Klingon Bird-of-Prey in Star Trek's III and IV

[DestinyCaptain]

I read somewhere that Okuda said the SFS bridge was a set that had been abandoned by another production and was slightly customized for the BOP. In Starlog just before the release of TVH an article stated that they indeed had decided to give her a redo because they would be spending much more time in there movie wise.

The question I have long wondered is, what was the abandoned set from? Oh and by the way...anyone notice the sandwich wedge containers on the wall? I didn't until last year, and spent I nearly 15 years in the foodservice business working with the exact same container. Anywho...

 

[I am not Spock]

This is why I have no problem accepting the visual change in the Enterprise sets in the new movie. If Kruge's BOP bridge can completely change design in three months, anything can happen.

 

[euphorik]

^

Agreed Timo. The two pics lend more creedence to the idea that Kruge was operating the BoP from his version of a 'battle bridge' and Kirk and Co. were operating it from the actual main bridge.

that's what i always figured, too.

for what it's worth, i've always preferred the TVH configuration to one in TSFS.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Now someone explain to me what the Klingons were doing in a Romulan ship. (real life answer - the race was changed in the script, but the ship wasn't)

 

[Timo]

What would be "Romulan" about that ship?

Klingon vessels had been of birdlike shape in TOS already. Klingons had also been able to perform true surprise strikes against our heroes, as if invisible, in "Errand of Mercy". And of course, spinoff shows would later (often inadvertently) establish that avian terminology was a Klingon thing first and foremost, that Klingons had cloaks before Romulans did, and so forth, making ST3 quite a solid piece of thematic continuity in this respect...

(Okay, assume that the ship was Romulan. Supposedly, there were script versions, even if half-baked, where the villains became Klingons but the ship remained Romulan, and the villains were such eeeevil bad guys that they had even stolen their ship from other villains! However, TOS would offer another context: the ship-sharing scheme of "Enterprise Incident" would probably work the other way, too, quite regardless of whether the sharing was the result of an alliance, espionage, theft, or taking of war prizes.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, the ship has enough Klingon characteristics that its not a problem. At that point the only Romulan ships seen was the one from Balance of Terror. Cant say the STIII Bird of Prey looked related to that.

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, the ship has enough Klingon characteristics that its not a problem. At that point the only Romulan ships seen was the one from Balance of Terror. Cant say the STIII Bird of Prey looked related to that.

It is directly inspired by that. The plated feathering on the underside is ILM's take on the big stylized painting on the bottom .

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, the ship has enough Klingon characteristics that its not a problem. At that point the only Romulan ships seen was the one from Balance of Terror. Cant say the STIII Bird of Prey looked related to that.

It is directly inspired by that. The plated feathering on the underside is ILM's take on the big stylized painting on the bottom .

Talking about the shape, not the paint job. The shape seems D7 inspired. Gotta say it took me a while to even notice the "feathers"

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, the ship has enough Klingon characteristics that its not a problem. At that point the only Romulan ships seen was the one from Balance of Terror. Cant say the STIII Bird of Prey looked related to that.

It is directly inspired by that. The plated feathering on the underside is ILM's take on the big stylized painting on the bottom .

Talking about the shape, not the paint job. The shape seems D7 inspired. Gotta say it took me a while to even notice the "feathers"

Not noticing the feathers is like missing the pearlescent on the refit, it is the cool part. The rest is just generic Nilo Rodis bits and pieces (if you tear the wings off, you wind up with something that looks an awful lot like the ILM-designed alien ship in EXPLORERS from a year later.)

 

[Timo]

Well, the ship does have the long neck, the bubble front piece, and the droopy wings. Generic, perhaps, but generic in the same way Jeffries' battle cruiser was, and quite distinct from other varieties of generic out there. The feather pattern looks like an afterthought in its obscurity - if it was intended to be the cool part, then the designer failed rather miserably...

If Rodis had really wanted to do a proper Romulan ship, he should have used a flying saucer for the central hull. But then you'd complain about genericity again.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Green Shirt]

^^Indeed. Every BoP bridge seen all the way through to DS9 is similar to the TVH one and the TSFS style was never seen again.

Jeeez, who pays attention to this kind of stuff?

 

[ThePlumsofWrath]

ST4's novelisation mentions the bridge was refitted to give the crew something to do while waiting to go back to Earth.

 

[La'T'Freja]

Maybe Kruge built a type of "battle bridge" from an '81 DeLorean...

Hope it went faster than 88mph though

 

[trevanian]

Well, the ship does have the long neck, the bubble front piece, and the droopy wings. Generic, perhaps, but generic in the same way Jeffries' battle cruiser was, and quite distinct from other varieties of generic out there. The feather pattern looks like an afterthought in its obscurity - if it was intended to be the cool part, then the designer failed rather miserably...

If Rodis had really wanted to do a proper Romulan ship, he should have used a flying saucer for the central hull. But then you'd complain about genericity again.

Timo Saloniemi

I think the guy was just seriously overvalued as a designer -- his best stuff for TREK was probably in the never-executed batch from TFF, and even there nothing was a knockout. The other ILM designer guy from that period, Dave Carson (no relation to director), didn't seem to always cough up the same look for different features.

The other thing the BOP has going for it is that Bill George worked on it, and I think some of the interesting detail is his.

The featherplating is showy when the ship is seen from beneath with interactive light on ... just like the refit paintjob when it is seen during sunrise. That's not a 'fail' for me, just an interesting look that builds on your first-glance impression.