"Planet of the Titans" Revisited

[Kevman7987]

I kind of wish that Trial's and Tribble-ations hadn't had the scene where they ask Worf about the forehead ridges. It would have been better if they had continued with the "they looked that way all along" idea.

It would have been even better if Michael Dorn would have been made up to look like one of the TOS Klingons for scenes set aboard K-7. Have nobody even notice that Worf's forehead keeps changing shape in between scenes either.

 

[Maurice]

That Phase II Enterprise is awesome.

The Planet of the Titans Enterprise designs aren't the same ship as Phase II's.

i kind if wish POTT had been the first movie in 1975 or 76 beating SW to cinemas.

sounds it wouldve been like Star Treks Prometheus...with a more TOS flavour than TMP (ST Phase 2: The Movie) i imagine the opening 10-15 mins of Kirk being lost wouldve been similar in look and tone to TOS (end of the 5 year mission) and when they all come back 3 years later everything wouldve looked more Phase 2/TMP

I doubt the show would have looked anything like Phase II/TMP in any regard, since they had entirely different production designers, and especially given Ken Adam's concept sketches for Titans, which are very unlike any other Trek.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

That Phase II Enterprise is awesome.

The Planet of the Titans Enterprise designs aren't the same ship as Phase II's.

Quite true. The Phase II design was just an earlier version of the TMP refit.

 

[Khan 2.0]

there was an fake plot synopsis for Prometheus that was abit similar to POTT...i see if i can find it..

 

[Khan 2.0]

here it is...sort of similar anyway:
http://m.tgdaily.com/entertainment/59905-alleged-prometheus-plot-summary-hits-the-net

 

[Maurice]

Well, I was digging through some articles on a Battlestar Galactica site and found the following article with some McQuarrie work for The Planet of the Titans that I'd not seen before (link).

As always, take the captions with a grain of salt, but the one for the machine (seen in the big Art of Ralph McQuarrie book) lines up with what Phil Kaufman said about being influenced by Olaf Stapleton, as McQuarrie says the rendering is based on scene in Stapleton's The Star Maker.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Very interesting link, thanks! "Klingon Mothership"?!? (well, the Federation "mothership" looks like a predecessor to Earth Spacedock). And it's obvious that "Buck Rogers" starfighter started as a (rejected) design for the colonial BSG Viper.

As some of you will know the animation sequence in the "Star Wars Holiday Special" featured a rebel base located within an asteroid in the beginning. Was that "inspired" by the McQuarrie artwork for "Planet of the Titans"?

Bob

 

[pfontaine2]

Hey Maurice. Thanks for pointing out that article in MediaScene on Ralph McQuarrie. Based on the link alone, I found the issue on ebay and just ordered it. It's fascinating to see sketches that haven't surfaced anywhere else, even in that huge (and obscenely expensive) McQuarrie retrospective book that was published about five years ago. There's a new edition of the book on Kickstarter that's much less expensive and features lots of new material, though it excludes his Star Wars art.

 

[Maurice]

Hey Maurice. Thanks for pointing out that article in MediaScene on Ralph McQuarrie. Based on the link alone, I found the issue on ebay and just ordered it. It's fascinating to see sketches that haven't surfaced anywhere else, even in that huge (and obscenely expensive) McQuarrie retrospective book that was published about five years ago. There's a new edition of the book on Kickstarter that's much less expensive and features lots of new material, though it excludes his Star Wars art.

Interesting. I have the obscenely expensive copy, and would like to see the version with more material on non-Star Wars projects.

 

[pfontaine2]

Here's the link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ph-mcquarrie-archives-art-book?ref=nav_search

Truth be told, it looks like a great deal of stuff is reprinted from the earlier book but a third of it is new material. It also looks like it's going to be a physically smaller book. The earlier book was nearly impossible to read unless you had an honest to goodness coffee table to put it on. It certainly wasn't a book that sat easily on your lap...I signed up for mine nonetheless and hope they get funded.

 

[pfontaine2]

I thought this might be a nice place to share this paper model I designed a few years back. I'm not a huge fan of the McQuarrie/Adams Enterprise but I wanted to build one anyways to see if I could match the paintings. This is what I came up with. It's very small, only about 5 inches wide but it seems to be a very good match.

