(Above) Early dock concept – TMP.
For ten long years I looked at this early Andy Probert dock concept hanging on the wall of the Paramount sign shop. For ten long years, and nearly every day, I begged for them for them to let me have it. Awwwww… what’re you gonna do with that? You don’t really care about that sketch, it’s just there. C’mon, let me have it!
It took ten long years, and I finally wore them down. Now it’s mine all mine.
Hoping to learn more about this design, I dropped Andy a line asking if he would jot down some comments about it. Andy Probert, never one to do things half way, recorded an audio visual commentary for us to enjoy. WOW!
Click on the link below to view it, and when you are done, I have posted the images in the A\V presentaion on the next page for your collection.
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(Above) A more form fitting dock.
(Above and below) Drydock crane.
(Below) Drydock garage\office\quarters.
(Below) Starship concourse.
(Below) Detail of the “Flying Tigers” shark mouth.
Thanks Andy! The A/V presentation was a fantastic treat!
Oh wow, that is cool. Also thanks to Andy for the audio!
Andy never ceases to amaze me with his complex ideas. What i wouldn’t give to sit in his office for a day and watch him work. Thanks for this inciteful treat!
Absolutely amazing – thanks for that and thanks to Andy!
“Space has no up” well put by the man of Trek.
Very cool, nice seeimg Andy’s great work from 30 years ago.
Wow – dinner and a show! Not only do we get the inside scoop, but in the voice of the man himself. This Blog is too cool for words. BTW – love the shark joke.
Andrew Probert never ceases to amaze me. Cool stuff!!!
Appreciate the effort to get this to us! I like the idea of swinging into the seat of the crane..not a bad way to start the work day.
I can just eat up all the fun details you show us, Doug, like the Flying Tigers art on Big E!!! I just keep grinning when I look at it.
What a treat! Where else can you get all in one hot heaping helping of bloggery:
* Doug Drexler’s persistence
* Andy Probert’s I-can-do-it-with-one-hand-tied-behind-my-back brilliance
* the generosity of spirit of both men, who take the time to bother putting this together for our enlightenment and edification
* the sci-fi goodness of intricate technical spaceshipery
* and a display of the bottonmless well of fun that is Star Trek – The Motion Picture
I mean, seriously, where else are your geeky needs getting satiated like this?
Thanks Doug! Thanks Commodore Probert!
What he said! Ditto to Jay’s question – where else? No place I’ve seen!!
And I completely forgot to mention the shark mouth! The SHARK MOUTH! How cool is that?
Thruster clusters! Always loved saying that, sounds like a candy bar.
Doug,
The best thing about this blog is that you give us a look into Trek before your time on the show. A true history of the art of Star Trek.
IT amazes me that it took till the JJ movie to have a director who actually realized space HAS NO UP. While you get a hint of it in the trailer, the movie proper has to be one of the best examples I have seen in Trek outside of DS9 where the starships work in a 3D and not 2D space.
Even WoK where a plot point is Kahns 2D thinking, Kirk hardly takes advantage of that till the end of the movie, and only then is it Spock who suggests it.
I wouldn’t give past films and past directors too much grief. You have to consider that there’s also the very important matter of the audience’s expectation and understanding and its ability to follow the action without the need for exposition to explain the relationships of one ship to another. I assume at some point you choose to make a compromise for the sake of making sure you get your point across clearly. I suppose its a form of artistic license, like making starships WHOOSH and and phasers CRACKLE when everyone knows there’s no sound in space. its a concession to the audience and our need for the satisfaction of hearing noisy things happen that probably couldn’t actually happen.
Jay – Bang on!
Wow. This blog is like the dream of every, dare I say it, Trekkie
On the concepts, they look nice. It seems only a small detail, I really like those hard-connect points in the first image. That’s really a dock, where the E flies into, and then the whole scaffolding gets erected around it. Pretty cool.
The shape does kind of imply this dock would only fit a Constitution-class vessel, although we could probably assume there are enough resources to allow for such ‘skintight’ docks for all major shiptypes. Or alternatively, that these kinds of docks are very modular and configurable to allow for any shape.
