Phase II Enterprise Study Model

Thanks guys!

Well, I was about to pull the model apart when I decided to add on a few more elements and borrowed the stand from my two-thirds scale 33 inch TOS Enterprise. I also decided to shoot it from the other side this time.

​

I included a shot of the original studio model under construction even though this model is more reflective of Jefferies' version of the design.

 

A real beaut'

 

I wonder how much money was blown on Phase II before it got scrapped for the motion picture? Model making is NOT cheap, especially studio models.

Anyways, that model you made looks fantastic. If I were a burglar, I'd steal it with a professional heist team as if i were knocking over fort knox. I really wish I had your patience, talent, and skills.

 

That's probably part of the reason TMP was so expensive to make. It had to absorb phase 2 costs.

 

I remember reading an article where Gene Roddenberry was VERY upset with the model maker because of a great lack of detail for the big screen. Ended up scrapping it and having a entirely new model made by a new crew.

Shaw...your's is looking fantastic. Looking forward to more updates.

 

Thanks guys!

... I guess I'll need to remember to lock my windows now.


Roddenberry never had any problems with the Phase II Enterprise, either model or design, for Phase II. The issues popped up when Paramount decided to make the pilot into a movie. This caused a large shift in how the production was being approached and new people were brought in from outside to help with the conversion.

Enter Robert Abel and Associates with Richard Taylor. These guys thought they knew what was needed to make movie effects that could match Star Wars. Taylor, who hated the Enterprise design anyways, wanted a bigger model (the Phase II Enterprise was almost 5.5 feet, the TMP model about 8 feet in length) and Magicam (a subsidiary of Paramount) wanted the credit for building the model to help with their resume. Basically, in the game of musical chairs in the transition from Phase II to TMP, Price/Loos were left without a seat.

The idea that a bigger model was needed was absolutely wrong. The Phase II Enterprise was the same scale as the Reliant, which looked awesome on the big screen. All this was done for political reasons, so people could give themselves credit for what was on screen.

And Taylor is one of the worst offenders of all, and is most likely responsible for the loss of the 33 inch TOS Enterprise loaned to Robert Abel and Associates (when Roddenberry called Bob Abel asking for the model back, Abel said he didn't know where it was). In Taylor's mind, everything from Phase II should have been scrapped and not really knowing anything about Star Trek, he didn't seem to realize that the 33 inch TOS Enterprise model wasn't part of Phase II. This is evident from a recent interview where he said...

"The model that was being built really didn't have that - I can't remember any lights that were built into it but it was about two and a half, three feet long or something."​

So I think they discarded the 33 inch Enterprise model thinking it wasn't anything special.

Taylor went on to take credit for the redesigning of the nacelles from their original TOS shapes...

"A lot of people like it, of course, so what I did was redesign it by making it much more elongated, more streamlined. I totally redesigned the nacelles so they weren't, as in the original television series, like cigar containers, or circular. They were much more rectilinear and longer, a lot of parallel lines. I was very much trying to give the Enterprise an art deco look, a lot of horizontal lines, stretched things, and added a lot of detail everywhere on the surface and throughout the construction of the Enterprise, that's one of the primary things that I did with all of the models, not just Enterprise, but adding surface detail, enlarging the models, building light systems into them so that we could make multiple passes."​

But those were things that Jefferies had actually done (and Probert built upon). And the Phase II Enterprise studio model, which was almost five and a half feet long, was intended to be far more lit than the TMP Enterprise ended up being.

In the interview they show a comparison of the early TMP design with the Franz Joseph plans of the Enterprise to illustrate how much they changed things. A more honest comparison would have been to show their Enterprise design with Jefferies' Phase II design...

​

But the Phase II model was used in the end. Parts were used to make up the destroyed Enterprise in ST III...

​

And additional elements were used to make the USS Bozeman in TNG.

Later when Planet Hollywood asked for items for their restaurant chain, Paramount commissioned Price to build five TMP Enterprise models which he built using elements from his Phase II Enterprise molds (which he still has).

​

So yes, it was an expensive endeavor to build a large studio model like the Phase II Enterprise. But even though it wasn't used as the Phase II Enterprise, the work was used over time.



As for my build, here are a few more shots of the model...

​

Hopefully I'll get some time to work on it in the next couple days.

 

I was always under the impression that Doug Trumbull wanted a larger model for the movie, not necessarily because the other was too small, but because he wanted to convey the sheer scale and massiveness of the ship in comparison to humans (particularly in the drydock scene), something that was arguably missing in TOS and Phase II. He wanted to see hull plating and rivets and decals and all kinds of detail that you probably couldn't as easily convey on a model the size of the Phase II. In fact, I recall one article (YEARS ago) mentioning that Trumbull wanted the final model MUCH bigger (17 feet comes to mind but I could be mis-remembering) but simply couldn't due to budgetary reasons. Anyways, bloody Ha-UUUGE!

Scale being heavily focused (perhaps too much at times) later on when the Enterprise is shown as a miniscule dot inside V'Ger - initially blowing the audience away with how big the Enterprise is, yet juxtaposed only minutes later by how small it is and how insignificant we humans are on the galactic scale.

I gathered the desire was more out of artistic intent than one of politics. in fact, this is the first time I've ever heard that people were fighting over ownership the miniature for the purposes of resume bragging rights.

