop finders of all the Treks used to scour retail stores and catalogs looking for "cool stuff" that would pass for 23rd/24th century items. Remember McCoy's TOS scalpels were all unusual salt and pepper shakers they had already amassed when the script required one futuristic salt shaker prop on set for "The Man Trap".

That TNG tea set would have been a commercially available product. I recall them. I think my local Target sold them. But not a Star Trek collectible until it was featured on the show.

There was also an expensive commercial chess-like board game using black and white spheres that was featured in Ten Forward and later sold with "as seen on TNG". Ah, it was called "Terrace":
http://holodeck3.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/games-in-star-trek/

 

[Timewalker]

A Cook-Book is surprisingly adult in concept for this franchise. But who knows what those colourful cubes of "food" really were on STAR TREK? Probably "marshmellons," as Spock calls them. Or Polemade Soup, or whatever it's called - I never saw Lenny putting it to his lips and slurping off the spoon. In fact, he only used it to wing at Chapel - it probably was just paint! So what are they trying to push on us, in this book?

"Oh, but it's FUN, 2Takes! You're missing the point!" Yeah, it's fun, alright ... until you're calling out from work, because of the explosive shits this Cook-Book's earned for you.

Has anyone here ever tried to make something with those recipes?

I never had the Star Trek Cookbook (when it first came out I was completely uninterested in cooking, so never bought it).

However, many years later, the science fiction club I belonged to in college had a party where we used recipes from the Dragonlance book Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home (Dragonlance is one of the AD&D RPG settings). We tried everything from bread, stew, soup, other entrees, and desserts... and it all turned out surprisingly well (and tasty).

 

[BeatleJWOL]

I really don't know what else you seem to envisage when you ask about "high end" collectibles.

Would items like Weta Workshop sells for Lord Of The Rings et al be more in line with "high end" collectibles?
http://www.wetanz.com/hobbit-auj/

Own a life size Gollum statue or a $3,300 18k gold One Ring...

 

[Nebusj]

That TNG tea set would have been a commercially available product. I recall them. I think my local Target sold them. But not a Star Trek collectible until it was featured on the show.

Could be! My wife has for a decade-plus had the model tea kettle used in the Next Generation episode ``The Survivors''. It was just bought right off the shelf, though I don't remember from where right now.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

2TakesFrakes and ...an explosive combination!

The set designers and prop finders of all the Treks used to scour retail stores and catalogs looking for "cool stuff" that would pass for 23rd/24th century items.

So true. I used to go to my local mall and see this same square-standing-on-one-corner display shelf unit (seen here in The Wrath of Khan) decorated in the courtyard.



Stupid me, when the mall had closed down about ten years ago, I should have inquired into purchasing it...

 

[2takesfrakes]

2TakesFrakes and ...an explosive combination!

Exactly! There's no point in owning a book like this, because anything YOU experiment with in the kitchen is JUST as valid, if not - arguably - as what you this book has, or what you'll see on the show. But, because of the OFFICIAL title, this now, somehow, holds credence for any number of gullible fans. But dissentary is a Good Teacher ...

 

[Robert Comsol]

Here is a question that's been growing on me: What came first, the airlock at the Enterprise's saucer hull bottom or the personnel lift hatch to the top side of the saucer?

1. On Maab's excellent website there is a production painting showing a Kirk in a spacesuit next to what appears to be a saucer running light bulb for scale reference. This suggests that originally a scene was planned for EVA activity on the top side of the saucer, IMHO.
2. The airlock staging area's control console features interesting indicators, especially "Elev[ator] Travel" "up" and "down". Hardly the kind of controls I would have expected near the ventral airlock / docking port but most definitely for the personnel lift hatch seen near the end of the film
3. In the deleted airlock scene you can see there's some kind of stand there. Curiously, Shane Johnson's depiction of the airlock (ventral saucer) lacks this item, but features it as a "control pedestal / handgrip" near the personnel hatch platform (page 59 "Mr. Scott's" Guide to the Enterprise). It is barely visible in this screencap but obviously it's there (I remember promotional shots showing the actors close-up while being uplifted).

IMHO, all this could suggest that the airlock set was actually built for a location in the upper saucer (and as a possible prelude to the lift scene near the end of the film) but finally only featured as a staging area at the bottom side of the saucer.

You're probably overanalyzing it.

Last time I overanalzyed a particular subject it was for the better or would you have preferred that fans would continue to misinterpret a conjectural CGI reproduction of the TOS hangar bay and its markings for the real thing?

