Interesting is certainly one word for it; in the Chinese sense there's no doubt in my mind it qualifies. It's the rare design that manages to possess not a single "good" angle, but I've always thought McQuarrie pulled it off in that one. I've seen it in a lot of production artwork and from several angles, and in my opinion it's angular and off-balance in all of them. Hard to believe it's the work of the same guy who brought so many elegantly stark designs to Star Wars.Interesting rendition. Of course, it would have been more interesting to have used something closer to the Ralph McQuarrie redesign, but to each his own...
That Wacky Redhead
- Thread starter Brainbin
- Start date
Also, sort-of on topic: when did Rod Serling die ITTL? I know it was a couple of months sooner than IOTL, but still...
Thande
Donor
Good update and re the new Enterprise design: it's a good compromise if you're going for conservative changes, basically just incorporating things that they wished they could have done at the time. (Along the same lines, it might feature a version of Matt Jeffrie's more streamlined design for the shuttlecraft - see here and
for a fan rendition - though problems with shuttle sets were still causing chaos even in the TNG era in OTL).
The major shift I notice is that the weapons seem to be identified with features on the outside of the ship now, which was always the major problem with the OTL Enterprise design and something that they had to remedy for the films. As far as I can see, you (or nixonshead) have put a double phaser bank in the most usual position in front of the ventral dome, then another one at the front of the bridge pod assembly (where the Franz Joseph plans have the torpedo launchers), then added single phaser banks in triangulated position both dorsal and ventral on the saucer and also just above the shuttlebay. That's an interesting way of doing it and doesn't seem like overkill, as many attempts to identify the weapons banks on the TOS Enterprise often are. The torpedo launchers are also in their movie positions but with less of that ugly box module thing and, if I'm correct, there's also an aft torpedo launcher in between the impulse engines, which is where the technical people wanted to put it on the Defiant in "In A Mirror, Darkly" but ended up not working out that way.
Really the only way to explain the weapons effects in TOS (OTL at least) is if you regard the ventral dome as being some kind of weapons cluster that can fire both phasers and torpedoes, and perhaps can rotate to fire phasers in any direction--but that doesn't seem a very satisfying way of doing it. And that's without getting into the slightly ridiculous effect in TAS where the dome is shown both firing phasers and a continuous stream of torpedoes in between. I think I prefer your way of doing it.
Is there any feature here explicitly identified with a tractor beam emitter? I think they were shown as invisible on the show on the rare occasion they were mentioned, but TAS showed it as a visible effect coming from the keel below the shuttlebay.
This is also a better compromise between the perhaps too fragile or dated looking golden dish style of main sensor/navigational deflector and the overly radical shift we got with the movies in OTL.
Like the movie Enterprise, I note that you shift from three triangular landing pads to four rectangular ones, which would obviously be a nightmare if you were actually refitting a ship that way in real life, but I doubt many people would notice anyway
I wonder if they might have changed things like the colour and design of the signage just for the sake of it, but I suppose that comes down to an editorial mandate.
The major shift I notice is that the weapons seem to be identified with features on the outside of the ship now, which was always the major problem with the OTL Enterprise design and something that they had to remedy for the films. As far as I can see, you (or nixonshead) have put a double phaser bank in the most usual position in front of the ventral dome, then another one at the front of the bridge pod assembly (where the Franz Joseph plans have the torpedo launchers), then added single phaser banks in triangulated position both dorsal and ventral on the saucer and also just above the shuttlebay. That's an interesting way of doing it and doesn't seem like overkill, as many attempts to identify the weapons banks on the TOS Enterprise often are. The torpedo launchers are also in their movie positions but with less of that ugly box module thing and, if I'm correct, there's also an aft torpedo launcher in between the impulse engines, which is where the technical people wanted to put it on the Defiant in "In A Mirror, Darkly" but ended up not working out that way.
Really the only way to explain the weapons effects in TOS (OTL at least) is if you regard the ventral dome as being some kind of weapons cluster that can fire both phasers and torpedoes, and perhaps can rotate to fire phasers in any direction--but that doesn't seem a very satisfying way of doing it. And that's without getting into the slightly ridiculous effect in TAS where the dome is shown both firing phasers and a continuous stream of torpedoes in between. I think I prefer your way of doing it.
