[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

I think the reason for the changes on the Enterprise B had something to do with the look of the ship and the interaction with the Nexus.

It was. I think the changes were made by John Eaves. He said they needed a way for the ship's hull to be grazed by the nexus. A secondary reason for the changes was that there was a feeling among the producers that the Excelsior had already received quite a bit of exposure through ST 3, 4, 5, and 6 as well as in TNG so they wanted a way to make the Enterprise B stand out from the other previously seen Excelsior class ships. Personally I think they could have just as easily pulled off the damage to the Enterprise with the original hull design. It's a curved hull, you don't need to have learned how to derive the formula of a tangent line to a curve to see that. The other thing I didn't care for was that shade of blue they chose for the ship's paint scheme.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I kind of liked the blue, but I agree with you about the rest of it.

[Akula2ssn]

Well I will say this about the shade of blue. With the Enterprise B being shown with a white hull, that shade works. Had they kept the slightly darker almost bluish gray color of the original Excelsior, I don't think it would have worked as well.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by kevin

I just think the flares were a lazy attempt to make it ever so slightly reminiscient of the flares on the Galaxy to echo the design lineage of the ships.

Rather pointless, I have to say myself.

They didn't make it look better and it really wasn't required in terms of lineage. The fact it was a primary hull/secondary hull and nacelles pretty much covered it in terms of identifiable components.

You know I used to think the same thing about the attempt at a lineage connection.

Originally Posted by kevin

Well they also did want to be able to do the damage to the ship the nexus caused without damaging the original photographic model underneath, so yeah, there was an effects reason basis for it as well in that by adding those sections they could do the damage and protect the rest of the model.

But they still didn't improve the ship.

The original Excelsior design was nice and simple and elegant I always found.

Yet they didn't end up using those compartments for damage....
Irony....

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Saquist

Yet they didn't end up using those compartments for damage....
Irony....

Not just that, but I heard that afterward they found the glue used to attach the flare to the Excelsior model ended up damaging the model so the flares were never removed, prompting the construction of a new model of the Excelsior.

[Saquist]

WOW...that was stupid.
That might explain why I see subtle differences in the model from 3 and the DS9 model like USS Malinche. That is very good to know.

Those changes aren't a call I would have made.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Saquist

WOW...that was stupid.
That might explain why I see subtle differences in the model from 3 and the DS9 model like USS Malinche. That is very good to know.

Those changes aren't a call I would have made.

Indeed. Being a person that builds models as a hobby, I personally would have preferred to build a new model from the ground up rather than modify the existing one. Hell I'd even offer to pay for some of it out of my own pocket.

It's not the first time they've modified the Excelsior model, but it's the most extensive. The NX-2000 and NCC-2000 have subtle differences. The single large dome on the impulse deck was changed to two smaller ones. They also changed the forward section of the shuttle back from a rounded dome to a more box-like structure. Also the bridge, which was already fairly small compared to the rest of the ship, was replaced with what appears to be an even smaller one. I guess there's been some controversy over the size of the Excelsior because of detail like the bridge where some of the estimates produce a ship almost 700 meters in length. So I'm guessing that there was some scaling errors made in some of the appearances of the Excelsior class over recent years.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

Not just that, but I heard that afterward they found the glue used to attach the flare to the Excelsior model ended up damaging the model so the flares were never removed, prompting the construction of a new model of the Excelsior.

Really? I didn't know that.

I would have figured they could have used stock footage for any subsequent appearances by the design or even CGI eventually.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

Indeed. Being a person that builds models as a hobby, I personally would have preferred to build a new model from the ground up rather than modify the existing one. Hell I'd even offer to pay for some of it out of my own pocket.

And since the Generations sequences augmented the Excelsior model with CGI in some shots (in it's interactions with the Nexus IIRC) then one would imagine they could have built a more rudimentary model and then CGI skinned it to match the original photographic model.

Which they did in Generations anyway.

It's not the first time they've modified the Excelsior model, but it's the most extensive. The NX-2000 and NCC-2000 have subtle differences. The single large dome on the impulse deck was changed to two smaller ones. They also changed the forward section of the shuttle back from a rounded dome to a more box-like structure. Also the bridge, which was already fairly small compared to the rest of the ship, was replaced with what appears to be an even smaller one. I guess there's been some controversy over the size of the Excelsior because of detail like the bridge where some of the estimates produce a ship almost 700 meters in length. So I'm guessing that there was some scaling errors made in some of the appearances of the Excelsior class over recent years.

Thanks for the info

[Akula2ssn]

I understand that they did build a smaller scale model of the Excelsior after the original couldn't be returned to its original configuration. It had some differences from the original Excelsior, the most noticeable being the glowing sides on the nacelles. The model was built for VOY's episode "Flashback". Later for DS9 and Voy they switched to a CGI version which incorporated the glowing nacelle band.

So if you were to rewatch VOY: Flashback, I suspect you'll see shots of the original model because I believe they reused shots from ST6 in that episode. It should be easily spotted from the lack of glowing sides on the nacelles. The new model that was made can easily be spotted by the fact that the almost the entire nacelle looks like a damn glow stick.