Torpedo tubes in The Unidiscovered Country

[Anticitizen]

In The Undiscovered Country, during the battle against the Bird of Prey, the Enterprise only fires torpedoes from the starboard-side torpedo launcher. Why is this?

In The Wrath of Khan, the port side launcher was destroyed by the Reliant's phaser fire, and in the final battle in that movie, all torpedoes were fired from the starboard launcher as a result. Did the FX guys just replay TWOK footage for reference before making the sequences, and forget that the reason the Enterprise only used that one launcher was because of damage to the other?

(I have a similar question about Jedi robes - did costume designers for the prequels forget that the only reason Obi-Wan wore robes is because he lived on a desert planet? Uncle Owen was no jedi, but he dressed like one... I guess this question is best answered on another forum though...)

 

[cardinal biggles]

I'll have to watch it again. I could have sworn we saw the Enterprise using both tubes.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Nope, no reused TWOK footage and both tubes are used. The torpedo effects are different, TWOK is more like TMP's Klingon torps and TUC has more of a stretched bolt-like appearance.

 

[Maurice]

I think this is mistaken. I just looked at it on YouTube and in the shot when the E fires two torpedoes it looks like the first emerges from the port tube and the second from the starboard tube.

 

[cardinal biggles]

I just popped in the DVD, and can verify what you saw. It's hard to tell from those behind-and-to-the-side shots, but from the frontal shot, there's definitely one torpedo coming from each tube.

 

[Anticitizen]

Yep, y'all are right. I picked up the DVD on the way home from work. I had previously had a VHS copy, taped off the TV sometime in the last decade... so disregard my post

I'll get the blu-ray around 2020, probably...

 

[Search4]

The WOK torpedoes and damage were on the original 1701 refit, which was destroyed in Search for Spock. The Undiscovered ship was the A. Different ship so no sign of the WOK damage.

In real life, the WOK damage was done to a special close up model on one side. In Search for Spock they damaged the other side (look closely at the Klingon face-off) which had no damage in WOK. Then for Undiscovered, the original WOK damaged side was fixed for the beauty shot of the "A" where it fires the torpedo. So the model, when later seen at the Christie's auction, was damaged on the opposite side of the WOK damage, and "like new" on the WOK side.

 

[Anticitizen]

Interesting trivia, thanks.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Wait, so they didn't build a new model for the -A?