(Above) Otherworldly and wonderfully atmospheric, the “Shangri La-like Vulcan of “The Search For Spock”.

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Jörg, who on “some sort of Star Trek”, knocks one out of the Quadrant with part 2 of his LA Away Mission…

LA trip – day two

On my second Star Trek shooting location day in LA, a Saturday, the real fun began. To prepare myself, I had rewatched the relevant episodes to get a good grasp of the locations and the various camera angles used and compiled dozens of sheets with 9 screenshots each of the various locations I wanted to visit.

Originally, I had thought I could do this trip all on my own, using LA public transportation to get from a to b. In retrospect, I can say I would never have seen as many locations as I ended up seeing that way, and would probably have died of dehydration on that hot and dry weekend if it weren’t for Jeff Zucker who graciously offered to be my companion on this trip and take me from place to place. I had met Jeff through the Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Board, a place for collectors of authentic Star Trek costumes and props to talk about their collections, help identify rarely seen items, have a good time and much more. Reading about my plans for the LA weekend, Jeff offered his help and I couldn’t have done most of it without him (and also wouldn’t have all those pics of a grinning me at those shooting locations gracing this article )

I will only briefly report about the current appearance of the shooting locations today in this sequence of articles, as I plan some larger articles with comparison screenshots of the various locations for Ex Astris Scientia.

Jeff picked me up Saturday morning and we headed to our first location: the Lucille Y. Gilman Memorial Fountain at Occidental College, Eagle Rock.

The fountain was originally not on my list, but buddy Ian aka Therin of Andor suggested this location and as it lay conveniently between Huntington Gardens and Griffith Park, we decided to check it out, too.

Jeff parked his car next to a sports field and we slowly approached the Vulcan fountain near the Bird-of-prey landing spot from Star Trek III. Not much had changed since 1983/4. As can be seen, only the first three flights of chairs are actually really there, the rest was added in post production. After taking a number of photos, trying to match the camera angles from Star Trek III as well as possible, we headed off to our next location: Huntington Library and Gardens.

(Below) Jörg at the planet Vulcan location, the Lucille Y. Gilman Memorial Fountain in Eagle Rock.

Over the years, the Gardens have been used in several Star Trek episodes. They were first seen in “Justice” where they were used, together with the Japanese Garden at the Tillman water reclamation plant, to represent the surface of Rubicun III. The Huntington Gardens were used for the scene were Wesley falls into the flowerbed and is nearly executed by the Edo mediators.

They appeared again in “Ménage à Troi” as the park on Betazed where Will Riker, Deanna Troi and her mother are having a picnic and are later abducted by Ferengi DaiMon Tog. On Deep Space 9, the gardens were briefly seen in “Emissary” as the illusionary surface of a planet in the Bajoran wormhole and extensively in “Meridian” on the eponymous planet.

(Above) DaiMon Tog on Betazed , who will soon get more than he bargained for, at the Huntington Gardens at the Huntington Gardens in the San Fernando Valley, and your Galactic host on location taday.

Interestingly, all scenes from those 4 episodes were shot in the same general area of the park, close to the lily ponds in the south-east of the garden. Using google maps, I had previously matched the screenshots with overhead-shots of the park, so when Jeff and I entered the gardens, I knew were to go.

…and Ben Sisko in the DS9 pilot where Huntington Gardens doubles as a virtual Bajor, and Jörg walks in the shadow of the prophets today. (below)

Even though many of the trees had grown a lot since the first season of TNG, over 20 years ago, we were still able to identify the spot were Wesley fell into the flowerbed or where he played with the Edo youngsters. Step by step, we managed to find other prominent locations, the spot were Tog beamed down in “Ménage à Troi” to abduct Riker and the Trois, or the grassy patch were Jadzia Dax and Meridian native Deral started an ill-fated romance. I was excited to finally make it to those places, not only because Star Trek had been made here, but also because the park was absolutely beautiful.

