Star Trek: 10 More Secrets About The USS Enterprise-D You Need To Know
More hidden details about Star Trek's greatest starship.
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00:00 Hello everyone, it's me Adam Cleary, etc. I don't know why I did that.
00:04 Back, TreadCulture, we've got some videos that need to be done because remember the thing
00:09 where we do the thing about the ships and you're all like "Oh, you really like it?"
00:12 and then we kind of did them all well?
00:15 There's still some milk in that teat, apparently.
00:18 Right, yes, if you're new here, basically we like to do these really nice breakdowns of the ships,
00:21 not just with random Google-able facts, but stuff we've actually found out for ourselves
00:25 by doing actual research and by "we" I of course mean Paul. Say hello to Paul.
00:29 Now one of my absolute favourites in these series, and indeed one of the most critically well-received,
00:33 was the Enterprise deal, one of the first ones we did.
00:36 It's where we discovered cetacean ops, it's where my whole dolphin, they say, fetish, obsession
00:41 came from originally, and it turns out there is yet more space dust on that boot
00:46 because we found ten more things, and again by "we" I mean Paul.
00:50 Where's all this information coming from, Adam?
00:52 Well, I'll tell you by reading it out.
00:54 Rick Sternbach and Michael Akuda's extensive Star Trek The Next Generation technical manual,
00:59 both the book and the CD-ROM, as well as Rick's exhaustive deck-by-deck USS Enterprise NCC-1701D blueprints.
01:08 We've got it all from--I need this, but we've got it all from there.
01:10 So with that in mind, my name is Adam Cleary, yes, I am well out of presenting practice,
01:14 in case you couldn't tell, and these are ten more things about the Enterprise D you need to know.
01:19 Number ten, we did see the main shuttle bay.
01:22 Right, so, gonna open this by throwing my old hands up and saying,
01:26 I might have got this one wrong.
01:28 Number seven, you never actually saw the main shuttle bay.
01:32 Yeah, gonna open this by holding my hands up and saying we got this one slightly wrong.
01:37 I did say in the previous version of this video that you never actually got to see
01:40 the Enterprise D's main shuttle bay in all of its glory
01:44 because it was designed too big and too grand and too interesting for them to ever realise on screen.
01:48 Instead, we got the much smaller, much easier to visualise, much cheaper to produce shuttle bays,
01:53 never got to see the massive, enormous, two-storey, parking lot-style shuttle bay
01:59 they had right at the back of the saucer section.
02:01 Except, we did, sort of. It was in the episode Cause and Effect,
02:05 the USS Bozeman, you know, the repeating one where they keep playing the same card game
02:09 and doing all the same stuff over and over because of the time loop or something like that.
02:12 The ship Fraser, doesn't he, comes out of the thing and he crashes into them and they all die.
02:17 Apparently, the idea they had to fix it in the end, the data has, is to decompress the main shuttle bay.
02:22 There you go. And that is the main shuttle bay.
02:25 That one prop shot of the outside of the doors opening, that is the main shuttle bay.
02:30 So technically, you did see it, just not very well.
02:34 Number nine, sick bay was actually massive.
02:37 Given how much time they spent in sick bay and how much mortal peril the cast and crew were often in,
02:43 you'd think it was weird that a ship with over a thousand people on board had a sick bay with five beds.
02:50 Like intergalactic plagues, diseases, people getting the flu, all sorts.
02:53 Five people could ever be staying in that sick bay at once. That not seem weird?
02:58 Well, that's because it wasn't. It was absolutely massive according to the technical blueprints.
03:03 And the part we saw was just one part of a much bigger sick bay facility, like a hospital you might call it.
03:08 And if we could just bring up the blueprints here, it was actually this big specifically,
03:12 which is comparative to what we saw on screen, genome.
