Star Trek IV Interviews at Trekmovie

[GeorgeKirk]

Back on Monday, Trekmovie.com posted a link to some Entertainment Tonight interviews from just prior to TVH's release in 1986. The interviews were all filmed on the Enterprise bridge set.

Up to now, I always thought that only the small slice of the set we saw in the film's last scene got the "Enterprise-A makeover", with a new paint job and Okudagrams. However, the interview shows several parts of the set we never saw in the movie. In fact, the entire set except for the wall containing the main viewer and the Weapons station is visible at one time or another during the segment, and all of it looks to have been freshly refurbished.

Did anyone else notice this?

 

[Workbee]

I noticed this too. I wonder if they were prepping it to become the battle bridge in TNG. Or perhaps the damage as depicted in TSFS was not a severe as it appeared onscreen.

 

[GeorgeKirk]

I doubt they were prepping it to become the battle bridge. I don't think TNG's production had progressed to the set-building stage at that point, and even if it had, I doubt Roddenberry would have wanted his battle bridge to look exactly like the 1701-A's set.

I'm really curious about this. Might anyone here have any insight into why the studio spent the money to refurbish the set, only to tear it apart a few months later when TNG went into preproduction?

 

[Trekfan21]

I wish we could have seen more of this version of the movie bridge.

 

[Doomsday]

Was it not the same set they used for STV?

I don't know, I'm just asking, I really never paid that much attention to that short scene in IV.

I just always had the impression they built it specifically because they expected a fifth movie that would be set on a new Enterprise.

If that's true, it would have been a good way to bundle some of V's set cost into IV's budget and make V more profitable.

Of course, there would have to have been a decent story too, and that didn't happen....

 

[GeorgeKirk]

Doomsday said:
Was it not the same set they used for STV?

No, the bridge set seen in TFF was completely new.

. . .it would have been a good way to bundle some of V's set cost into IV's budget and make V more profitable.

At the time they refurbished the TMP bridge set for its appearance as the bridge of the Enterprise-A, that was probably the intention. However between the time that TVH wrapped and TFF started production, the set was cannabilized for its appearances as the Enterpise-D battle bridge, Stargazer bridge, and courtroom in "Measure of a Man", making its use in TFF impractical.

 

[Trekfan21]

I forget where I read this, but supposedly at some point between TNG's 1st and 2nd season, the movie bridge set suffered extensive water damage. I believe I read it was left outside, and much of it was unusuable.

We never saw the curved wall sections again. By this I mean the area where Spock's station was, turbolift, the area behind the Captain's chair, the 2nd turbolift, and the area where Uhura's (and Troi in "EAFP") station. They were replaced with angled (and probably cheaper) walls. The turbolift alcoves would reappear on Zimmerman's TFF bridge.

When the battle bridge set made its next appearance on TNG in the 2nd season (as a labrotory in this appearance), all that remained of the version we saw in "Encounter at Farpoint" was the forward half - basically the wall with the exit to the battle bridge ready room, the viewscreen, and the matching wall on the opposite side with the door to nowhere.

What is interesting about these interview clips is they seem to contradict an interview with Shane Johnson, who said only the areas seen on screen in TVH were redressed. From the interview clips, we see that all of the chairs have been reupholstered. Apparently the entire set was repainted with the updated color scheme. Even the graphics at the science station have been replaced with okudagrams. I would have loved to have seen more of the set on screen, however at the time, the okudagrams were so static, they may have been rather bland. They later used the polaric motion technique to bring life to the graphics on TNG, but from the clips we've seen from the ET segment, it doesn't appear this was something done for TVH bridge. One thing to note, I can't tell if Nichols is sitting at the communication station in this interview or not, but it appears the controls for that station at the time of the interview had not yet been replaced with okudagrams.

 

[SmoothieX]

Man that TVH bridge sure looks white and sterile. I don't like it.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Trekfan21 said:
I forget where I read this, but supposedly at some point between TNG's 1st and 2nd season, the movie bridge set suffered extensive water damage. I believe I read it was left outside, and much of it was unusuable.

I've read that too, but I also forget where.

We never saw the curved wall sections again. By this I mean the area where Spock's station was, turbolift, the area behind the Captain's chair, the 2nd turbolift, and the area where Uhura's (and Troi in "EAFP") station. They were replaced with angled (and probably cheaper) walls. The turbolift alcoves would reappear on Zimmerman's TFF bridge.

As well as the Enterprise-B and Enterprise-E bridges, meaning that those set elements have appeared in all ten Trek movies.

What is interesting about these interview clips is they seem to contradict an interview with Shane Johnson, who said only the areas seen on screen in TVH were redressed. From the interview clips, we see that all of the chairs have been reupholstered. Apparently the entire set was repainted with the updated color scheme. Even the graphics at the science station have been replaced with okudagrams.

Yeah, I'm a bit puzzled by that discrepancy.

I would have loved to have seen more of the set on screen, however at the time, the okudagrams were so static, they may have been rather bland. They later used the polaric motion technique to bring life to the graphics on TNG, but from the clips we've seen from the ET segment, it doesn't appear this was something done for TVH bridge.

It's a set that appears for less than 30 seconds on screen. I don't know that they really needed to dress it up any more than they did. Certainly if they hadn't built the new bridge for TFF, they'd have upgraded the graphics on this set. The static Okudagrams got the job done, though -- they looked clean and futuristic, and they suggested that the Enterprise-A was at least somewhat more advanced than her predecessor.

One thing to note, I can't tell if Nichols is sitting at the communication station in this interview or not, but it appears the controls for that station at the time of the interview had not yet been replaced with okudagrams.

