Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge?

[Mycroft Maxwell]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

I may be wrong but I am sure some of the Excelsior consoles also had switches, its been a while since I last saw the film but I think you see the Helm station has buttons etc when they are riding out the shockwave.

Yeah You're right, I just checked.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=496&page=4

Click on the image of the guy pressing the buttons on the console

 

[Workbee]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

Looking at the picture and I can't quite tell. It looks like the "buttons" might just be drawn on the plexiglass. Then again, they might be real.

Going OT, or maybe back On Topic, if the TVH set survived and was able to be reused for TFF, do you think it would have been retrofitted back with standard CRTs? It does seem like all the CRTs were removed and replaced with plexiglass sheets. Which works fine for a (nearly) static shot or two, but were this to be used for an entire feature, the lack of movement on the displays would quickly become apparent.

 

[Lance]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

^ I'd like to think so.

I mean, even the Ent-D bridge workstations were all fitted with CRTs for Generations, because they realised how static the originals would look on a movie screen if there wasn't moving graphics going across them in the background.

 

[trevanian]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

Looking at the picture and I can't quite tell. It looks like the "buttons" might just be drawn on the plexiglass. Then again, they might be real.

Going OT, or maybe back On Topic, if the TVH set survived and was able to be reused for TFF, do you think it would have been retrofitted back with standard CRTs? .

Yeah, in fact I think it was budgeted that way all along. They bought x-number of Proton monitors for TFF, and it wasn't anywhere near enough to fill all the screens for the new bridge they wound up building, hence all the polarmotion gags and the okudagrams to fill out the non-monitors screens. Though why the monitors used from TWOK onward were gone, or where they went, who knows? They didn't wind up on TV trek productions, because CRTs didn't show up in ModernTrek till DS9.

The Burbank Studios 24 frame video interlock that was pricey and used on TWOK and SFS was presumably kept for use on TFF, and it may have been for TUC also. Associate Producer Brooke Breton oversaw the playback on TUC (and various post vfx for first season TNG) and there was definitely 24 frame playback, which they somehow synchronized with the 35mm main viewscreen RP.

 

[ATimson]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

They bought x-number of Proton monitors for TFF, and it wasn't anywhere near enough to fill all the screens for the new bridge they wound up building, hence all the polarmotion gags and the okudagrams to fill out the non-monitors screens. Though why the monitors used from TWOK onward were gone, or where they went, who knows?

Were the TWOK screens actually full color? I recall the displays being monochrome-only in TWOK/TSFS, but I don't know if that's because of the animation used to drive them or if that was all the monitors could do.

Anyways, seeing as how the TFF displays were full-color, they probably wouldn't have wanted to mix-and-match. Assuming, of course, that any of the TWOK displays survived both the bridge damage in TSFS and the years in storage.

 

[trevanian]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

Pretty sure all the monitors were always color. They were playing back the red alert signs from TMP, weren't they? And all of those painfully low rez graphics in SFS were color, like the ones showing a life form down on Genesis. In fact, the Genesis graphic on Spock's monitor was the same as the graphic seen RP'd in sickbay on TMP, and that's not got much color (blue and white) but it ain't black&white.

I think there's less color in most of the TFF ones, or at least a more muted range, which would be in keeping with the color scheme. I always like that the TFF bridge is one that conforms to Joe Jennings' dictum about having someplace different to go visually when the alert starts or the meteor is coming, because when the TFF bridge goes on red alert, it practically becomes a whole different environment, whereas TUC's bridge looks pretty much the same, just with a red tinge.

 

[Workbee]

Re: Was the Star Trek 4 Ent-A bridge a redress of the Excelsior bridge

^ I'd like to think so.

I mean, even the Ent-D bridge workstations were all fitted with CRTs for Generations, because they realised how static the originals would look on a movie screen if there wasn't moving graphics going across them in the background.

I preferred the approach the TNG series took in later seasons: adding dynamic content in post production. This kept the smooth black finish. When LCDs were added, you could clearly see it was an LCD, and the backlit blacks didn't match the deep black of the rest of the console. Unfortunately, the use of LCDs seem to persist even in STID, though disguised behind lens flares.