MR TOS Enterprise - new pics

[phase pistol]

Interesting... I've never heard the "bridge bump" referred to as a homing beacon, or recorder marker, or ion pod, or anything other than a "turbo lift". :lol

Then again folks have gone crazy for 40 years trying to reconcile the fact that the bump on the model is directly BEHIND the bridge, but the turbolift on the bridge SET is off to one side. :unsure

Franz Joseph (the Enterprise Blueprints guy from the seventies) called the bridge bump a turbolift in his famous "general plans" and "technical manual"... he solved the problem by ROTATING the bridge so that the turbolift was directly aft, but the VIEWSCREEN was off to one side. So Kirk would have been sitting, not facing ahead, but actually looking about 30 degrees to the left. :lol

Others have speculated that the Enterprise is actually larger than the oft-quoted 947 feet in length, or that the Bridge is actually sunk INTO the ship a little so that the turbolift is actually within the ship, and the little cylinder behind the bridge that is visible on the model is something else entirely. Which does seem like the best theory, from a spacecraft design standpoint.

The Enterprise's exterior design was actually meant to represent a smaller ship... originally the show was going to feature a crew of EIGHT people, and the starship was going to be a little saucer thing about the size of the Jupiter Two on Lost in Space. :lol

Later they decided it was better to have a "large" crew, so they upped it to about 200 crewmembers, and made the ship about 500 feet long. So the Bridge of the Enterprise, given that size, was probably the whole teardrop-shaped structure on top of the saucer.

At some point they decided the crew should be twice that big, so the length of the ship was doubled, and extra decks were implied. So the edge of the saucer for example, which was one deck thick originally, was now two decks thick.

You can still see evidence of the smaller size in the show itself, for example in the little diagram to the left of the Bridge lift doors (a similar diagram is shown in the episode "Day of the Dove")... that diagram seems to show the ship with fewer decks.

- k

 

[BrianM]

Here are my shots from Comic Con. Not sure if they add much but here they are anyway:

This is such a nice piece (minus gridlines) but it's so fine I wonder how they will be able to keep up the overseas QA???

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[CessnaDriver]

The more pics the better. Thanks.

The head-on shot is great.

 

[Gojira61]

<div class='quotetop'>(Howard @ Jul 25 2006, 02:57 PM) [snapback]1287579[/snapback]</div>

P.S. MR could learn a great deal from the Unobtanium stand and base. Okay - don't match it obviously, but something along the same lines would be perfect IMHO.
[/b]

Yup Howard, love the ship, hate the base.

Hopefully it's not too late for a change of base because every time I look at it I think "AMT/Ertl"

Jim

 

[Treadwell]

<div class='quotetop'>(phase pistol @ Jul 25 2006, 04:42 PM) [snapback]1287671[/snapback]</div>

The Enterprise's exterior design was actually meant to represent a smaller ship.
[/b]

I dunno about the 8-person thing, but yeah, there was a thread on HobbyTalk a while back where someone made a very good case for indicating that, as designed/built, the E model was meant to be about half the scale it's now considered. Given Pike's "103 lives" line and the tiny number decals on the side of the engineering hull (they only work as measurements in the smaller scale).

But then the pilot E had a much bigger bridge module, anyway. More evidence.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Stumbled on this today looking up "ion pod" on google image search....



http://www.stguardian.to/mixed/probes/index.html

 

[aniskywalker]

<div class='quotetop'>(CessnaDriver @ Jul 26 2006, 04:23 AM) [snapback]1287964[/snapback]</div>

Stumbled on this today looking up "ion pod" on google image search....



http://www.stguardian.to/mixed/probes/index.html

[/b]

That page is from the "USS Enterprise Officer's Manual" Geoffrey Mandel, 1980.

An interesting book.

James

 

[phase pistol]

<div class='quotetop'>(Treadwell @ Jul 25 2006, 10:19 PM) [snapback]1287917[/snapback]</div>

I dunno about the 8-person thing, but yeah, there was a thread on HobbyTalk a while back where someone made a very good case for indicating that, as designed/built, the E model was meant to be about half the scale it's now considered. Given Pike's "103 lives" line and the tiny number decals on the side of the engineering hull (they only work as measurements in the smaller scale).

But then the pilot E had a much bigger bridge module, anyway. More evidence.
[/b]

Not to hijack this thread too much, but yeah, the earliest concepts by Matt Jefferies (check out the book "Star Trek Sketchbook" - the TV series version) were of a little tiny spaceship that looked like this

Actually this is about right. If you imagine that the entire crew was only the people we saw on the Bridge (ie, 8 people), and that all the regular "standing" sets (Bridge, Sickbay, Engineering, etc) were crammed together and there was no more to the ship than that, you'd end up with a spacecraft that looks something like those drawings.

