When does the TNG observation lounge wall change? I think it's season five after the set was used for TUC's dining room scene, but it might have been coincidental.
Donny’s Late TOS Movie Era Interiors
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The domes on the Helm seem to be a futuristic trackball mouse. The center dome...my guess..environmental sensors and alert lights. As for the lack of new sets, you have to remember this was the 6th movie with a cast asking for more money and a slightly less return in the box office. The movie was made when Paramount owned the films and TV show, so a set used in the movie could be reused in the Television show. The ST6 Galley was reused as the Sutherland's Bridge on TNG Redemption II.
Galley/Bridge
Galley/Bridge
Season 5... the same time as ST6 (In both Redemption and Darmok the camera angles seems to be avoiding the wall) The First time you see the new wall is in Ensign Ro.
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Nick Meyer had to make some sacrifices in order to give ILM the cash to produce the SFX. It's the one element I loved about that film, actually the SFX is the films saving grace.
I was just going over the history of Star Trek 6 as to what I knew about the lack of new sets. I always thought the six domes in the center are related to the Torpedo load status, after all the same panel is seen in the Torpedo room, and there are 6 loading zones for the torpedo's. As for the track ball dome, there is obviously something inside, but what.
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Agreed, and I really do understand budget constraints, which is why I wish Paramount believed more in their product at the time. I can totally understand some lack of faith given Trek's prior outing, but they had a real name attached to this one again; the name that was responsible for the most popular Trek movie of all time, even today. They had to have known that there were a ton of mitigating factors in TFF.
I'm just not as much a fan of this movie as other people seem to be.
Well... at the time I believe the most popular was TVH which is the highest grossing trek before inflation, and Nick Meyer was in a series of disasters as a filmmaker prior to TUC, so a lot of people -- based on what my Dad and my brothers told me-- didn't recall Meyer was the director of Star Trek II. All fault to Meyer, he never sold his name value well after II. I thought it was a waste of time redressing the bridge that way, TFF bridge was great, in VI we had an Enterprise which looked like a complete mess, some scenes are dark grey and the rest are bright colors from TNG. Maybe if the production had more time they could've repaint all of TNG sets grey, but since TFF interior color scheme was an obvious nod to TNG Meyer should've left it as is. The sets would've probably blended better cinematically.
I disagree. I prefer the more lived-in, harder-edged, and detailed feel of the TUC sets over the bland, monochrome sets of TFF (and I feel similarly when comparing the TMP sets to the TWOK sets). I'm confused when you say that "the rest bright colors from TNG". Which sets of TUC remained bright colored? IIRC, the only set that wasn't painted the blue-grey like the rest of the sets was sickbay, and it was even redressed far more than say, the TFF transporter room was or even the TFF corridors, which weren't even redressed at all (and there is even a scene where a roll of carpet is visible against a bulkhead!!)
If Meyer had used the same color scheme and aesthetic as the TFF Enterprise-A, I think it would've ruined the mood of the movie. The Enterprise seen in TUC seems much more alive, militaristic, moodier, and more historied than its counterpart in TFF.
But anyway, these are all just differences in opinion
The domes on the Helm seem to be a futuristic trackball mouse. The center dome...my guess..environmental sensors and alert lights. As for the lack of new sets, you have to remember this was the 6th movie with a cast asking for more money and a slightly less return in the box office. The movie was made when Paramount owned the films and TV show, so a set used in the movie could be reused in the Television show. The ST6 Galley was reused as the Sutherland's Bridge on TNG Redemption II.
Funny that this is the topic of discussion currently, as I'm actually crafting the helm console this weekend. I've never seen the hemispheres built into the helm as trackballs, but always saw them as something akin to an Attitude Display Indicator. Indeed, in the closeup shot of the helm panel in TUC you posted, it appears as if some sort of gimbal device is inside. Also, we do see an attitude display indicator in the original Galileo shuttlecraft set in TOS, so it wouldn't be so far fetched that they'd still be using something similar 25 years later, which would also be very useful if, say, the ship's computers went down.
