quote:Well, it is now. What Peregrinus means is that when "The Naked Now" was filmed, Mike Okuda created a dedication plaque for the U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky, with the registry of NCC-53911, and the class called the "Oberth," after Hermann Oberth, a famous German rocket scientist. Both Okuda and Sternbach were going under the assumption that the Tsiolkovsky model, once it was built, would be a newer class of ship (but not as new as the Enterprise-D). That's why the registry number was so high.
EDIT: After looking at the Tsiolkovsky's dedication plaque again, I found another interesting thing: the ship was launched only a year before the Enterprise-D was launched. So really, whatever model Okuda thought they were going to use should have looked extremely similar to a GCS. At this early point in the series, Okuda probably meant for new ships to have a 5XXXX registry, and only later did that number get upped to 7XXXX. But instead, thanks to the budget, we now have a Grissom-type ship built in 2363. Talk about long-lasting...
What sucks even more is that the budget restrictions necessitated the use of the Grissom model, but two episodes later they built a brand new alien ship model for "Haven." So a one-off alien ship took precedence over a new Starfleet ship that would most likely get reused again??? (Yes, I realize that the Tarellian ship got reused as well, but that's not the point).
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
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quote:Originally posted by Dukhat:
quote:Well, it is now. What Peregrinus means is that when "The Naked Now" was filmed, Mike Okuda created a dedication plaque for the U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky, with the registry of NCC-53911, and the class called the "Oberth," after Hermann Oberth, a famous German rocket scientist. Both Okuda and Sternbach were going under the assumption that the Tsiolkovsky model, once it was built, would be a newer class of ship (but not as new as the Enterprise-D). That's why the registry number was so high.
EDIT: After looking at the Tsiolkovsky's dedication plaque again, I found another interesting thing: the ship was launched only a year before the Enterprise-D was launched. So really, whatever model Okuda thought they were going to use should have looked extremely similar to a GCS. At this early point in the series, Okuda probably meant for new ships to have a 5XXXX registry, and only later did that number get upped to 7XXXX. But instead, thanks to the budget, we now have a Grissom-type ship built in 2363. Talk about long-lasting...
What sucks even more is that the budget restrictions necessitated the use of the Grissom model, but two episodes later they built a brand new alien ship model for "Haven." So a one-off alien ship took precedence over a new Starfleet ship that would most likely get reused again??? (Yes, I realize that the Tarellian ship got reused as well, but that's not the point).
perhaps there's more to this. Lets think about the climate of the set, too. How much was the Art folks allowed to do, as far as making stuff? During the first two seasons was the FJ arguement and 2 Nassle law was placed. certain GR was putting a lot of lip into the TNG vision.
I think one of the things to ask is that where there honest attempts at making new designs or were they told NOT too... and why?
BOBW's ships were no made until GR was dead or no longer a active... well... hinderance?
I actually feel bad saying that, that way...
Registered: Jan 2004
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Gene Roddenberry had nothing to do with building new ship studio models. The only input he ever had in this department was his stupid "Starship design rules," which Okuda followed only because he didn't know any better.
No, the final say about model-building came from the show's producers, the same guys who had the budget sheets practically glued to their hands and would nix building a new model whenever they could. They got away with it with the Hood and the Tsiolkovsky, and almost got away with it with the Stargazer and even the Enterprise-C. Rick Sternbach has even said that the producers weren't happy that a new model would have to be built. If they had had their way, I'm sure they would have just re-used the Excelsior model with a bunch of add-on parts to make it a "new" class. That exact same thing would have happened in "All Good Things.." with the future Klingon ships had they not built the Negh'var class.
Registered: Jun 2000
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Well, to be fair, AGT had a lot of new ships for an episode- dont forget the USS Pastur was also introduced (though never used again, sadly). I recall hearing that each episode had it's own budget to spread the SFX money around (lest the first four or five episodes drain all that budget from the rest of the season). Other factors, like guest-stars and number of extras probably impacted a given episode's budget as well. Like in Conspiracy, the parasite creature effects nixed any chance of showing the starship meeting (even if the models existed at that point).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote: Well, to be fair, AGT had a lot of new ships for an episode- dont forget the USS Pastur was also introduced (though never used again, sadly).
Actually, the model was built by Bill George on his own, even before the series ended. He just built it for fun, but when AGT was being filmed, he was asked if they could use the model to represent Beverly's medical ship. If he hadn't built it, they probably would have just re-used the Nebula class model.
Registered: Jun 2000
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Yes, but why did they never show that cool ship again? It sure would've been nicer than the re-used scene of an Oberth docking at the station (or "upside-down Sydney" for that matter). It would've been better than the USS Curry too...
Maybe Bill George just kept it after AGT- a nice living-room topic starter.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Well, yes. That's just what Dukkie was saying: the model was his. He built it as a personal project and they just asked to borrow it for use in the show.
Registered: Jun 2001
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I would assume that if the shows were remastered, then the new versions are what would be canon, just like the Star Wars special editions. And then some people would bitch and refuse to recognise them. And so it goes.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Well that's the dilemma with TOS remastered. "Spock's Brain" remastered showed a new version of the Ion Ship so now it remains to be seen if this version takes precedence over the original Ion Ship.
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WizArtist II
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I just saw the "Yesterday's Enterprise" episode again last nite and realized how lame the whole battle sequence was. My FIRST thought was "Why are the Bird of Prey's wings in cruise mode and not in battle mode?" The whole battle was like some poor high school play walk through.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
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They were in cruise mode because they were supposed to represent a far larger type of ship than the normal BoP scout. They didn't have a new Klingon battlecruiser model built by that time, so they had to improvise. It would be quite ridiculous for a huge battleship to have folding wings.
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
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And yet there was the Scimitar.
Not to mention Voyager.
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The Scimitar only unfolded when it was at a stop. And Voyager didn't have "wings' per se, they were just the engines.
Registered: Jun 2000
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Yet there was also Rascals where two K'vort BOPs disabled the Ent-D, commanded by Ferengi no less. I find that episode to be the worse in Trek history, even worse than Threshold. Maybe they could remaster it by burning all the footage.
Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: I just saw the "Yesterday's Enterprise" episode again last nite and realized how lame the whole battle sequence was. My FIRST thought was "Why are the Bird of Prey's wings in cruise mode and not in battle mode?"
Of course, only about 0.00001% of the original viewing audience were bothered about the wing placement on BOPs, so I can't imagine that they lose that much sleep over it.
I do seem to remember a story where the motor mechanism on the BOP model got stuck. Weren't all BOPs from that point onwards seen with their wings stuck up (at least until the CGI model was introduced)?
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