Is there any feature here explicitly identified with a tractor beam emitter? I think they were shown as invisible on the show on the rare occasion they were mentioned, but TAS showed it as a visible effect coming from the keel below the shuttlebay.
This is also a better compromise between the perhaps too fragile or dated looking golden dish style of main sensor/navigational deflector and the overly radical shift we got with the movies in OTL.
Like the movie Enterprise, I note that you shift from three triangular landing pads to four rectangular ones, which would obviously be a nightmare if you were actually refitting a ship that way in real life, but I doubt many people would notice anyway
I wonder if they might have changed things like the colour and design of the signage just for the sake of it, but I suppose that comes down to an editorial mandate.
Good update and re the new Enterprise design: it's a good compromise if you're going for conservative changes, basically just incorporating things that they wished they could have done at the time. (Along the same lines, it might feature a version of Matt Jeffrie's more streamlined design for the shuttlecraft - see here andfor a fan rendition - though problems with shuttle sets were still causing chaos even in the TNG era in OTL).
Yep, this was the main aim, to produce something with Jefferies' logic circa 1977 and trying to forget everything we know post-TMP IOTL. The budget would be bigger than the original series (though still not movie-standard), and Desilu have had a lot more experience with models from Doctor Who and especially Journey of the Force, so that would need to be factored in. One thing we discussed was all those who worked on Journey would probably be tempted to put greebles all over the ship to show off their new skills, but that would have been a major departure from the original look, plus Jefferies had always considered that most systems should be internal to allow easy maintenance, so we imagine he reigned in some of his more enthusiastic technicians.
I'm afraid I'm with e of pi regarding McQuarrie's design - it seems to me he loved the Star Destroyer so much he just couldn't let it go. He probably would have fitted right in with JJ's notions for the reboot.
You've picked out most of the weapons - there are also a couple of phasers at the rear of the engineering hull, again similar location to In A Mirror Darkly. I toyed with some other locations, but those just made the most sense without disturbing the lines too much. We figured The Powers That Be would want to take the opportunity to nail down some continuity in terms of where the weapons are fired from, and it would be one area where the art department greeble-fans would be allowed to play, so visible phasers. Oncve you decide that, a ball-turret design just makes the most sense, especially in keeping a bit of freedom for the post-effects guys to add beams at the appropriate angles for any given shot. The primary hull phaser locations were roughly based on a) what we'd seen in TOS, and b) what made sense to give good firing arcs without going overboard. The location of the dorsal saucer phasers were going to be more or less where they are on the movie IOTL, but then I was inspired by Doug Drexler's cutaway on Ex Astris Scientia to move them to the 'torpedo' location in the upper bulge, since the torpedoes were definitely moving to the neck.
The main torpedo launchers follow the Phase II design very closely, but integrated more into the engineering hull rather than the neck (a very good suggestion from Brainbin). The aft launcher location was also a Brainbin suggestion. I'd initially planned to put it in the engineering hull undercut, but it just didn't work there.
No specific tractor beam, and in TOS they were invisible anyway, so it's not such and issue in nailing down their source as for phasers. My first thought would be to put it just outside the hanger deck so it can assist landing operations.
This was a topic we discussed quite a bit. The OTL Phase II appears to have a movie-style internal dish, but Brainbin was quite keen to retain a more separate unit to keep closer to the original look. So we came up with something that is still s definite dish, but slightly more integrated, in line with the general streamlining of the ship.
Also, ITTL it is definitely a sensor dish, not a deflector. As far as we could tell, the deflector idea came from Probert, whilst Jefferies always called it a sensor.
Like the movie Enterprise, I note that you shift from three triangular landing pads to four rectangular ones, which would obviously be a nightmare if you were actually refitting a ship that way in real life, but I doubt many people would notice anyway
My main problem with the TOS landing legs (assuming that's what they were - I'm not sure if it was ever made clear 'officially') is that one of them would be under the neck - getting in the way of all the turboshafts, power conduits and everything else that has to pass through that very thin neck. So changing that seemed obvious. The shape and size was more of an aesthetic choice.
Indeed. We did try out a change of signage to blue (in line with the 'blue is futuristic' ethos, and the tendency for art departments to sometimes get carried away with certain ideas), but in the end we decided it just didn't look right, especially considering the original signage and general starfleet 'look' is more established ITTL. I've attached an early WIP of the blue look, so see what you think!