Could the hemisphere be a combination of a manual flight controller and ship feedback display? We do see what appears to be a lit up hemisphere being used as the shuttle controller in ST5. (It's what Spock let go of when the shuttle stopped responding to him - 2nd image in JoeRalat's post). It could work by detecting finger motion whether it is being "twisted" to yaw the ship and "rolled" to pitch/roll. The gimbal's inside could then show a mini Enterprise roll/pitch/yaw to indicate the ship responding. Just food for thought
I like this idea!Could the hemisphere be a combination of a manual flight controller and ship feedback display? We do see what appears to be a lit up hemisphere being used as the shuttle controller in ST5. (It's what Spock let go of when the shuttle stopped responding to him - 2nd image in JoeRalat's post). It could work by detecting finger motion whether it is being "twisted" to yaw the ship and "rolled" to pitch/roll. The gimbal's inside could then show a mini Enterprise roll/pitch/yaw to indicate the ship responding. Just food for thought
Hmm...I wonder if I could reach out to Mike Okuda about this...I wanna know what was really inside those hemispheres!
Some parts of the Enterprise sets were not consistent with the color scheme of the bridge and the conference room, and Kirk's quarters. The picture you've posted and the scene where Kirk, Spock and McCoy find the assassins is an example of what I meant. TMP may have been a bland movie but those sets are nothing but bland IMO, I would've preferred it to have more of TOS color scheme including the uniforms, but there's no question the money was spent all over that picture. I can't say the same for TUC, on Hi-Def the sets looked cheap and the lighting gimmicks can't disguise what's clearly obvious.I disagree. I prefer the more lived-in, harder-edged, and detailed feel of the TUC sets over the bland, monochrome sets of TFF (and I feel similarly when comparing the TMP sets to the TWOK sets). I'm confused when you say that "the rest bright colors from TNG". Which sets of TUC remained bright colored? IIRC, the only set that wasn't painted the blue-grey like the rest of the sets was sickbay, and it was even redressed far more than say, the TFF transporter room was or even the TFF corridors, which weren't even redressed at all (and there is even a scene where a roll of carpet is visible against a bulkhead!!)
If Meyer had used the same color scheme and aesthetic as the TFF Enterprise-A, I think it would've ruined the mood of the movie. The Enterprise seen in TUC seems much more alive, militaristic, moodier, and more historied than its counterpart in TFF.
But anyway, these are all just differences in opinion
I like the film, and I like a hard edge look as well, but thought First Contact's Enterprise sets conveyed a consistent appearance and probably what Mr. Meyer was desperate to convey in TUC. I can only imagine you will do justice to what Meyer didn't have the funds to do... create a submarine/Hunt for Red October appearance for the starship Enterprise.
To be fair First Contact just reused Voyager's sick bay with zero changes. In TUC they do a much better job disguising the TNG sets than Final Frontier did. The colour scheme is consistent and the additional bulkheads and pipes make it feel like a much smaller, older ship. In an ideal world, I'm sure Meyer would have loved to have built a whole series of sets himself. But it was a cheap film and they had to make compromises.
They money was spent right where it should have been IMO - on the cast. Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Kim Catrall, Kurtwood Smith, Brock Peters, Rosana DeSoto make up arguably the best cast of any Star Trek film. Also after the Bran Ferren debacle, the special effects are top class and stand up well today.
Would some custom-built corridors have made the film better? I don't see how, but YMMV.
They money was spent right where it should have been IMO - on the cast. Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Kim Catrall, Kurtwood Smith, Brock Peters, Rosana DeSoto make up arguably the best cast of any Star Trek film. Also after the Bran Ferren debacle, the special effects are top class and stand up well today.
Would some custom-built corridors have made the film better? I don't see how, but YMMV.
The name "Nicholas Meyer" only means something to Trekkers and Sherlock Holmes fans. He's not a known quantity to the general public. He doesn't bring in an easy marketing hook like Nimoy or Shatner directing.
