TMP-era Bridges

[Wingsley]

When looking at the various bridges of the TOS-based movies era, especially TWOK, TSFS, and TVH, it is obvious that the Enterprise, Enterprise-A, Reliant and Grissom share bridge components. But how similar are these sets? Are they essentially exact same set, just lit differently? Or were there other differences?

And were the chairs used on the Enterprise bridge the same as those used on the other ships?

 

[Albertese]

Off the top of my head, they were the same sets, though, besides just being lit differently, the consoles were rearranged. For example, the Reliant has the turbolift door open directly behind the captain's chair, while the 1701's various bridges had a console directly behind the captain and the turbolift doors to the sides.

As to the chairs, I think they are the same but with different colored slipcases.

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than I will crop up with better answers...

--Alex

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Enterprise and Reliant bridges definitely used the same set. I'm fairly sure the Grissom (ST3) and Saratoga (ST4) also shared a set, but I'm NOT sure if it's the same as the Enterprise/Reliant one.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, the Enterprise, Reliant, Grissom, and Enterprise-A bridges in the first four movies were all the same bridge set on Paramount's Stage 9, which was later redressed for TNG as the Enterprise-D battle bridge, the bridges of the Stargazer, Enterprise-C, and Lantree, the "Measure of a Man" courtroom, and Data's cybernetics lab. It had been so heavily rebuilt for TNG that they needed to build a new Enterprise-A bridge for the fifth and sixth movies (also used for the Excelsior bridge in TUC and "Flashback," the bridges for the Enterprise-B, Prometheus, Equinox, and others, and the Amargosa observatory in GEN).

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Battle_bridge#Background_information
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-A)#Background_information

 

[Basill]

From TMP to TVH, they are indeed all (Enterprise, Reliant, Grissom, Saratoga) the same single set with the individual station sections rearranged, relit, and even repainted to effect. The chairs are also the same, as mentioned above, either with or without the full seat covers (which were first added to the Enterprise for TWOK, and probably dyed pink for the Grissom in TSFS). Without the full covers, the chair-backs were a set of individually partitioned cushions (Captain's chair had the most individual cushions and were darker) which may or may not have been reupholstered between TMP and TWOK. The Excelsior bridge from TSFS was of course a totally new construct, and the Enterprise from TFF was almost entirely new, though it might have had some elements of the earlier bridge. That set would be refit for TUC and serve as the Enterprise and Excelsior with some distinguishing features.

*Heh, it seems Christopher beat me by five minutes.

 

[Wingsley]

Has anyone ever done any 3D CGI of the Excelsior sets from TSFS?

 

[Wingsley]

I just scanned over some of the screencaps at TrekCore. It looks like the Grissom bridge in TSFS has no railing, and that the stations may all be on the same level (no lower tier for the center of the room). Does anyone else see that?

 

[lennier1]

Has anyone ever done any 3D CGI of the Excelsior sets from TSFS?

Sean Robertson once built a great model, but that was over ten years ago:
http://database.alpha-command.com/images/2/2d/Excelsior-Bridge.jpg

 

[137th Gebirg]

I just scanned over some of the screencaps at TrekCore. It looks like the Grissom bridge in TSFS has no railing, and that the stations may all be on the same level (no lower tier for the center of the room). Does anyone else see that?

Yes, I noticed that too. Additionally, the command chair and helm/nav console both appear to be closer to the far wall than on the "bigger ships", implying that the bridge itself might be smaller, and possibly oval. Ex Astris has an excellent set of bridge illustrations that compare all the bridges discussed, including the Grissom. I still wonder to this day why in God's name did they go with pink slip covers on those chairs?

The Stargazer in TNG also used the TMP bridge (because it was originally supposed to be another refit Connie before they decided to invent the new "Constellation class"), but the whole front of it was truncated to make room for the Captain's ready room in the front of the module. Very odd set-up.

 

[Christopher]

The Stargazer in TNG also used the TMP bridge (because it was originally supposed to be another refit Connie before they decided to invent the new "Constellation class"), but the whole front of it was truncated to make room for the Captain's ready room in the front of the module. Very odd set-up.

That's because it was a redress of the battle bridge set constructed for "Encounter at Farpoint." The battle bridge restructured the front half of the bridge to make it smaller and added the ready room up front. The Stargazer bridge used that same basic configuration and just changed the consoles, seats, graphics, and paint scheme. (And maybe altered the forward side walls a bit, if those graphics I linked to are accurate.)

 

[Timo]

Additionally, the command chair and helm/nav console both appear to be closer to the far wall than on the "bigger ships", implying that the bridge itself might be smaller, and possibly oval.

...In practical terms, what seems to have happened is that the console wedges, helm pulpit and so forth (all separately moveable) were shot at a separate location, on a flat floor, for some unknown reason, rather than on the usual soundstage.

The "oval" thing would come from the use of less than a full circle's worth of wedges (essentially just the aft port one-third), necessitating confined shooting angles that couldn't quite reproduce the circular illusion.

