Agreed 100% 
Shane Johnson (Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise)
- Thread starter FalTorPan
- Start date
Ahhh, that's very interesting, I always assumed that the consistency between all of the early-80s materials was due to authors' discretion, had no idea it was actually a Paramount mandate.
I've dunno how accurate the idea is that they couldn't afford a briefing room set for TMP. I've read a number of drafts of the TMP script and only the early ones mention a briefing room. Furthermore, script pages from the start of production already identify scene 156 as INT. OFFICER'S LOUNGE, not as the a briefing room. Can anyone cite a script from August 1978 or later which includes it?
I believe the location was planned for the briefing room or the rec room. The sets were still under construction when Star Trek II (Phase was dropped early on) was canned, and I don't know if they got as far as starting the Briefing Room. We know they had started construction of Nogura's office because its walls became the walls of the cargo deck live set.
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I was told that account by Richard Arnold during my first visit to Stage 9. No briefing room was ever built, despite the open space having been dedicated for one. I do know a great deal of expense was incurred very early on and entire planned scenes were cut after they were filmed and deemed unusable. The Brick Price effects had cost a fortune but were quickly scrapped, entailing redesigns and rebuilds of sets, props and costumes.
The corridor walls we saw in TMP were built inside the walls built for Phase II, which still stood behind them. At the open end of the corridor arc the very TOSish corridor walls built earlier could still be seen.
Lora
Well, sadly, Richard Arnold is a very "unreliable narrator", so I recommend taking anything he's said with a lick of salt.
As to planned scenes that were scrapped, most of that is the spacewalk, for which expensive sets were built and for which Brick Price Wonderworks made spacesuits, but I believe that entire sequence was scrapped before any VFX work (other than maybe tests) had been shot. It was, of course, the Abel & Associates effects work which was scrapped, flushing away millions.
As to the Star Trek II corridor walls, these are them unhidden (that bare plywood being the backside of Kirk's cabin's office area):
As to planned scenes that were scrapped, most of that is the spacewalk, for which expensive sets were built and for which Brick Price Wonderworks made spacesuits, but I believe that entire sequence was scrapped before any VFX work (other than maybe tests) had been shot. It was, of course, the Abel & Associates effects work which was scrapped, flushing away millions.
As to the Star Trek II corridor walls, these are them unhidden
(that bare plywood being the backside of Kirk's cabin's office area):
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I love the photo. Thank you for sharing
Lora
Lora
My Trekplace interview (the one quoted) took place fifteen years ago, so I suppose we've learned a few things since then
Lora
Hi Lora. Lovely to see you here, and thank you for taking the time to share your Star Trek writing experiences with us. Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise was one of the first (if not, the first) Trek reference books I bought, and I still pore through it to this day.
Best wishes to you.
Best wishes to you.
Thanks Lora! I understand it's been a while, but here goes:
That would have been after the photos below then, which are not dated in any way I can see. They were obviously taken while the bridge was in its Grissom/Saratoga configuration from TSFS/TVH, before the white-and-chrome 1701-A update to the bridge (although the addition of Okudagrams seems to be in progress), and well before any TNG work of course. Sorry about the quality, this is the largest size I have:
Any insights on the possible purpose of the above shots?
I never did get why all of the sets are referred to as "Saratoga" (e.g. "kirk's quarters on the Saratoga"). Any thoughts on that? Some speculated the TVH production was trying to conceal the climactic reveal of the 1701-A; since your visit was before the release of TVH, was there any secrecy you were aware of on this point?
In the Trekplace interview you mention the following:
Can you provide any more insight into how the set was being transformed into a 1986-era apartment? It seems so odd; there had to have been any number of 20th-century apartment sets available on the Paramount lot that could more realistically depict such a scene (windows, etc.) without going to the time and expense of redressing an Enterprise interior that may or may not be used later (it was of course). The photos above do seem to show a new paint job, but the set is still very recognizably Kirk's quarters.
Did you get any shots of this piece? I for one have never seen it. Alternatively any descriptions you can recall would be fun.
The storage of unused bridge pieces in the turbolift in the photos above jibes with your description of the Engineering set in the Trekplace interview. Any more anecdotes along those lines (specific pieces, etc.)?
The corridor walls we saw in TMP were built inside the walls built for Phase II, which still stood behind them. At the open end of the corridor arc the very TOSish corridor walls built earlier could still be seen.
That photo upthread is the first and only shot I've seen of the Phase II corridors. Do you have any other recollections of obvious vestiges from Phase II?