Using Meyer as the director was a shrewd move, though. Shatner probably could have demanded to direct STVI because of his "favored nations" clause with Nimoy. After all, Nimoy got to direct two films. Bringing in a well-regarded prior director like Meyer allowed them to avoid having Shatner repeat the mistakes of V, but allow him to save face. And it didn't hurt that Meyer was also a fast writer. They needed that if they were going to have a film ready for the 25th anniversary.
Yeah. Sadly, Meyer just didn't work on any mainstream hits between STII and VI. (He was a script doctor on Fatal Attraction, but that wasn't his picture. And his contributions to STIV weren't heavily publicized.) But that probably kept his price down enough that he was a practical choice to write & direct VI.
I disagree. The TFF design is the dullest of the motion picture bridges. I'm amazed that Meyer was able to redress it into something interesting in TUC. And, as Donny pointed out above, the dark, militaristic colors totally worked for the film thematically. The boring TNG tan and beige tones from TFF would've just drained all the drama and tension out of the film.
Meyer commented in Cinefantastique that he hated the design of the bridge. Not the TUC version specifically, but the fact that it was a circular set. That meant that he had to get a lot of coverage and setups, which translates into a lot of time lighting the set to work from all angles. I'm sure that adding and removing the various wedges on the bridge took forever, too. Meyer found the Enterprise bridge a pretty static set overall, so he used a Steadicam on most of the bridge shots to give them more energy. I think it works well.
If Meyer had had more freedom to really redesign Trek from the ground up, he would've gotten away from the basic Matt Jefferies design completely and gone for something smaller and more cramped. Probably something more like a submarine bridge. (This would've been a mistake, IMO.)
100% agreed. It's a murderer's row of talent.
Very true. ILM did a great job on the film. Hell, they ripped off their own work with the Paxis explosion shockwave when they redid the destruction of the Death Star in the Star Wars Special Editions a few years later.
The spherical controls look like they might have a gyroscope inside, and my impression is that they are a sort of attitude control that shows ship orientation relative to some reference point, maybe the galactic plane, or just a deviation from a prior attitude.
These style controls are also see on the nav/helm consoles in the Type 7 shuttlecraft on TNG. I always thought they were very cool and wished they were on the bridge consoles as well.
These style controls are also see on the nav/helm consoles in the Type 7 shuttlecraft on TNG. I always thought they were very cool and wished they were on the bridge consoles as well.
lol Quick Note..when I said that the sphere could be a large mouse trackball, I did not mean that literally..it would be used to navigate the ship of files on a control panel..like a mouse trackball..it would not spin... an Attitude Display Indicator. would be cool too.
The TNG Shuttle version
The TNG Shuttle version
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I get it, you loved TUC and whatever was there was gold to you, but I have no nostalgia for it and I'm telling you what it looked like to me. It doesn't look good, even in Meyer's book he has admitted his production designs were inferior, I understand the painstaking ego driven stuff done to make his film be his, but Paramount made a huge mistake forcing this release for a 25th anniversary. Nimoy, at the time, was so excited about his idea - he wanted to direct it but he's not a hack and shack director like Meyer, he had clout but he knew he couldn't make the final film for a December release.
If Paramount gave Nimoy the time to fully develop his vision, he would've gotten a real budget and probably presented an Enterprise which would've been more in line with TFF. Bringing TOS in line with TNG which it should've gone, but not borrowing so heavily on TNG sets and TMP corridors. Shatner's film was bad, yes, but not his production design, that falls with Meyer IMO which his film VI was a lot better.
Regarding Nimoy's vision for his ST6, this might make it's own fascinating thread.
The bigger picture...the money saved reusing tng sets went into the new Klingon ship sets, Klingon court room, and a ice prison. I’m sure the money that was saved went into effects (so you don’t get crappy effects like in ST5) and location shooting...you make compromises when you make a movie..I would love to have seen new sets too.. people seem to make Nick Myer into a trek god...I love ST2 and 6...I would also give credit to Harve Bennett (ST2-6) Herman Zimmerman. I would also suggest for people to watch the dvd extra and read the ST6 making of book. “Charting the Undiscovered Country: The Making of Trek VI”
