^ I always thought they decommissioned the Enterprise-A because of 1) extensive battle damage it suffered in TUC, and 2) because the Excelsior class was the new thing in Starfleet and thus the Constitution class was obsolete.
^Or because they were already building the Excelsior-class Enterprise-B, so the -A needed to be decommissioned. Can't have two of them flying around out there at once. It'll confuse the Klingons.
I always thought "decommissioned" was an odd line. How could Starfleet know what kind of shape the Enterprise was in? Can only be that they are retiring the ship/class. Seems a little shitty to just tell Uhura over the comm though. The 23rd Century equivalent of breaking up via text...
Loving those illustrations; have gone ahead and bookmarked the site. But... Those can't all be drawn to scale, can they? Why are the Enterprise A and B sets so HUGE next to Excelsior? Wouldn't that defeat the economy of redressing one set into another (not to mention the B and Excelsior are supposed to be the same class)?
Telemetry, engineering reports. They shouldn't be having crews that long on ships that they run the risk of being more attached to their ship than Starfleet. Enterprise must have been something of an anomaly. And considering the loss rate of the Connies, Starfleet was well shut of that class.
I’m assuming this is an in-universe thread. But the text commentary from the collector’s edition DVDs states (if memory serves) that all of the Enterprise bridges from TMP through GEN’s Enterprise-B were all the SAME set with multiple paints jobs and makeovers. The exception is Excelsior from TSFS which was only a partial mock up. Also the set design was a series of pie wedges which could be rearranged as needed, which explains the changing locations of turbo-lifts and science/communications consoles.
^The TMP-TVH bridge was a different set from the TFF/TUC/GEN bridge. At the time TFF was being filmed, the old bridge was being used by TNG as its Battle Bridge set, and was heavily modified from its original appearance.
Indeed, Desilu/Paramount/CBS builds these things out of plywood wedges, with plenty of free floor to allow for the effortless moving around of such wedges. Why would Starfleet do any worse? These things look like they were built to be pulled apart piece by piece. Just yank out the meteorological station and insert a turbolift station. No need to swap the entire bridge for that! Heck, perhaps this is why the bridges tend to have a big hole in the ceiling? For effortless moving of entire wedges in and out in one piece? If the top pops open, it's not much of an operation: forcefields holding the air in have existed since the days of Archer. But the average wedge might also fit inside the average turboshaft in a suitable angle... Timo Saloniemi
The novel "Prime Directive" details major destruction of the TOS bridge, requiring the module to be popped out and replaced. This book then acts as a great retcon for the changes we see in Filmation's TAS: ie. the addition of an emergency escape turboshaft, answering fan criticism of TOS only having one elevator. Also chairs with round bases, the departure of Chekov and the arrival of Arex and M'Ress. Thus TMP also has two elevator shaft entrances. Like the movie bridge set at Paramount, perhaps the bridge console wedges are movable in "real life". And yes, the while module we see in ST IV might be a pop-out, replaced in ST V? Also, in ST III, Rand sees the arrival of Enterprise into Starbase with different scorchmarks and damage than we saw at the end of ST II.
Yes, indeed. It's not exactly a smooth connection between issue #8 and Star Trek III. Long, long, long ago I sketched out another story that went in between. The basic idea was that Kruge wasn't a rogue agent, and he was operating under orders of the Klingon high command. The war against the Federation to seize Genesis had failed, and now they were going to attempt subterfuge. Kruge gave the Empire "plausible deniability" in case his mission went awry/ This "implant," which was only just a sketch and not fleshed out, made Star Trek III something of a culmination of everything that had happened prior in the comics.
Rand was aboard the Enterprise in the novelisation of ST II but already home in the movie of ST III. I reckon she must have returned on the Firenze (mentioned in the novelisation, with the most critically injured cadets).