It's also possible the airlock staging area set was designed to service both the top personnel hatch and the airlock below, even if it doesn't make sense with the exterior of the miniature.

Upon rereading the TMP novelization (partly or mostly based on the screenplay?) I doubt that:

• Chapter 23 begins with Spock just having exited "Airlock 4" (wherever this is)
• Chapter 25 begins with Kirk having exited Airlock 4 and equally without any prelude
• Only Chapter 27 "tours" the area when "the Ilia-probe had taken Kirk and the others by turbo lift to a dimly lit maintenance shaft" with a "small maintenance lift".

I don't know if any of this footage was actually shot, but apparently their arrival on the upper saucer (scene not in film):

Judging by the handgrip and the floor of the maintenance lift this was the original intention and location of the "airlock & staging area".

However, if you read the description of the whole scene there was no way it could have been included in the final film. Ilia was leading the others to this location (because of the knowledge of the ship's layout acquired by the Ilia-probe) which would have looked odd, as she rather seemed exploring and slowly learning in earlier scenes.

IMHO, this could have made the set available for other uses, suggesting Kirk's spacewalk prep and Spock's sneaking into the area (quite a nice and presumably deliberate "Alien" touch aided by Jerry Goldsmith's score...) were rather late additions that had not been in an earlier screenplay.

Shane's drawings of the airlock are also very inaccurate to the set, so don't trust them.

I never did. Actually I wrote Shane in the late 1980's and expressed by concerns that he didn't accurately reproduce the original studio sets in his (not Mr. Scott's ) Guide to the Enterprise (what a missed opportunity). He felt "I was trying to find fault" with his work.

I'm currently trying to recreate an accurate reproduction of the TWOK torpedo bay studio set (unfortunately I'm not the guy who spent 4,500 $ for this and other original blueprints) and I'm seriously not trying to find fault - instead I'm now trying to eliminate it.

Bob

 

[2takesfrakes]

Keep your eyes on eBay.

The set designers and prop finders of all the Treks used to scour retail stores and catalogs looking for "cool stuff" that would pass for 23rd/24th century items. Remember McCoy's TOS scalpels were all unusual salt and pepper shakers they had already amassed when the script required one futuristic salt shaker prop on set for "The Man Trap".

That TNG tea set would have been a commercially available product. I recall them. I think my local Target sold them. But not a Star Trek collectible until it was featured on the show.

There was also an expensive commercial chess-like board game using black and white spheres that was featured in Ten Forward and later sold with "as seen on TNG". Ah, it was called "Terrace":
http://holodeck3.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/games-in-star-trek/

Thank you, for your input, sir! Most appreciated. Now, if only I could find a Lionfish Tank as what Picard has in his Ready Room ...

 

[2takesfrakes]

However, many years later, the science fiction club I belonged to in college had a party where we used recipes from the Dragonlance book Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home (Dragonlance is one of the AD&D RPG settings). We tried everything from bread, stew, soup, other entrees, and desserts... and it all turned out surprisingly well (and tasty).

Or, perhaps ... you just got lucky!

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Exactly! There's no point in owning a book like this, because anything YOU experiment with in the kitchen is JUST as valid, if not - arguably - as what you this book has, or what you'll see on the show. But, because of the OFFICIAL title, this now, somehow, holds credence for any number of gullible fans. But dissentary is a Good Teacher...

Believe me, I am sympathetic to your point of view. It's like, say, those blue plastic communicator walkie-talkie toys from ages ago. I guess to make sure that stupid kids knew which show they were from, they had Star Trek emblazoned on the front of them. I always hated stuff like that, too.

I was involved in a comic book series in the early 80's. I'd met one friends' brother around this time, who was some kind of marketing moron..uh, I mean wizard. He was trying like mad to get us going on having the series' name printed on sunglasses as a promotional tie-in. What in holy hell sunglasses had to do with this series was, and is, beyond me.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

That TNG tea set would have been a commercially available product. I recall them. I think my local Target sold them. But not a Star Trek collectible until it was featured on the show.

They had a few different mugs/teacups used through out the series. I know one version commonly seen when Picard ordered tea was commercially available, they were Bodum brand glasses. My mom had a set in the early-90's.
Ex. http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Bodum-Gla...w-Black-plastic-C-Handle-beaker-/291021172115

 

[2takesfrakes]

Believe me, I am sympathetic to your point of view. It's like, say, those blue plastic communicator walkie-talkie toys from ages ago. I guess to make sure that stupid kids knew which show they were from, they had Star Trek emblazoned on the front of them. I always hated stuff like that, too.

