This is a rare youth Star Trek fans really don’t fantasize about sitting on the bridge of a starship Company. That goes for every generation of fans, every Star Trek series, and every Company, whose bridge you can see in the new video above from the Roddenberry Archives. It starts, of course, with the original Star Trekthe show where creator Gene Roddenberry started it all – and where art director Matt Jefferies designed the bridge that will serve as a model not only for all that follows Company, but also a command center in real life. As the narrator says, “The Jefferies Bridge made such an impression that engineers from NASA, the US Navy, and private industry have studied it as a model for a sophisticated and efficient control room.”
The narrator happened to be John de Lancie, who was in the audience Star Trek: The Next Generation and the series will later become known as the powerful extra-dimensional being Q. He is not the only familiar player to participate in this retrospective project: in the video above appears a certain William Shatner, who as James Tiberius Kirk occupied the captain’s chair from the very first Company.
Even those who prefer later, are more complex Star TrekYou’ve got to wonder what that position feels like, and now they can experience it virtually on the Roddenbery Archives website, which is now offering a virtual tour of the central ship bridge of each series.
“This site features 360-degree, 3D models of various versions Company, as well as a timeline of the ship’s evolution throughout the franchise’s history,” wrote Sarah Kuta of Smithsonian.com. “Show fans can also read detailed information about each version of the ship’s design, its significance for the ship Star Trek storyline and production background.” All of this came online to mark the end of Star Trek: Picardthe latest series built around Patrick Stewart Company captain of The next generation, whose last episode went up last month on the Paramount+ streaming service. For the grand finale, production designer Dave Blass “reinvented the bridge from D company,” and “Picard’s triumphant return to his beloved ship brought tears of nostalgia to the eyes of more than a few fans,” regardless of generation, no doubt. Take a virtual tour here.
via the Smithsonian
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Based in Seoul, Colin MArsall writes and broadcastst about the city, language and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter book about cities, book The City Without a State: A Journey through 21st Century Los Angeles and video series City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarsall or on Facebook.