1701 Briefing Room missing in all Kirk era Star Trek films

[Galileo7]

Why weren't any scenes ever set in the Briefing Room of the Kirk era
1701-Refit /1701-A [TMP, WOK, SFS, TVH, TFF, TUC]
or the Kirk era J.J. Abrams 1701 [ST, STID, STB(?)] films?

Was a set ever built for any of these Kirk era films and , if so, was a later deleted scene ever filmed?

 

[Dukhat]

Because no one needed to be briefed.

 

[TheSeeker]

Just debriefed. And we all know where that happens.

 

[Trekkin]

I don't think it was ever established that the original Enterprise had a briefing room. There was a few random rooms, but most of the on-ship, plan-formulating action was on the Bridge, in engineering, or in sickbay.

 

[Albertese]

I don't think it was ever established that the original Enterprise had a briefing room. There was a few random rooms, but most of the on-ship, plan-formulating action was on the Bridge, in engineering, or in sickbay.

There absolutely was a briefing room on the original Enterprise.

It was used throughout the series and was frequently redressed as various rec rooms, courtrooms and chapels. But the sets basic purpose was certainly being the briefing room, with the big briefing table.

--Alex

 

[Timo]

To whip up a few fictional answers:

The TOS movies in general did not feature "missions" as much as they did impromptu adventures of extremely brief duration and abnormal characteristics. ST:TMP shows a ship launching in such a hurry that common sense is left behind - where to put a briefing scene? (Yet we do get one - in the biggest Briefing Room ever, the Rec Deck.) ST2 shows a birthday joyride gone sour. ST3/4 fails to feature enough crew to conduct a briefing with. ST5 is another fast-paced, apparently skeleton-crewed sortie, so it could be excused that the one and only briefing scene is conducted on the bridge moments before the action begins in earnest. And ST6 doesn't involve anything anybody ought to be briefed about - to the contrary, the crew wants to hide things from their superiors and from each other there!

The first Abrams movie is also all about abnormality, and we get a hasty PA instead of a briefing. It's only the second one that finally features what one might consider a "mission", in the teaser. But the time for briefing is already past as we join the action (lamentably so, because now we never learn Kirk's rationale for doing the irrational).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Galileo7]

There absolutely was a briefing room on the original Enterprise.
It was used throughout the series and was frequently redressed as various rec rooms, courtrooms and chapels. But the sets basic purpose was certainly being the briefing room, with the big briefing table.
--Alex

True. It was an part of TOS and would have been nice to have seen a 1701-Refit Briefing Room set used in at least one of these films.

 

[Ronald Held]

Was ready room the intent of the question?

 

[Galileo7]

Was ready room the intent of the question?

No.
Albeit, in TMP Kirk's Captain's Office was used in lieu of a briefing room set scene as it was in again in WOK.

 

[T'Girl]

Even a ship as large as the Enterprise A would of had multi-use rooms, so the "dining room" scene in TUC could have been in a briefing room, rec room, office space.



.

 

[Captain Rob]

I was under the impression that the set used for the first meeting of Kirk, Spock ,and McCoy in TMP was called the senior officers lounge. A place where the senior officers could have meals, do off duty work or just hang out without having to sit with the lowly LTs, Ensigns, and enlisted personnel.
Was the design of the outer curved wall of the TOS briefing room meant to represent the shape of the rim of the saucer section? It's the only external location of the ship that matches the shape of that wall. If so, it would have been a nice touch if they had included a few windows. We've seen windows before.

 

[Galileo7]

I was under the impression that the set used for the first meeting of Kirk, Spock ,and McCoy in TMP was called the senior officers lounge. ...

Yes, Officer's lounge in TMP in lieu of a briefing room set scene.

 

[Timo]

It's a bit amusing that TOS was never an ensemble show, yet that's where the tradition of summoning all the regulars and almost-regulars to a single non-bridge room and occasionally letting others besides the three stars contribute was born. But TOS did have actual briefings, top-down, to large numbers of people; the TOS movies just had chit-chats between two or three people who were socializing first, sharing information hierarchically second. Except for the TMP Rec Deck scene.

"Kirk's Office" is probably a somewhat misleading name for what appeared to be his personal quarters, complete with a bed, a dining corner and whatnot. Kirk in TOS often talked with his two co-stars in the privacy of his cabin, too. If he had a separate office, he didn't appear to use it for anything much. Or should we decide that the room on Deck 12 and the identical room on Deck 3 (or, in "Journey to Babel", Deck 5) were different in function, one being where he lived and the other where he did business?

Since no other Trek skipper really had an Office, either, we might consider such a thing conceptually outdated in the 23rd-24th centuries. But the Ready Room of TNG and VOY serves in that de facto role, and its absence in TOS or the TOS movies thus does stand out. As for the new movies, we can still wait and see.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Galileo7]

It's a bit amusing that TOS was never an ensemble show, yet that's where the tradition of summoning all the regulars and almost-regulars to a single non-bridge room and occasionally letting others besides the three stars contribute was born. But TOS did have actual briefings, top-down, to large numbers of people; the TOS movies just had chit-chats between two or three people who were socializing first, sharing information hierarchically second. Except for the TMP Rec Deck scene.
"Kirk's Office" is probably a somewhat misleading name for what appeared to be his personal quarters, complete with a bed, a dining corner and whatnot. Kirk in TOS often talked with his two co-stars in the privacy of his cabin, too. If he had a separate office, he didn't appear to use it for anything much. Or should we decide that the room on Deck 12 and the identical room on Deck 3 (or, in "Journey to Babel", Deck 5) were different in function, one being where he lived and the other where he did business?
Since no other Trek skipper really had an Office, either, we might consider such a thing conceptually outdated in the 23rd-24th centuries. But the Ready Room of TNG and VOY serves in that de facto role, and its absence in TOS or the TOS movies thus does stand out. As for the new movies, we can still wait and see.