Pike's line in "The Cage" refers to a crew of 203, btw. By the time the series went into production the show bible specified that the crew was 430.

BTW I'm quite fond of a theory that was worked out a couple years ago, to the effect that the 11-foot Enterprise miniature was built to 1/48 scale to represent a ship 540 feet long

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/archive/index.php/t-74430.html

The folks designing and building the miniature for the show were well versed in model building techniques, and they would not have made the ship just some random arbitrary scale.

- k

 

[phase pistol]

<div class='quotetop'>(aniskywalker @ Jul 25 2006, 11:46 PM) [snapback]1287986[/snapback]</div>

That page is from the "USS Enterprise Officer's Manual" Geoffrey Mandel, 1980.

An interesting book.

[/b]

Interesting indeed. that book has details on the ship's hangar deck "observation dome" at the tail of the secondary hull... Mandel puts a captain's chair inside the tiny dome. Cool, but since there's no way to get into and out of the observation dome, you'd have to be "beamed" into it... :lol

Yes the fans have been kicking around the Enterprise for 40 years now... a ton of specilative work has been done to imagine just what is on those mysterious decks we never see on the show. Here's a meticulous rundown of what might be in there

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Crater/2077/Classes.txt

And here are some scans of Franz Joseph's infamous Booklet of General Plans, which started it all back in 1975 (scroll down to the bottom of the page for the scan links)

http://www.robsacc.nl/ottens/forgottentrek...enterprise.html

 

[CessnaDriver]

Without the input of the original designers, everything in question is whatever you want it to be, or whatever later writers decided things were, or whatever a tech manual publisher decided to have printed.

 

[rad1701]

Trying to match the interior of the Enterprise with the way the exterior is has always created much speculation. Keep in mind as far as the show and writing goes only simple things were worked out. Where the bridge was, certain crew quarters, engineering, etc. Matching a tiny nub on the outside with something inside isn't really needed. For me, the model looks great. I agree the base could use some work and there are always going to be a few tiny details that some feel are not right - but man I'm excited for this piece.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Agreed. If your a lifetime TOS fan, this is mandatory to own.
And since there is no 1/350th kit....yet,
I hope someday there is, and until there is,
the MR product is the only game in town.

I still want to build one this scale someday.
But scratch building is beyond my time/skills, as it is for most folks.

 

[SurferGeek]

Not that it carries any weight but they put the "nipple" on the CGI model used in the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror Darkly". It doesn't have the little tip to it but it's definately there.

 

[phase pistol]

Well those pix I posted earlier pretty much prove that the emitter (probe, dingus, whatever) really was there... but since we never saw it on the show, it just looks new and strange to us.

 

[aniskywalker]

There is a big difference between this -

And this :eek -

I really hate that thing. It is so obscene it is not even funny. :angry

It should not be on a beautiful ship as the Enterprise is.

Maybe the production crew on Star Trek removed it sometime along the way or change it. That could be why you do not see it on film. I can just see the TV Censors telling them to "Remove that thing from view NOW." :lol

Does anybody now when the pictures that show this "emitter" where taken during the show years? These could be early shots, before it was hopefully removed for filming. :confused

James

 

[CessnaDriver]

There are actually "grid lines" on the sensor too.

 

[Hand Solo]

Enterprise had a peen.

And Kirk referred to it as a 'she'.

I'm soooo confused. :cry :confused

 

[SurferGeek]

<div class='quotetop'>(aniskywalker @ Jul 28 2006, 01:26 AM) [snapback]1289325[/snapback]</div>

I really hate that thing. It is so obscene it is not even funny. :angry

It should not be on a beautiful ship as the Enterprise is.

[/b]

But the fact is that it was there as documented by the very clear picutre by the anonymous person. Agreed that it's not what was seen on screen but then it's down to the old "idealized" replica or "truly accurate" replica. Most of the time I choose idealized but for something this big and expensive I think accurate is better. IMHO


He's a handsome ship. :lol

 

[phase pistol]

I say leave it on, and you squeamish folks can "break it off". :sleep

Which, come to think of it, ought to be REALLY disturbing for you guys. :lol

- k

 

[CessnaDriver]

I've seen it in person. Relax people, it's nothing. These pictures make it look HUGE.
It's a tiny feature you *barely notice*. It will be nothing more then a way to tell folks about how all the little things we didnt see were there all along. The markings on the bottom for instance. It is nothing mere mortals will notice.