03:15 In fact, just going through the dialogue of the show alone, it tells you that there were three sick bay wards,
03:20 surgical suites, medical labs, private hospital rooms, a rehabilitation center, and a morgue,
03:25 which the really scary thing happens that time, as well as also a null G ward,
03:30 which is like a medical treatment facility, but with zero gravity, because for some reason that can help you.
03:37 Just saves you putting your feet up if you're spraying your ankle, I guess, but other than that.
03:41 Number eight, the arboretum.
03:43 All right, so one last thing I'm adding to the big long list of things that would have been very cool for them to have the budget to show us,
03:48 yes, along with the giant computer core and of course Cetacean Ops and I guess the sick bay, is the arboretum.
03:54 Now you did see this, but we only saw a small, tiny fraction of it. It was absolutely massive.
04:00 In fact, if you just take a look at the very back of the Enterprise D model, you see those two large blue square things?
04:07 That is actually the arboretum, meaning it's at least two decks tall, it's really, really wide,
04:12 and so much bigger than they ever actually used in the set of the show.
04:15 I would love to have seen that, even if they just knocked it up in a very weird sort of background painting kind of way.
04:22 That would have been interesting to me. A man with no garden.
04:26 Wait, is that what an arboretum is? Just plants, isn't it? It is just plants.
04:29 I live in a flat in a building. I can't go outside.
04:32 Number seven, idiots broke into the ship.
04:34 No, we're not talking about those Ferengi mercenaries.
04:37 Ah huck, ah huck, ah huck, ah huck.
04:39 See, Paul, that's how good your jokes are. We're talking about some actual criminals.
04:43 According to the Daily Dot, who are the ones who actually labelled them idiots,
04:46 in 1988, some people actually broke into the set of the ship,
04:49 had a lot of fun and games there, and even videoed themselves doing it.
04:54 Hence, when the tape was recovered, they had all the evidence they needed to say it was a...
04:58 Hence, idiots, basically. Don't video yourself doing a crime.
05:02 It's pretty much... If I was doing a crime, pretty much job number one would be
05:07 don't actively create evidence of yourself doing it where possible.
05:11 I'm just... I'm going to read this out because it's genuinely hilarious.
05:14 The videos of the break-in appeared on YouTube in 2007.
05:17 They have since obviously been taken down. Called Stage 9 Interlopers.
05:21 Two men dressed in homemade Starfleet uniforms.
05:24 Where was Sean that night? I would like an alibi.
05:26 Toured the deck. Empty sets of the Enterprise.
05:29 They played with the consoles. They pretended to be the transporter pad.
05:32 They got into the bio beds for some reason.
05:34 Then they talked about stealing props before the video ends.
05:37 And in the description it was like, "Oh, we got caught and we got chased out by Paramount Security."
05:41 Again, if I'm doing a crime, I'm not going to make videos of me doing the crime.
05:49 Of course, the interesting thing about this is if you catch it when I went back to the first video,
05:51 we did tell you that the set was actually covered in cat...
05:55 Because of how many cats used to break in there.
05:57 So, wonder if that was a consideration? Wonder if they stood in any of it?
06:02 Number 6. 10 Forward doesn't fit.
06:05 Now, as you've probably seen in these videos or just used your own common sense brain to work out,
06:09 a lot of the sets in Star Trek are redresses.
06:12 They're supposed to be adaptable. They change from episode to episode, from show to show, from series to series.
06:17 They've got to be used for many different things because they've only got so much space.
06:20 But not 10 Forward.
06:23 That was supposed to tell so many deeply personal stories and be such a focal part of that show
06:29 that they made a permanent set that never changed and looked really, really cool.
06:34 And it did look really, really cool.
06:35 The only problem with it was they had a very clear idea of how they wanted 10 Forward to look,
06:40 and that idea came after they had designed the Enterprise D.
06:44 So, they knew where they wanted it to be, they knew how they wanted it to fit in with the ship,
06:47 they knew what they wanted it to look like on screen.
06:50 But the problem is none of those things actually line up with the outside design of the Enterprise D.
