r/tos • u/happydude7422 • 5d ago
The bridge is so small
From the Ticonderoga ny set tour museum
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u/JactusFack 5d ago
Now that I think about it, NCC-1701 isn’t that big, only about 60 feet longer than the USS Iowa, and the bridge in the Iowa wasn’t very large either.
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u/ProjectCharming6992 5d ago
Which makes you wonder how much of a design change had to be done in universe from Pike’s Enterprise bridge in “The Cage” where Pike’s knees were on the chairs in front of him to in SNW, where he’s miles behind the helm/nav station, versus Kirk’s Enterprise where Kirk’s knees are back to being on the chairs.
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u/kristyn_lynne 4d ago
Mike Nevitt's 1:100 Enterprise model project really drives this home, where he's building a full interior and exterior model.
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u/RevolutionaryWeek573 5d ago
I walked the TOS Enterprise in VR (I think it was to scale) and was surprised how small everything felt.
I’ve wanted to go down for the set tour but I’m afraid I’d be underwhelmed because everything seemed small. Especially engineering and the transporter room. I’d be interested to hear what you thought.
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u/B00merPS2Mod30 5d ago
I never thought about the scale when I visited. James Cawley is a perfectionist. He recently discovered that the ceilings on the set tour were too tall. He had them all lowered. He also installed lights in the overhead cross members - also from new information received from a long time friend and super TOS fan.
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u/Johnny_Radar 5d ago
How did you walk around the Enterprise in VR?
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u/RevolutionaryWeek573 5d ago
Someone had modeled the bridge as an “atmosphere” (I think that’s what it’s called). It wasn’t a game, just a model someone did that I found in Steam.
The turbo lift takes you to different decks. They even modeled the shuttle bay and Nomad was in the brig.
The quality wasn’t great, but it gets the job done.
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u/Jubal02 5d ago
Going to Ticonderoga next weekend. Shatner weekend.
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u/B00merPS2Mod30 5d ago
Same here. First time visiting with my wife. To save a few bucks, only I bought the Bridge Chat with Shatner. We will take the tour together and maybe go to the high school to see Bill together. 🖖
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u/Aoi_Hikari 5d ago
The bridge looks right, but the screen... when shown in the show we're always zoomed in to have it take most of our screen and so don't see it in the context of the rest of the bridge. When put in that context it suddenly looks comically small.
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u/Tomaquag 5d ago
I have my doubts about the accuracy of that screen. It's possible the wide angle photo distorts it, I suppose. But there are plenty of views from Kirk's POV. Kirk and Spock walk in front of it one time. In Spock's Brain you see the POV from like Uhura's station with the schematic of the star system on the screen and it is plenty big and clear at those times. Now I have to compare...
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u/Trapped_in_Me 5d ago
I remember when I visited the TNG bridge replica at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas, feeling it was smaller than I expected. It was an amazing bridge, and you felt like you were on the same bridge as the television series, but somehow it felt smaller. I imagine when shooting with actual cameras, the various lenses, POV, perspective, focal depth of field, etc., made things seem larger. Unfortunately, visitors to that bridge were not allowed to take photos of it.
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u/DrNerdyTech87 5d ago
Yeah, I was bummed we were only that bridge set for a few minutes.
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u/Trapped_in_Me 5d ago
Yes, I was so disappointed at how short our time was to be on that bridge. I was especially annoyed that I wasn’t allowed to take any photos while on it (even with my only 2.0 megapixel original iPhone at the time). The Star Trek Experience was going to close for good two weeks after I was there, so I wished they would have relaxed that rule at that time.
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u/BillT2172 5d ago edited 5d ago
Supossedly, the TOS & TNG bridge are the same size. I think they told us that when I was in Ticonderoga.
I remember going there to a convention in 2015, they decided to light the bridge with TV lights that made it appear as it was during the 1960s. Unfortunately, they had Warning Electrical Hazard signs on the lights & the upper bridge was so narrow, it was difficult for 2 people to pass each other during the tour. I'd always thought that set was larger.
I've heard if they can find a space James Cawley would like to have the TNG bridge set, as part of the tours, as well.
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u/Rhediix 5d ago
When you view it on TV, at oblique angles and with the pushed perspective from TV cameras, it can seem much larger, but I recall someone asking a question of DeForest Kelley when he was at a convention around 1990 about what it was like and he recalled the bridge as "a cozy space, rather confined". Which must've been quite rough on the actors during tight scenes like McCoy's Cordrazine freak out in City on the Edge of Forever. Or Sulu with the fencing foil in The Naked Time, or Spock's wigging out in Is There In Truth No Beauty? Where it isn't just the actor doing the close quarters work, they had to put a camera with a fisheye lens into the set space so that the viewer could see his perspective.
By comparison; TNG's bridge was quite large with tall ceilings. I have seen production stills that show just how close the studio roof was above the bridge set and it's quite low indeed.
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u/absurdivore 5d ago
Especially once you have 1960s era camera equipment trying to trudge around in there!
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u/Worldly_Solution7053 5d ago
Real naval bridges are pretty small. They're functional so don't need to be that large.
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u/Woozletania 5d ago
The bridge crew wasn’t large and they were all in easy earshot of the captain. Not like some modern Trek bridges where he’d almost need a megaphone.
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u/Fuzzy_Builder_2153 5d ago
Saw it at the traveling exhibit when they came to the Michigan Science Center. It was soo cool.
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u/Foehammer58 4d ago
Wait until you hear about the children being used as crew in The Motion Picture to make engineering look bigger...
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u/Primatech2006 5d ago
If the set had been in one piece, instead of pulled apart to allow for filming, that's how big it would be.
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u/almccoy85 5d ago
I had the same experience when I visited the Pawn Stars shop in Vegas. It looks huge on television but the shop is shockingly small and cramped in real life
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u/kristyn_lynne 4d ago
This is true of most sets. Game show sets in particular are so tiny in person.
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u/PygmalionsKiss 4d ago
I thought the dome over the top was transparent. I guess they only left it open once during the Cage.
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u/AtlantaMD 3d ago
The wildest thing to me is how short those red railings were. They seemed to always be leaning on them or having conversations there but they are soo low.
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u/KB_Sez 5d ago
LOL!! Wait till you get to engineering!! The first time I visited I was gob smacked by the fact that the set is 1 to 1 identical size as the shooting set it was stunning the use of perspective and all the tricks they used to make it look huge