Travel Pod - with a booster???

[Crazy Eddie]

I'll say.

 

[Albertese]

Yeah! I always liked the pentagonal docking port.

--Alex

 

[Maurice]

For the record, that's site's been discussed here before, notably the V'ger model and the use of what later became the Vulcan set paving stones on the ceiling of the engine room. The pentagonal docking port was designed to fit the insane idea they had to build a space office complex out of dodecahedrons. You can see a ton of them to the right and behind Jeffrey Katzenberg in this pic, and the frame for perhaps a large scale one in the center background.

 

[blssdwlf]

Check out this great article on the Phase II and TMP pre-production: http://beyondthemarquee.com/21244/

It's got two interesting pictures of an enlarged engineering hull section for the Jefferies Phase II Enterprise - one with an interesting docking port variation.

Bob

Good find, Bob!

12' diameter circular doors. That's a bigger ship!

 

[Robert Comsol]

According to Richard Taylor's anecdote it wasn't a bigger ship but bigger doors Gene Roddenberry originally insisted upon.

Bob

 

[Maurice]

I do question the accuracy of some of Taylor's claims. He worked for the VFX house, so, for example why would he be consulted about things like the bridge set? That's not typically how it works in Hollywood in a union shop like Paramount.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Well, he's a DESIGNER, not strictly a builder. They were working to build Star Trek as a new TV series, which meant they needed to make sure their VFX would work out reasonably well without a lot of hickups.

 

[drt]

He also seems to be mis-remembering the "twelve-foot doors" thing, which appears to be applicable only for the Phase II model.

 

[Maurice]

Well, he's a DESIGNER, not strictly a builder. They were working to build Star Trek as a new TV series, which meant they needed to make sure their VFX would work out reasonably well without a lot of hickups.

Taylor was working for RA&A on TMP, not Phase 2. Brick Price Movie Miniatures were doing the Phase 2 models.

I was saying Taylor's claims re some of the design decisions he said he influenced (seat restraints, etc.) don't match what a VFX design director would normally do. I suppose it's possible he toured the sets and questioned some of the design decisions, but he seems to overstate his involvement in the process outside the VFX. But by this time I'm used to various people who worked on Trek all claiming to have suggested or designed the same thing.

 

[Marlonius]

Bit of a stretch, but I'll throw it out there...the travel pod was fitted with a rear projection rig to throw up the image of the passengers such that they could be seen from front view. Could this "booster" be the remnant of part of that apparatus?

 

[Maurice]

It was used with rear projection in TMP without any such additions.

 

[publiusr]

I'd like to see the Pod being the command section of a spartan ringship Enterprise-type warpsled. It can detach after a transit