Those of us who had speculated that the Trial (mentioned in the startrek.com database as having appeared in "Way Of The Warrior" [DS9]) was the Miranda in this shot because of the use of the same letters as in Reliant were correct! It has a registry number, too! Thanks to Larry Nemecek for the model pic!
-MMoM Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Whee!
Now I've got to figure out why NCC-1948 isn't the Knox class USS Le Malin any more.
Saaaaay... Perhaps this is a trial ship of some sort?
Timo Saloniemi
P.S. Funny how a really crappy finish on a model looks so good on screen.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Do you pronounce this TRY-L or Tree-al?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
In the US, I've always heard it pronounced TRY-al.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
So it's just meant to be as in the word trial - as in a court trial??
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Yes, but I'd think of it more as an adventure type trial, the kind of thing these ships often set out on.
I'm surprised as well at how good it looks on screen. My model painting is rubbish, but it's not as sloppy as that. I suppose they were in a hurry, though. This episode had so many special effects shots, the fleet arriving at DS9 was probably almost an afterthought.
I'm looking forward to seeing more behind the scenes photos when those magazines come out.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Could be a reference to this old ship.
Posted by Mikey T (Member # 144) on :
Interesting... why the hell did it take so long to publish the photo though?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
The saucer section seems a little flatter than the saucer sections of other Miranda models.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
"Flatter"? Possibly.
"Sporting a black stripe never before associated with TOS movie era ships, but resembling TNG era saucer rim sensor assemblies"? Most definitely.
I guess this is the most recent thing the ship was trialing...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
If you plug USS Reliant into a handy anagram generator you get quite a lot of possibilities, including Sinus, Snare, Alien Truss, Ulster, Saline, Stern, Israel, Arsine Slut, Serial, Arlen, Ares, Larsen (!), Neutral, Laurent, Renault, Lear, Slater, Tassel, Iran Tussle, Stalin Ruse, Sultan, Tulsa, Rat Isle, Slient Ursa, etc. I like "USS Alien Truss." although that would require a second set of decals for the USS.
Posted by Robert (Member # 1981) on :
Very interesting!
So, an ERTL thin-saucer model actually did make a studio appearance! I guess this means we modelers don't absolutely have to buy all of the correction kits now to thicken the ERTL hull, depending upon the ship we're building, although they do make the model look a lot nicer!
If the saucer looks flatter its probably because we're used to seeing the Reliant/miranda with the a thicker hull, while the ERTL kit has a thinner hull; it should be 2-4 milimeters thicker to match the studio model. Its probably more of an optical or mental illusion based on what we are accustomed to seeing. Federation Models makes a correction set. I'm in the middle of using it a we speak.
I wonder what other ERTL models besides the odd Excelsior and the DS9 freak ships were also on-screen, and what their names and registries were?
Robert
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Johnny: Yes, but I'd think of it more as an adventure type trial, the kind of thing these ships often set out on.
I'm surprised as well at how good it looks on screen. My model painting is rubbish, but it's not as sloppy as that. I suppose they were in a hurry, though. This episode had so many special effects shots, the fleet arriving at DS9 was probably almost an afterthought.
I'm looking forward to seeing more behind the scenes photos when those magazines come out.
So - people out there who have your own models - be they crappily painted or not - could probably do your own TV-grade space effects!?!
I'd like to see someone do that.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Well you have to bear in mind that the Trial was seen from quite far away and in dark lighting. If you wanted to make TV-grade effects nowadays you'd be best using CGI models rather than badly painted ERTL kits. Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:Larry has several more photos of kit and kitbashed DS9 ships he plans to release when the Official Fan Club and ST Communicator relaunch in new form in the coming year.
So I wonder what they are. Other than the seven kitbashes that we've already seen, the only other ships I can think of are the "tug", and various Klingon ships they might have used model kits for. Of course, Doug Drexler told me that many people built kitbashes for the season opener, and maybe there were way more models built than just the seven we saw.
Of course it would be nice if they showed some of the models built for the unused battle footage from "Emissary." When I originally emailed Rob Legato about this (and specifically the existence of the U.S.S. Gage from the original script), he didn't seem to really know what I was talking about. He said he thought the Gage might have been the battle-damaged Reliant from ST-II, but he was in no way certain of that. And obviously if that was the truth (which I doubt), then the Reliant wasn't relabeled "U.S.S. Gage."
Come to think of it, the Tolstoy was in the original "Emissary" script, too...maybe there was a new model of it built as well? Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Robert: Very interesting!
So, an ERTL thin-saucer model actually did make a studio appearance! I guess this means we modelers don't absolutely have to buy all of the correction kits now to thicken the ERTL hull, depending upon the ship we're building, although they do make the model look a lot nicer!
If the saucer looks flatter its probably because we're used to seeing the Reliant/miranda with the a thicker hull, while the ERTL kit has a thinner hull; it should be 2-4 milimeters thicker to match the studio model. Its probably more of an optical or mental illusion based on what we are accustomed to seeing. Federation Models makes a correction set. I'm in the middle of using it a we speak.
I wonder what other ERTL models besides the odd Excelsior and the DS9 freak ships were also on-screen, and what their names and registries were?
Robert
There are a few old kits used in STII for long-distance shots where they did not have a wharehouse to pull away from the studio model. (talking the Enterprise here, not Reliant).