06:57 What you see on screen does not fit on that model.
07:01 In fact, much to the annoyance of the ship's designer, Andrew Probert, who literally sat them down and said,
07:04 "Well, you can do what you want if you're designing a bar, cafe thing, but it's got to fit within these parameters."
07:09 The producers just went, "Nope."
07:12 But then so popular was 10 Forward that when they redesigned the model to be slightly better filmed on television,
07:17 they tweaked the design of the saucer section so that you could fit it in.
07:20 But the problem with that was they had so much footage of the old model,
07:23 which only varied ever so slightly that people wouldn't even notice when watching it on television
07:27 because they couldn't predict that we'd all have HD, pausable, Blu-ray copies of it in future
07:32 to pore over for our personal entertainment YouTube channels, that they used these interchangeably.
07:37 So, there's lots of shots in the episodes with 10 Forward not fitting into the saucer section
07:42 and then shots where it does fit into the saucer section.
07:44 It's what's known as, in French, "l'inconsistency."
07:48 Number five, the models were very different.
07:51 Okay, so this one is just astoundingly short-sighted.
07:55 So, when they made the next generation, they secured the services of ILM, Industrial Light & Magic.
08:00 Yes, the really famous ones who do all the things for everything.
08:02 And they got them to produce loads and loads of shots of the Enterprise-D.
08:06 They got them to build it, they got them to film it, they got them to make it so it was very easy to repurpose.
08:11 In fact, most of the shots you ever see of the Enterprise-D were done in that original window.
08:17 And you know exactly the ones.
08:18 It's flying by the screen, the close-ups when they're doing the Captain's Log at the star,
08:21 going into orbit, coming out of orbit.
08:23 All the ones you saw over and over again, ILM made them and they just adapted them throughout the show.
08:27 But the problem with doing a show that runs on for five, for six, for seven, for however many seasons,
08:31 is that you need more than that.
08:33 You need variety.
08:35 You are writing new things to happen to your characters and those new things happen to your ships.
08:38 And you must be able to visualize that and not just use the same stock images over and over again.
08:45 So they needed, midway through production, to have new footage.
08:49 But the problem was they couldn't get ILM anymore, either budgetary or whatever.
08:52 They had to go to other studios and other studios found the ILM model very difficult to work with
08:57 because obviously they had their own filming practices.
08:59 They would prefer to make their own models.
09:01 So by season three, they decided that's what they were going to do.
09:05 And that new model debuted in the episode "The Defector",
09:07 which is why it's one of the first episodes where there's just all of a sudden brand new clips of the Enterprise.
09:12 But the problem was, it wasn't exactly like the other one.
09:15 They'd made it stockier.
09:16 They'd made the model only four foot so it was much easier to film.
09:19 They'd exaggerated some of the panelling.
09:20 They'd done little things like including ten forward in the actual layout of it.
09:24 And it was, to most people, exactly the same.
09:28 But to nerds, like me, like you, it's quite different.
09:34 And of course things only got worse when they went to make "Star Trek Generations"
09:37 because they got ILM back and ILM were like, "Ooh, movie budget.
09:40 Let's make a brand new six foot model, check, and a really cool CGI version, check."
09:45 And all four of these different versions of the Enterprise would be ever so slightly different
09:49 with little raised bits here and little pronounced bits there and just, it's all, it's all a mess.
09:54 It's all a mess.
09:55 I mean, to most people, to normal people, you can't tell.
09:57 But again, we ain't normal.
10:00 Number four, she was almost CGI.
10:02 So here's a slightly weird fun fact.
10:05 "Star Trek The Next Generation" went into pre-production around the same time as "The Search for Spock" was being made.
10:10 And there was a lot of talk that they should just go and use the refit model of the original Enterprise for this series.
10:16 I mean, it seems ridiculous now, but at the time you can understand that.
10:21 Do we mean, it's still "Star Trek."
10:23 We want things to be connected.
