posted
Roughly 6 months ago I was contacted by email by an individual called Mitch Jones. He claimed to work on TNG VFX during seasons 3 to 5. He described his work "My job as "camera 22" was wide angle shots of the models for mostly the battle scenes".
We got talking on a few FX related topics including the reuse of the BoP miniature as the K'vort-class. He wrote "they had the decency to drill a few more windows to increase the deck number". At the time I had no way to confirm this as I only had "Yesterday's Enterprise" on tape and the detail is just not up to par. Now that I have the 3rd season DVD set, I can confirm that Mr Jones is correct -- you can clearly see rows of drill holes in "YE". The holes aren't lit but, if anything, it proves the supposed large BoP has a difference in external appearance from the std small one.
Another thing that Mitch mentioned was that a second Warbird miniature was built. Apparently, like the 6' Ent-D, the original WB miniature was too heavy and awkward to film. He wrote that the second Warbird was lighter in both colour and mass and had much improved lighting (especially in the tail section). I think he's right about that too. In early episodes the Warbird only has a few window lights in the tail section. Later the tail is filled with window lights. It looks to me that "The Defector" was the first episode to use the new Warbird, as well as being the first appearance of the 4' Ent-D. It might be a coincidence but "The Defector" could also be taken as the first appearance of the K'vort-class although, according to Mitch, the drill holes weren't added until "YE".
Has anyone noticed how the BoP never had its 'wings' up very much? They are usually up when they are depicting a K'Vort.
I noticed in "Unification Part 1" The other night (It was on... how great was Mark Lenard!?!) that the Klingon vessel that takes Data and Picard to Romulus was about 3/4 the length of the Enterprise's nacelle. This time it had it's wings up.
The funniest scene where Picard is sleeping and Data is looking at him/not looking at him. LOL!
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
quote:Originally posted by TheF0rce: Where are these new holes?
You'll need "Yesterday's Enterprise" (or possibly "Reunion" or Redemption") on DVD to see the holes. There's at least a couple of tight rows of holes on the head, one being just above the red rim. There might be some new holes in the rear section too. I'd have to check more thoroughly if I wanted to map the new windows.
I feel your mention of the wings is important, AndrewR. All the BoP in TNG from "The Defector" onwards have their wings fixed in flight mode and appear to be gigantic in size. Conversely, all the BoP in DS9 have their wings always in attack mode and appear relatively small in size. If we are to accept the upscaled K'vort-class, I'd say it can neither move it's wings or land.
Mitch gave the length of the K'vort-class to be 320m. Works out as half the length of the Ent-D and the same width. I'd be inclined to up the figure to 329m so it's exactly 3x the std BoP planform.
posted
Yes, but the BoP's in "The Defector" were bigger than that, weren't they? Their wingspans were about as long as the Warbirds' wingspans.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I think that the REAL question here is - were these holes filled in later on when the model was again used as a smaller BoP in subsequent episodes? I'm pretty sure that the Kleavage Sisters had a smaller ship later on, as would Chang, the ship Kang & Koloth & Colicos had, etc... Also, if the model were used as the basis for the CGI model, then we had BoPs of multiple sizes with the extra holes in them - thus making this almost a moot point.
posted
I always had the impression that there were multiple classes of BoPs, even within the smaller ships. The BoP from "Generations" was of a class taken out of service due to design flaws.
So it doesn't surprise me that there would be multiple variations within each size group -- small (12x crew), medium (Martok's), large (the big one).
posted
Frankly, after having just recently watched "Yesterday's Enterprise" again, I'm starting to think that the K'vort class simply doesn't exist in the "real" world. Assuming we write off "The Defector" as a goof, we're left with no mention of the name, nor any more appearences of gigantic birds of prey. At least, none that I can readily recall.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, there were the scenes of the two BoP's positioning themselves to the left & right of the Bortas. In those shots, they seemed only a bit smaller than the Vor'cha.
Either way, this just confirms my previous ranting in the thread about the Lantree. TPTB should have known that the show was going to be a hit, so they should have had more new models built than just the Enterprise-D, instead of just reusing the movie models. This goes for Klingon ships as well.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Er, should they?
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
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posted
i refuse to acknowledge any of these scaling idiocies. i think there is a basic BOP with a 12 man crew and a huge cargo bay, and then we have the bulkier versions built on the same spaceframe with internal differences that allow them to support the 30 or 40 something crews. i dont take VFX as canon, because they are often made using artistic license (like the giant Doomsday Machine shuttle, etc..). I think its acceptable that TNG era BOPs are uprated internally to Defiant-like configurations that put them on par with Jem'Hadar bugs, Excelsiors and Romulan ships in combat. Even the small BoPs in ST III & IV changed size, depending on whether they needed to be shown against a whaling ship or a Constitution. I think a single middle ground size feature would allow for the different configurations weve seen.
Since its never been canonically defined that any BoP was even a meter longer than any other, why let it bother us?
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Registered: Sep 2001
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