I was involved in a comic book series in the early 80's. I'd met one friends' brother around this time, who was some kind of marketing moron..uh, I mean wizard. He was trying like mad to get us going on having the series' name printed on sunglasses as a promotional tie-in. What in holy hell sunglasses had to do with this series was, and is, beyond me.

Well, I'm glad I'm not alone in my perception, as far as the marketing goes. What a shame I don't have the means, or gumption, to start my own STAR TREK Upscale Merchandise Company ... no porcelain Lenny's filled with cooking sherri, here!

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

What a shame I don't have the means, or gumption, to start my own STAR TREK Upscale Merchandise Company ... no porcelain Lenny's filled with cooking sherri, here!

Yeah! You, I'm sure, would at least have a porcelain Riker!

 

[Maurice]

Last time I overanalzyed a particular subject it was for the better or would you have preferred that fans would continue to misinterpret a conjectural CGI reproduction of the TOS hangar bay and its markings for the real thing?

Anyone who knows me knows I'm interested in accuracy which is why I invite evidence to the contrary. The only reason the color hangar photos seemed persuasive was because they were scans from a magazine and not clear enough to see how CG looking they actually were.

It's also possible the airlock staging area set was designed to service both the top personnel hatch and the airlock below, even if it doesn't make sense with the exterior of the miniature.

Upon rereading the TMP novelization (partly or mostly based on the screenplay?) I doubt that:

Sadly, the novelization differs from the film in so many ways it's not really a valid point of comparison.

I don't know if any of this footage was actually shot, but apparently their arrival on the upper saucer (scene not in film):

The scripts I have don't feature any scenes between those of the crew exiting the bridge (scene 305) and appearing on the hull (scene 306 "Wing Walk"), so it's pretty safe to assume no such interior ship action was filmed.

The shot of them emerging onto the hull WAS in the film, of course, just not the angle you posted, but a long shot extended by a matte painting.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

Well, I don't know where the purple cloud comes from but it's in the Topps card set for The Motion Picture.

The Space Intruder card is the exact same effect. It has the same texture. I wonder where that came from, it looks like the fibers from some kind of material put under a microscope.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Regarding the issue of sci fi franchise tie-in recipes causing bowel problems....in 1979 I had a Star Wars activity book with a recipe for Skywalker Scrunchies. I couldn't get enough of them then, and when I dug up the recipe online several years back and made them myself, they passed the test of time. No bowel issues to speak of.

Look 'em up and try 'em out...they're addictive. (I need to find that recipe again....)

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Sci fi franchise tie-in recipes causing bowel problems

Now that'd be a thread title for the ages!

 

[Therin of Andor]

So true. I used to go to my local mall and see this same square-standing-on-one-corner display shelf unit (seen here in The Wrath of Khan) decorated in the courtyard.



Stupid me, when the mall had closed down about ten years ago, I should have inquired into purchasing it...

I almost mentioned that. Later, it appears in Tasha's cabin ("The Naked Now").

While not high-end, we had a chain of Granny May stores in the 80s, in Australia, and they were selling those clear plastic beverage containers, with the spiral straws wrapped around the outside, which I finally noticed (in the VHS release) was on the waitress's drinks tray when McCoy was seeking a flight to Genesis in ST III.

The sticker around the top I added myself, cut down from freebie stickers handed out on premiere night.


Star Trek III glass by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

 

[drt]

I seem to recall there was a satin TMP jacket with the Enterprise on the back which was lit with LEDs.

On the back cover of STARLOG, yeah? I think it may have been based on a production crew jacket, similar to that one guy in the SF tram scene who appears for a frame or two. It was probably forty bucks or more, so it WAS pretty high end.

Not compared to the light saber that was advertised on the back of FANTASTIC FILMS ($375 I think?) but not chump change either.

I think a vfx guy on TMP was involved in the jacket, but I don't recall who. Might have been one of the electronics guys from Apogee.

Did some rummaging and found this:

http://starlogged.blogspot.com/2012/09/1980-official-star-trek-duty-jacket.html

Light up one was $95!

I chuckled at the suggestion that it was "perfect for discos".

While on the subject of "duty jackets" - I always liked the one they wore for the visit to V'ger.

 

[Robert Comsol]

The shot of them emerging onto the hull WAS in the film, of course, just not the angle you posted, but a long shot extended by a matte painting.

If that was actual live-action footage, where did they shoot this from?
To get this kind of shot they must have been at quite some distance and up on a water tower or something. IIRC, they used stop-motion miniature dolls or something like that and then combined that with the static matte painting.

Bob