After taking dozens of photos from various angles, Jeff and I headed off to explore the rest of the gardens. Especially the Japanese, Tai and Chinese Garden at the Huntington were spectacular and offered many serene spots, very welcome after my experiences at the busy Walk of Fame the night before.

Before heading off to our next location, there was one more place I had to visit while at the gardens: I wanted to see The Blue Boy which is on display in the Huntington Library. Ideally, I should say I wanted to see the painting because it is a masterpiece of art and beautiful to behold, which is very true. More truly, I should say that the air condition in the library building was a welcome change from the heat in the gardens. Ultimately, however, I wanted to see the painting, because it had also appeared in a Star Trek episode, it was seen in Moriarty’s study in “Elementary, dear Data”. Talking about a Trekkie’s warped sense of priority here…

Next on my list was Fern Dell in Griffith Park. It had been used in “Encounter at Farpoint” as the holodeck forest where Wesley falls into the stream and is rescued by Data. It then appeared in “In the hands of the Prophets” and “The circle” as Vedek Bareil’s Bajoran monastery gardens.

(Below) Fern Dell in Griffith Park was a favorite location for Trek. Beautiful and close to the studio. The Dell today.

Finding Fern Dell was no problem, but finding the right shooting location in the garden itself proved more than difficult. We were not able to find the spots were “Encounter at Farpoint” was shot, I guess to much had been changed since then, but managed to identify some of the Bajoran locations from the two early DS9 episodes. The park looked very different in DS9, the set dressers certainly spruced up the walkways next to the small stream for the episodes. I also guess the episodes were shot in spring or fall, as there was much more water in the stream and the plants seemed much greener. We did find some iconic spots, though: The small island in the stream were Vedek Bareil tends to some flowers in “In the hands of the Prophets” or the bridge were scheming Vedek Winn awaits Kira and Bareil in “The circle”.

(Below) Vedek Winn on the Fern Dell bridge in Griffith Park, and the bridge today.

We waited for the many visitors of the park to disappear from view and Jeff took some shots of me on that island and under the bridge. Finding some more familiar places on our way back through the narrow dell, we set off for our final destination that day: the Griffith Observatory.

My original plan for getting there was kind of naïve: I wanted to hike up to the observatory from Fern Dell. I am glad Jeff was around and talked me out of it, the heat would have killed me, I guess

So we approached Griffith Observatory the traditional way: through the tunnel that lead to Toontown in “Who framed Roger Rabbit”… The tunnel also appeared in “Back to the Future” during the skateboard chase scene. We passed the familiar location were Biff had his first encounter with horse manure… I didn’t know back then that I would also get to see another famous tunnel two days later, though…

Griffith Observatory had recently undergone a long lasting renovation and was reopened in 2006. Comparing screenshots from “Future’s end I” with my photos, one can see that the area in front of the building was faithfully recreated during the renovations, even though the whole lawn was completely removed to create a new underground exhibition area, including the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon.

(Below) The iconic Griffith Observatory as seen in the Voyager episode “Future’s End Part I”, and our friend Jörg just a few weeks ago.

I took several photos of the building, again trying to match camera angles from its appearance in the Voyager episode. It must have looked rather strange when I tried to get a perfectly matching spot of the building’s parking lot and adjacent restroom building, though…

We then ventured inside to see the new exhibitions and to watch a movie about the history of the building in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon, narrated by … Leonard Nimoy. The Observatory is absolutely worth a visit and I will definitely have to come back to see it all again, with some more time to wander through the exhibition.

On our way back to my hotel, we stopped at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre to get tickets for the “Star Trek: 45: Years of Designing the Future” event in Hollywood (more about that tomorrow). The first time around, I didn’t find the small ticket window, so I had to return later that evening to actually buy the tickets…

After ironically catching the final few scenes of Blue Boy-featuring “Elementary, dear Data” in my hotel room (or was that the night before?) I fell asleep in my hotel room, well prepared for the most important two locations the next day: the Japanese Gardens at the Tillman water reclamation plant in Van Nuys and Vasquez Rocks. I didn’t really know back then what else would await me that Sunday, but more about that tomorrow…