My TOS Shuttlecraft...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
All in good time, all in good time.
Capt. April,
Your rambling re-post of my message with petty jibes inserted only points out how thoroughly unprepared you are to actually engage my arguments. The few comments of substance are answered by a close read of my original post. Most of the others are based on a mischaracterization of what I said -- if unintentional, they betray a lack of comprehension on your part; if intentional, they amount to a "straw man" ploy.
Most of your post I will let pass without comment. However you have called me out on a matter of easily verifiable fact. Given our history, you should know better...
If Jefferies' drawing doesn't look "curvy" at all to you, it's because you don't know how to read blueprints or are a careless observer. Perhaps this will help. I have arranged the three views MJ gave us together. The rear view is a much smaller drawing, and as such lacks the precision of the other two views; but it is quite good enough to show us the curve he had in mind for the sides of the shuttlecraft:
Click to enlarge
As you can see, the top view shows just the segmented taper I pointed out. In top view, the sides approximate a tapered curve through the clever use of flat sections.
The rear view shows the definite curve he had in mind for the sides. It is much different from the flat sided version AMT delivered. This view shows the vertical profile of the sides to be a true curve, not flat sections. The combination of the two techniques actually gives the impression of compound curves without actually using them. This is the same technique used on the TWA Moonliner by Disney, as I pointed out. Unfortunately, this simpler version wasn't simple enough for AMT.
Finally, your comment:
...shows you failed to appreciate that my post was divided into two parts. The first part was a refutation of your assertion that there is no way to know which of the two drawings in question came first. That being firmly settled, I moved on to the second part: What are the implications of this evidence. I was not refuting specific allegations made by anyone on this board. I was addressing the "conventional wisdom."
The prevailing theories up to this point were two:
1) Matt Jefferies designed the shuttlecraft as we now have it.
2) Matt Jefferies designed the curvier teardrop shuttle that was too expensive, so the project was handed to AMT come up with something cheaper and they designed the shuttlecraft.
To this I now add a third, and I think, much more likely possibility.
3) Matt Jefferies created a second, cheaper and easier to build design for the shuttlecraft which can be seen in the drawings reproduced in TMOST; but when his design was further simplified on the exterior and substantially altered on the interior, he ceased to think of it as his design anymore.
Why is this important? Because the man should get credit for his work. It's not unlike the situation with the TMP Enterprise. It was widely reported for years to be the work of Andy Probert. Yet when the Phase II material started coming out we find that the refit is actually 95% Jefferies' design. This is not to take away from the great refinements that Probert and others made to the design, but Uncle Matt deserves the lion's share of the credit.
In the case of the shuttlecraft, statements made by Jefferies himself can be misconstrued to give the impression that AMT came up with the design we have today out of whole cloth. A proper understanding of the significance of the drawing in TMOST casts those statements in a wholly different light.
M.
Your rambling re-post of my message with petty jibes inserted only points out how thoroughly unprepared you are to actually engage my arguments. The few comments of substance are answered by a close read of my original post. Most of the others are based on a mischaracterization of what I said -- if unintentional, they betray a lack of comprehension on your part; if intentional, they amount to a "straw man" ploy.
Most of your post I will let pass without comment. However you have called me out on a matter of easily verifiable fact. Given our history, you should know better...
Captain Robert April said:
I presume you're referring to this one?
You have an interesting idea of "rounded."
...
Again, you have a strange sense of "curvy" since that final drawing doesn't look any curvier than the actual mockup.
If Jefferies' drawing doesn't look "curvy" at all to you, it's because you don't know how to read blueprints or are a careless observer. Perhaps this will help. I have arranged the three views MJ gave us together. The rear view is a much smaller drawing, and as such lacks the precision of the other two views; but it is quite good enough to show us the curve he had in mind for the sides of the shuttlecraft:
Click to enlargeAs you can see, the top view shows just the segmented taper I pointed out. In top view, the sides approximate a tapered curve through the clever use of flat sections.
The rear view shows the definite curve he had in mind for the sides. It is much different from the flat sided version AMT delivered. This view shows the vertical profile of the sides to be a true curve, not flat sections. The combination of the two techniques actually gives the impression of compound curves without actually using them. This is the same technique used on the TWA Moonliner by Disney, as I pointed out. Unfortunately, this simpler version wasn't simple enough for AMT.
Finally, your comment:
...shows you failed to appreciate that my post was divided into two parts. The first part was a refutation of your assertion that there is no way to know which of the two drawings in question came first. That being firmly settled, I moved on to the second part: What are the implications of this evidence. I was not refuting specific allegations made by anyone on this board. I was addressing the "conventional wisdom."