Learn something new every day, I guess...

 

Yeah, the TMP model was pretty much done before Trumbull joined the production... which was when Taylor and Robert Abel and Associates were asked to leave the production. In the end the modifications from the original TMP design to what we got on-screen was done by Trumbull and company... and even that was partly because of damage to the Enterprise model while in storage waiting to be filmed (the bridge/B/C deck was damaged by a leak and replaced with a new design).

The interesting thing is that the Phase II Enterprise has a lot in common with the TNG Enterprise. Apparently it was thought that lighting effects would offset the smaller resolution of the TV screen when viewing effects because the Phase II nacelles were to be quite lit up (blue along both the insides and outsides, amber for the fronts) much like the TNG model (blue along both the insides and outsides, red for the fronts). All of that was removed from the design when it was converted to the TMP Enterprise which had very little nacelle lighting (and the Reliant and Excelsior models had none).

But yes, Magicam wanted to build the TMP Enterprise... they actually wanted to build the Phase II Enterprise, but were left building the drydock and orbital station instead (because they didn't have enough experience for the Enterprise). Magicam may have been part of Paramount, but they were trying to get business throughout the industry.

 

What parts of the Bozeman were from the Phase II ship molds?

 

The bridge/B/C deck... because both the Phase II Enterprise and Reliant were approximately the same scale, they used Phase II parts to make the ship seem older than a normal Miranda class (which had been seen a lot in TNG). And they didn't even add a dome, so the structure that was to hold the lighting element for the dome is easily seen (just like it was in the photos of the unfinished Phase II model).

 

Actually, Doug Trumball WISHED that the 8ft model was BIGGER than it was. Think, the Half lit, big model with the balls in the nacelles they used in TOS was TWELVE feet long. So actually the TMP model, in the end, was smaller than the main one used in The Original series.

The reason the 12ft tos model is only lit on the starboard side, is because the model wasnt even finished on the port side. The stardrive didnt even have windows on the port side. But did you all realize that the Starboard side of the refit model is not shown until the scene in STII when the enterprise approaches regula one? . It went through ALL of TMP without the starboard side being shown, and half of STII without the starboard side being shown. I mean look at my avatar thats from TMP. ITs at the port angle.

 

Yeah, my TOS Enterprise model I'm working on is indented to be a one-sixth scale representation of the 11 foot model... as a model. So it will include details of the non-shooting side that have been lost since the first restoration of the 11 foot model back in 1974.

​

It has been an interesting build, and very helpful. As I'm building everything from my plans of the 11 foot model, it becomes quickly apparent what parts of my plans are missing details. Some things (like the impulse engines and intercoolers) I just hadn't gotten around to or thought much about, but that changed when I had to build those parts from scratch.

​

Back to the Phase II Enterprise... I had some time to work on it this last week and made a little progress.

Here are some more test assembly shots showing the additional nacelle details. I realized the last time I put it together that I really didn't need as much tape as I had originally used, the model actually fits together pretty nicely. The nacelle carriages are still drying and I didn't want to play with them too much right now, so I didn't attempt to correct their alignment. I mainly wanted to see how the model looked with them in roughly the right positions.

​

And because I really wanted to see this model in action, even though it isn't finished yet, I threw together an artistic interpretation of how it might eventually look...

Click to enlarge​

 

I like the phase 2 Ent overall, but everytime I look at the nacelles my eye is drawn to the "L" shaped detail just aft of the bussard. It always looked very preliminary and unfinished to me. I wonder if it would have made it to the screen without further refinement?

 

Awesome job Shaw.

Agree

 

Oddly enough, that shape is a favorite of Jefferies. It appeared in many of the early engine sketches and was on the final studio model. To give you an idea of how early on Jefferies started liking that shape, it was used on the nacelle supports on the Klingon Battlecruiser back in 1967.




Quick update...

This work on the model really didn't need a test assembly, the main change was that the ribs on the nacelle grills are now part of the nacelles. There are a few other small details that were worked on, but nothing much to show.

The reason for the test assembly was that I started work on the display base and wanted to see how the model and base looked together (the base still needs a lot of work and the support post needs adjusting).

Here are some more shots (at a higher resolution)...

Click to enlarge​

It seems to be coming together about the way I envisioned it, though there is still quite a bit of work to be done on the base before it is finished.

 

Absolutely amazing work Shaw!!! She is coming along so nicely. Great work as always!!!

 

My biggest issue with the Phase II Enterprise is the abrupt transition between the new, red engine caps and the rest of the nacelle. I feel like there needs to be some rim or greeble there that demonstrates a mechanical differentiation.

 

Thanks!

Well, my nacelles aren't finished yet, Jefferies' design has a sort of chin guard over the lower boundary that I haven't added yet (mainly because they'll be easier to add after I've started painting the model.







For the fun of it I modified Jefferies' Phase II diagrams a bit to look like the TOS Writer's Guide diagrams and set them up for a comparison...

Click to enlarge​

It also helps in showing the relative sizes of the two... the design was scaled up (to an even 1000 feet long) when converted to the final TMP version.

 

HA! I love that side-by-side graphic. Classy.

--Alex

 

I gots chills.