Everyone's squished into the sides, and most iportantly there's a fill third of the area at teh front of the bridge that is completely unused. Unless Picard thought he could play a small soccer or minigolf tourney on the bridge every once in a while, there's no real reason to have all that space empty.
Of course, the REAL reason for the waste of space is so that the production crew could move all their cameras and lights and sound equipment around the front end, which would be the location for most of thhe shots, without having to move too much of the set itself out of the way. Still, though, if you think about it, the captain or forward station could be much closer to the front of the bridge to get a beter view.
Mind you, if they weren't so far away, maybe more people would have gotten sucked out in Nemesis. Eesh...
posted
I don't have a problem with the amount of space - after all, there was a similar amount on the D - but rather the fact that the layout of consoles effectively divides the bridge in half. In order to get to that forward bit, you need to thread your way between all those stations. OK, it's actually quite a wide space, it's not like by "thread" I mean "turn sideways and inch your way through" but the psychological effect will be there.
posted
That part I'm actually okay with. Who actually needs to get to the forward bit? Only the Con/Ops people, and anyone needing to get to the CO in the ready room. There's also the airlock, but this would rarely be used. Both lifts enter aft of the bridge, so everyone can cross behind the CO chair or directly to their station right away.
I'm a big proponent of the notion that the main viewscreen should provide an unobstructed view for the CO and his staff, and helm; and not more than one or two people should need to cross in front of the viewer as a minimum distance to get to any of the other stations. Trek's canon bridges generally abide to this (with notable exceptions being the Defiant and Sutherland bridges). Most fan bridge designs ignore this rule, and so in a crunch you can concievably have lots of people running in front of the Captain as he's pontificating to the bad guys.
quote:There's also the airlock, but this would rarely be used.
Uh, I don't think so.
I mean, yes, that set was built next to the bridge set. But AFAIK we don't see any airlock door in the bridge scenes of the actual movie. We do see that the model has no matching exterior fixtures. And we also know Picard would have no particular reason to use a "bridge airlock" since his goal was on the lower parts of the ship, and since the Borg had stopped their advance at Deck 11 and were not besieging our heroes just behind the bridge doors.
I'm also a bit unconvinced that there would be airlocks next to the TOS movie bridges, either. It is possible that those bridges are actually farther down than the top (sensor) dome would suggest, incidentally explaining the otherwise Rubegoldbergish arrangement where a turbolift is needed for taking Spock from the dorsal airlock to the bridge.
posted
I'm fairly certain it's mentioned somewhere that the door to the airlock actually SAYS "airlock" on it. Plus of course, it was the intent of the set. Not saying that it DIDN'T lead downstairs to a better-situated room, but I'm pretty sure that it was distinctly meant to be.
My frustration surrounding trying to cram the whole bridge set under the E-E bridge dome is well known. We KNOW there's a conference lounge directly behind the bridge per "First Contact", but even THOSE windows don't match the model. And of course, the dome and underlying superstructure is too narrow to fit such a wide bridge with Picard's ready room hanging out into space.
One of my other huge beefs with bridge designs is how some don't allow secondary access of any kind other than the turbolifts. The E-D had great access: two primary turbos, an emergency lift, and presumably a ramp down to deck 2 on the way to the conference lounge. The lounge itself had access to the bridge, deck 2, and to its own lift door.
On the E-E, there was only the two lift doors. the conference lounge aft had two doors to the bridge (which makes even less sense, since the doors are barely ten feet apart!), and no apparent secondary access. There were no apparent other doors to the bridge, either, except for potentially one on the way to the erstwhile airlock. Still, the E-D bridge just made so much more sense, despite its arguable lack of style to many.
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Well, considering how often Federation starships get boarded, I'd want my bridge to be virtually inaccessible except for a couple of control points that could be readily defended and not placed behind me either. And yes, I do typically sit facing the door.
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quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: Apparently, only the Captain needs porcelain. Everyone else, its 4 decks down.
Incentive to seek promotion.
I agree that the Soverign's bridge is silly bcause it in no way matches the studio model- but that's nothing new: the TUC EXcelsior bridge could never fit into that tiny bump on that ship's saucer- they made it 50% smaller when refitting it!
The Galaxy's bridhe is pretty bad, but when you consider the overall area to work with, you could make a fantastic interior if you wanted to (and hopefully, other Galaxy class starships do!).
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posted
I'd still argue against the airlock being next to the bridge on the E-E, just because.
If we assumed the door to the left of the viewscreen wasn't the same one that is behind Lily when Picard and pals suit up, we could make it an alternate access route to the bridge and solve that problem...
Incidentally, the fancy cylindrar end walls of the airlock, with the diagonally opening doors, made me think of a silly idea. What if that room rotates? That is, after the inner doors are closed, the airlock turns 180 degrees to allow the heroes to exit with their feet facing the hull of the ship, even though they emerge on the underside of the saucer.
Then again, the spacewalk VFX makes it look as if our trio came from the direction of the saucer edge, that is, they had rounded that edge on their way to the underside.
As for the Excelsior bridge, I'd again say it's one deck farther down than people generally assume. In the Constitution case at least, the assumption that the bridge is just four decks above the widest saucer deck and not five would be beneficial in a dozen other ways, too. Such as giving a broader Deck 3 for all the supposed cabins and rec rooms and corridors there, or matching the "Intruder on Deck 4" schematic from ST:TMP, or the Alert Status diagram from ST2, and so forth.
And not so incidentally, it would also allow the TOS bridge to face dead ahead...
In the case of the E-E bridge, "sinking down by one level" would be an excellent way to allow for the Ready Room and even give it windows. It still wouldn't solve the Observation Deck problem, though.
posted
You guys have a problem making the bridges fit the ship contours? Try doing it for dozens of starships. Somebody pass me the subspace shoehorn...
Actiually, in most cases it's not as hard as it looks. I've got a fully-qualified CGI artist (Tim Palgut). He can take the bridge I create from the soundstage plans and construct a solid. He then constructs a model of the bridge module's outer contours from the shooting model at 1:1 metric scale - using the official 'canon' posted size for the ship. We adjust position incrementally until we get a fit. Then we get an aspirin.
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