I have only one or two of my Stage 9 images saved in jpg format. If I can sort out the means for placing them here, I'd be happy to do so
Yes, it's a pain; if I can assist please let me know (feel free to PM if you like). I for one would love to see as much of your photography from that day as possible. Perhaps someone here could assist with scanning the stereo slides (2-D is fine of course). Are the stereo slides in color?
Thanks again!
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In my personal interpretation of the Star Trek universe, I still believe the Enterprise-A was originally the USS Ti-Ho.
Me too
Lora
They look like fairly straightforward documentary shots of the Enterprise sets. I'd guess that the 'Saratoga' thing was just some odd attempt at secrecy. Judging from the state of the sets, I'd say these photos were taken in the Spring of 1986, not too long before I visited and just before the redress into the white/chrome bridge scheme we saw at the end of ST IV.
The apartment for Gillian was to have been in Kirk's era, not 1986. As I was told, a brief scene of her settling into her new century was scrapped halfway through the redress of Kirk's quarters.
The corner table for Kirk's quarters can be seen in images 9 and 11. It is not a restaurant table as the notes state, and different booths were used in the Sickbay/bar scene. I did get a very nice 3D photo of it.
The items cluttering the engineering section were primarily the beds and medical displays normally in the Sickbay ICU. The decor and detail pieces in McCoy's lab were repainted in copper, brown and gold tones so that the room could appear as a part of the Klingon Bird of Prey interior, as were those in the dilithium reactor room set. The ICU had been redressed into the bar where McCoy tried to hire a ship to take him to Genesis in ST III.
My slides are all in color and 3D, yes.
Lora
For me, I always liked the technical aspects of the book, often being better thought out than on the movies/tc shows themselves:
Case in point: your transporter emitters are independently shielded from the rest of the ship, permitting transporter use in the heat of battle. That was a very common sense notion, although unfortunately one that basically removes an easy fallback for the writers of battle scenes ("we can't beam up the captain, we daren't drop the shields!" etc).
Still, it makes for a much more believable universe, at least within the confines of the book
Case in point: your transporter emitters are independently shielded from the rest of the ship, permitting transporter use in the heat of battle. That was a very common sense notion, although unfortunately one that basically removes an easy fallback for the writers of battle scenes ("we can't beam up the captain, we daren't drop the shields!" etc).
Still, it makes for a much more believable universe, at least within the confines of the book
Shields are tricky. We were shown on-screen that cloaking systems utilize the shielding system of a vessel -- yet, in ST III, Kruge beams up to the Bird of Prey while it's cloaked. So, it seems only one system or the other, shields or cloak, is in operation at any one time. We've seen repeatedly in TOS and many of the films that shields hug the contours of the ship (weapon impacts occurring virtually right up against the hull), yet some kind of stand-off 'bubble' shielding is apparent now and again in some series, as well. V'Ger's plasma bolt seems to impact directly against the forward rim of the primary hull of the refit and 'splash' outward in all directions.
I was honored that 'Into Darkness' made canon the diburnium-osmium shielding system I devised for Mr. Scott's Guide in order to explain the refit's ability to stand up to the plasma bolt from V'Ger. Clearly, the refit had a system radically different from anything used before, and that was the explanation I came up with. The concussion transfer into the ship of weapons impacts suggested to me some form of virtual 'solid' hugging the contours of the true hull. Some people liked the idea and some didn't, but it was that way with everything else in the book, too Same goes for the transporter emitter 'windows,' which made sense to me -- when a weakness in a system (inability to transport with shields up) proves a crucial handicap time and time again, that handicap tends to be remedied. But, it has indeed been a plot-point crutch used by a lot of writers, so there is that, too.
Lora
I was honored that 'Into Darkness' made canon the diburnium-osmium shielding system I devised for Mr. Scott's Guide in order to explain the refit's ability to stand up to the plasma bolt from V'Ger. Clearly, the refit had a system radically different from anything used before, and that was the explanation I came up with. The concussion transfer into the ship of weapons impacts suggested to me some form of virtual 'solid' hugging the contours of the true hull. Some people liked the idea and some didn't, but it was that way with everything else in the book, too
Same goes for the transporter emitter 'windows,' which made sense to me -- when a weakness in a system (inability to transport with shields up) proves a crucial handicap time and time again, that handicap tends to be remedied. But, it has indeed been a plot-point crutch used by a lot of writers, so there is that, too.Lora
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