The other TOS filming models

[Ronald Held]

I actually thought that it eats some, converts some to energy and leaves the remaining chunks as it moves on.
The "hungerier" it is the more of the planet it eats. Maybe it dissects planets based on what elements it is short of?

 

[Matango]

Planet killer was heavy duty aluminum foil.
The kind that gaffers use.
What's unusual is that very little (color) production material has ever turned up for the lesser models.
K7, Shuttlecraft, Romulan, Doomsday Machine, and while not a ship, the shuttlebay are particularly hard or impossible to find.
I've searched high and low for production material on these miniatures to no avail.

 

[Forbin]

Ronald Held said:
I actually thought that it eats some, converts some to energy and leaves the remaining chunks as it moves on.
The "hungerier" it is the more of the planet it eats. Maybe it dissects planets based on what elements it is short of?

That's my working theory. It was designed as a weapon, to destroy a whole planet by cutting it apart. It consumes only what it needs for fuel, leaving the rest. Destroying the planet is its primary mission. Eating chunks of it is a secondary effect.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I could quibble about the absurdity of the idea that any doomsday weapon would ever need to destroy a whole planet, when you can eradicate all its life for a tiny fraction of the energy just by destroying its outer surface. But that's a whole other discussion. I guess in this case one could argue that the extraneous process of shattering the entire planet was included for the sheer horror of it, since the weapon was presumably intended as a deterrent.

 

[Matango]

Did the thread get hijacked ?

 

[Christopher]

No, it just meandered a bit, as threads will.

 

[Ronald Held]

IMO, slicing up a planet to pieces is a strong deterrant.

 

[Doomsday]

Christopher said:
Well, I could quibble about the absurdity of the idea that any doomsday weapon would ever need to destroy a whole planet, when you can eradicate all its life for a tiny fraction of the energy just by destroying its outer surface. But that's a whole other discussion. I guess in this case one could argue that the extraneous process of shattering the entire planet was included for the sheer horror of it, since the weapon was presumably intended as a deterrent.

This is a good point--but I always thought that since it was a "Doomsday" weapon, the designers probably approached its function with a "scorched-earth" mentality. A planet where all life was killed, but the planet itself remained, could conceivably be re-populated and used again(assuming a space-faring culture with multiple planetary systems). Destroying the planet not only kills the inhabitants, but ensures no one else could ever use it, even for its raw materials.

I agree, this seems an awful waste, but since we are talking about a weapon designed to destroy both sides in a war(as Kirk theorized) that isn't really an issue for the designers.

 

[Christopher]

Doomsday said:
This is a good point--but I always thought that since it was a "Doomsday" weapon, the designers probably approached its function with a "scorched-earth" mentality.

Literally, in this case.

 

[Doomsday]

Christopher said:

Doomsday said:
This is a good point--but I always thought that since it was a "Doomsday" weapon, the designers probably approached its function with a "scorched-earth" mentality.

Literally, in this case.

Yeah, I guess the scare-quotes were unnecessary, in this case!

 

[Starship Freak]

Well, they do mention in the episode that the doomsday machine feeds on the planets it destroys. So, by designing the weapon as not selfsustaining, and not just destroying the surface, but in fact needing to destroy planets to "feed", they in fact create a runaway monster out of control.

 

[TreksR4Kids]

Matango said:
Planet killer was heavy duty aluminum foil.
The kind that gaffers use.
What's unusual is that very little (color) production material has ever turned up for the lesser models.
K7, Shuttlecraft, Romulan, Doomsday Machine, and while not a ship, the shuttlebay are particularly hard or impossible to find.
I've searched high and low for production material on these miniatures to no avail.

what do yo mean by production material...models?

 

[Christopher]

From context, it sounds like "production material" means behind-the-scenes or close-up photos and other documentation.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Therin of Andor said:

Harry said:
Fesarius
I assume they dumped it right after use.

Made of ping pong (table tennis) balls!

Romulan Bird of Prey
the delicate looking model; You'd think it would have deserved a similar role as the Klingon Battlecruiser, but it was only used once.

Because it went missing/stolen. I also heard it was made of plaster, and was dropped.

There are lots of stories about the Romulan BOP, although from what I have read and heard the real fate of the model is that it was simply discarded. There is no real proof one way or the other, but the sinister stories about the BOP's fate are probably all BS. We will only ever know if it turns up again, which I suspect it will not.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Plum said:
There is a photo of the Romulan ship near the bottom of this page. No material details are given but you can see what size the model was, and how it was filmed.

startrekhistory link

Very cool site. Kind of weird how some images have been buried in static Flash objects, though.

 

[alchemist]

137th Gebirg said:

Very cool site. Kind of weird how some images have been buried in static Flash objects, though.

Copy protection.

 

[TreksR4Kids]

Christopher said:
From context, it sounds like "production material" means behind-the-scenes or close-up photos and other documentation.

thanks. in that case there are some photos from clips available. i have some clips that i bought from lincolne enterprises in color that show the romulan on the soundstage. and the galileo.

 

[uss_griffin]

^ Can your photos be seen online somewhere?

(The images at the trek restoration page mostly came from those film cells sold by Lincoln Enterprises, I believe.)

I want to make a studio-scale replica of the BOP, but I haven't seen enough behind-the-scenes pictures to even accurately establish its size yet.

 

[TreksR4Kids]

uss_griffin said:
^ Can your photos be seen online somewhere?

no, sorry, i don't have a webpage.

 

[Ronald Held]

Backing up a little, I thought that the planet eater was a windsock dipped in cement.