Regardless of who made the decision, the destruction of the Enterprise-D is just another symptom of the "let's take this uber-popular TV series and make movies of it, but change everything that the fans have actually come to love about that series."
It's never the writer's call.
BTW, the bridge lighting on the only Trek film GR made was extremely dim and submarine-like.
Mea culpa. Looking back, there was one specific point where I wasn't clear or precise. I see how I was talking past people. I'll own that.
To clarify, the purpose of my posts was to compare the style of televised-TNG to the style of movie-TNG. In other words, I was contrasting two discrete iterations of Star Trek against each other.
I understand that Roddenberry's vision evolved throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. And I understand that TOS and TMP had different styles than TNG. But neither of those facts affect the calculus of televised-TNG versus movie-TNG.
To clarify, the purpose of my posts was to compare the style of televised-TNG to the style of movie-TNG. In other words, I was contrasting two discrete iterations of Star Trek against each other.
I understand that Roddenberry's vision evolved throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. And I understand that TOS and TMP had different styles than TNG. But neither of those facts affect the calculus of televised-TNG versus movie-TNG.
^Thank you for this clarification.
I think part of the problem, then, may be that the subject line of your message says "Generations"; if that wasn't intended to refer specifically to GEN, I hope it's understandable why a lot of respondents would have interpreted it that way. If you meant the TNG films in general, you might want to ask a mod if they can update the subject line to read something like "TNG films" rather than "Generations". Just an idea!
While GEN was forced to operate under specific restrictions, in general I agree theTNG films were (literally) darker than the series they followed, and I agree that's not a change for the better. I like the GEN bridge, but I don't really care for the E-E bridge in either layout or lighting; Engineering also feels purpose-built for FC but doesn't make a lot of sense to me from a design standpoint (how do they access the dilithium chamber?). I may be misremembering, but also, while the E-E featured in three films, it feels like we ultimately saw very little of the ship.
I think part of the problem, then, may be that the subject line of your message says "Generations"; if that wasn't intended to refer specifically to GEN, I hope it's understandable why a lot of respondents would have interpreted it that way. If you meant the TNG films in general, you might want to ask a mod if they can update the subject line to read something like "TNG films" rather than "Generations". Just an idea!
While GEN was forced to operate under specific restrictions, in general I agree theTNG films were (literally) darker than the series they followed, and I agree that's not a change for the better. I like the GEN bridge, but I don't really care for the E-E bridge in either layout or lighting; Engineering also feels purpose-built for FC but doesn't make a lot of sense to me from a design standpoint (how do they access the dilithium chamber?). I may be misremembering, but also, while the E-E featured in three films, it feels like we ultimately saw very little of the ship.
Correct. It was one of Moore and Braga's ideas -- their pitch for the sixth season cliffhanger was a saucer crash, which couldn't be done on a television budget -- but Berman and the suits above him ultimately had to approve that.
There was a rumor at the time, and I heard it from various sources in the decade following, that the studio wanted the D destroyed due to royalty payments to Andrew Probert. In other words, it was a cost-saving move for future films. As far as I know, it's been debunked, and I think Probert has denied it.
I've always felt First Contact was the wrong movie to introduce a new ship, given for a majority of the movie all the sets are in emergency lighting and/or Borgified, so based on that movie alone you can't really get a feel for what the ship's interiors are supposed to look like.
Granted, with the exception of the bridge, engineering and the corridors all the sets for the Enterprise E were redressed Voyager sets, at least in First Contact and Insurrection, but still.
Also it's hard to get too concerned about them losing this brand new ship a deck at a time, when even the captain's joking about there being plenty of letters left in the alphabet. If it'd been the Enterprise D getting taken over, that would've meant something to the audience.
In addition to what @The Wormhole notes about the circumstances under which we first experienced the -E, I felt like First Contact failed -- didn't even try, really -- in introducing audiences to the ship. This is the new hero ship, introduce the thing! Make audiences feel excited about it and fall in love with it.
Instead, to the characters it's already an old hat, everyone acts like, "Oh, it's just a thing, it's not important," and the film spends its time destroying the ship we just met, as though it's just a sweeps episode for a television series. (Which First Contact kind of is, albeit a television series that ended only two years earlier.)
Say what you will about the flyby in TMP, but at least it made the ship feel both important and majestic...of course, that was also ostensibly the same ship we'd followed throughout TOS, though internally it sure didn't look like it. But then, that ship was also clearly as new to Our Heroes as it was to us.
But yeah, Our Heroes are disappointingly blase about the E-E, and there's little emotional impact to seeing a ship we barely know be Borgified. I'm especially thinking of the corridors with the pipes, where for all we know those pipes could be part of the ship's normal design (though why one would put pipes in the middle of a corridor is an exercise for the audience). Seeing the E-D be Borgified would have been devastating and an effective way to explain why the ship needed to be retired.
But yeah, Our Heroes are disappointingly blase about the E-E, and there's little emotional impact to seeing a ship we barely know be Borgified. I'm especially thinking of the corridors with the pipes, where for all we know those pipes could be part of the ship's normal design (though why one would put pipes in the middle of a corridor is an exercise for the audience). Seeing the E-D be Borgified would have been devastating and an effective way to explain why the ship needed to be retired.
I was thinking about that when I was musing about the non-intro of the -E. I don't know that First Contact would have worked better with the -D, but it might've been more emotionally impactful for audiences and, frankly, Picard. The Borg took his humanity from him, and now they're taking his ship from him. Also, with the -D carrying families and children (which we don't see with the -E, unless I've forgotten a scene in her three films), the Borg overrunning the ship would be even more horrific.
But then that leads to the film's tonal issues -- do you run a fish-out-of-water comedy alongside what's essentially an Aliens film? And that's a different issue that the lighting of the Enterprise sets.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a production designer getting royalties in the same way actors do, so chalk that one up to conspiracy theorists who don’t understand how the industry works.
Yeah, art staff get paid to do the work and that's it. No residuals.
I've never thought that really fair. The value that people like Probert, Jefferies and Okuda contributed to Trek is inestimable. They contributed as much to what people envision Trek being as did Coon, Fontana, Ellison or Sturgeon.
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Okuda is one of Trek's undersung heroes and never gets the love he deserves.
Don't let "He who shall be named" and no longer a member of this forum read that, he'd have a complete meltdown.
He created and posted online a document entitled "What's Wrong with the TNG Technical Manual".
That's a shame.
Be really sad if he did read my post. [/s]
Be really sad if he did read my post. [/s]
I know of whom you speak. I wouldn't say we were friends, but I read and respected his work, and we corresponded by email for a time. I probably haven't talked to him since about 2003.
Okuda is amazing, I wholeheartedly agree. But is he unsung? I've been obsessively delving into making-of documentaries and books over the past couple months and his name was all over them. Anyone who spoke of him heaped praise on his work. Heck, I just watched a YouTube video with Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) interviewing Mike and Denise. Savage treated them like they were his heros.
I said undersung. Not unsung. He gets love, but not enough given his design philosophy basically created what Star Trek looked like for almost 20 straight years.
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