10:24 Why do we need a new ship?
10:25 And the plan was they were going to use the visual technology they had at the time to just do a CGI version of it.
10:30 So it'd be much cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper to produce for television.
10:35 But they didn't do that.
10:36 In the end, they decided it didn't look quite as good as they wanted it to.
10:38 It didn't look anywhere near as good as models did.
10:40 So if they were going to have to build a model for television, because they couldn't use that one that had been in the film,
10:44 they might as well just design it from scratch.
10:46 And then just a mere seven years later, they finally actually did make a CGI version of the Enterprise D for "Star Trek Generations."
10:52 So it's just, it's a funny old game, and it's funny how life works.
10:56 Number three, she was blue.
10:58 Right, so lighting is, I don't look like this.
11:01 The version you're seeing me on, I don't really look like this.
11:03 My skin tone is very different.
11:05 This is just, it's the lighting, okay?
11:08 I'm in a studio, I'm being lit from the front, the back is being lit as well.
11:12 This is not how you would see me on the street.
11:14 And the same is true of models they use to recreate starships in television shows.
11:19 They are a produce, a produce?
11:21 They're the result of lighting.
11:23 Which is why if I asked you to tell me what color the Enterprise D was,
11:26 indeed what color are most of the ships in "Starfleet,"
11:28 you'd probably say it's like a, like a gray silver, like a very neutral gray or silver, wouldn't you?
11:33 You'd be wrong.
11:34 They are actually duck egg blue.
11:36 Genuinely.
11:37 And the reason for this, and this is going to blow your mind slightly if you're not like 50 or 60,
11:42 is because the way the original Enterprise used to come across on old televisions
11:46 when it was originally broadcast was duck egg blue.
11:50 Even though that was designed to be silver/gray,
11:53 it actually came across as slightly blue on television.
11:56 But they had the same thing when they're doing the set for "Strange New Worlds," didn't they?
11:59 They've got everything orange, even though we sort of think of it as red,
12:02 because those sets were actually orange, it just came off as red on television.
12:06 The old Enterprise on the 60s TV show used to look blue,
12:09 so they designed the Enterprise D to look blue.
12:12 And yet, of course, irony upon irony upon irony,
12:15 even though it was designed blue to look like the color that the Enterprise was not in the 1960s,
12:20 when they started putting that under studio lighting, it looked silver/gray,
12:24 the color the Enterprise actually was under studio lighting, which is mad.
12:29 And if you still don't believe me, go watch the end of "Star Trek Generations,"
12:32 when the saucer section crashes into the planet and is lit for the first time
12:36 not by space lights or anything like that, but by a natural, neutral sun.
12:41 It is blue. It is imstakably blue.
12:45 Imstakably a word? Unmistakably blue. It is blue.
12:48 Number two, they destroyed the bridge for real.
12:51 Alright, so people kind of noticed that they upgraded the bridge for "Generations."
12:54 They added extra consoles on the side, they raised the seating up in the middle.
12:57 The idea was you're supposed to not notice it had changed,
12:59 and because you were seeing it on a big screen, you're just thinking,
13:01 "Oh, wow! Is that what that really looked like all this time?"
13:04 Of course, people aren't stupid, and instead they sat there and went,
13:07 "Oh! They've changed it!"
13:09 And while it was a slightly controversial change, because yes, you're not going to believe it,
13:12 people saw something had changed on something they liked, and they got really annoyed about it
13:15 and started doing stuff, it's just that the internet wasn't as terrible as it is now,
13:19 so it kind of gets forgotten about.
13:20 The plan, of course, was to destroy that bridge, because they were going to destroy the ship.
13:24 And they actually did need to completely clear it out,
13:26 because the space that was being used for the Enterprise D bridge
13:28 needed to be cleared out to be set for Voyager's bridge on the Paramount lot.
13:32 So rather than just making effects appear to destroy the place,
13:35 they decided, "Well, let's actually trash it."
