The changes in the Enterprise-D bridge in Generations...

[Flake]

Pretty sure they wanted to put the stations on the sides of the bridge from Day 1 but it was Gene who said no.

 

[BillJ]

Pretty sure they wanted to put the stations on the sides of the bridge from Day 1 but it was Gene who said no.

It was the budget that said no. But I always thought the 'fewer stations/less cluttered' look made the Enterprise-D bridge the most advanced looking of them all.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Pretty sure they wanted to put the stations on the sides of the bridge from Day 1 but it was Gene who said no.

It was either Gene or Bob Justman.

The problem with the extra bridge stations is that you need people to man them. That means hiring non-speaking extras to stand around and look busy during shots. That costs the production money. So the bridge side stations were nixed as a money-saving move.

That's why I think it was a Bob Justman move.

 

[trevanian]

From a cinematic perspective it made perfect sense. The original TV bridge was built with a 4:3 aspect ratio, while the movie bridge needed to fit a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Except the movie was in 2.35:1

Thomas Doherty once wrote that submarine movies are made for widescreen, and I think the same is usually true for starships (though I'd make an exception for the DARK STAR.)

 

[Maurice]

The bridge didn't have extra stations because they didn't want a bridge full of control consoles. It was the whole "technology unchained" idea: with all the high tech, you don't need a bunch of people sitting at stations all day. The rear stations were they for the odd times they wanted/needed them. It wasn't a matter of money, 4x3 considerations or whatever else you want to invent.

And you don't need a wide set to shoot widescreen, you just have to know how to frame a shot.

 

[wingsabre]

I understand the whole technology unchained concept since the bridge crew felt a lot smaller, and for the most part Riker and Troi never had an official station. They just sat there and advised for the most part. Troi was counselor, and theoretically communications, but Worf handled hailing. So overall, the most vital sections on the bridge were Ops, Security, and Helm. The design was appropriate for that.

However I think it was not that pragmatic of a design. There's been so many episodes where Data was in the rear section, and had to turn around to either talk to the captain, or view the view screen. When Gordi goes on the bridge, he would transfer controls to that stations. The rear stations looked like they were designed to be axillary stations or multipurpose stations. Additionally, half the bridge was higher than the captain's chair, requiring most major battle scenes to be done with Picard standing. It was a huge blind spot. Yes for filming, standing automatically implies more action, however from a pragmatic perspective it was needed to allow Picard a greater view of the bridge and stations to assess the situation. You could contrast that with TOS bridge, Voyager's bridge, Ent-E's bridge or the Defiant's bridge where the captains could assess thing easily while on their chair. Moving science, engineering and communications to the sides and elevating the captain's chair makes sense because it's a more efficient design. The back stations could simply be axillary and they don't have to have extras for that. That's how they handeled the bridge on Voyager and the subsequent Ent-E.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Is it really necessary for a captain to see every station on the bridge? Kirk's bridge allowed him to do that, but that may have been more of a luxury than an absolute necessity. I think on some real navy ships, the captain's chair is at the front of the bridge with various stations behind it.

 

[trevanian]

The bridge didn't have extra stations because they didn't want a bridge full of control consoles. It was the whole "technology unchained" idea: with all the high tech, you don't need a bunch of people sitting at stations all day. The rear stations were they for the odd times they wanted/needed them. It wasn't a matter of money, 4x3 considerations or whatever else you want to invent.

And you don't need a wide set to shoot widescreen, you just have to know how to frame a shot.

Framing Worf in was hard even in 4:3. I'm kinda surprised they didn't wind up dutching low-angle shots past Picard looking up at him. Ideally, they should have built a little sinkhole for him to stand in to bring him down in the frame (especially given the actor's height.)

 

[wingsabre]

Is it really necessary for a captain to see every station on the bridge? Kirk's bridge allowed him to do that, but that may have been more of a luxury than an absolute necessity. I think on some real navy ships, the captain's chair is at the front of the bridge with various stations behind it.

It's not really necessary for a captain to see every station on the bridge, but it's more efficient, more pragmatic. I never said the changes were necessary, just said the changes to the bridge made sense because it was more pragmatic.

 

[wingsabre]

The bridge didn't have extra stations because they didn't want a bridge full of control consoles. It was the whole "technology unchained" idea: with all the high tech, you don't need a bunch of people sitting at stations all day. The rear stations were they for the odd times they wanted/needed them. It wasn't a matter of money, 4x3 considerations or whatever else you want to invent.

And you don't need a wide set to shoot widescreen, you just have to know how to frame a shot.

Framing Worf in was hard even in 4:3. I'm kinda surprised they didn't wind up dutching low-angle shots past Picard looking up at him. Ideally, they should have built a little sinkhole for him to stand in to bring him down in the frame (especially given the actor's height.)

The captain's chair was also set several feet below where Worf stood.

