Man, is this a great shot of a gallant lady, or what?
The USS Excelsior extensively retooled for it’s appearance in Star Trek: Generations, which begat The USS Lakota. The Lakota was a Named after one of the Sioux Indian groups from North America. The Lakota under the command of Captain Erika Benteen intercepts the USS Defiant on the latter’s way to earth during Vice Admiral Leyton’s attempted coup.
I’ve dug up some teriffic detail shots. You are in for a treat. Here are a few of them just to whet your appetite… ready?
Do I lie?
These pics were taken by “Farmer” John Eaves over at Image G, on Ventura Blvd. I pass it everyday on the way to work, and I think about all the fun we had there. G still exists and is still run by Tom Barron. Image G continues to be one of the busiest mostion control facililities on the planet. Tom Barron is also one of the funniest guys on the planet.
Excelsior, with it’s bussardless nacelles, had a “blind” appearance. The addition of bussard collectors was a welcome addition to the Enterprise B.
Additonal “frosting” by John Eaves.
This is starship porn at it’s finest, folks. I’d have to dig out my Master Systems cross section to see what I denoted this as at the time. Pretty sure it is cargo processing.
This bit of “ginger-bread” is undoubtedly torp\probe, and com relay launchers. Long range sensors, and tractor emitters.
Were these shots ok?
Some nice eye candy reference shots there, thanks.
John Eaves, of course, is the brilliant illustrator who was responsible for “saving” the Enterprise-B. At one point during preproduction for Star Trek Generations, it was planned that the Enterprise-B would be an all-new design.
Now, as much as we all love new starship designs, John and I knew that fans would be disappointed if the -B ended up as a different ship. Andy Probert had laid out that heritage on the conference room wall for the first episode of TNG, and we all hated the thought of losing that bit of history. And, of course, we loved ILM’s beautiful model of Bill George’s cool design.
I had heard that our producers had some “concerns” about the design of the Excelsior, which were driving the plan to make an all-new ship. Once I learned what those specific issues were, John Eaves came to the rescue. He sketched up some minor modifications to the Excelsior design that would 1) address most of our producers’ concerns, and 2) preserve the overall design of the Excelsior. Once they saw John’s ideas, our producers immediately agreed. Not only did it look good, but it saved the production a fair amount of money, since they no longer had to build an all-new model from scratch.
(By the way, John, whatever happened to that Excelsior model I loaned you for your sketches??)
-Mike
Thanks for that Mike! Great insight!- Doug
The TNG: The Movies Sketchbook quotes John Eaves as saying that the additional parts to the forward secondary hull were also designed to allow for the deflector room destruction, without actually destroying the original Excelsior model. He adds that the shape is party inspired by the PBY Catalina airplane.
Now.. was that additional piece of hull actually ever destroyed (or did you use an extra partial model with destroyed bits), and if so, was it rebuilt for its appearance as [i]Lakota[/i]?
Yummy,however these were posted somewhere else on the web. I am not sure where but I have seen these before. Its still great to see them with the written responces of those who created/modified her.
I actually have about a hundred or so shots I selected these from. Sooner or later I’ll print one you haven’t seen! – Doug
You sure its a hundred..You know what..send them over and I will count them to make sure.
Again super post! I am not sure why, but I like the Enterprise-B More then the Excelsior. Don’t get me wrong I love the Excelsior, but between the two..I have to say the E-B is better. Not sure how they did it in Generations, but she felt huge on the big screen.
Again Thanks
On the subject of new models…
I think it’s quite ironic that you guys didn’t have to build a new model for the Enterprise-B, but when Voyager’s “Flashback” episode was produced, Greg Jein had to build a new Excelsior model because the Ent-B’s additional parts couldn’t be removed from the original ship!
BTW Mr. Okuda, I’ve been meaning to ask: What was the rationale for giving Excelsiors registries in the 4XXXX’s, when the Ambassador class ships, clearly more advanced, were only in the 2XXXX range? Sorry if I sound like the stereotypical Trekkie…
Also, were there ever any sketches drawn up of what the “new” Enterprise-B might have looked like?
I have always liked the Excelsior’s unique design, when it was altered for Generations, I thought, cool. I am glad they reused the variant in Deep Space Nine. Thanks for the pix.