It looks like she's sitting at engineering instead of communications. Communications is part of the final shot in TVH, so that station would have received its full makeover.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Could the interviews have perhaps been filmed on set of the Universal ride? That's where the TMP Bridge set finished up wasn't it? DeForest, Walter, Nichelle and George filmed some footage on the set around that time, which got intergrated into the video participants got to keep. A few have turned up on Youtube.

 

[Workbee]

^ That is an interesting idea, though iirc, that set had some strange lamps on the turbolift alcoves. Were these present in this interview?

OTOH, we can see that they had already began some rework of the sets for TNG -- the segment with Scotty walking down the corridor, you see there is carpeting present.

Personally, I like the bridge from TVH the most. If only we could have seen more of it. It really did make things feel like they were new and complete again.

One thing I wondered is whether there were those chasing lights under the viewscreen. In the segment in TVH, we hear the sound effect that corresponds to those lights, but was that sound mixed in as an afterthought, or did they intend to put those lights in there? In TFF, we see those lights were indeed added, but this was a new set built from scratch. Had they been able to reuse the set from TVH, do you think those lights would have been added in?

Someone has got to recreate this set for a fan film either as a practical set or CG.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Workbee said:
but this was a new set built from scratch.

Not "from scratch" at all. It was still the same wooden formwork and layout from "ST Phase II" - until it was all finally pulled down when VOY ended. The movie bridge consoles for ST V had to be remade because the ST IV versions of them got left out in the elements.

ChristopherPike said:
Could the interviews have perhaps been filmed on set of the Universal ride? That's where the TMP Bridge set finished up wasn't it? DeForest, Walter, Nichelle and George filmed some footage on the set around that time, which got intergrated into the video participants got to keep.

The bridge itself didn't move to Universal.

Universal LA had its own copy of the movie bridge, complete with moving segments, and the finished video sold to participants used ST II and III stock footage integrated with the live audience performances.

Universal Florida did a different experience, filming its audience participants on a very small set segment of bridge set, IIRC, then adding stock footage of the San Francisco air tram sequence (TMP) and newly-filmed performances from Kelley, Doohan, Nichols, et al, on a/the bridge set that resembled the bridge from the end of ST IV. But was it the Paramount bridge? I guess so.

 

[Workbee]

^ If it was Paramount's bridge, where did those lamps in the turbolift alcovse come from? Were those part of the segment constructed for the Universal Florida attraction?

I liked the Universal LA version better -- thought it was neat how the set would have things pop off and "break" for the attack segment

 

[Therin of Andor]

Workbee said:
^ If it was Paramount's bridge, where did those lamps in the turbolift alcovse come from?

I think I've worked it out. Those round lamp thingies would have been added to the Paramount movie bridge set's elevator alcove to make the Klingons' stolen Miranda class vessel look different, but then someone has left them in position when DeForest Kelley et al were ready to film their Enterprise scenes.

 

[Workbee]

Rad - works for me.

So how do we bring this set back?

Oh, in regards to the viewscreen lights...

They could have been added as an optical element on the bottom of the viewscreen image as they did in TWOK (see the scene when Kirk and McCoy first step on the real enterprise bridge). Though I would like to think they would have been blue instead of red to keep consistent with the color scheme of the new bridge.

Simple! No rework or the set required.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Workbee said:
So how do we bring this set back?

This would be the set with the consoles that were stored outside, poorly covered, and partly persished beyond repair in the elements. What do you mean "bring it back"?

JJ Abrams is in charge of the next movie and will be designing his own starship bridge for ST XI.

 

[Workbee]

I meant, I want to see it back on the movie, TV, or computer screen in some form. Most likely the latter as a fan film. Wasn't being completely serious btw -- mostly just wishful thinking.

-WB

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Workbee said:
I noticed this too. I wonder if they were prepping it to become the battle bridge in TNG. Or perhaps the damage as depicted in TSFS was not a severe as it appeared onscreen.

No, TNG was not much more than nearing an announcement at the time - no format, no characters, no specifics.

 

[Warp Coil]

GeorgeKirk said:

Doomsday said:
Was it not the same set they used for STV?

No, the bridge set seen in TFF was completely new.

. . .it would have been a good way to bundle some of V's set cost into IV's budget and make V more profitable.

At the time they refurbished the TMP bridge set for its appearance as the bridge of the Enterprise-A, that was probably the intention. However between the time that TVH wrapped and TFF started production, the set was cannabilized for its appearances as the Enterpise-D battle bridge, Stargazer bridge, and courtroom in "Measure of a Man", making its use in TFF impractical.

Yes, at the time TVH was being filmed, they probably intended to re-use the bridge set in the next film, so they re-painted it to get it ready. They didn't know that the set would end up getting absorbed into the TNG sets as the battle bridge and numerous other sets.

It's kinda like how the team at ILM re-badged the 1701-D model to 1701-E after the filming of GEN. They assumed that a new Galaxy-class ship would be used in the next movie, but they ended up designing a whole new ship instead.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Warp Coil said:
Yes, at the time TVH was being filmed, they probably intended to re-use the bridge set in the next film, so they re-painted it to get it ready. They didn't know that the set would end up getting absorbed into the TNG sets as the battle bridge and numerous other sets.

Even though TNG changed the set around a bit during the first season (adding those flat side walls and pulling out all the old consoles), they probably could have put the bridge back to its original configuration for TFF if (and that's a big if) the TNG folks hadn't left the set sitting out in the elements. It was that exposure to bad weather that resulted in Herman Zimmerman designing a new bridge for TFF, and the TNG design folks having to revamp the battle bridge set for their second season.