 

[BillJ]

I thought this might be a nice place to share this paper model I designed a few years back. I'm not a huge fan of the McQuarrie/Adams Enterprise but I wanted to build one anyways to see if I could match the paintings. This is what I came up with. It's very small, only about 5 inches wide but it seems to be a very good match.

Great job.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I thought this might be a nice place to share this paper model I designed a few years back. I'm not a huge fan of the McQuarrie/Adams Enterprise but I wanted to build one anyways to see if I could match the paintings. This is what I came up with. It's very small, only about 5 inches wide but it seems to be a very good match.

That's beautiful. Very well done.

 

[Maurice]

Nicely done. However, as I've noted before, I think that version is a McQuarrie take on the design and not one that appeared much. The one Adam seemed to sketch was the much better proportioned small-bodied one with the big nacelles.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I have more to post on this... but I didn't want to do it all in one message: figured I'd see if there was any interest.

I agree that I like Adam's renderings of his designs better. They feel sleeker than McQuarrie's take. I would've loved to get my hands on the study models...where they sold at the auctions?

I edited the Planet of Titans entry on Memory Alpha to make it more accurate, and also corrected some of the captions which attributes the Titans designs to Phase II (and added an entry for Study Models, since they erroneously referred to the study models as Studio Models), and I revised their entry on McQuarrie to correct Titans errors there, and to add mention of his work on Star Trek VI. Whew!

There's an entry on the project in "The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made".

I just read the synopsis for the movie, and I will say that I'd preferred that Planet Of The Titans was the movie made instead of caca like The Motion Picture

As to Mifune...I love the man. I love him in High and Low in particular, amongst many great performances. I was thrilled when I picked up a capsule toy in Japan and opened it to find it was Mifune as his nameless Samurai from Yojimbo...in black and white! Yay!

Seconded. Mifune was an amazing actor.

 

[Robert Comsol]

I think that version is a McQuarrie take on the design and not one that appeared much.

Seeing it like this makes me wonder how much Star Wars had been on McQuarrie's mind. The wedge-shaped main hull does have characteristics of a SW vehicle and the ST elements look somewhat added on.

The one Adam seemed to sketch was the much better proportioned small-bodied one with the big nacelles.

Do you have a sketch or the like which illustrates that? Thus far I think I've only seen the McQuarrie proposals.

Bob

 

[trevanian]

There are a couple sketches in THE ART OF STAR TREK.

And here
http://gullcottageonline.com/CostDesg.html
is one about halfway down the page, with the shuttlebay interior below that (and below that, ATLANTIS from SPY WHO LOVED ME, which practically has warp pontoons.)

There are three sketches partway down this page
http://obviousmag.org/archives/2007/02/ken_adam.html

His Saucer interior is INSANE, like a French airport or a hamster habitrail inside a primary hull, with everything OPEN. Apparently Kaufman wanted a shot that started on the bridge and then looked out and down through the whole saucer.

 

[Maurice]

I think that version is a McQuarrie take on the design and not one that appeared much.

Seeing it like this makes me wonder how much Star Wars had been on McQuarrie's mind. The wedge-shaped main hull does have characteristics of a SW vehicle and the ST elements look somewhat added on.

The one Adam seemed to sketch was the much better proportioned small-bodied one with the big nacelles.

Do you have a sketch or the like which illustrates that? Thus far I think I've only seen the McQuarrie proposals.

Bob

The top study model (with nacelles flipped around at some point) is the one most people associate with the film from two of McQuarrie's renderings.

What you see in most of Adam's sketches seen to date skews towards the second one, as seen at the bottom of the page below.

They might both be McQuarrie concepts, they both might've started with Adam, either way, it seems there was a preference for the second one in most of the sketches we've seen.

 

[Robert Comsol]

^^ Many thanks. If the assumptions are correct, then I'm relieved to see that apparently Ken Adam had a better understanding for appropriate Enterprise proportions than Ralph McQuarrie, IMHO.

Bob

 

[trevanian]

I've owned pretty much all the Adam books at one point or other, even the one when his stuff was on exhibition, and it seems his Ent sketches pre-date all the McQuarrie work, which suggests they were evolving in a bad direction IMO. Then again, they might not have used the mcq stuff at all, as kaufman has a tendency to throw stuff away wholesale, be it writers or six figure motion control systems (both went largely bye bye on THE RIGHT STUFF.)