13:39 So the fires, explosions, everything burning, everything collapsing on top of itself,
13:43 none of that is practical work or effects or design to be put away.
13:46 They just started knocking stuff over and setting fire to it and kicking it around,
13:50 and that's why it looks so good.
13:52 Some of it was saved, though, in case I've upset you by saying that.
13:54 It's in the Hollywood Entertainment Thingy Museum.
13:56 It's been there since, like, 2007.
13:58 If you want to go see it and be like, "Oh, thank God! You're safe!"
14:01 Horseshoe console, then, it's there.
14:03 Number one, feature Enterprise had a naughty bumper sticker.
14:07 So, really quick one to end on this, quite fun.
14:09 You all saw All Good Things, one of my all-time favourite Star Trek Next Generation episodes,
14:13 one of my all-time favourite Star Trek episodes,
14:15 full stop, in fact.
14:16 The Enterprise refit, the Galaxy X-Class, I think it's called.
14:21 You know, it's got the third, incredibly phallic warp nacelle on the back.
14:24 It's got loads of shooty phases.
14:26 It's got old man Riker behind the wheel.
14:29 You remember it. It peers briefly, blows up some Klingons,
14:32 and then goes to warp 13, and we just never addressed that.
14:35 Again, you remember it, right?
14:36 It had a funny bumper sticker.
14:37 Now, this information comes exclusive to you, thanks to our good pal Doug Drexler,
14:40 who you can either see in a forthcoming video that we've just done,
14:43 or that's already gone out.
14:45 I don't know when you're going to see this one,
14:46 but we've done some fun stuff with him, is my point.
14:48 He told us there was a bumper sticker on the physical model of that.
14:52 They took one of the old models of the Enterprise D, and they added stuff to it,
14:55 because it was the last episode, you can get away with stuff like that.
14:57 They put a bumper sticker on it as well.
14:59 Any guesses? Anyone? Anyone?
15:00 What did the bumper sticker say? Anyone? Anyone?
15:02 I heart Uranus.
15:04 Wait, no, it's even funnier.
15:05 We heart Uranus.
15:07 Ho, ho, ho.
15:08 Actually, Courtney, there's the master display system on that,
15:10 also contained loads of funny Easter eggs.
15:12 They had a biplane, a mouse, and a rubber ducky,
15:14 all just based in the ship's schematics,
15:16 because it was the last episode, it was the last day of school
15:18 for everyone who worked on the next generation,
15:19 so they started having some fun.
15:22 Hey, fun story, on my last day of school,
15:24 I broke in overnight, and I painted
15:27 an enormous 40-foot pink penis on the school field.
15:31 Have I ever told anybody about that before?
15:32 If you're watching this, Mr. O'Dwyer, or Miss Clewan,
15:36 that was me, sorry.
15:37 Anyway, there you go, 10 more things you did not know about the Enterprise D,
15:40 which now you do, which brings that to 20 things you now know about the Enterprise D,
15:43 along with the 10 things you know about, like,
15:45 Keeper Space 9, about Voyager, about the Romulan warbird,
15:49 about the Defiant, lots of information going on in there.
15:52 Hope you don't soon forget where you live, that would be terrible.
15:54 So let us know what you made of it all in the comments below.
15:55 Of course, we can get the like, share, and subscribe.
15:57 Yes, I know, I'm sorry, I don't present much anymore,
15:59 as this is all over the place and terrible.
16:00 Well, it's just not really my job at the minute,
16:03 so standards will slip, unfortunately.
16:05 But if you did like what you see, you can get me on Twitter @AdamCleary,
16:07 C-L-E-R-Y, the entire Trek Culture family @TrekCulture.
16:10 But in the meantime, thank you all so much for watching.
16:12 Thanks enormously to Paul for pulling all this information together,
16:15 and to Chris, probably, for the edit.
16:17 But I, Adam, just me, will see you soon.
16:20 Goodbye!