Jetfreak's Alternate Universe Excelsior...

[erifah]

That's ILM's design.

Those guys didn't like Probert's Enterprise Refit either - said it was "too hard to photograph right" or somesuch...

I think that was only because of the paintjob though, wasn't it? It messed up their green screen method, if I remember right.

The paintjob was a problem for ILM (although if Trumbull could pull it off so beautifully, I don't know why the wiz kids at ILM couldn't either...) but I remember something about how Ken Ralston thought the Enterprise was ugly and hard to shoot, and was happy to blow it up and be rid of it forever after Star Trek III.

 

[erifah]

This is the one I was referring to...

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75218&d=1259932737

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75184&d=1259850401

It's neat, even if it is a little weird.

Damed think looks like something that busted out of somebody's chest, if you get my drift...

 

[Saquist]

This is the one I was referring to...

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75218&d=1259932737

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75184&d=1259850401

It's neat, even if it is a little weird.

Thats the one.

 

[ST-One]

Those guys didn't like Probert's Enterprise Refit either - said it was "too hard to photograph right" or somesuch...

I think that was only because of the paintjob though, wasn't it? It messed up their green screen method, if I remember right.

The paintjob was a problem for ILM (although if Trumbull could pull it off so beautifully, I don't know why the wiz kids at ILM couldn't either...) but I remember something about how Ken Ralston thought the Enterprise was ugly and hard to shoot, and was happy to blow it up and be rid of it forever after Star Trek III.

You remember that wrong.
They had problems with the original paint-job; it interfered with their blue-screen approach (personally, I liked their pain-job better - but that puts me in a minority).
And the model was too big and too heavy (it has a steal frame inside) for them, which probably made setting up shots harder.

With the Reliant they showed that a miniature at a much smaller scale can look as impressive on screen as the much bigger Enterprise-model did.

 

[SMC]

The paintjob was a problem for ILM (although if Trumbull could pull it off so beautifully, I don't know why the wiz kids at ILM couldn't either...)

Doug Trumbull used a frontlight/backlight method to generate the mattes and counter-mattes needed to insert the ship into backgrounds. The ships would be shot alternately against an illuminated white screen or against a black backdrop on high contrast black and white film. With this approach it didn't matter as much that the model was reflective. I think it was a more labour-intensive, risky and expensive technique than ILM's methods.

ILM always preferred smaller models, Trumbull always preferred very large ones - he apparently thought the Refit Enterprise model was a bit too small which made it difficult to shoot without cumbersome periscope lenses and such. To give you an idea, on 2001: A Space Odyssey, their hero model of the Discovery spacecraft was nearly 60 feet long!

 

[Kaziarl]

Good work, as usual MadMan. But I dunno... It still doesn't look "Excelsiory" to me. Maybe it's the neck, I cant say for sure. I know it's not supposed to look like the prime universe Excelsior, but it doesn't strike me as the JJ-verse one either.

And I'm sorry, I really wish that made more sense... lol.

 

[erifah]

I think that was only because of the paintjob though, wasn't it? It messed up their green screen method, if I remember right.

The paintjob was a problem for ILM (although if Trumbull could pull it off so beautifully, I don't know why the wiz kids at ILM couldn't either...) but I remember something about how Ken Ralston thought the Enterprise was ugly and hard to shoot, and was happy to blow it up and be rid of it forever after Star Trek III.

You remember that wrong.
They had problems with the original paint-job; it interfered with their blue-screen approach (personally, I liked their pain-job better - but that puts me in a minority).
And the model was too big and too heavy (it has a steal frame inside) for them, which probably made setting up shots harder.

With the Reliant they showed that a miniature at a much smaller scale can look as impressive on screen as the much bigger Enterprise-model did.

No, I'm pretty sure I remember that correctly.

"It was something I always wanted to do. I hate that ship. I've said that a hundred times but it's true. I think it's ugly -- the most silly looking thing. The model itself is murder to work with, so I am glad it's gone. I would hope that the idea actually originated with me on Trek II. I talked to Harve Bennett about doing that to the ship -- blowing it up. I'd like to take some credit, at least, for blowing it up -- for physically doing it. Watching that thing go was one of my favorite parts.

"There are a lot of complicated things happening and it's pretty quick. My involvement began at the top of the bridge when you see it blow up. It was a miniature that we shot with the Bruce Hill camera. Sean Casey had done a lot of work on all those models, mold-making and things, because we had to do a lot of tests before we ever got to really shooting it. The pyro work was headed up by Ted Moehnke, who did a great job on the show. I think we got some real nice pyrotechnics and different character pyrotechnics, too.