Who knows, perhaps there was an intent to construct another cheapo set for the science ship, but it turned out that the "cheapo" Excelsior wasn't that cheap after all and the Grissom had to be made of leftover bits of one of the other two bridges. And the Enterprise one was chosen, for the better quality of the elements and for preserving the "futureness" of the other design. Yet perhaps Stage 9 had already been torn down with the assumption that the Grissom scenes would be shot elsewhere, and placing the elements on a flat floor was all they had the time and the money for.

Or then this was actually done to make the Grissom look smaller, and damn the costs of not reusing either of the other two bridges as is!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

Keep in mind that the Grissom is presented to the audience as a lighter, simpler and possibly much smaller design than the heavier Constitution-class and "Connie"-derived vessels shown. So while it's expected Grissom would use the same or similar technology, she would be considerably scaled down. We don't know what the size of the Grissom crew was, but we can assume she probably had less than 100... possibly less than 50. If the Oberths were Starfleet's version of the "Class Four, Star-Drive Vessel" Spock reported on in "Bread and Circuses", she could've had a crew of 47 like the Beagle.

 

[Timo]

It's also possible that she was supposed to be as big as or bigger than a Constitution (as per the window rows and the fact that a full Captain commanded her), and merely weak and vulnerable for being a science ship rather than a fighting vessel...

If, OTOH, we accept the TNG era size suggested for the ship, we could as well accept the TNG range of crew sizes - from just seven to eighty. A trusted top officer, a top civilian expert, two-three other officers and then a few enlisteds could be all that was needed to fly that sensor platform (it is a bit unusual for an enlisted to be sitting at the helm console). Starfleet could have been playing need-to-know and keeping even its own personnel at an arm's length of Genesis, hence the smallest number of crew possible for the ship type.

But yeah, when in doubt, 47.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

It seems the most likely, since the ship's structure never made sense size-wise. I would love to see a partial re-imagining of this ship, for both the pre-TOS/TOS era and the TMP era, to try to make her more logical in design.

Thanks to 137th Gebirg for sharing the link to Ex Astris for those bridge comparison images. I do not recall ever seeing a drawing of the original NX-2000 Excelsior's bridge before.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Most welcome! IIRC, the illustrations were all compiled from different issues of the Official Star Trek Magazine/Fact Files series from the previous decade.

Yes, the Oberth's crew compliment is just as nebulous as the true purpose of its secondary hull, both of which are inexorably tied. If we are to assume that it is a massive uninhabited sensor package, for example, it would make sense that the primary hull area would only support up to 60 or 80 people. However, if we are to assume that they somehow have a way to get crew members down there, either through inter-ship beaming or via super-narrow turboshaft through the pylons, making the secondary hull habitable, then that would arguably double, possibly triple the number of onboard personnel.

Many official TNG-era MSD's I recall seeing show it to possess viable decks, cargo storage and all kinds of other equipment. Access to that area has always been a head-scratcher, though. Feels like, when ILM made the model for TSFS, they were focusing more on form over function on that one.

In truth, I've always liked this design, but it does have its problems from a practicality POV. I just wish the damn thing didn't have such a glass jaw from a single photon hit! Additionally, I am convinced that whatever sentient being who installed the hideously-colored bridge seating clearly sees in a different visible-light spectrum than standard humanoids.

 

[Wingsley]

I would like to see the Oberth re-imagined somewhat, to give her turbolift-able pylons so she could have an engine room cargo bay and shuttle bay down below. It is a cute design and I prefer it to FJ's Saladin/Hermes.

 

[137th Gebirg]

IIRC, it does have what appear to be 3 shuttlebay doors at the outer edge of the saucer, facing direct forward, port and starboard, at 90-degree angles from each other around the circumference. Based on the size the Oberth should be, however, those doors seem to pose a bit of a scaling problem - I think making the ship bigger than it ought to be, as the doors appear too small to take in a shuttle based on the window sizes.

Ex Astris also has a complete article on this and all the other things we talked about regarding the Oberth with vessel sizes ranging from 120 to 300 meters. It also has the on-screen MSD's I mentioned.

 

[JES]

I don't know, maybe the shuttlebay doors are still big enough for shuttlepods?

They could just be there to store mostly work bees, so that repairs can be done on the fly, though I'd question what those other two doors are for, suggesting shuttlepods too, and don't forget about cargo.

 

[lennier1]

Look at Voyager's shuttlebay doors. With the shuttle's computers or the bay's tractor beam emitters guiding you in you don't seem to really need that much clearance.

 

[Timo]

I don't see the problem with those pylons. Even the 120 m interpretation of this vessel can have quite reasonably sized elevators running down those things (as long as we don't sweat verticality, and with AG, we really shouldn't). The elevators of the Enterprises always seemed oddly sized, too large for the average bunch of people seen using them but too small for stretchers or the like.

I rather like the idea that there would exist starships too small to carry shuttles, just like there exist oceangoing warships too small to carry helicopters today, let alone green- or brown-water combatants... And TOS sort of implies that the carrying of even a small number of shuttles (only two in evidence in "The Galileo Seven") is a major structural investment, hogging the better part of an entire starship hull section.

Timo Saloniemi