Can someone give the dimensions for the Romulan Bird of Prey seen on TOS? I've seen diagrams that give a length of 110 meters or so, just wondered if someone could confirm this? JDW
JDW... it was never established in any "canon" fashion. I'm personally very much in favor of McMaster's prints being the "best reference" but that's not in any way "official." His drawings ARE correct, as far as I can tell, in terms of shapes and lines, but you could claim that it's ten times the size he showed it and there's nothing that PROVES you'd be wrong (though, logically, the ship as show wasn't intended to be huge and spacious, and "stealthy" ships tend to be small ships).
The only indication of the size of the ship, other than the portholes on the rim, is the description of the ship in the shooting script, which says it looks like a starship hull, with deleted scenes implying espionage. As such, my guess is the hull as roughly the size of the Enterprise's saucer section.
Well, that implies that all Federation starships look just like Enterprise, doesn't it? Why not think that maybe there was a Federation design that was smaller, and an elongated saucer with a fantail, and engines mounted directly from the primary hull. You know, sorta like the Reliant but upside down? Why would it have to be the same size as Enterprise? Maybe that "Reliant Precursor" might be only one deck thick along the hull edge. See, I just imagine a much more varied Starfleet than we saw on-screen in TOS. It's just that the Constitution-class was the most powerful "Ship of the Line" of her time, that's all. As always, your mileage may vary. We don't KNOW any of this.
but DS9Sega is referring to the shooting script, and in those days I'm pretty sure the term starship refers to Enterprise and ships that look exactly like her, ships of the "Starship Class", at least to the writing staff at the time the script was written. For the record though, I also imagine a more varied starfleet in TOS.
The design of the Romulan BoP could be based on a Starfleet ship from an earlier era, it kinda reminds me of the NX Class!? JDW
There's also the concept that if it ain't on the screen, it ain't in the scene. In other words, the notion that the BOP was a modified stolen Starfleet ship went out the airlock pretty early on and has as much weight as Spock being a Martian who drew nourishment via a metal plate on his midsection.
"Spock being a Martian who drew nourishment via a metal plate on his midsection" was never filmed. The scenes where the BoP is said to have been based on a stolen Starfleet design were filmed. http://startrekhistory.com/restoration/lost6.html For some of us, "the concept that if it ain't on the screen, it ain't in the scene" would kill half the fun.
I think it's safe to say that pacing wasn't the only reason that snippet was cut. For one thing, it would've raised questions that they didn't have time to answer in that episode and didn't want to have to come back in another one to tie up the loose ends that were left. Also, the final design doesn't look like a stolen Earth ship, just a slightly more primitive alien one (or are you prepared to argue that Earth cornered the market on cylindical nacelles?). Keeping that line would've only confused things. They also cut Kirk's salute at the end, and the scene of Spock saving the day in the phaser room was filmed both with and without the purple smoke. Are you now going to argue that there really wasn't any smoke in there? Stuff like this is only useful in a "what might've been" kind of discussion. But as evidence of anything that actually counts, sorry, it's inadmissible.
My whole point was that if Wah CHang was building the model of the Romulan ship based on the description given in the script, then the size of the hull would likely have been meant to be roughly the size of the Enterprise's saucer. I mean, the design link IS there, right down to the roughly teardrop shaped superstructure. Sure, the espionage angle was largely dropped, but the fingerprints of that concept linger in the final episode in both dialogue and the enemy ship.
Unfortunately, it's probably next to impossible to work out the time difference between when the principal photography was done on the episode and when the effects footage was done, as well as the design process of the model, where the producers' minds were at by the time the job was handed off to Wah, etc., etc. The whole espionage/stolen design idea could've been dumped while the episode was still in a rough cut stage and the final design hadn't been finalized yet. Anybody wanna research this one? UPDATE: Actually, I do have a little bit of the puzzle. The stage layouts show that "Balance Of Terror" was filmed from July 20 - 27, 1967.
Another theory: Wah got an older copy of the script, was told "make this", and when they saw the model, they thought it was fine, despite having the espionage angle dropped by the time of effects filming.
Tying those kinds of "loose ends" immediately are the hallmarks of ham-fisted writing. With a mysterious enemy, it's always healthy to have a few unknowns. This could be described as "Seven-of-Nine Syndrome", but I digress. Actually, that would have helped tighten the narrative, considering that Stiles refered to traitors and spies very definitively with rather scant evidence. I'm not saying that it its a bad idea to have security on watch during a hostile situation, but the structuring of his remarks support the theory that these lines were filmed, or were dropped just before filming. When making an argument, make sure to not point the gun at your own foot.
A basic mid-range neutral gray. No funky green-tinted stuff like TNG decided all Rommie ships must have.