Mark Delgado.. I am not Mike, But Let me take a crack at it. I think Starfleet was continuing making the Excelsiors at the same time with Ambassador class. Think of the Excelsiors class ships as an empty shell, the real things that are needed are the updated computers,engines, warp coils….etc If you look at the U.S.S. Pegasus, She’s an Oberth-class ship, much older then the Excelsior class.
But I could be wrong! Maybe Mike will tell us!
Joe: That wouldn’t surprise me. Starfleet – all the star nations’ space services in the Star Trek context, come to think of it – tend to keep pumping out ships of various classes for as long as it seemed to make sense to do so.
Gorgeous…but still I miss the classic lines of the original NX-2000 design. The big impulse crystal, the rounded after fantail section, the gracefully curving nacelle caps… :::sighs::: Ever upward, though, I suppose.
Thanks for the lovely shots.
Didn’t Mr. Eaves design the Enterprise-E as well?
And what were the producers’ “concerns” about the original Excelsior? That it had already been used on screen? That it’s silhouette might be confused with that of the Enterprise-D? ???
From what I understand, Rick Berman didn’t want to use the Excelsior model for the “B” because it had been seen so many times before on TNG as a “guest ship” (which was true). Ironically, we’d all be seeing more Excelsiors than we’d ever wanted during the battle scenes in DS9
“That its silhouette might be confused with that of the Enterprise-D?”
It’s funny you should say that. When I originally saw “Generations” in the theaters, I went with a friend who had never seen an episode of Star Trek. She thought both ships were supposed to be the same vessel, and Harriman and Picard the same person, just decades later. I distinctly remember her asking me why all of a sudden the guy started using a British accent when he was an American before
HARRY,
From what I can recall, the only shots of the damaged engineering hull of the -B were the impact shot (which was full CG, since only the CG version of the ship was used for the ribbon approach and ribbon sequence) and the aftermath shot (that beautiful flyover), which combined two separate miniatures of the -b. So while you had the regular -b miniature for part of the shot, the part where the damaged section came into view used a scaled-up miniature for the damaged section.
I wrote about this stuff for a magazine a long time ago, but this part stayed in memory, because I kept running the laserdisc back and forth on the flyover to try to see the ’seam’ between the separately-shot miniature elements.
Mark thats funny.
I for one is interested in what you describe as “cargo processing.” What IS that?
Mr. Okuda, you said the producers had some concerns about he excelsior model. What exactly did they have a problem with?
This is one of my favorite Trek models of all time. The Excelsior was nice, but embellished up as the B, this thing looked far more nautical and massive, especially in closeups in “Generations.”
Thank you for these beautiful images, Mr. D.
Wow,
Simply beautiful images, Doug. The modelers in the room must be salivating like mad.
A nice look at the details!
I really like about the Excelsior that a well-dosed number of complex details is exposed to space, while overall the hull is very smooth. The latter continued a tradition, and it set a standard for the starship designs still to come.
I’m not fond of all the additions made for “Generations”. The deflector housing makes sense for the reason that Harry mentioned above, and it blends nicely with the existing hull. But the caps on the nacelles always looked like ancient Greek helmets to me.
Oh my…
That is a GREAT model eh. Hands down, just a great model. It’s really cool to see some high nurnie detail on this SF boat.
And what great shots eh! It’s nice to see the finish like that, up close and personal. It immediately gave me some ideas for tweaking my TOS.5 E maps, esp. the hull plating color map.
Thanks Doug! and thanks John for takin’ ‘em!
…starship porn… Choice.
PLL,
deg
Spot the nurney behind the bussard-fin in the third photo – it’s the hatch from Darth Vader’s Tie Fighter! I love it!!
Mike Okuda wrote on January 22, 2009 at 5:15 pm:
By the way, John, whatever happened to that Excelsior model I loaned you for your sketches??)
-Mike
Prolly sitting on the shelf next to the Moebius books I lent him. ^.^!
-Adam
WOW, I got to see this model up close and personal when the Lakota was being filmed and MAN! the detail work in the paint job is INTENSE. Really super detailed.
These are awesome pics!
As usual I can’t concentrate on my work . . . .