The prevailing theories up to this point were two:
1) Matt Jefferies designed the shuttlecraft as we now have it.
2) Matt Jefferies designed the curvier teardrop shuttle that was too expensive, so the project was handed to AMT come up with something cheaper and they designed the shuttlecraft.
To this I now add a third, and I think, much more likely possibility.
3) Matt Jefferies created a second, cheaper and easier to build design for the shuttlecraft which can be seen in the drawings reproduced in TMOST; but when his design was further simplified on the exterior and substantially altered on the interior, he ceased to think of it as his design anymore.
Why is this important? Because the man should get credit for his work. It's not unlike the situation with the TMP Enterprise. It was widely reported for years to be the work of Andy Probert. Yet when the Phase II material started coming out we find that the refit is actually 95% Jefferies' design. This is not to take away from the great refinements that Probert and others made to the design, but Uncle Matt deserves the lion's share of the credit.
In the case of the shuttlecraft, statements made by Jefferies himself can be misconstrued to give the impression that AMT came up with the design we have today out of whole cloth. A proper understanding of the significance of the drawing in TMOST casts those statements in a wholly different light.
M.
Yeah...
Mgagen and Capt. R. April clearly have a fair amount of history, and it tends to pop up. To be blunt, I think you're BOTH behaving badly, guys. CRA, you're dedicated to this stuff and have spent a lot of time thinking about it, but you're not always right, and you come across (even when I think you ARE right) as pretty self-righteous. MGagen, on the other hand, you seem to take a fair amount of pleasure in INTENTIONALLY "tweaking" him just to get him to react... and let's be blunt, you seem pretty self-righteous too, but with a bit of "smarmy and smug" as well...though you also "know your stuff" pretty well. At least, you both seem this way whenever you're both posting in the same thread...
If you don't like each other... fine. Take it elsewhere, or just shut the @#$* up about it and deal with it, but please chill out. If you wanna fight with each other... take it to email, or phone, or a back alley someplace, and don't subject the rest of us to it!
Of course, you've both got a lot of good stuff to say... and, personally, I'd rather you both stay around and keep contributing POSITIVE stuff... which you both do, and have in this thread. I'd just rather that you try to bear in mind that the rest of us think you're BOTH behaving like infants once you start these "pissing contest" deals.
Sometimes you just have to say "I think you're full of it, but I'm not going to change your mind, so I'm going to stop worrying about it."
And thank you for it, too!Warped9 said:
I suppose in a greater sense I've created a fourth version of the TOS shuttlecraft that has never actually been seen onscreen.
I like you grew up on TOS and TOS-reruns. As a teacher, I keep telling my students to never fully grow up...at least not from that fascination with the imagination part. They tell me that I'm the oldest 10 year old they know.
Through your shuttlecraft blueprints, I've been able to be 10 again...thank you.
I don't know why my "Well said" post disappeared, but once again, Cary, well said.
I also had a rather wonderful post in the works going through my theory (note the emphasis) on how it all shook out, complete with twenty-seven 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainging how each one was to be used....never mind. Suffice it to say that the system did a cyberbrainfart and ate it.
So, here's the short version from where I sit, pending some firsthand accounting:
In February, 1966, Star Trek is officially picked up by NBC for the fall schedule. The next four months of preproduction, once the whole medicine show moved from Culver City to the Gower Street lot (where it would, in a little over two years, be gobbled up by next door neighbor Paramount) consists of dressing up their not-fully-polished pilot sets into their regular production glory and making some much needed additions.
Production starts in June.
AMT gets their licensing deal in August.
A little clarification at this point: Stephen Poe worked for an ad agency in Phoenix that represented AMT (see the introduction to TMoST); the model company was still operating out of Troy, Michigan at that time. So just where the Galileo was built is still a very open question.
My money is on it being built in LA somewhere, since I seriously doubt they built it in Michigan and trucked it across the country; it would be cheaper and a lot more efficient for all concerned to just put some of their guys up in LA for a few months, hashing out the design with Jefferies, Roddenberry, et al, than to try and conduct this process over long distance phone calls and the mail. It wouldn't surprise me to find out AMT rented a soundstage at Desilu to do the work, but that might be pushing things a tad.
Anyhoo, by August, it's a pretty good bet that they'd bought most, if not all, of that season's scripts, which means that "The Galileo Seven" was in the pipeline. This would've put a higher priority on getting the shuttlecraft designed and built (and also probably played a bit part in that deal with AMT in the first place; anytime you can save time and money on a production as cash-strapped as Star Trek, you do it).