The torpedo launcher looks great
Thank you very much Andy! Love the insights. I have to say while I was reading Doug’s post I couldn’t help but get the TMP soundtrack that accompanies the dry doc scene looping in my head
Talk about your original content. This is some serious Trek scholarship going on here. I love this stuff.
It’s stuff like this that make me really wish we had another show in the works! It would have been great to see the detailed stuff like this in a webisode like BSG did. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Andy! I love the backstory that each of the images have. It gives method to the madness!
Thanks Doug and Andy for a great… GREAT posting! You have really made my day with this one. At some point I’m going to finally build the Polar Lights 1/350 scale Reit Enterprise but now I’m thinking I need to create the Dry Dock AND Office Quarters/Garage section… “brilliant!”
I loved those colored pencil on black board that Andy did. I especially loved the pov shot he did from inside the Enterprise saucer docking socket looking down at the body of the E during the unfilmed saucer separation sequence.
Incredible sequence of sketches. Puts you right in there!
That’s very cool. Thanks, Andy!
Jay: You have to consider that there’s also the very important matter of the audience’s expectation and understanding and its ability to follow the action without the need for exposition to explain…
Otherwise known as, The Da Vinci Code, as put to film. Oh brother.
Ron: Tom, we need you to read this exposition off.
Tom: Another one Ron… don’t you think this is a LOT of exposition?
Ron: Don’t worry about it, we’ll put all kinds of scrolls and ancient-type shit floatin’ around you while you read it in post. It’ll be great, trust me.
Tom: OK, you’re the director Ron. Still, seems like a LOT of on-screen explanation…
Ron: No, it’ll be great, trust me. Really.
Tom: OK, Opie. Whatever you say.
Ron: Ha ha, just read your lines…, Buffy.
Glad you snagged the pic Doug, it’s in good hands that way, eh.
And thanks for this, and thanks to Andy for a very illuminating A/V tour around some of his thoughts as to the dock.
LLP,
deg
I am trying to figure out how Drex will top himself! Every day the entries get better and the material more, dare I say, fastinating.
For a person like myself, who shy’s away from blogs and the like, I’m glued to this one.
The DC
Jay posted…
“I suppose its a form of artistic license, like making starships WHOOSH and and phasers CRACKLE when everyone knows there’s no sound in space. its a concession to the audience and our need for the satisfaction of hearing noisy things happen that probably couldn’t actually happen.”
I don’t disagree with Jay’s point about space scenes with sound being a form of artistic license or a concession to the audience. I do, however, disagree with the idea that an audience *needs* to hear sound in space scenes.
Having sound in space scenes is a concession to the audience only because audiences are rarely presented with soundless space scenes. It is entirely possible to depict a complete story in film, evoking whatever emotions the director desires, without sound, music or captions. In a film with sound, it is entirely possible to depict a shot or a scene, evoking whatever emotions the director desires, without sound, music or captions.
A “good” science-fiction movie containing soundless space scenes is very doable. *Should* it be done? I’d like to see it done much more often that it has been done, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for a Trek-traditional film. I feel the same way about the depiction of more 3D-savvy space scenes.
The lack of sound in the space scenes in Firefly was very effective. That plus the shakycam gave it a “documentary” quality that made it seem more real and immediate.
As for movement in 3D, I think you get plenty of that in movies showing aerial combat, so I think audiences should be able to follow it in space shows/films as well.
Thanks Doug, I had never seen these cocnepts before.
Thanks Andy for V/A it was very enlightening.
Doug thanks for posting this. Andy, thank you for going to the trouble of explaining your design! Very well thought out or Quite logical as Spocko would say.
AWESOME
Doug: Jay – Bang on!
Propellorheads, Doug?
those guys rock.
LLP,
deg
I’ve been reading Drexfiles every day for a few months now, but never posted.
Anyway, my question is this: Do you know (or could you find out) what Andy Probert thinks of the new Enterprise?
Also, what do you think of the new Enterprise? Personally, I think the Probert and Jeffries versions are better, but I could be biased because I’m so used to them.
Hi Jesse – I think everyone has thoughts on it, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it is prudent to wait and see it in action before dissecting it. I will say that it has grown on me since the first shock of seeing it. I do like the swoopy, smooth, and googie quality. I look forward to seeing it.
