posted
Wasn't there a photo of the damaged Reliant model in the Magazine a few months ago?
-------------------- "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
Dukkie, I don't suppose you'd consider mailing Legato again and inquiring on the new issues that have come up, perhaps try to pump him (gently and politely, of course) for a few more details, would you? To clear up these issues that have been proposed such as:
-What kind of different engines? Galaxy or something else? -Was the model actually re-labeled as the Gage? -Was it just used in a damaged state or were parts of the model restored? (IIRC it was just the Reliant's warp nacelle that was blown off, wasn't it? So perhaps all they had to replace were the nacelles?) -Any more info in general about modifications made to the ship.
I'd sure like to hear the story go down in the records as a bit more than the rather nebulous statement "it was based off the Reliant..."
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I suppose I could, but I'm 99.9% sure that he'd either not reply back to me because he doesn't know, or that he'd reply back to me telling me he doesn't know. Considering the fact that it took him three months to reply in the first place, and that he basically told me all he knew, I doubt there'd be any use pumping him further for info he doesn't remember anyway. His own reply was pretty vague at that; i.e. if I had mentioned the ship's name as being Tolstoy instead of Gage, he might have believed that that was the ship the Reliant stood in for.
Perhaps trying to contact someone who actually might have done the scavenging for old models, say, Gary Hutzel, might be a better solution, although I emailed Hutzel about this and never got a reply. Okuda was the one who gave us the most reliable info, and even he didn't have much to say.
Keep in mind that the whole reason I tried contacting him was that I had a belief that he had built a new, previously unseen model for the Gage. Now that that is apparently not the case, I am under the opinion that, damaged Reliant or not, the Apollo class should still be considered a conjectural design. Hell, if we want ships, at least we got to see the fourth Excelsior study model recently.
Here's Legato's reply, if you're interested (spelling errors corrected by moi):
"Dear Mark, All I remember of the Gage was that it was most likely the Reliant from the features (Trek 2). As for the discarded footage the true story is that we designed a much faster paced scene in the battle than the interior bridge scene would suggest. We shot this scene first and when the live action was edited it was quite a bit slower and we had to go back and pull out the fast action bits to match. Essentially we slowed up the scene by removing the elements of speed. Other ships and fast whip pans and the like. It was unfortunate since we thought it was a much better opening for the new series. If the Gage was not the Reliant than it was based on the design with different engines. We re-cycled the ships a lot. That's all I remember. I hope it helps."
-------------------- "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 see. Pity we can't find out more, but at least that urban legend about an Ambassador kitbash has been dispelled...
I suppose you might try writing Hutzel again, perhaps he was just busy at the time you sent the previous query and never got 'round to replying and in the interim has forgotten. Captain Kyle had some nice correspondence with him about that mysterious calendar Galaxy a while back...
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Whatever it is, he expects you to know about it ("the design" as opposed to "a design"). He also says that the result might've been based on this design.
So if it wasn't a plain Miranda like he initially theorized (and we know they had made a couple of them for the Saratoga explosion shot):
1) Maybe Legato thought the additions to the Soyuz-class were different engines, and the Gage was a Soyuz with the kind of slight modifications we've observed on that Ambassador-class ship and the Saratoga.
2) Maybe he meant the Constellation-class, which is kind of similar to the Reliant but has different engines, and the Gage was basically a Constellation with slight modifications.
Given that the other ships in the scene were rather commonplace, the Gage was probably one of the familar designs: Miranda, Soyuz, Oberth, Constellation -- plus or minus a rollbar or an impulse-deflection crystal, so to speak.
Also, I see no problem with such a design being Apollo-class, especially given the Soyuz/Miranda relationship, the Danube/Yellowstone relationship, the B'Rel/K'Vort relationship, the Yeager/Intrepid relationship etc. Even in the real world, ships of different classes sometimes look radically different; sometimes they don't.
Let's not be simplistic, and especially not assume that just because the ships in the graveyard were unusual, Apollo must be unusual and unseen likewise. If we look at the various fleets as being fair samples of Starfleet (and why not?), the balance of probability is that most of the Wolf 359 ships were the usual kind we've seen in the Dominion War and other battles -- Excelsiors, Mirandas, Nebulas, Akiras, Steamrunners -- with a few unusual designs here and there. Hence, Legato was right not to invent a lot of new designs specially for the battle.
Boris
[ October 23, 2002, 20:33: Message edited by: Boris ]
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quote:1) Maybe Legato thought the additions to the Soyuz-class were different engines, and the Gage was a Soyuz with the kind of slight modifications we've observed on that Ambassador-class ship and the Saratoga.
2) Maybe he meant the Constellation-class, which is kind of similar to the Reliant but has different engines, and the Gage was basically a Constellation with slight modifications.
