We also see Geordi use one in Insurrection when they're under attack from the So'na. https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/insurrectionhd/insurrectionhd1405.jpg https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/insurrectionhd/insurrectionhd1472.jpg
Starfleet manages to equip starships with Fire Extinguishers in case of exploding consoles, but they still haven't licked the problem of inexplicable rocks being tossed about everywhere when the ship gets hit by a hard enough blast.
Insects and burrowing creatures also navigate in three dimensions. Maybe in addition to the whales and dolphins, Starfleet ships have superintelligent ant colonies or moles helping to fly the ship, so the walls and ceilings are full of terrariums for them to live in.
I buckled down the last couple of days and knocked out 4 total animated monitor screens I hadn't yet generated: a couple bar graphs, the radar scan display, and the 3D rotating ship wireframe.
I'm sure I've written a couple of variants of this post before in this thread, but wow, this looks stunningly realistic, @Donny! Especially with that second shot; I'd have to take a real close look before finding evidence for it to be an in-game render. Can't tell you how much I long for finally being able to walk through your virtual set recreations and stare at every last detail for hours.
We only get a few glimpses of the Enterprise-A dedication play in TUC. It's near the ceiling, right above the viewer. About the most unusual of places we've seen a dedication plaque mounted, but it's there nonetheless. We don't really get a good look at it... But we get a better look at the Excelsior's plaque, and it's clear that the two are of the same style. I had a conversation with Mr. Okuda this evening and he explained to me that the budget was so low on the film that they didn't have time to make an actual plaque as they'd done in TFF and in TNG forward. He said the plaque was actually a 1/4 inch sheet of Masonite, with trimmed pieces of art card for the border and rivets in the corner. The inner plate was another piece of art card mounted on the Masonite. The entire thing was then primed, painted with metallic paint, with hand-brushed highlights. The lettering was then screen-printed onto the plaque, instead of engraved or embossed lettering, the borders painted black as well. I've replicated what he described here, but made it obviously more metallic and given the lettering a slight engraved feeling, as that was most likely what was intended And there it is, up near the ceiling, where you can hardly get a good read of her
If it was that cheaply made, I can see why they'd tuck it in the shadows where you can barely see it. Don't want any noticeable flaws showing up on screen.
I've never noticed those tiny foot long pieces of railing in front of the helm before. Seems a bit pointless.
There was no railing at the front in TFF, but if they'd put the regular railing there (assuming there was enough to go around), it would have been right in front of the viewscreen blinkies. An imperfect solution — the front rail doesn't really go with the style of railing they'd been using since TMP — but it's probably what they could afford.