Saturday 04 February 2012

Designing the Recreation room

When the Star Trek: The Motion Picture script called for a large never-before-seen Recreation Deck, the design team of immediately started wondering where it should be. Illustrator Andrew Probert considered the saucer centerline a good location for the room, below the Officers’ Lounge. He submitted a concept of how Spock’s shuttle arriving might look like through the windows of such room.

Today, such a scene would be shot on a blue-sceen stage, but when The Motion Picture was produced, the Production Designer Harold Michelson complained that he would not be able to get glass in the size Probert had suggested. It was agreed that the saucer centerline instead would be the location of the new Recreation Room. Here, the Enterprise model already provided windows, in a size Michelson was able to built.

Andrew Probert subsequently submitted a concept to show what the saucer’s cross section would look like, hoping that the Michelson would see the value in maintaining a level of continuity. The suggested terracing could have added a tremendous amount of visual interest to the scene, but it was rejected in favour of the recreation room set that eventually ended up in the film. For, according to Michelson, “no one goes to a movie with a slide rule in his hand.”

 

N. Ottens
25 June 2007
Last updated: 24 October 2008

Sources for this article include:
• Probert, A., “Recreation Deck,” Probert Designs
• Reeves-Stevens, J. & G., The Art of Star Trek (1995)