Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

[Christopher]

Especially on first contact missions they should have someone from the Enterprise filming, recording for legal and historical reasons. Perhaps yeomen would do this and "historians" would catalogue the information.

To me they should have yeomen recording every mission but perhaps they do subtly like in "Wink of an Eye" where they had recordings of the crewman's disappearance.

That was theoretically what yeomen were supposed to do, which was why they carried tricorders. A yeoman is basically the captain's secretary (the naval equivalent of the company clerk job that Radar and Klinger did on M*A*S*H), so their job on an away mission would be to maintain an audiovisual log of the entire thing. Unfortunately, that idea got lost in the shuffle along the line.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I am a lover of some of the less popular episodes. I would really enjoy an in-depth article on The Omega Glory, from its earliest drafts the final filmed version. According to the books, there weren't many differences, but I'd love to know more.

Also, Harvey, in your travels, have you seen any concrete (pun intended) evidence on the making of the planet killer model? The "windsock dipped in cement" thing just feels wrong.

Thanks! Please make your blog a full time job.

 

[Harvey]

Thanks! Please make your blog a full time job.

You can contribute to my crowdfunding campaign at...

(Kidding!)

I am a lover of some of the less popular episodes. I would really enjoy an in-depth article on The Omega Glory, from its earliest drafts the final filmed version. According to the books, there weren't many differences, but I'd love to know more.

This is on ny list for a project that is *slowly* proceeding.

Also, Harvey, in your travels, have you seen any concrete (pun intended) evidence on the making of the planet killer model? The "windsock dipped in cement" thing just feels wrong.

There’s not much detail about the models used on the show in the Roddenberry files, I’m afraid. Though this anecdote, like a lot of things Spinrad has repeated over the years about the episode, feels like a good yarn, but not the truth.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I am a lover of some of the less popular episodes. I would really enjoy an in-depth article on The Omega Glory, from its earliest drafts the final filmed version. According to the books, there weren't many differences, but I'd love to know more.

Also, Harvey, in your travels, have you seen any concrete (pun intended) evidence on the making of the planet killer model? The "windsock dipped in cement" thing just feels wrong.

I'm in for "The Omega Glory."

Regarding the planet killer, it appears to have been, most likely, a wireframe wrapped in aluminum foil or a plastic wrap like cellophane, which was held together with Scotch tape (the clear kind), and spray painted. There are some HD photo analysis images I found online somewhere, but I'm at work now and don't have my files. You can actually see the adhesive tape. This miniature would have been much too fragile to survive. Somebody else here will remember what I'm talking about and maybe point us to the annotated files.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0480.jpg

 

[feek61]

I'm in for "The Omega Glory."

Regarding the planet killer, it appears to have been, most likely, a wireframe wrapped in aluminum foil or a plastic wrap like cellophane, which was held together with Scotch tape (the clear kind), and spray painted. There are some HD photo analysis images I found online somewhere, but I'm at work now and don't have my files. You can actually see the adhesive tape. This miniature would have been much too fragile to survive. Somebody else here will remember what I'm talking about and maybe point us to the annotated files.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0480.jpg

Here are the image analysis Zap mentioned; seems likely this is actually what the doomsday was made from. The concrete/windsock story is BS

 

[Christopher]

So "pure neutronium" = tinfoil, acetate gels, and cellophane tape. Wow. One of the most iconic miniatures in Trek history, and it's like something slapped together for a grade school play.

 

[Maurice]

I've said this before, but I think Daren has it almost but not quite right. I think the planet killer was possibly built on something like a tomato cage wrapped in something like cinefoil, used to shape lights. I don't think there was an actual light inside it because the inside glow is not that bright. I think he's correct about the gels and tape though. The interior energy was obviously added in post.

 

[STEPhon IT]

I am a lover of some of the less popular episodes. I would really enjoy an in-depth article on The Omega Glory, from its earliest drafts the final filmed version. According to the books, there weren't many differences, but I'd love to know more.

Thanks! Please make your blog a full time job.

I'm also in on The Omega Glory. I've heard the story was one of the original scripts for a pilot episode.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I'm also in on The Omega Glory. I've heard the story was one of the original scripts for a pilot episode.

That's right. The original idea was that Star Trek would be set so far in the future that colonists from Earth had forgotten where they came from and become primitives after a nuclear war. That's why they had a copy of the U.S. Constitution but could barely read it.

The trouble comes when the ongoing series is set only 300 years in the future, hardly enough time for so much to transpire, and thus the episode seems to imply that the natives had our Constitution for the same reason Miri's planet looked like Earth, pure coincidence. And that's crazy.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think there was an actual light inside it because the inside glow is not that bright.