Thande
Donor
I've seen that cutaway before, Drexler had some interesting ideas for retrospectively justifying the starship designs done before his own famous work on the show.
Yeah, there just doesn't seem to be a good place to put aft torpedo launchers on most of the pre-TNG starship designs - the Excelsior has the same problem. I wonder if Brainbin was aware of the "In A Mirror Darkly" idea or if it was parallel evolution - the visual effects people noticed that there was a centreline ridge in the middle of the impulse engines that could conceivably be a torpedo launcher.
I wondered if the dome above the hangar deck might be the tractor beam, or some people have suggested it was an observation dome for overseeing dockings.
I think a sensor makes more sense from a TOS and movies perspective, considering you'd think a deflector would be an essential thing and yet many other starship designs seen (the Klingon D7, the Miranda, etc.) don't have one.
Good point re the leg blocking the neck--especially considering how narrow the neck was on the TOS Enterprise.
I was thinking of blue myself as well, to fit the change in colour of the Bussard collectors (assuming it's not anachronistic to call the ends of the nacelles that). Having said that, I don't know if blue had the same 'modern' image in this era that it does now--in the 70s and early 80s it seemed as though red LEDs = "advanced technology" instead.
That's some crackerjack comedic writing (and acting), although I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it NSFW. It's pretty tame, especially by British standards.
Indeed it is, as many people have rightly guessed. This one is for all the marbles!
Thank you, vultan!vultan said:Amazing stuff as per usual.
110 hour-long episodes (plus the pilot) were produced ITTL, in five seasons (1970-75).
Oh, you and your vultanesque sense of humourInteresting rendition. Of course, it would have been more interesting to have used something closer to the Ralph McQuarrie redesign, but to each his own...
Apparently McQuarrie was the type who enjoyed trying to fit a triangular peg through a cylindrical hole
January 7, 1975 (a Tuesday). Thirteen days after his fiftieth birthday, while working on the last episode of Night Gallery.
Thank you for the compliments, Thande. Personally, I like the idea of a shuttlecraft model - Bones demanding to be brought aboard the Enterprise that way, as opposed to using the transporters (and sparing us the notorious "hippie hermit" bearded look from TMP), suits him. And we do have eight hours to fill.Good update and re the new Enterprise design: it's a good compromise if you're going for conservative changes, basically just incorporating things that they wished they could have done at the time. (Along the same lines, it might feature a version of Matt Jeffrie's more streamlined design for the shuttlecraft - see here andfor a fan rendition - though problems with shuttle sets were still causing chaos even in the TNG era in OTL).
Agreed. Fortunately, Jefferies himself moved the torpedo bays for Phase II IOTL - as can be seen in these sketches. That was tremendously helpful.Thande said:
Well, it's about the only design out there bearing the name NCC-1701 that looks even less like it than the model they used for the reboot movies, that's for sure.
Indeed we did - although, because "deflector dish" is so irresistibly alliterative, I kept using the term in our discussions unintentionally, even after we agreed upon thatnixonshead said:
I've never seen that episode (or series, for that matter), so I would consider it a parallel evolution. That said, e of pi, who provided additional input as nixonshead and myself were working on the design, has seen it several times, and I can't be certain that he didn't have an influence there.
Perhaps an evolution of the observation deck, which appeared (only) in "The Conscience of the King" IOTL. From the interior, it could evolve into something dome-like.Thande said:
One wonders how much the refit Enterprise used in the OTL movies contributed to that "blue is futuristic" notion. But we couldn't keep the red/orange so prominent because it was used so heavily in the original design - expressly for the purpose of selling colour TVs (which was no longer a major priority by 1978).Thande said:
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Thande
Donor
I would recommend watching that two-parter even if you have no interest in the rest of Enterprise (and I could certainly understand why) just because of the love letter that the visual effects people did to the Constitution class. They proved it's quite easy to keep the same TOS sets and designs (slightly more detailed consoles in places, but that's the sort of thing you can say was just not visible on 1960s TVs...) and still having it look advanced and futuristic. They have the USS Defiant tearing through the 2150s ships of Enterprise (which people have criticised as looking too TNG and out of place) and it never feels silly or wrong, you believe that you're seeing a real technological disparity like Spaniards fighting Aztecs or something.