"So it was a full miniature blown up. Then we had to pull a matte off that and put some stars in because it was just shot against black. Then we cut back to the Bird of Prey ship moving away from the Enterprise and dropping down. The top is blowing up. What we did -- Don Dow shot that one -- we just painted out the top with black. If it's against the stars, you won't be able to see it. We painted it real black. We weren't about to destroy that $150,000 model that Doug Trumbull built. I was tempted though -- tempted many times to take a mallet to it." - Ken Ralston, American Cinematographer, Aug./Sept. 1984, p. 61.

 

[sojourner]

Sounds like Ken is an ass with no taste.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ You know, asses have bad taste if anything.

 

[Saquist]

I remember him saying the model as too big and he was glad to blow it up because it was hard to work with.

 

[ST-One]

The paintjob was a problem for ILM (although if Trumbull could pull it off so beautifully, I don't know why the wiz kids at ILM couldn't either...) but I remember something about how Ken Ralston thought the Enterprise was ugly and hard to shoot, and was happy to blow it up and be rid of it forever after Star Trek III.

You remember that wrong.
They had problems with the original paint-job; it interfered with their blue-screen approach (personally, I liked their pain-job better - but that puts me in a minority).
And the model was too big and too heavy (it has a steal frame inside) for them, which probably made setting up shots harder.

With the Reliant they showed that a miniature at a much smaller scale can look as impressive on screen as the much bigger Enterprise-model did.

No, I'm pretty sure I remember that correctly.

"It was something I always wanted to do. I hate that ship. I've said that a hundred times but it's true. I think it's ugly -- the most silly looking thing. The model itself is murder to work with, so I am glad it's gone. I would hope that the idea actually originated with me on Trek II. I talked to Harve Bennett about doing that to the ship -- blowing it up. I'd like to take some credit, at least, for blowing it up -- for physically doing it. Watching that thing go was one of my favorite parts.

"There are a lot of complicated things happening and it's pretty quick. My involvement began at the top of the bridge when you see it blow up. It was a miniature that we shot with the Bruce Hill camera. Sean Casey had done a lot of work on all those models, mold-making and things, because we had to do a lot of tests before we ever got to really shooting it. The pyro work was headed up by Ted Moehnke, who did a great job on the show. I think we got some real nice pyrotechnics and different character pyrotechnics, too.

"So it was a full miniature blown up. Then we had to pull a matte off that and put some stars in because it was just shot against black. Then we cut back to the Bird of Prey ship moving away from the Enterprise and dropping down. The top is blowing up. What we did -- Don Dow shot that one -- we just painted out the top with black. If it's against the stars, you won't be able to see it. We painted it real black. We weren't about to destroy that $150,000 model that Doug Trumbull built. I was tempted though -- tempted many times to take a mallet to it." - Ken Ralston, American Cinematographer, Aug./Sept. 1984, p. 61.

Ugly? Silly-looking?
Well, to each his own.

I thought they just hated the size and weight of the model...

 

[lennier1]

This might put me on many people's shitlist, but I prefer this to the original universe Excelsior.

:ducks:

I prefer the ST6 version, but the idea behind this exercise is to create a version that fits into this new style without looking as bad as the Fuglyprise.

I prefer the Generations version - I really do

As for your comment about the new Enterprise: Don't let me ever catch you in Munich

^Threats like that from a guy who opens LW only every other millenium?
And I have to deal with crazies from Munich often enough without adding you to the list, Old Man.

 

[ST-One]

I prefer the ST6 version, but the idea behind this exercise is to create a version that fits into this new style without looking as bad as the Fuglyprise.

I prefer the Generations version - I really do

As for your comment about the new Enterprise: Don't let me ever catch you in Munich

^Threats like that from a guy who opens LW only every other millenium?
And I have to deal with crazies from Munich often enough without adding you to the list, Old Man.

 

[publiusr]

This is the one I was referring to...

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75218&d=1259932737

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75184&d=1259850401

It's neat, even if it is a little weird.

Yeah, that one is greeble-riffic. But I found another one in my Trek folder. It's a lot cleaner in terms of surface details, which improves the aesthetics.

The neck has the starfleet emblem there, with hints of same in the fan tail, as I just noticed. You know, I like the nacelles you had to start with, but that's me.