Yeah... if it is made of metal foil, then the light we see is probably reflection from the same lights illuminating the exterior.

 

[Myko]

Very nice to have the final part of this saga - excellent job @Harvey and Kevin!

In the passage where Kevin speculates who Tom Steele and Carey Foster are he incorrectly assumes that the laughing crewman is Steele, but it is regular extra Frank da Vinci. The curly haired man standing off to the left in the scene is Vince Calenti (he appears also as a security guard on the surface.) Tom Steele was a stuntman and does not appear to be in that scene (http://www.westernclippings.com/images/neilsummers/tomsteele_steelehead.jpg). The Concordance posits that Steele and Carey do "crewman stunts", but I don't recall anything in the episode that would require stunt doubles for crewmen.

 

[johnnybear]

That's right. The original idea was that Star Trek would be set so far in the future that colonists from Earth had forgotten where they came from and become primitives after a nuclear war. That's why they had a copy of the U.S. Constitution but could barely read it.

The trouble comes when the ongoing series is set only 300 years in the future, hardly enough time for so much to transpire, and thus the episode seems to imply that the natives had our Constitution for the same reason Miri's planet looked like Earth, pure coincidence. And that's crazy.

Or they crashed on Omega IV after having exceeded the speed of light and were propelled back in time by being drawn into a black star but...probably it's another of those parallel earths theory really!
JB

 

[Phaser Two]

Or they crashed on Omega IV after having exceeded the speed of light and were propelled back in time by being drawn into a black star but...probably it's another of those parallel earths theory really!
JB

"It seems impossible but . . . there it is."

 

[Push The Button]

I'm in for "The Omega Glory."

Regarding the planet killer, it appears to have been, most likely, a wireframe wrapped in aluminum foil or a plastic wrap like cellophane, which was held together with Scotch tape (the clear kind), and spray painted. There are some HD photo analysis images I found online somewhere, but I'm at work now and don't have my files. You can actually see the adhesive tape. This miniature would have been much too fragile to survive. Somebody else here will remember what I'm talking about and maybe point us to the annotated files.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0480.jpg

Does anyone know what became of the AMT Constellation model?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Does anyone know what became of the AMT Constellation model?

Dumpster on Gower Street

 

[Push The Button]

Dumpster on Gower Street

You’re probably right, of course, but I still believe in miracles. Like maybe some guy working on the model stage that day gave it to his kid after the shoot..

 

[Harvey]

In the passage where Kevin speculates who Tom Steele and Carey Foster are he incorrectly assumes that the laughing crewman is Steele, but it is regular extra Frank da Vinci. The curly haired man standing off to the left in the scene is Vince Calenti (he appears also as a security guard on the surface.) Tom Steele was a stuntman and does not appear to be in that scene (http://www.westernclippings.com/images/neilsummers/tomsteele_steelehead.jpg). The Concordance posits that Steele and Carey do "crewman stunts", but I don't recall anything in the episode that would require stunt doubles for crewmen.

I’ll have to pass this along to Kevin and review the scene again (what survives in the episode, anyway). Thanks for pointing this out!

The Concordance is a bad source of information about things like this, so I wouldn’t give it any credence in this case.

EDIT: Tom Steele, if it is the same guy, was almost sixty when this episode was made. Definitely not in the surviving scene, and far older than the extras usually used for Enterprise crew. Could there have been a second bit player working at the same time under that name?

Memory Alpha says Steele was in “Bread and Circuses,” though I’m not convinced the image they have is him, based on how old he looked just a few years later in Diamonds Are Forever: http://www.aveleyman.com/ActorCredit.aspx?ActorID=26272

 

[STEPhon IT]

That's right. The original idea was that Star Trek would be set so far in the future that colonists from Earth had forgotten where they came from and become primitives after a nuclear war. That's why they had a copy of the U.S. Constitution but could barely read it.

The trouble comes when the ongoing series is set only 300 years in the future, hardly enough time for so much to transpire, and thus the episode seems to imply that the natives had our Constitution for the same reason Miri's planet looked like Earth, pure coincidence. And that's crazy.

Correction the ongoing series was set 200 years in the future based on what's in TOS. 300 years is a retcon, but I understand your point.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Correction the ongoing series was set 200 years in the future based on what's in TOS.

Depends on which episode you watch.

 

[johnnybear]

Maybe Omega IV, 892 IV and Ekos were originally seeded by The Preservers and they had the Roman civilization, the Yangs and the Kohms and the Nazi's too?
JB