It's just proof that there is really no need to throw everything out the way Abrams did if you're clever about it.
I always forget about that. It goes a long way to explaining why the interior colour scheme of the original Enterprise was so garish to our eyes--it wasn't just "Sixtiesness", it was making sure you got your money's worth for that colour TV! You see similar things in Doctor Who and other British programmes of a few years later, but not to the same extent.
The visual design of TMP, both ship and uniforms, seems so ahead of its time now--criticised for its bland pastels at the time (perhaps because of the aforementioned thing where people were used to bright colours), it now seems to neatly predict the modern Apple/Nintendo minimalistic aesthetics.
Defiant clip on Youtube
I'm trying to puzzle out from the conversation above what the conclusion was regarding the placement of phasers in the IOTL 60's Constitution class or in your ITTL Enterprise redesign. In that conversation the "In a Mirror Darkly" Defiant was mentioned. I don't know if this helps or hinders, but clips are available on YouTube, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm63K_tkkFc
Oh, great timeline BTW. Turtledove nominated accordingly
I'm trying to puzzle out from the conversation above what the conclusion was regarding the placement of phasers in the IOTL 60's Constitution class or in your ITTL Enterprise redesign. In that conversation the "In a Mirror Darkly" Defiant was mentioned. I don't know if this helps or hinders, but clips are available on YouTube, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm63K_tkkFc
Oh, great timeline BTW. Turtledove nominated accordingly
Thande
Donor
The effects were done incorrectly on that sequence according to Doug Drexler - they had all the weapons coming out of the little dome above the hangar bay when the VFX people had come up with more reasonable places for them, but apparently there was a communication error.
(Though, of course, that is kind of fitting given how TOS had all the weapons coming out of the dome on the bottom of the saucer
)The effects were done incorrectly on that sequence according to Doug Drexler - they had all the weapons coming out of the little dome above the hangar bay when the VFX people had come up with more reasonable places for them, but apparently there was a communication error.
(Though, of course, that is kind of fitting given how TOS had all the weapons coming out of the dome on the bottom of the saucer
I didn't know that, thank you
And the Romulans wear the TNG era uniform. And that's the eleventh Doctor with Amy Pond.
How would we tell? Neither of the ships (I'm guessing the lower one is the Romulan one, given the feather-patterns on the wings) has showed up, in either the series proper or in the miniseries.
Sorry, but the lower one is Klingon. The upper one is Romulan. BTW in the original draft of TSFS Commander Kruge did steal the Bird of Prey and if they had kept this the Bird of Prey would have been a Romulan design.
TSFS?
Pay attention to the part about 'the miniseries', and remember what Star Trek the world of That Wacky Redhead has gotten so far, on television or on film.
You're not the only person to recommend that to me, Thande - perhaps I will give it a chance someday, but not until I'm finished with TWR - I wouldn't want it to "contaminate" my purist interpretation of the original design, so to speak (at least, not any more than it might have already done through osmosis).
Indeed, but let's not pretend the Enterprise wasn't going to get a radical redesign for that movie - the real shame is that it got that redesign.Thande said:
And I loathe the minimalist aesthetic that's popular at the moment (though hopefully not for much longer!), so thanks for pointing that out.Thande said:
Welcome aboard, viewcode, and thank you so much for nominating That Wacky Redhead. I appreciate your support.
An intriguing find, but other than Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise - all of which look top-notch - I'm afraid that most everything else is all wrong.
Those people are supposed to be Klingons?!
A recurring problem I've noticed in fan Star Trek/Doctor Who media, actually - the chronological misalignment of the two properties. The original run of Star Trek was concurrent with the Second Doctor - ITTL, I managed to extend the run long enough for there to be overlap with the Third, but the only "classic" Doctor I've ever seen our crew alongside is the Fourth - and even then, less often than the Tenth or Eleventh. Likewise, I've never seen the crews of the later Star Trek series IOTL alongside the Seventh or Eighth.
LordInsane, I've always appreciated your willingness to commit yourself to observing the canon of TTL
In that case I recommend the comic strip The Hero of Three Faces (although if you don't like minimalism, I'm not sure how you'll get on with the art style). The author not only pays attention to that sort of thing, he has a spreadsheet of how multiple continuities relate to each other. (My favourite example is this strip, where Obi Wan recognises the Doctor from future Doctors interacting with the prequels.)