Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sense

[Timo]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

Or he could have lucked out at a moment when everything to Picard was a trigger word.

Very true. It might even be that the entire crew was on their toes, knowing about Picard's recent tragedy, and Soran picked that up from the crew when fighting his way through the ship from sickbay to Ten Forward; it would be right down the El-Aurian alley.

The Ent-B being an Excelsior-class ship always made perfect sense to me.

And conversely, the Excelsior class being marketed by naming an early ship the Enterprise is just what Starfleet would be likely to do after its giant white elephant project was off to an ambiguous start. Especially if Scotty's sabotage crippled the inaugural ship for a publicly noted span of time, or if transwarp somehow failed to provide. The PR aspect in the "teaser" of the movie is a stroke of genius overall.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kevman7987]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

Me too, but it was a little blatant what they did with the lower hull on it. They just put those jutting bits on it so they could be blown up! It still improved the look of the Excelsior class though so I'll let them off

They added those to avoid damaging the Excelsior model itself during filming, but after it was completed, they damaged the model anyway trying to remove them.

 

[Vger23]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

Me too, but it was a little blatant what they did with the lower hull on it. They just put those jutting bits on it so they could be blown up! It still improved the look of the Excelsior class though so I'll let them off

They added those to avoid damaging the Excelsior model itself during filming, but after it was completed, they damaged the model anyway trying to remove them.

They also added them to make the secondary hull look more like an evolution toward the shape of the E-D

 

[DonIago]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

^Do you have a source for that? Sorry, it's just the first time I've heard it and I'd like to know where it came from.

That the lower hull was modified so that it could be damaged I'd heard previously, though I don't think I heard the part about the hull ending up actually being damaged, which is amusingly ironic.

 

[Vger23]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

^Do you have a source for that? Sorry, it's just the first time I've heard it and I'd like to know where it came from.

That the lower hull was modified so that it could be damaged I'd heard previously, though I don't think I heard the part about the hull ending up actually being damaged, which is amusingly ironic.

I just made that $hit up because it makes me feel smart.



I'm pretty sure it was in the hardcover novelization of Generations, which contained a "making of" chapter of sorts. Can't be sure though.

 

[Dukhat]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

^Do you have a source for that? Sorry, it's just the first time I've heard it and I'd like to know where it came from.

That the lower hull was modified so that it could be damaged I'd heard previously, though I don't think I heard the part about the hull ending up actually being damaged, which is amusingly ironic.

The original plan was that the Enterprise-B was going to be a new design, despite the gold Excelsior wall sculpture in the ready room, because Berman was sick of seeing the Excelsior. However, that never went anywhere, and the Excelsior was used. But because they didn't want to damage the model, John Eaves came up with the idea to add parts to it, which were then unfortunately permanently stuck to it. When VOY's "Flashback" was being produced, they couldn't use the Excelsior model because of this, so Greg Jein built a newer smaller Excelsior for that episode. That newer model was scanned into a CGI model for use in DS9's heavy fleet scenes, which is why we saw so many of them.

 

[Timo]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

The Star Trek Sketchbook tells the story the other way around...

When an "all-new" E-B was ordered, Mike Okuda went to John Eaves to instead suggest modifying the Excelsior for the purpose. Eaves says Okuda suggested creating separate new hull elements that could be damaged - but apparently Eaves soon forgot about that, and instead concentrated on giving the ship the sort of shapes that would resemble the E-D and visually support the idea of transition, hence the secondary hull "cheeks" (the quoted inspiration was the PBY Catalina flying boat, though). Eaves then sent sketches, and Bill George built the model.

But Eaves subsequently sent sketches of how the ship would be damaged - and these did not feature the use of the cheeks for the purpose. Instead, there was to be a big hole above the deflector, where there apparently is an access panel into the model anyway.

This is when unnamed ILM VFX folks told Eaves that it would be easier to "turn the other cheek" and damage the add-ons... It was supposedly only then that everybody began thinking about benefiting from this choice and some day restoring the thus undamaged core model to its original looks. But by that time, it was probably too late, as the cheeks had been glued on without any concern of them ever being removed.

How this after-the-fact story actually relates to when exactly who invented what, it's hard to tell. Eaves' original damage was to be at ship centerline, logically enough, since the deflector is a symmetric, centerline feature. But set designers were working in parallel, and they had just ditched the idea of using a symmetric set situated "directly above the deflector", because that would mean something that was both sideways expansive and multi-storey, hugging a big lump of machinery that portrayed the top of the deflector. They went for the eventual narrow but tall set instead (better-looking than dull old wide but low), and that necessarily would be to the side of the ship. Perhaps this decision was more crucial in localizing the damage to the model than actual model-specific concerns were?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

Re: Change of pace lets talk about things in Generations that made sen

Well, that's more than I was expecting to hear about this.