Here's where I think things started getting interesting.
The show premieres in around a month at this point. Promotional materials need to be prepared, which would also be the responsibility of the art department. This means drawings of the ship and the shuttlecraft. Which means the design of the shuttlecraft has to at least get to a "close enough for government work" state.
The design could be hashed out over a weekend (Jefferies often went into work on Saturdays, so he could devote some extra attention to some item or another without the standard roster of daily distractions), so overall, the drawings really don't prove anything one way or another, but comparing the lot of 'em, I think it went thusly:
Jefferies works with the AMT guys on the overall design concept, and during the course of the process of figuring out something that would look good and be relatively easy to produce, they took a look at what Jefferies had come up with to this point, and they see this jewel...
"How about this one? This has some possibilities..."
So they play with it a bit and come back with this...
...which gets the go-ahead from The Powers That Be (pick a name, he was probably in the mix), and further refined into this, just in time for the press kits...
Meanwhile, the shuttle itself is being constructed across town, and is ready for delivery sometime in October or early November, just in time for production of "The Galileo Seven"...
Sound workable, kids?
I also had a rather wonderful post in the works going through my theory (note the emphasis) on how it all shook out, complete with twenty-seven 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainging how each one was to be used....never mind. Suffice it to say that the system did a cyberbrainfart and ate it.
So, here's the short version from where I sit, pending some firsthand accounting:
In February, 1966, Star Trek is officially picked up by NBC for the fall schedule. The next four months of preproduction, once the whole medicine show moved from Culver City to the Gower Street lot (where it would, in a little over two years, be gobbled up by next door neighbor Paramount) consists of dressing up their not-fully-polished pilot sets into their regular production glory and making some much needed additions.
Production starts in June.
AMT gets their licensing deal in August.
A little clarification at this point: Stephen Poe worked for an ad agency in Phoenix that represented AMT (see the introduction to TMoST); the model company was still operating out of Troy, Michigan at that time. So just where the Galileo was built is still a very open question.
My money is on it being built in LA somewhere, since I seriously doubt they built it in Michigan and trucked it across the country; it would be cheaper and a lot more efficient for all concerned to just put some of their guys up in LA for a few months, hashing out the design with Jefferies, Roddenberry, et al, than to try and conduct this process over long distance phone calls and the mail. It wouldn't surprise me to find out AMT rented a soundstage at Desilu to do the work, but that might be pushing things a tad.
Anyhoo, by August, it's a pretty good bet that they'd bought most, if not all, of that season's scripts, which means that "The Galileo Seven" was in the pipeline. This would've put a higher priority on getting the shuttlecraft designed and built (and also probably played a bit part in that deal with AMT in the first place; anytime you can save time and money on a production as cash-strapped as Star Trek, you do it).
Here's where I think things started getting interesting.
The show premieres in around a month at this point. Promotional materials need to be prepared, which would also be the responsibility of the art department. This means drawings of the ship and the shuttlecraft. Which means the design of the shuttlecraft has to at least get to a "close enough for government work" state.
The design could be hashed out over a weekend (Jefferies often went into work on Saturdays, so he could devote some extra attention to some item or another without the standard roster of daily distractions), so overall, the drawings really don't prove anything one way or another, but comparing the lot of 'em, I think it went thusly:
Jefferies works with the AMT guys on the overall design concept, and during the course of the process of figuring out something that would look good and be relatively easy to produce, they took a look at what Jefferies had come up with to this point, and they see this jewel...
"How about this one? This has some possibilities..."
So they play with it a bit and come back with this...
...which gets the go-ahead from The Powers That Be (pick a name, he was probably in the mix), and further refined into this, just in time for the press kits...
Meanwhile, the shuttle itself is being constructed across town, and is ready for delivery sometime in October or early November, just in time for production of "The Galileo Seven"...
Sound workable, kids?
^^That sounds pretty plausible. The only nit I have is I wouldn't discount the mock-up being made in Michigan. It seems likely that it was made locally, but as an industrial designer, my office builds stuff & ships it all over the world. One of the reasons we get hired is we have the facilities, equipment & staff to do that sort of thing.
I don't know the history like you do, but if it was made locally, it was probably only supervised by AMT staff.
The progression of images you propose is exactly the way product development happens. Even to the extent of a vendor warping a concept to match their expertise, and then fighting to get some of the design character back.
Edited to add:
Furthermore, the big three are in Michigan & they build concept after concept car on a regular basis. Certainly, there would be facilities in Michigan with the resources & ability to build a shuttle mock-up, perhaps even more efficiently than a studio in L.A.