Thanks Doug for the post, and for “rescuing” another piece of Trek production history, especially after reading John Eaves recent post.
Thanks Mr. Probert for your commentary on your designs. It would have been great to see the Drydock “garage” and even docking corridors on film….to my thinking Star Trek (post TOS when it was invented for budgetary reasons) relied too much on using transporter tech. instead of displaying more grounded Tech like your wonderful designs here.
Doug, wow, you just impress…getting one of my favourite conceptual designers to talk about one of his designs. Now if you could just get my other favourite conceptual designers Ron Cobb and Ralph McQuarrie to talk about some of their designs (Alien and Star Wars respectivly) this Blog would be PERFECT!!
Actually, better still, just win the lottery and pay Messers Probert, Cobb and McQuarrie to design some new futuristic tech and starships for us all to enjoy….LOL.
I can dream
Cheers
Mark
The garage/offices appears to be the predecessor of the orbital office complex. It even has smaller pods (or whatever the word would be) attached to it like the office complex, Regula I, etc.
Hey, gang,
I just got a notice that my monthly allotment of bandwidth has been reached on my little A/V show. The hosting site: ‘screencast.com’ allows only a certain amount of viewing per month and that may have been reached, although a test of accessibility (4/18/09) at 9:15AM, EastCoast, still shows it working.
This is a new site I’m testing and it’s screen capture utility: ‘Jing’ is supurb and is also free. Bottom line,… if the “show” quits for a while,… I’m sorry.
Andrew-
Andy,
It worked fine for me.
Great presentation with informative explanations. have you thought about perhaps coming out with a DVD that you could host your work and do more of these explanations? I for one, would buy it! Thanks again to Doug and Andy.
I never tire of seeing concept sketches from ST:TMP, particularly the ones Andy had a (talented) hand in. There were so many amazing ideas tossed around that it’s hard to believe many of them were never utilized in later Trek iterations.
Andy, thanks for taking the time to record the show, and Doug thanks for providing such an amazing forum!
Andy, I just wanted to say how much I love this sketch on black. John mentioned another sketch that would be cool to see…any chance it’s around? I’ve built a couple of basic architectural models, but have been wanting to do a ship and you’ve made up my mind. It’ll be this one with the Flying Tigers art and all!! Not the space dock, though.
Thanks for sharing the video! And Doug, thanks for rescuing it from an unknown fate!
Thanks for the bandwidth-related heads-up, and the presentation worked for me.
More as I think on it…
Hey Andy! If you want, I’ve got a website with some bandwith to spare. I’d be happy to put it up there so everyone can continue to enjoy this wonderful presentation!
Fantastic! Thanks so much for the video Andy, very very watchable.
Doug Drexler,
Thank you for your expert opinion (I certainly think you’re an expert). I’ll keep that in mind when I watch the movie. By the way, it’s too bad your schedule won’t allow Drexfiles to continue, but it’s been really great. Thanks.
Thanks Jesse! We’re gonna keep on trekkin’!
Very Cool…I’m in Heavan !!!:D
Very nice.
Thank you Mr Probert
Really interesting recording and another marvel of modern technology as well!
I know it’s been said a bazillion times already, but this blog really is excellent.
This entry is really astonishing… i’m a big drydock fan and the history, and possibilities, continue to amaze. Great job Doug and thank you Andy.
Nice presentation Doug and Andy. Having just watched TMP Director’s cut, wanted to go back and see your postings here. Very fascinating. Saw some things I had never seen before. Thanks so much to you both.
Oh dear. I may have just had a slight heart attack.
Seriously, you guys need to do a new Art of Star Trek book, or a big or even two part book series with this fanboys archive collection. I would gladly remortgage to buy them.
This blog reminds me of pawing over imahes in books in the early 90s before the internet. Anything i could that was behind the scenes omages designs or model shot. I was a tng generation kid but loved TOS as it was always being repeated and just fell in love with it even more than tng. I remember buying a second hand ‘making of star trek’ book and loved every page and image. Gave me that warm feeling that im getting now looking at these concept images/models etc.
Seriously good stuff. If this shit were illegal, wed all be banged up.
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