Ent in TMP

[SchwEnt]

Just an observation...

Sure, there's no finer starship porn than the Enterprise in TMP. But one of the greatest aspects is the many ways the ship was depicted.

In drydock, you saw her unpowered and on umbilical support.

...then you saw her on low-power mode, ready to leave drydock...

...which was different from underway mode, with full impulse...

...which was different yet again from running at warp speed.

Some differences subtle, some not.
But really made a difference in showing a *real* vessel, something that was *alive*.

And despite the use of stock footage,
and maybe it wasn't called for in other films,
but I never really got this sense of the Enterprise is any of the other films.

It seems mainly a "steady-state" Enterprise that I recall,
rather than the many varied modes of in/activity shown in TMP.

That's all.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Gene Roddenberry made a point of depicting the NCC-1701 as Star Trek's Leading Lady in both TOS and TMP. Harve Bennett, on the other hand, degraded her from an object of goddess worship to a disposable prop of no more inherent beauty, complexity or value than a roll of toilet paper.

TGT

 

[BriGuy]

Was TWoK the first time we saw the Enterprise take damage, substantial or otherwise?

If so, I think that contributed a lot to it being such a shock, seeing the Reliant's phasers tear into the bare, unprotected hull.

Sure, the ship took "hits" during the series, but I can't remember them leaving scorch marks or visible tears in the hull.

But I for one am a fan of the "starship porn" at the start of TMP and TWoK.

 

[Herald]

I remember seeing the Enterprise being destroyed in TSFS and thinking: "It took only 2 movies until they ran out of ideas." I was absolutely livid!!! All those years waiting for Trek to return and some hack shlub blows up the original Enterprise just to get an extra million at the box-office. It wasn't the same after that.

I recall TMP and Kirk's tears at being reunited with his ship. Now its like," Meh! I'll get another looks just like it." The rest of the TOS films seemed to ring hollow.

 

[Nebusj]

BriGuy said:
Was TWoK the first time we saw the Enterprise take damage, substantial or otherwise?

It's the first time actual damage was presented as anything other than the spinning lights being stopped or the ship ``drifting'' in space, that is, the first time the hull was scarred.

Back to The Motion Picture: you know, it's not just to excite the fans that there's all these shots of the Enterprise coming to life. It gives a symmetry to Vejur being the mechanical life form. For a movie that they didn't know how to finish when they started making it it's much more neatly constructed than mere chance would give us rights to expect.

 

[RyanKCR]

TMP was also the only time she was properly filmed. All the other movies she looked like a model.

 

[Guartho]

The God Thing said:
Harve Bennett, on the other hand, degraded her from an object of goddess worship to a disposable prop of no more inherent beauty, complexity or value than a roll of toilet paper.

TGT

Which is exactly what my first models of the Enterprise were made of.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I was so happy that the Enterprise in drydock scene was not edited in the DE. It's my favorite scene. Sure, it "slows the movie down," but it's beautiful. The soaring music, Shatner's reactions and the EVENT that this was (the first time seeing her on the big screen) made it the poetic scene it is.

My willingness to contually sit through that scene is proof my my love for the grand old lady.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

The God Thing said:
Gene Roddenberry made a point of depicting the NCC-1701 as Star Trek's Leading Lady in both TOS and TMP. Harve Bennett, on the other hand, degraded her from an object of goddess worship to a disposable prop of no more inherent beauty, complexity or value than a roll of toilet paper.

TGT

If we are to believe William Shatner, it was a difference of generations of war vets and their views on ships.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Peach Wookiee said:
If we are to believe William Shatner, it was a difference of generations of war vets and their views on ships.

"War vets"? In this 2006 online interview Harve Bennett admitted that he never actually saw combat. I have another interview printed in a 1984 issue of Enterprise Incidents back home in my archives where Bennett blurted out that he didn't even set one foot off the continental United States during the Korean War, so Harvey Baby's heroic military service as a "helicopter pilot" in that conflict probably amounted to little more than being photographed standing next to a chopper (they wouldn't have let him sit at the instruments for obvious reasons) while in uniform on some California army base for the local propaganda reels.

TGT

 

[cardinal biggles]

And I suppose you have proof that he wasn't really allowed to pilot helicopters, and it was all just a propaganda stunt?

 

[Ghel]

So Harve Benett didn't serve in combat. This doesn't change the fact that a WWII naval officer would be more likely to see his ship as "home" but a Korean/Vietnam era pilot would be more likely to see their chopper/aircraft as a replacable tool.

I loved the look of the Enterprise in TMP as much as the next guy (and in fact, enjoyed the deliberate pacing of the film) but I can't imagine sitting through ten feature films all with Robert Weiss' pacing. Dramatically, once you've established your setting, its time to move on.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

My point is that a man who served in the Korean War had a different POV than someone who served in WWII about ships. WWII: The ship is almost human.
Korea: It's a machine that we like, but we can get another one.

