Taking a healthy break from my TOS project for a minute, and have decided to use the time to model the Enterprise-A bridge, as seen in TUC, as part of the project featured in this thread. I spent the weekend blocking out the bridge, and started on detailing the doorway alcove segment tonight. Subscribe to this thread for updates!
awesome this should help me with my Enterprise A Project. I would love to know more about your methodology
Looks like a great start. Did you reuse anything such as the fire extinguisher or the door frame from your builds of the TWOK bridge, or is this all from scratch?
All from scratch. The fire extinguishers used in TUC were very different from the ones used in TWOK, so they required an entirely new model. However, I modeled these extinguishers early last year when I modeled the TUC corridors and transporter room, so the models aren't exactly new. The door alcove was based off of the TWOK model, but modified in ways to represent the TUC door alcove (the corners of the TUC alcove inset were rounded instead of sharp, the doorframe itself is different, the light panel up top is different). So basically it’s an entirely new model. I am working without blueprints, for the most part, so there's a bit more guesswork involved in this bridge than others.
Are you planning any idealizations for the bridge, a la the color changes to the transporter room? If I ever got around to it, I was always thinking of swapping the turbolifts and the single-width standing stations at the rear to get the bridge closer to the TMP-TVH arrangement, and moving the plaque to the divider next to the turbolift like in TFF rather than mounted on the ceiling above the viewscreen. Seriously, the ceiling? WTF?
Nah, I'm actually going to keep the bridge straight with what we saw in TUC, even though I share your distaste of the dedication plaque being up on the ceiling. The turbolifts being relocated never really bothered me much, and I like the way it breaks up the long stretch of consoles we see in TFF. It should be noted, however, that I'm currently planning on making everything tweakable so I can easily re-arrange stations or change colors to make the TFF Ent-A bridge and Excelsior bridge. And perhaps even the Ent-B bridge as well.
I never understood why they put the plaque above the viewer on the Ent, if they didn't want it next to the lift doors, then why not next to the viewer, like the Exclesior version? It just looks so out of place up there!
I know there's a blueprint from the Ent-E bridge from First Contact that includes a detailed side profile of the wall consoles, which were refurbished from their prior use as the Ent-A/Excelsior/Ent-B bridge (to the point where there's construction photos showing these units with their unlit movie-era Okudagrams still in place). It should be in the Set Blueprints thread, but I'll try to dig up an actual link for you.
I didn't realise those Ent-E side consoles were from the TUC bridge, that's cool. I think the turbolift alcoves were the original ones from TMP. The Ent-A/Excelsior bridge was reused a few times in Voyager, as the Prometheus and the Equinox. Did they use the Ent-E consoles too?
No need, I've been using that blueprint already, as it's been really helpful. I will say that this bridge has been a challenge due to the lack of other blueprints. Trying to get all the pieces work together in both their TFF and TUC configurations has been a challenge, and I still haven't gotten them perfect. The consoles weren't just simply moved around, but the spacing ribs and support braces were moved, some disappeared, etc, and some consoles were split in half and placed at odd angleds. I've also discovered that the large support braces (with the vertical light strip down the middle) were not placed at regular angular intervals like I originally thought, but were in fact offset in places, causing me to spend a great deal of time investigating the placement and length of all the segments and their support ribs. Ugh. I'll be upset if previously unreleased blueprints turn up after I've constructed this thing, prompting another rebuild due to my perfectionist nature. Yes, those consoles were used quite frequently after they were constructed for use on the TFF bridge. They even turned up in a Romulan bridge in one of the later series, IIRC. EDIT: Just found this article (http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/odyssey-bridge.htm) over at Ex Astris Scientia talking about a few other places the Ent-A/B/Excelsior consoles turned up
I'm happy the Odyssey article was helpful. The Prometheus and Equinox weren't the same bridge used on TUC, they were the brand new Excelsior bridge built for 'Flashback', and it has a lot of inaccuracies to the original one, including its size. The original Ent-A/Excelsior bridge was only used on DS9 on the sections mentioned on the article, and the movies as the Ent-B and then Ent-E as far as I know. I'd gladly send your way files or measurements I took for the Odyssey, but indeed I've mostly used the Ent-E blueprints available for the consoles.
Between TFF and TUC Ent-A -> DS9 Saratoga/Odyssey -> Ent-B -> Ent-E, yes. For the Flashback Excelsior (and subsequent Prometheus/Equinox), nothing was shared with the original. The consoles are a lot simpler in shape, with sharp edges instead of the curved ones we saw on the movie, no lights at floor level and a slightly wrong size.
Weren't there set pieces that between the movies and the three series (until ENT) where the floor under them hadn't been seen since 1979?
Absolutely. The basic framework and layout of those sets remained the same from Phase II through Voyager. Those sets were just heavily redressed for each additional series and movie from TNG onward.