 

[JES]

I've had an idea for what the top of the engineering section would look like for some time, though because of college, it took a while for me to finally scan in this some sketches that I drafted: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40445677@N06/5574230688/

The idea that I had was combining your sloping top engineering hull design with some of the design elements that made the Excelsior unique. Namely, the way that the rear of the shuttle bay rises up, which is one of those design elements that like about the Excelsior, and the round oval bulge where the nacelle connect to the hull. In this case however, the bulge is surrounded by hull plating from the neck-spine, with mostly the top most part peeking out.

I figured that since it appears that the engineering hull hasn't been completely modeled, it might be worth my time to give some input before I know that it is too late for you to change anything. If you have been working on the Nu Excelsior in the meantime since your last post, and you have already modeled too much to consider it worth changing anything, then I understand.

 

[MadMan1701A]

Interesting...

Well, a couple of major changes happened during the design... the nacelle pylons now actually come out of the sides of that ridge that runs through the middle of the secondary hull, so that big oval bulge isn't really needed.

I think Jetfreak's intention was to have the shuttlebay down below, anyway, though. On the "Real" Excelsior, that really never made alot of sense to me, to have the shuttlebay up there, where there wasn't much room for it, and it was a feature I always thought was kind of tacked on. I could see why you like it, though... it's a nice detailed area, and keeps the top flat part of the hull from seeming too flat and small at the other ined.

Unfortunately, I haven't even looked at it lately, until I saw this thread pop back up today. I'm still working on a project for a friend of mine, that's getting pretty close to done. Stuff about it will probably start coming out this summer, hopefully. Once it does, you guys will know where I've been all this time.

Later,

 

[judexavier]

Interesting...

Well, a couple of major changes happened during the design... the nacelle pylons now actually come out of the sides of that ridge that runs through the middle of the secondary hull, so that big oval bulge isn't really needed.

I think Jetfreak's intention was to have the shuttlebay down below, anyway, though. On the "Real" Excelsior, that really never made alot of sense to me, to have the shuttlebay up there, where there wasn't much room for it, and it was a feature I always thought was kind of tacked on. I could see why you like it, though... it's a nice detailed area, and keeps the top flat part of the hull from seeming too flat and small at the other ined.

Unfortunately, I haven't even looked at it lately, until I saw this thread pop back up today. I'm still working on a project for a friend of mine, that's getting pretty close to done. Stuff about it will probably start coming out this summer, hopefully. Once it does, you guys will know where I've been all this time.

Later,

Wondered where you were. Glad to see you back.
So, any hints or teasers?

 

[MadMan1701A]

Interesting...

Well, a couple of major changes happened during the design... the nacelle pylons now actually come out of the sides of that ridge that runs through the middle of the secondary hull, so that big oval bulge isn't really needed.

I think Jetfreak's intention was to have the shuttlebay down below, anyway, though. On the "Real" Excelsior, that really never made alot of sense to me, to have the shuttlebay up there, where there wasn't much room for it, and it was a feature I always thought was kind of tacked on. I could see why you like it, though... it's a nice detailed area, and keeps the top flat part of the hull from seeming too flat and small at the other ined.

Unfortunately, I haven't even looked at it lately, until I saw this thread pop back up today. I'm still working on a project for a friend of mine, that's getting pretty close to done. Stuff about it will probably start coming out this summer, hopefully. Once it does, you guys will know where I've been all this time.

Later,

Wondered where you were. Glad to see you back.
So, any hints or teasers?

Not yet, unfortunately. Soon, though.

It's really amazing how much time a project like what I'm doing can suck up all of your free time.

I'm loving it, though.

 

[publiusr]

I love the work you did with the aft fantail of the secondary hull. On a later project, you might combine that with Jayrus interpretation of the aft of the Ingram. Having layer upon layer of shuttlebays might be interesting. A wide top bay like Ingram, with smaller inset bays lower down.

I also like the prow of the secondary hull jutting out. I had an old sketch of just a shape, but very wide. A cluster of dishes resided within, sourrounded with small weapon emplacements within the forward sec hull that opened/expanded like mandibles to either side.

 

[MadMan1701A]

Hey, everybody. It's been a while.

Anyway, I was taking a break from my BIG project, to look at this thing a little. Jetfreak had e-mailed me a while back, asking if I would bring the nacelles back to something closer to his drawings...

So, I decided to start totally over with them. I think they are looking pretty good... I did rotate that bracing bar 90 degrees, though, to kind of give it that Excelsior look on the front...

What do you guys think?

More later...

-Ricky