Timo Saloniemi

Agree, good thoughts on this matter. Maybe STB will have a briefing room scene on J.J. 1701.

The department heads meeting in a briefing room was established in TOS "The Cage" and "The Man Trap" et.al. it would be cool to see it in a Kirk era film.

 

[CorporalClegg]

As far as I understand it, the "ready room" was a product of TNG, correct? While Picard did have his own quarters, they were rarely seen and acted only as a sleeping chambers--except for a few occasions. ("Pen Pals" is the only one I can think of off hand.)

OTOH, Kirk's quarters--both in the show and films--acted more like a traditional captain's sea cabin, which served both as sleeping area and the functions they attributed to the ready room.

As far as the TOS films not having a briefing room, I think it was simply a matter of practicality, since the scripts didn't warrant it. All the meeting scenes were either intimate (TMP/TFF/TUC) or comprised classified details (WOK) that one assumes was command-level clearance. And since a captain's cabin had other uses, there was no sense in building a whole second set.

Also, there's the whole issue of those scenes just lead to talking heads and excessive expo, which should be trimmed from any film script, anyway.

 

[Galileo7]

As far as I understand it, the "ready room" was a product of TNG, correct? While Picard did have his own quarters, they were rarely seen and acted only as a sleeping chambers--except for a few occasions. ("Pen Pals" is the only one I can think of off hand.)

OTOH, Kirk's quarters--both in the show and films--acted more like a traditional captain's sea cabin, which served both as sleeping area and the functions they attributed to the ready room.

As far as the TOS films not having a briefing room, I think it was simply a matter of practicality, since the scripts didn't warrant it. All the meeting scenes were either intimate (TMP/TFF/TUC) or comprised classified details (WOK) that one assumes was command-level clearance. And since a captain's cabin had other uses, there was no sense in building a whole second set.

Also, there's the whole issue of those scenes just lead to talking heads and excessive expo, which should be trimmed from any film script, anyway.

Yes, it makes sense.
TOS , TMP and WOK we see the captain's cabin used as his ready room "office".
All the Kirk era films just used other sets in lieu of a briefing room to save on production costs.
I wonder if Star Trek Phase II television series 1978 had a briefing room set planned before TMP replaced this production ?

 

[sojourner]

Since no other Trek skipper really had an Office, either, we might consider such a thing conceptually outdated in the 23rd-24th centuries. But the Ready Room of TNG and VOY serves in that de facto role, and its absence in TOS or the TOS movies thus does stand out. As for the new movies, we can still wait and see.

Timo Saloniemi

This is just needlessly semantic. The Captain's Ready room was where he did business. You know, like an office. Complete with a desk. Did it need a label on the door specifically calling it an office? If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck....

 

[Timo]

That's the funny thing about it - the specific semantics. When they introduced the Ready Room, they essentially did away with the concept of a Ready Room, which IRTW would be a place for the skipper to catch a nap. Rather, they turned this cabin-away-from-cabin into a purebred office, something the heroes had previously never had. Why deliberately label the duck a goose?

The point of a Ready Room would be that it's a long way from accommodations to action stations. But in a starship, it ain't - Kirk could be up at the bridge and down at his chair in a couple of dozen seconds via turbolift. Did Picard need a Ready Room because his ship was an order of magnitude bigger than Kirk's? (It does feature a tea-and-crumpets dispenser and a bed, even though only the former is ever seen in action.) Kirk in the new movies has a ship of equal size, but his turbolifts now are lightning-fast (unless the edit of Spock's ride in the 09 movie was a dramatic one, taking artistic liberties)...

As for Briefing Rooms, there simply haven't been briefing scenes as of late, save for the giant ST:TMP thing and the one where General Korrd was introduced in ST5. There have merely been private conversations. For the reason CorporalClegg nailed: briefings are just about the clumsiest form of exposition, after Captain's Logs.

They did get mileage out of a briefing in "Balance of Terror", though, as there was drama in the air, all the exposition having been preempted by Spock in his Know Your Romulans PA already. Would that have worked in an office or a cabin? Not really, because the drama came from using the random supporting character Stiles and letting him slip in a word edgewise. And writers in general try to keep things spinning around central characters, that is, main heroes and villains/guest stars, people with a dramatic excuse to slug it out in Captain's Quarters or Office.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sojourner]

The Ready room is a de facto office, so in your previous post claiming the captains didn't have a "real office". Is just playing semantic games and not worth discussing. Further more. to turn around and then claim that "they essentially did away with the concept of a ready room" while noting that Picard's did have a bed? Come on. Make up your mind.

 

[Richard Baker]

I always figured the Ready Room was just a location adjoining the Bridge where the Captain could have a private discussion and have some 'down time' but still be immediately available.
The Briefing Room was more for larger discussion with the different department heads, providing information, allowing feedback and the formulation of a course of action.
TMP/Refit should have logically had a Briefing Room on board, but the circumstances in the film moved too quickly for everyone to go to it and have a discussion. The times where it would have been appropriate (Spock's arrival, Genesis proposal tape) they only had three people involved and just held it elsewhere. Using the room in the Recreation Room was a weird choice (and not too private), but the set was cheaper to construct in real world terms.

I would have liked to see what the Refit Briefing Room set might have looked like.