But if you leave out the screws…
Well played.
Donny’s Late TOS Movie Era Interiors
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
Well played.
But if you leave out the screws…
LOL! That's pretty dang funny!
I never noticed screws. But I watch on VHS.
Actually I don't watch.
Watched.
I recently was at a friend's house with TNG on BBC on a huge TV. Looked weird, like videotape, the resolution was so high. And one of the guests clearly had drawn on sideburns (which IRL were like as big as my hand. We were sitting close to the huge TV). I suppose the screws would have been noticeable on the big screen, which is huge and hi-def. I was probably too into the actual, y'know, story.
Actually I don't watch.
Watched.
I recently was at a friend's house with TNG on BBC on a huge TV. Looked weird, like videotape, the resolution was so high. And one of the guests clearly had drawn on sideburns (which IRL were like as big as my hand. We were sitting close to the huge TV). I suppose the screws would have been noticeable on the big screen, which is huge and hi-def. I was probably too into the actual, y'know, story.
Lovely work Donny! I must have missed a notification somewhere and had plenty to catch up on!
My feelings on Astrogatorgate is something like the TMP star chart, but with Okudagram styling, so something between 2 & 3.
But really it's presumably configurable by the navigator and probably the captain to show the most useful information at the time, so there would be a few different views, including a ship status screen like in TUC.
So without wanting to make more work for you, can we have all three and a switch controlled from the captain's chair?
My feelings on Astrogatorgate is something like the TMP star chart, but with Okudagram styling, so something between 2 & 3.
But really it's presumably configurable by the navigator and probably the captain to show the most useful information at the time, so there would be a few different views, including a ship status screen like in TUC.
So without wanting to make more work for you, can we have all three and a switch controlled from the captain's chair?
Adding to the "Option 3" chorus.
I'll say Option 3, but really, I'm just sitting here waiting for the switches and physical buttons to be added for the TUC era ship. It's just doesn't seems like Kirk's ship with all touch screens.
When they redid the flat panels for TUC, I wished they went with the jeweled beed look to connect both to the TMP ship and the TOS ship. The contemporary buttons, switches, and faders from a sound board make the ship feel anachronistic.
Wasn't it basically just panels from a mixing desk dropped in? I agree it doesn't feel quite right, but having more tactile controls is visually more interesting and gives the actors something to do. Kind of like Sulu's throttle in TMP. Whatever happened to that anyway?
Oh, I like tactile controls a lot. Just felt the TUC ones lacked imagination. I'm not a fan of all flat controls.
TNG's tech seems rather pedestrian to me since we live with touch screens, like our phones and tablets. I understand that language. But after 55 years, I'm still in awe of the TOS interfaces... those seem far more futuristic to me cause I don't know what all those little jeweled, Jello buttons do or can do.
It was still there in TWOK and TSFS; they removed the handle and just left the metal rod it was mounted on. (TWOK 1, 2 ; TSFS 1, 2)
(Once again, Starfleet OSHA letting their people down; at least put a rubber cap on it so Sulu doesn't put an eye out when the ship gets attacked.)
We don't see the jeweled "accordion button" panels after the scene on the Saratoga bridge at the beginning of TVH; the Enterprise-A bridge has our first glimpse of Okudagrams, and when the TMP-TVH version of the helm/nav console gets reused on the Stargazer bridge in TNG's "The Battle," it looks like they just kept it as is from the previous movie. So who knows where the jeweled buttons went, and given the budget restrictions they were working on with TUC, using controls from existing sound boards was the more budget-friendly alternative to making new ones from scratch.
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The TUC controls were actually from drum machines, oddly. I never really had a problem with those push buttons myself. The accordion buttons on the earlier TMP control consoles were an interesting concept, even though you could easily smash them like Spock did in TMP when that plasma probe was trying to take over the Enterprise's computer.
And then there's me, who prefers this version of the Constitution bridge in part because it has all touchscreens.
I prefer the TUC version of the bridge primarily due to the fact that it seems better detailed than the TFF bridge. That being said, I don't really have a preference the control interfaces, whether they're all okudagram or some clickety-click push buttons.
One thing I was surprised at was the fact they didn't use the classic TOS red alert klaxon for the Enterprise-A, considering that they brought back a number of those classic bridge sounds for said vessel (though one of them - that bird tweeting sound effect - could be heard on the Excelsior bridge in TSFS).
Since everyone else is offering their opinion...screws and CRTs!
I always appreciate these recreations as being of the actual set and not some idealized version that never existed.
I always appreciate these recreations as being of the actual set and not some idealized version that never existed.
Im gonna be the odd man out and vote 1 for a couple of reasons.
First, It's actually onscreen and not something that has to be made up to fit.
Second, that top down graphic to me personally was one of the visual signposts that this was the Enterprise-A.
It's not ideal, I'd also wish for a fancy looking rondeI, but my gut says if this is an accurate rebuild go with what we see onscreen. Backtrack the top down schematic.
First, It's actually onscreen and not something that has to be made up to fit.
Second, that top down graphic to me personally was one of the visual signposts that this was the Enterprise-A.
It's not ideal, I'd also wish for a fancy looking rondeI, but my gut says if this is an accurate rebuild go with what we see onscreen. Backtrack the top down schematic.
This is what I was going to say. I don't think it was a lack of imagination. It was a lack of resources. I doubt the budget on TUC allowed them to do much besides reuse or repurpose previously-existing components when redressing the bridge. I remember an interview with Nicholas Meyer where he pointed out something that his two Trek films have in common -- They're the only two that cost less than their predecessors. He apparently that he took that responsibility very seriously.
I remember a Starburst interview with Meyer where he complained about the budget limitations shown in Kirk's cabin: Kirk's uniforms are hung up with ordinary wire coat hangers and the picture of David is just a plain black & white photograph. But the important thing is that Meyer spent his money where it counted: TUC also boasts impressive second unit location footage of Alaska representing Rura Penthe, some great new costumes and makeups for the alien characters, impressive for the time CGI effects for the Praxis explosion and the assassination scene, and some nice use of existing locations for Starfleet HQ at the beginning and the Khitomer Conference at the end. All of this has a cumulative result of the movie looking much more expensive than it really was.**
Honestly, does it really matter that they reused and redressed some sets from TNG or that they used sound boards to stand in for control panels a couple of times? Most of that isn't anything you notice on a first viewing. I certainly had no idea that the UFP President's office was Ten-Forward when I first watched the movie in 1991. That's stuff that you only realize years later on your dozenth rewatch.
**I actually just looked up the budget for STVI and was surprised to discover it was even lower than I thought: The movie cost only $27 million. I was thinking it was around 35. When compared with the other blockbuster releases of 1991, STVI was definitely on the low end. The Rocketeer cost $40 million, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was $48 million, and Terminator 2 was a whopping $100 million. When you look at what they had to spend on STVI, it's pretty amazing what they pulled off.
^This.
We as Trek fans have been notoriously unforgiving and not understanding the realities of working under time and money budgets. Heck, even I scoffed at the lackluster re-build of the Exclesior bridge set for Flashback. But once I started working in an entertainment field and felt the real pressures of time and money constraints, I all the sudden understood the fantastic job and hard work that the art crews of the various productions performed on Trek countless times over. I no longer ask “why couldn’t they have done X to satisfy my desire for everything to make perfect sense in engineering, scientific, and canonical ways?” I simply understand it’s a TV show and they did their damn best, many of them working overtime to do so. And I rest I in knowing that if they had the resources to deliver a more bulletproof vision of the future, many of them would have.
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