Tuesday 09 March 2010

Designing the Phase II Enterprise

Ralph McQuarrie is best known to the public for his stunning production designs for the Star Wars films. His imagination helped guide the final appearance of Darth Vader and his storm troopers, and he also created many of the matte paintings of planets and satellites that appeared in the film. After Star Wars wrapped in 1977, McQuarrie was invited to England to work under Ken Adam—renowned for his work as production designer on several of the early James Bond films—to help develop the designs for a new Star Trek movie, ultimately abandoned to make way for Star Trek: Phase II, the television series.

Their Enterprise design, however, was abandoned, and Roddenberry asked Matthew Jefferies to update the famous starship to reflect the refit that would be part of the series' backstory. Jefferies' redesign changed the engine nacelles from tubes to thun, flat-sided modules, and tapered their supports. He also added the distinctive photon torpedo ports on the saucer connector.

"Basically," Jefferies said, "what I did to it was change the power units, and make a slight change in the struts that supported them. I gave the main hull a taper, then I went flat-sided and thin with the power units, rather than keeping the cylindrical shape. Trying to work out the logic of the refit, I knew a lot of the equipment inside would change, but I didn't see that there would be any need to change the exterior of the saucer. Certainly, though, the engines would be a primary thing to change. Part of the theory of the ship's design in the first place was that we didn't know what these powerful things were or how devastating it would be if anything went awry, so that's why we kept them away from the crew. And that meant they could be easily changed if you had to replace one."

Unlike the first redesign of the Enterprise, Jefferies' new version was built this time by Don Loos, who had built the original ship for the original series. But when Paramount abandoned its plans to create a fourth television network and subsequently transformed the second Star Trek series into the first movie, that Enterprise was packed away as movie director Robert Wise brought in a new art director–Richard Taylor–who assigned Andrew Probert to do a second redesign of the ship, essentially keeping with Jefferies' new lines, while adding the extensive detail that was necessary for a motion-picture miniature.

Shuttlecraft

In addition to allowing him to update the Enterprise, Matt Jefferies' return to Star Trek gave him the opportunity to redesign the shuttlecraft. The original shuttlecraft had been provided by the AMT model company and its flat-walled design reflected the need the keep construction expenses low. Jefferies, a pilot and aviation artist, had never liked the original's nonaerodynamic appearance, and so brought a completely new look to the shuttlecraft of Phase II. Though this shuttle was never constructed, John Eaves allows us a glimpse of what could have been with his drawing based upon Jefferies' designs depicted below.

   

 

N. Ottens
18 July 2005
Last updated: 16 December 2009

Sources for this article include:
• Reeves-Stevens, J. & G., Star Trek Phase II–The Lost Series (1997)

Special thanks to Matt Lawrence for correctly identifying Matt Jefferies' sketches as being produced in all likelihood for Phase II instead of The Original Series.