 

[trevanian]

That's what I mean, you needed a drop to plop Worf into so he wasn't this big vertical crossbar at odds with 4:3 framing (unless you're 4:3 IMAX with the '4' being the vertical dimension rather than the horizontal one.)

 

[C.E. Evans]

Is it really necessary for a captain to see every station on the bridge? Kirk's bridge allowed him to do that, but that may have been more of a luxury than an absolute necessity. I think on some real navy ships, the captain's chair is at the front of the bridge with various stations behind it.

It's not really necessary for a captain to see every station on the bridge, but it's more efficient, more pragmatic.

Not really. It truly is more of luxury than a necessity. The more important thing is for a bridge station to be within earshot of a captain.

I never said the changes were necessary, just said the changes to the bridge made sense because it was more pragmatic.

It's not even pragmatic. It's just something some fans are used to seeing from TOS.

 

[publiusr]

I rather liked the movie bridge myself. On widescreen, it was probably thought that the mostly empty design wouldn't film well. I seem to remember a documentary well they had to tell Frakes and Stewart to not stand so close to one another, which they had to do for TV.

 

[Galileo7]

I liked the changes. I thought it worked well for the big screen and gave the bridge more a sense of depth and being a busy command center. But IIRC, I think one of the ideas about its more sparse look during the TV series was an initial thought that 24th-Century technology could do more with fewer consoles (or at least, the bridge didn't need to be totally filled with consoles anyway).

In-universe, my theory is that the Enterprise-D was only in the first phase of her operational life during the TV series and was now about to embark on her second phase--perhaps finally embarking on a 10-15 year mission of exploration.

Agree, the GENERATIONS 1701-D Bridge-revisions looked great on screen. I also liked the Stellar Cartography set.

 

[Kor]

I enjoyed seeing Stellar Cartography. In the big scheme of things, though, I wish they had spent more resources on making a better story.

Kor

 

[STEPhon IT]

I rather liked the movie bridge myself. On widescreen, it was probably thought that the mostly empty design wouldn't film well. I seem to remember a documentary well they had to tell Frakes and Stewart to not stand so close to one another, which they had to do for TV.

It seems the upgrade for the 1701 D bridge was done so the filmmakers could produce the crash scene more dramatically. The whole redress wasn't necessary especially when they decided to dim the lighting making it harder to see the stuff that was done.

 

[Lance]

Interesting to see this topic pop up again, as I was only thinking about the GENS bridge the other day.

As i understand it the production staff had wanted to add additional consoles to the Bridge for years (and did so in Yesterday's Enterprise). The issue was never SHOULD they add more consoles...they all wanted to. The Issue was the fact that additional stations meant that they would need to pay extras to man them. The TNG bridge, compared to all of the others, had relatively few extras in most episodes. People tend to forget that that bridge was designed to DEEMPHASIZE its role as a command center...which is why it had so few stations. Imagine what fans might of thought if we'd gotten some of the other bridge concepts that featured even fewer stations but made up for them with things like couches and one even had what looked like a restaurant booth.

Yeah, I do kind of feel this point of view. 1701-D's bridge was meant to be 'technology unchained' or whatever it was Gene Roddenberry called it, but the GENS revamp almost goes too far to the other extreme and makes things look ridiculously busy.

Speaking of weird set changes in Generations...the oddest one to reconcile for me was the change in engineering. In Encounter at Farpoint there are actually 4 corridors that run into engineering. After the pilot that number was reduced to 2 and the entrances were rather crudely covered up with large computer panels. They stayed that way for seven years. The amusing part about the change was that despite the addition of the computers they never bothered to change the carpet to reflect the fact that the opening was now a wall. So if you look closely at set pictures, you se the beige border on the carpet, that usually curves with the walls, just turn and go straight into a wall for no reason.

Of course, the real-life reason was that the Engineering set often got redressed as regular corridors and other things (eg. the Gym), which necessitated wheeling out the 'pool table' and pulling the 'plugs' out of the walls. Voila, instant corridors. It is weird how the carpet flows into the wall sections when it's been dressed up as engineering, but it's really only because those wall sections sometimes need to be removed for filming purposes, and it'd look odd if the wall plugs weren't there but the carpet pattern ended at them.

 

[Timo]

Of course, if Starfleet in-universe decided it needed to add new hardware in the form of ugly plugs, rather than aesthetically pleasing ones, it wouldn't bother to change the carpet, either...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MarsWeeps]

Agree, the GENERATIONS 1701-D Bridge-revisions looked great on screen. I also liked the Stellar Cartography set.

Another Necro-thread returns from the dead!

 

[Maurice]

Agree, the GENERATIONS 1701-D Bridge-revisions looked great on screen. I also liked the Stellar Cartography set.

This thread is YEARS old. The moderators prefer us not to wake the dead but start a new thread. If it's over a year since the last reply, best let it lie.