posted
Funny, I was thinking how it looks like the bastard love-child of the Defiant and Constitution bridges.
(Come to think of it, one could argue that the entire ship is the bastard love-child of a Connie and a Defiant. Defiant's deflector and shuttle drop-bays, with the E-Prime's warp drive and "proto-vestigial" micro-secondary-hull.)
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Voggie: I can't say I see any real similarities to the Voyager bridge, or at least no more than to any other Starfleet bridge.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
Actually, I see the similarities to Voyager more than Defiant... The stations are roughly analogous to the Interpid bridge in terms of where they are and which way they face - as on Voyager, all the stations face the viewer.
Another thing to note is that the Pre-E is the bridge set with the second most exits of any Starship ever, coming behind only the E-D and E-E with six exits to other rooms. It seems that getting off the bridge is something important to that generation of engineers, which fell into disuse by the time of TOS where episodes like "Space Seed" revived the notion of having another way off the bridge.
posted
Well, when you look at the previous bridges of its production designer (Ent-A, Excelsior, Ent-B, Defiant and Ent-E) the common elements do tend to pop out a bit more.
Richard James' Voyager bridge (which I never did like) has far less to do with it than the Defiant. The whole arrangement of having controls along the sides from ahead of the helm sweeping back to doors coming in at that particular angle is very Defiant, as is the idea of the situation table aft. The centred captain's chair is pretty universal to every bridge except Voyager, and the steps down from the chair, sweeping around the helm is straight out of the Ent-A. The tactical and science stations are Ent-E ish, though they can trace their origins back to the Ent-D battle bridge set.
[ April 26, 2002, 18:33: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
I still would have preferred there to be two forward consoles, not one. I think the single one is evidence of Voyager-oriented thinking (sure, the Defiant - with its solo helm console - appeared about the same time as Voyager; which one came first or whether one had any influence on the other is something I don't know).
Of course the bridge has elements of many previous designs. But to me it looks the most like the Voyager one - single helm forward, captain behind (but the first officer's position missing, well, it was a stupid placing anyway), ops and defence behind and to either side, plus associated side consoles at the rough mispoint just like there were on Voyager, one of these on the Pre-E used for Comms.
posted
The two forward consoles vs. one most likely had absolutely nothing to do with a fixation on Berman or Zimmerman's part with the Defiant's or Voyager's bridge and everything to do with real-world issues.
First of all, sticking a second seat beside Travis would necessitate making the whole bridge wider, most likely moving Hoshi, Reed and T'Pol two or three feet further away from everyone else. The single biggest problem with Voyager's bridge, which Zimmerman has thankfully corrected, was that the various consoles were in different time zones, and it was impossible for a director to compose a shot combining more than two characters without having people so far in the background that their face was unreadable. Thus, every scene where Voyager got attacked was exactly the same... medium shot of Tuvok at console, cut to medium shot of Kim at console, cut to close-up of Paris at helm. The camera always seemed to be in the same half dozen locations on that bridge. After a season of Enterprise, we've yet to see any particular camera positions become cliched, and unless the director chooses a close-up, they have the freedom on the current set to easily include two or more people without being so far back that there's no drama conveyed. I think Braga mentioned in an interview somewhere that there was a conscious effort to make the NX-01's bridge "cozier" than Voyager's in this respect. Widening the bridge by even only four or five feet to squeeze more stuff into the 'pit' in front of Archer might have blown that.
Secondly, of course, is the need for that second seat. As we've discussed before, Chekov never did anything, or at least nothing that Sulu couldn't do, and the station never seemed to serve much of a purpose. And because it would be front-and-center, they couldn't just leave it unmanned most of the time. That means warm bodies, and that means $$$. One compulsary extra on top of the one they usually have floating around for the (guessing here) two days a week they'd typically shoot on the bridge adds up over seven years. And unless they were a lusciously hot babe, I can't see how they'd be anything other than really expensive and prominent set dressing (which Mayweather is already becoming anyway).
Basically, the costs (shot composition and $$$$) far outweighed the benefits (looking like TOS). I can't blame them for doing what they did.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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