Yes! That is a huge improvement, All Paramount should hire this person to do it. Absolutely fantastic. Feeling the love for The Final Frontier and its about time.
It kind of makes sense that there would be transmitters like this tucked away throughout the ship for emergencies. This area could probably serve as a makeshift shelter or gathering site in the event of a shipwide disaster, having an emergency transmitter probably isn't a bad idea. If this was meant to run independent of the ships systems and/or power, it probably needed to be somewhere close to the exterior hull of the ship. Being in what was essentially the ship's banquet hall made it the only such transmitter that Kirk and co. could risk using without being seen by a crewmember. And as we saw earlier when Spock was having his moment of reflection, this room is pretty much dead when there isn't an event taking place.
This gave me visions of this room (and similarly 10-Forward) being detachable as a large lifeboat should circumstances demand. dJE
If such is the case then why didn’t Kirk use a transmitter that was closer to his location near the brig after Scotty busted them out? At the very least we may have been spared the turboshaft scene.
Off the top of my head, the possible explanations are: It is indeed the only emergency transmitter aboard ship, which would be odd; The officer's lounge has security lockouts to function as a "shelter in place" location, meaning that essentially only Kirk (and possibly Spock) had access to that room once the ship was taken over; There's more than one emergency transmitter, but it's the one that only Kirk (and possibly Spock) know about. Perhaps aboard every starship there's an emergency transmitter located secretly at the behest of the captain (and first officer) that only they know of, and therefore the only one they could be sure wasn't being monitored/guarded.
It's also possible that it was the only emergency transmitter that wasn't in an area of the ship held by Sybok's people or Enterprise crew who'd been swayed to his side. The lounge seems to be a pretty low-traffic area when there isn't a function going on. (Then again, TFF is probably a poor example, since you get the impression that the ship is undermanned, and those aboard are probably preoccupied with fixing everything that's malfunctioning.)
That was always my sense. It was a quiet, out of the way part of the ship that doesn't have any obvious importance so they could slip in and get a message out relatively easily.
Given how often bridges are taken over by people simply walking onto them with a weapon there must be some deliberate decision on behalf of Starfleet to keep the bloody things insecure for some reason. Take SeaQuest DSV, for example. Not only did the SeaQuest's bridge have enormous blast-proof security doors that were sealed as standard, but when they had an episode where people actually were trying to gain access to the bridge for nefarious purposes they needed heavy industrial equipment to do it.
I haven't seen SeaQuest in a long time but I thought the doors were because the ship partly floods when changing depths. Did they drip water when they were opened?
Yeah. They were flood doors, as well as security doors, and they did drip occasionally when opened. At least in the first season. But back to the topic... I like the speculation of the CRT on the side of the transmitter we didn't see. Spock had to have some controls and readouts to tell Kirk the channel was open.
I was wondering whether the production should've gave the lounge some thought and reconfigure this version of the lounge to be structured in the aft section like in TMP? Not sure if this set matched well with the Enterprise (TFF) as like the version appropriately done from TNG.
If you mean Ten-Forward, Enterprise-D designer Andrew Probert didn't think that set matched well, since he intended the rim of the saucer section to be only one deck in height.
Still wondering if the lounge, as to what Donny is wonderfully replicating from TFF, could've been set in the aft section like what was seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture. https://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-motion-pictures-officers-lounge/
It could’ve been, but the structure/shape of the lounge would’ve had to been modified greatly. Anyway, I have plans for a TFF version of the TMP lounge I’ll get to one of these days.
Couldn't do it. Well technically I suppose they could but it would have ruined an important scene. Kirk, Spock and McCoy needed to be able to look into the Great Barrier as the ship passed through. It was a dramatic moment that said a lot without any words spoken. Its actually one of the few times we see a character see the destination they are approaching from an "actual" window. The only other way would have been to do some technical handwaving with windows being viewscreens which would have spoiled the moment. As much as I wish we could have seen that lounge realized properly and hate when the interiors don't match the continuity of the exterior, in this case I think they made the right call. If anything, this was one of the few areas that design of the refit falls short - the lack of any directly forward facing windows. Even the original Enterprise had some windows on the front of the saucer. Imagine the observation lounge scene in TMP if we saw the this ominous cloud appear and grow larger until it filled the field of view during their conversation. Maybe that kind of shot wouldn't have been possible in 1979, but since the lounge was rear facing that kind of shot couldn't even be considered. Sometimes you just have to break the internal logic for the sake of the story.
Well, it had three big glowing circles. The jury is out on whether they were windows, sensors, or auxiliary deflectors... or possibly just headlights!
SFX was dreadful and the passage through the barrier was one of the most disappointing moments in the movie; the scene never captured my imagination. Not sure if it was the right call if the scene failed to have any gravitas in a pinnacle point in the movie.