1. Highly unlikely that he would think something like that. He knows the nacelles are commonly called engines. The Soyuz and the Miranda have the same nacelles. So if he knows about the Soyuz, then he would think the sensor pods were actually something else and not engines. In this situation, he most likely would have thought those pods were really sensors. Also in this situation, he would know the design as Soyuz class. 2. He pretty much remembered it as a ship from the movies when he said Reliant. The Constellation model was never seen in any movie and was made in TNG's first season as the Stargazer. However a modifcation of the Reliant model could be Constellation nacelles instead of the LN-64 nacelles.
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Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
There was no Encyclopedia and a myriad other official works at the time, so he probably wouldn't have known about "Miranda"-class, especially since he left Star Trek after TNG ended.
David Stipes also called it the Reliant, which suggests that it was a common label among the VFX people, just as "Miranda" is a common label among the present-day fans. The ship is most famous as the Reliant, so the name probably stuck among the VFX people (not to mention non-fans).
As for the Soyuz, he may have thought they were impulse engines. Anything is possible; these guys need not know more than they have to know.
Boris
[ October 23, 2002, 21:45: Message edited by: Boris ]
Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:Given that the other ships in the scene were rather commonplace, the Gage was probably one of the familar designs: Miranda, Soyuz, Oberth, Constellation -- plus or minus a rollbar or an impulse-deflection crystal, so to speak.
He remembers it as an altered form of the damaged Reliant model, but to entertain other possibilities...
Miranda: replaced LN-64 nacelles with Constellation nacelles or pylon supported nacelles (like the way ILM had originally envisioned the Reliant until flipped upside-down by Harve Bennett...most likely Legato would not have known about the Reliant's design history) with or without rollbar in the ventral location
Soyuz: he would have needed to take the Soyuz added parts and damage them then connect them to the model differently than the Bozeman had them. Remember the Bozeman was just the Reliant model with new parts added on/modified and the rollbar removed.
Oberth: the only damaged model was the Vico. He could have removed the "secondary hull" and supporting pylons or changed the nacelles
Constellation: he could have made a new plastic model like Picard's desktop model, removed a pair of nacelles, and damaged the model he could have also used a standard 2-deck Connie saucer rim instead of building up the 4-deck Constellation saucer rim.
Excelsior: one of the study models would have been fine, though better not to damage any of them
Constitution: one of the early phase 2 study models would have been fine, again better not to damage any of them
Sydney: take the model and have the nacelle pylons going down instead of up
Ambassador: nebularize the design as we have done recently (though such a model would have to be a full studio filming model as no scale model kits of the Ambassador were yet available)
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posted
He just says Reliant. He *may* have meant the specific damaged Reliant, but you can't really tell from the e-mail since we know that "Reliant" is also a colloquial name for Miranda-class. I'm also a bit unsure about whether it was necessarily damaged, despite the reference in the DS9 Companion (anybody have the exact quote?). After all, the ships were zipping past the screen and we know that a live-action line was cut from the final draft of the script which said "Sir, Admiral Hanson has deployed the Gage, the Kyushu and the Melbourne." Besides, he also thinks it could be something else, yet I wouldn't go too far into ships that don't resemble a Miranda at all.
Amasov Prime
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posted
Basically we have noting. A Reliant could be anything, from some modified model that looked like a Miranda somehow to the Constellationized Challenger from the comic (which was my first thought hen I read it, actually.)
If they filmed the like about Hanson deploying those vessels, it may have looked similar to Shelby's scene in BoBW: The Kyushu, [Chekov] and Melbourne in dialogue, and what we see on-screen is the same thing. Maybe the destruction of the Melbourne was everything that was left after re-editing the scene. They say Hanson has deployed this and that vessel, cut to SFX and we see the Melbourne and two other ships attacking the cube and the getting fried. The Kyushu and Gage moved too fast or didn't fit into the scene and were edited out. I'm absolutely sure the Companion quoted somebody (maybe Legato himself) who said they tried to recreate Wolf as good as possible, with ships like the Kyushu already seen in BoBW. The Kyushu-reference stuck to my mind, and together with a Gage and Melbourne it would make perfect sense.
And besides the meltdown-model from ST2, Constellation is one of the few models we didn't see again after Emissary. At least it would be a candidate.
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Registered: Nov 2001
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quote:All I remember of the Gage was that it was most likely the Reliant from the features (Trek 2).
Err, maybe he confused the Gage with the Saratoga?
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
That may indeed be the case. It is after all, a modified Miranda. Regardless all we have have now is a vague possibility of a description that may or may not be of the correct ship. Of course like most of the other W359 and DS9 tech manual ships we will never know for sure until we see photos of the actual models.
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Who is Ron B. Moore... would he know anything?
AFAIK he's one of the VFX Supervisors for Enterprise and was for Voyager too (and TNG before that?). I don't think he ever worked on DS9 but I may be wrong.
posted
Quick question what does the "fourth excelsior study model" look like? I haven't kept up with stuff recently. Thanks
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