I don't know the history like you do, but if it was made locally, it was probably only supervised by AMT staff.
The progression of images you propose is exactly the way product development happens. Even to the extent of a vendor warping a concept to match their expertise, and then fighting to get some of the design character back.
Edited to add:
Furthermore, the big three are in Michigan & they build concept after concept car on a regular basis. Certainly, there would be facilities in Michigan with the resources & ability to build a shuttle mock-up, perhaps even more efficiently than a studio in L.A.
I went through TMoST, and the only thing in there about the shuttle was the thumbnail description from the Wrtier's Guide and the pictures posted above. I was hoping for a reprinted memo, but nothing on that front.
Anyone got Bob Justman's number?
Anyone got Bob Justman's number?
^^^ Meh, looks too 1950's for my taste. The flying butter dish was more realistic, imnsho.
Well, to look at it from a slightly different angle, maybe one of the reasons why it wasn't available sooner was that it wasn't being built locally.
If it weren't for that cross-country road trip, Sulu and the rest of the landing party wouldn't have gotten frostbite...
True. But a conceptual sketch doesn't tell you everything. Designing from scratch is an evolutionary process as you try out different ideas until you find something that works. You may even try things you're pretty sure you don't like just on the off chance you discover something else you hadn't thought of.
Speaking for myself that has been my experience. I also have a personal criteria for my designs: no matter what I come up with and no matter how credible I try to make it the end result has to have a heroic or "cool" factor to it in some measure to be successful.
(-: I suppose that's why I've never liked the Daedalus-class as depicted. It looks too much like a direct lift of one of MJ's early sketches without any extra thought put into it. MJ discarded it for something he liked better, but even his final general concept for the TOS E doesn't really convey how it would look like when complete. And so when/if I attempt to adapt MJ's sketch(es) I merely use that as a starting point in a direction perhaps not more fully explored. The Daedalus as is just looks too damned dopey.
Cary,
I think you'd have a hard time finding anything as personal as the above in anything I've posted...
Capt. April,
Your imaginary reconstruction falls apart at precisely the point I raised earler: You place the sketch showing the final configuration early in the design process despite the obvious inscription on it proving it was made after the thing was already built. How much are your speculations worth if you ignore obvious evidence?
BTW, the shuttlecraft was built in Phoenix. AMT had a division there in the mid-60s.
M.
You haven't "proven" a damned thing. Those drawings could've been completed at any time in the process without a single pipe being welded together (and before that thumbnail sketch gets quoted again, keep in mind it's a thumbnail sketch, not a court deposition; "As designed and built" can just as easily be MJ's formal shorthand for "this is what they're building for us, don't blame me").
Until you can conjure up a date for those drawings and a delivery slip for the shuttle, you're version of events is just as "imaginary" as mine is.
UPDATE: Before this degenerates into another pissing match, I just got through emailing Bjo Trimble to pick her brain on this subject (since I don't have Bob Justman's email address). Let's hold off on any further invective until we get a bit more information.
Until you can conjure up a date for those drawings and a delivery slip for the shuttle, you're version of events is just as "imaginary" as mine is.
UPDATE: Before this degenerates into another pissing match, I just got through emailing Bjo Trimble to pick her brain on this subject (since I don't have Bob Justman's email address). Let's hold off on any further invective until we get a bit more information.
I am getting sick and tired of these arguments over who did what with what drawing. This is an art forum not a tech forum. If you want to talk trek tech go to the tech forum, personally I am looking forward to more of Warped9's artwork and none of this pissing match over some sketches. What is it with you people that you have to argue over the stupidist stuff?? We should be enjoying what Warped9 has in his artwork and not this. I reiterate once again that this is an art forum and not a tech forum. I guess that some of you never listen to the moderator, you are so bull headed and ignorant of ever one else.
Do you know the phrase? - " The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
I do not think so. All you care about is you egos and not about my friends art and art is what it is all about.
Get the message!!!
Do you know the phrase? - " The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
I do not think so. All you care about is you egos and not about my friends art and art is what it is all about.
Get the message!!!
^^ In fairness I can appreciate the discussion of the origin of ideas and how they were developed. And while, yes, this is the art forum when it comes to the sci/tech aspects of Trek then the tech aspects of those subjects are legitimately related to the subject at hand.
But, yeah, it can get to the point of being a little obsessed about "who knows better." Mind you what's been said here so far isn't nearly as heated as what I've seen elsewhere.
But, yeah, it can get to the point of being a little obsessed about "who knows better." Mind you what's been said here so far isn't nearly as heated as what I've seen elsewhere.