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Tell us more of this Emissary battle scene... script excerpts? Was it a lengthy scene!?! special effects extravaganza??
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
This excerpt is from the DS9 Companion:
quote: "Robert Legato, then visual effects supervisor for DS9, was instructed to shoot the battle sequence before live-action production had commenced on the pilot. 'It was fun to do because I was allowed to make it up from scratch; there was no backlog of stock footage for it' he says. 'The script said that they were right in the middle of this big fierce, ugly battle, and I had tons of debris in all the shots. Ships that were burning, on fire, flying past the camera. I made sure that all of the debris had the correct names on it, the names of the ships that were mentioned in 'The Best of Both Worlds' (The Starships Tolstoy, Kyushu, Melbourne, and Saratoga were among those described as lost in the battle), so the episodes would tie together. But fate stepped in when the decision was made to shoot the live action as if the ships were *about* to enter into battle with the Borg, rather than joining them in mid-fray. 'I had to go back and take all the extraneous ships out,' he laments. 'It was a heartbreaker, because it was a ton of work and very good-looking stuff-much bigger than anything seen on a TNG show."
According to the original "Emissary" script, Sisko has a line that says something to the effect of "Admiral Hanson has deployed the Kyushu, Gage, and the Melbourne." (Actually, "Tolstoy" wasn't listed in the script, but since the name was mentioned in BoBW, I assumed a corresponding model might have been made based on Legato's quote above.)
Because I assumed that the "Gage" might have been another battle-damaged model that had been built for this scene, I exhaustively searched the internet for Legato's email address. When I finally found it and contacted him about the cut scene, his answers were less than satisfying. He seemed not to remember much about it at all, contrary to his quote for the book. He said that the battle-damaged Reliant was used in the scene, and that might have been the Gage. But he really sounded like he didn't know what he was talking about.
Anyway, whether these ships really existed or not, I doubt Nemecek will have photos of them.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
BTW, speaking of Wolf 359 models, I found this interesting specimen while rooting through my old Star Trek files. This item was for sale on eBay years ago, and whoever was selling it claimed that it was a legitimate piece of wreckage from "BoBW" (or maybe "Emissary," I can't remember which). Pity the saucer is upside down; perhaps there might have been a name and/or registry label. Oh, well...
Sorry the pic is so small; it was the only pic they had.
Looks a bit like the piece they cut off from the Nebula they destroyed... The one that hovers over the Saratoga when Sisko's pod escapes. But it's not an exact match. Perhaps this could be the saucer floating in the foreground in "BoBW", alongside a Galaxy nacelle? The one that's more commonly thought to be a ST3 Enterprise piece?
The number of ventral window rows would better match a full-scale Galaxy saucer rather than the half-scale ones used on the other kitbashes.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
No, I think it's pretty much conclusive that the STIII Enterprise saucer is what's seen in the first shot of the BoBW debris field. I also don't think it's part of the Nebula Melbourne either. I think it's just a random piece of wreckage that *somebody* made, but without any kind of vantage point to scale the thing, there's no clue if it's from a plastic model kit (a la Miarecki) or made from an actual Ent-D mold (a la Greg Jein).
But I agree that it's definitely supposed to be as big as a Galaxy class saucer, so it's either from a Galaxy or a Nebula (or else the Rigel class has the same size saucer...hmm Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I'm not sure which photos exactly Larry still has in the drawer. But he made some remarks about some kitbashes and the Dominion battlecruiser...
Anyway, regarding the Trial, I have listed it as a standard Miranda because owing to the poor finish of the Ertl model it wouldn't qualify as a variant anyway. And it has the blue nacelles like the CGI Mirandas of the era too.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:I'm not sure which photos exactly Larry still has in the drawer. But he made some remarks about some kitbashes and the Dominion battlecruiser...
I see. So he probably only has photos of the Dominion war kitbashes; probably the ones we've already seen from the DS9 Tech Manual. Oh, well. At least maybe we'll finally figure out what the Centaur's "real" name is Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
There's no name on that model.
I'd love to see some views of the Dominion Battlecruiser's ventral side.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
In a way I have this romantic(almost a fitting word) idea that he'll have dug up pictures of long lost models from the Emissary intro, but since that's not very likely, I'd settle for images of that tug from the war arc and any other kitbashes we might not have spotted.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:There's no name on that model.
Uh, there sure as heck is. We just couldn't read it because the print was so small & blurry.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Was it you who came up with "Baracus" as the name? Or was that someone else?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I think it was Mark who coined the name Baracus, as a reference to all the golden greeblies glued to the model, a la B.A.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Well, my real name is "Mark," but I'm not the "Mark" that came up with that name. That honor goes to Mark Nguyen.
As for what's printed on the "Centaur" model, I believe some of the candidates that were discussed were "Secrets," "Trieste," and "Duckats," whatever that means. I personally like to think that the name is "Suckass." That's a great name for a starship.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
LOL 16 years and we are still discussing Wolf359! Gotta love it.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
I watched WotW yesterday and judging by the gigantic pennants on the side of the Excelsiors in the same shot the Trial appears in, it looks as though they're model kits too(or the same kit filmed twice).
The Amt/Ertl kit has huge pennant decals on the engineering hull, compared to much better proportioned ones on the real model.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
You know, I was wondering about them as well. They're so out of proportion to the Venture that I kinda figured they were model kits too. Hopefully Nemecek will have pics of those babies too!
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