Kirk's communicator in TWOK

[STEPhon IT]

According to http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Communicator

The communicators in Star Trek II were overseen by prop master Joe Longo. (text commentary, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (The Director's Edition) DVD) These were essentially recycled Vietnam War walkie-talkie units, stripped of paint and coated with chrome. "It was what Paramount wanted," stated John Zabrucky, whose Modern Props facility created the communicators. "We had a really great design that we wanted to build, but they were fixed on those things." (The Making of the Trek Films, 3rd ed., p. 29)

Was that design presented in the book or online? Curious to see what it looked like. It had to be better than what was on screen?

 

[Sibyl]

Was that design presented in the book or online? Curious to see what it looked like. It had to be better than what was on screen?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MILITARY-S...ietnam+radio&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0|0

 

[jaime]

Wow I had no idea, I just figured they reused the TMP prop. Cool info!

Yet another thing where TMP has nice futuristic design work and TWOK takes things a century or two back. It’s like a war of attrition happened between the two films.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yet another thing where TMP has nice futuristic design work and TWOK takes things a century or two back. It’s like a war of attrition happened between the two films.

Well, TMP threw a lot of money at things and went pretty over budget. Partly because it absorbed the development costs of the aborted ST: Phase II series, but they also spent a lot of money in the wrong places at times. TWOK was trying to save money and cut corners wherever possible, to the point of it being made by Paramount's TV division. It was thought that it might air as a TV movie instead of theatrically. I believe it only got a theatrical release because the Paramount execs liked what they were seeing in the dailies.

 

[jaime]

Well, TMP threw a lot of money at things and went pretty over budget. Partly because it absorbed the development costs of the aborted ST: Phase II series, but they also spent a lot of money in the wrong places at times. TWOK was trying to save money and cut corners wherever possible, to the point of it being made by Paramount's TV division. It was thought that it might air as a TV movie instead of theatrically. I believe it only got a theatrical release because the Paramount execs liked what they were seeing in the dailies.

The way to save money on props is to use the ones you made a year or so ago and spent millions on, they knew this with model footage. XD

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

The way to save money on props is to use the ones you made a year or so ago and spent millions on, they knew this with model footage. XD

Absolutely the best reason why the props should've been the same from TMP to TWOK. But, I know engineers, they love to change things.

 

[David cgc]

Absolutely the best reason why the props should've been the same from TMP to TWOK. But, I know engineers, they love to change things.

It probably had as much to do with the condition as everything else. The TWOK wrist-communicatior and tricorder were, IIRC, pretty much straight off the shelf, while they reused the TMP phaser. Could be the TMP communicators and tricorders were broken or otherwise unusable. I vaguely remember something about the TMP communicators being fragile with the lighting and whatnot.

 

[STEPhon IT]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MILITARY-SURPLUS-HELMET-RADIO-SET-AN-PRR-9-PRT-4-RECEIVER-TRANSMITTER-VIETNAM/272999564347?hash=item3f900ac43b:gxEAAOSwk1haRBdh:sc:USPSPriority!55075!US!-1&_sacat=0&_nkw=vietnam+radio&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0|0

There had to be some production art design of TWOK communicator because I'd seen some detail designs for the costumes and creatures and battle sequence storyboards. It has to be out there.

 

[Sibyl]

There had to be some production art design of TWOK communicator because I some detail designs for the costumes and creatures and battle sequence storyboards. It has to be out there.

Sorry, misunderstood your statement.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

It probably had as much to do with the condition as everything else. The TWOK wrist-communicatior and tricorder were, IIRC, pretty much straight off the shelf, while they reused the TMP phaser. Could be the TMP communicators and tricorders were broken or otherwise unusable. I vaguely remember something about the TMP communicators being fragile with the lighting and whatnot.

Could be. Or it could just be that Nicholas Meyer didn't like the look of the TMP props, and so he decided that that should be one of the places where he spent his money. After all, that's why the costumes were changed. And even there they had to dye the TMP jumpsuits to look like another design for the cadet uniforms.

 

[Sibyl]

Well, technically the dyed jumpsuits were NCOs while the Monster Maroons were officers. The color of the collars gave away whether they were cadets (red) or not...at least in TWOK. I think it was changed for some reason in later movies.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Thank you. Yes, I meant the NCOs, obviously.