 

[Franklin]

Kirk's love for Enterprise makes its destruction in TSFS even more poignant. It was also a better "death scene" than Kirk himself received in GEN.

As far as attitudes towards ships goes, I guess it would come down to whether or not one really believed Kirk was sincere in TVH when in response to McCoy supposing they could get a freighter, he said, "A ship is a ship." I think 99.9% of us know he didn't really mean that, but was resigned to whatever command he was given.

And, after all, it is in TVH where upon seeing NCC-1701A Kirk says, "My friends, we're home."

As far as how Enterprise was treated in TMP v. the other films goes, once with the "ship porn" was enough. It was grand unveiling. And chilling to see it on the big screen. I hope there's a similar moment in XI (assuming Enterprise is in it). It'd be great to see the TOS-type ship in all its glory. (Then let's see them go out and ding it up a bit. )

 

[GodThingFormerly]

cardinal biggles said:
And I suppose you have proof that he wasn't really allowed to pilot helicopters, and it was all just a propaganda stunt?

Everybody thought Bennett was a Korean War combat veteran until he admitted that he wasn't. How much of a stretch would it really be that he never actually piloted a helicopter either?

Ghel said:
So Harve Benett didn't serve in combat. This doesn't change the fact that a WWII naval officer would be more likely to see his ship as "home" but a Korean/Vietnam era pilot would be more likely to see their chopper/aircraft as a replacable tool.

Meaningless in this context. I suspect that the tightly integrated, homeostatic relationship between a human(oid) crew and the starship that keeps them alive and functioning in the depths of interstellar space for years on end would be of a far deeper and more profound intellectual and emotional level than anything we could imagine today.

Ghel said:
I loved the look of the Enterprise in TMP as much as the next guy (and in fact, enjoyed the deliberate pacing of the film) but I can't imagine sitting through ten feature films all with Robert Weiss' pacing. Dramatically, once you've established your setting, its time to move on.

Robert Wise - as orgasmic as his continued presence behind the camera may have made me - would not have directed a sequel film no matter what type of critical and financial reception ST:TMP received. I simply wish that Gene Roddenberry had remained in creative control of the film series as the denatured pastiches of Bennett, Meyer, Nimoy and Shatner have only the very shallowest conceptual, literary or visual relationship to TOS (excluding Freiberger's Season 3) and TMP. There was absolutely nothing to stop GR from approving a younger, more kinetic director such as Douglas Trumbull - an apparent contender at one point - to helm a somewhat less aethereal follow-up film.

TGT

 

[USS Valkyrie]

Well, I for one loved all of the movies. But I do have to agree that Harve Bennett's take on the ship was such a serious infraction against what Trek was intended to be. Granted, without Mr. Bennett, TMP would have been it, the end of Trek. Still, I think Bennett pulled a couple of beauty shots out of his sleeve in TWOK in a very sneaky way. For instance, when the Enterprise fires off Spocks casket, she looked very elegant, regal and frankly gorgeous. The battle scars were shadowed out, while highlighting some very attractive attributes. Almost like a woman trying to look her best at a dear friends funeral.
There's also the final volley of phaser and torpedo fire, when the Enterprise finally throws the mortal blow to the Reliant. When I see this part, it's almost like the ship has a look of satisfaction, like "I'm the Enterprise, bitch. You can't even hope to compete with me."
In TSFS, despite the much heavier battle scarring, they still managed to bring out her beauty, especially in Space Dock. When you see the shot of her going through the doors, that is a very beautiful scene. When they steal her and you see her moving in reverse, with the orchestral music blasting at the surround sound, it was a very moving, very well done part. When you see her coming about and see the Excelsior closing in on the space doors, again, the Enterprise seems to have an expressive appearance, saying "You may be the new gal on the block, but I'm STILL the Enterprise, bitch. Know your place."
Maybe you'll think I'm reading too much into all of this, but that's still what I see. She is such an expressive, artistically elegant ship.

 

[A beaker full of death]

TWOK was the only film in which Enterprise actualy felt like a ship of the line.

 

[RyanKCR]

A beaker full of death said:
TWOK was the only film in which Enterprise actualy felt like a ship of the line.

Actually in TWOK she looked more like a model and sets on a Hollywood soundstage.

 

[ancient]

Yeesh, I have two words for y'all:

Mellow out, man.

THe Enterprise looked great in all the movies, imo. And though the destruction in TSFS was a shocker, I considered the 'Resurrection' in TVH really nice.

 

[SchwEnt]

I'm mellow, man.

And I agree, the Enterprise always looked good (maybe less good in TFF).

But there's something special about the lighting and photography in TMP that was never duplicated in any later films. And as I OPd...it wasn't simply a case of looking better. It gave a unique quality to the Enterprise that conveyed a realism that was never seen again.