Redesigning the Enterprise Bridge for the Silver Screen

When Paramount started production for a second Star Trek television series in 1977, called Phase II, Mike Minor, who had worked as an artist on The Original Series, provided concepts for what the refitted Enterprise might look like inside. Including the heart of the show: the bridge. His artworks, and the half-built Phase II sets, clearly marked an evolutionary step between The Original Series and what would become The Motion Picture.

Impressed by the story of Phase II’s pilot, “In Thy Image,” Paramount decided in August 1977 to turn Phase II into a movie; a decision that wasn’t formalized until five months later. Director Robert Wise hired Harold Michelson to replace Joe Jennings — like Minor, a veteran of The Original Series — as production designer. Jennings was relegated to art director (but would return as production designer of the next movie).

Michelson disliked that all bridge stations were facing the wall. “Every section looks too much like every other,” he told Starlog magazine. “To make the set more interesting to the camera, we turned Chekov’s station 90 degrees from the wall,” which put him in line with the viewscreen. “Chekov’s cubicle does a lot toward breaking up the scenes — and there are lots of them — shot on the bridge.”

Another change Michelson made was to the chairs. The pedestal swivel seats reminiscent of The Original Series were upgraded to girdle-clad, multifaceted, ergonomic seats with automatic, switch-operated bracing devices.

Enterprise bridge concept art — Concept art by Mike Minor (The Ultimate Sci-Fi Auction catalog)

Enterprise bridge set — Set under construction

Busy, but not too busy

Lee Cole was already working on the set when Michelson joined the production. She had been working with Minor and Jennings on the bridge consoles. She later told Star Trek: The Magazine that one of the things the Art Department did was give the new version of the bridge fully animated screens.

When I was designing the bridge, they were just going to do static things with backlit negatives and a few little mechanical devices that moved. I said, “You know, I just don’t think that’s going to do it. I think we’re going to have to project some things here.”

Cole put 23 screens on the bridge, and film was projected onto them from behind. At the time, she had no idea how much work she was making for herself.

About a week or so before filming, when we were walking the sets, they said, “Well, Lee, we can’t wait to see what you’re going to put on those screens.” I had no idea I was going to do that!

Gene Roddenberry didn’t want the consoles to look too busy, though. Cole remembered him saying, “I want it really plain to try to be futuristic. Cut out all this detail and simplify things.”

“We did that,” she told Star Trek: The Magazine, “but it got a little too plain, I think.”

Darker colors

For Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, many of Cole’s original plans made it back as Director Nicholas Meyer’s thinking ran opposite to Roddenberry’s. He didn’t have the budget to construct a new set but recalled, “The least I thought we could do was revamp the bridge and make it twinkle.”

Meyer also had the bridge painted in darker colors, giving the set a more dramatic look. This was reverted back to a bright color scheme in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Enterprise bridge floor plan — Filming *Star Trek II*

An earlier version of this story mistakingly identified the two artworks by Matt Jefferies below as designs for the Phase II bridge based on Pato Guzman’s rejected proposal for the bridge of The Original Series. It appears instead Jefferies made these sketches for a non-Star Trek television series Gene Roddenberry pitched before Phase II, called Starship. (For details, read the comments by Maurice Molyneaux and Michael Okuda.)

Interestingly, the idea of putting the crew around a single table was explored by Andrew Probert a decade later, when he designed the bridge of The Next Generation.

For more about Starship, read this 2019 discussion on The Trek BBS.

Concept art by Matt Jefferies (Arland Collection)

Sources: David Houston, “Production Designer Harold Michelson, Visualizing the New Star Trek,” Starlog 30 (January 1980) 42-46; Star Trek: The Magazine 2, 8 (December 2001) and Star Trek: The Magazine 3, 5 (September 2002).

First published Mar 3, 2017 Last updated Dec 24, 2024 By Nick Ottens

15 comments

The animated film screens caused problems in production. To do another take of a scene, the film(s) would have to start over and play all the way through again, and the take would then have to be picked up at the point in the film where they left off. By the time The Wrath of Khan was made, the films were transferred to video, and the film screens converted to video screens, making retakes easier and simpler. Instead of playing the films from the beginning, the crew would just need to rewind the video back to the point where they left off and pick up from there.

Adam Bomb 1701 (Dec 6, 2012)

Also, the film projectors for the bridge displays made a lot of noise, requiring the dialogue to be looped at a later point in time.

Adam Bomb 1701 (Nov 13, 2013)

Matt Jeffries’ full name was Walter M. Jeffries. Sometimes he gets confused with automotive designer Dean Jeffries. According to the Reeves-Stevens book about Phase II, Jeffries was on loan from the TV series Little House On The Prairie. Series producer Michael Landon had no problem with him working on Trek, but when one interfered with the other, Jeffries would have to make a choice as to which series he would stay with.

Adam Bomb 1701 (Jul 21, 2014)

What did the Phase II corridors look like before the movie transformation? Anyone know?

Steve (Jan 3, 2013)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture. But they must have been similar to the TMP look.

Nick Ottens (Jan 3, 2013)

They were dreadful from the behind-the-scene photos that Richard Taylor shared with me. I have one of the photos up from those shots, in part of an interview I did with him recently, where he talks about how bad the Phase II sets were.

lestatdelc (Apr 18, 2017)

Dreadful? Looks like a re-creation/update of the original corridor, and the photo you posted shows it unfinished and unpainted.

DJ1706 (May 17, 2017)

If you’re talking about the article at the link, you’re distorting the gist idea the article.

chuckunit (Aug 15, 2021)

Not looking to thread-jack, but I interviewed Richard Taylor, the lead designer with Robert Abel and Associates, who were the original effects team on TMP. He actually handsome design inout on the bridge sets (since they were involved in doing the practical lighting gag of the energy probe, and did the wormhole effect scene before Robert Abel and Associates was fired for the project).

It was actually his suggestion and perseverance to get Roddenberry to accept the seat restraining devices being built into the seats. There were also a ton of suggestions from touch screen interfaces to a single wrap-around screen/wall that Taylor proposed of the bridge, which were rejected by Roddenberry.

There is a lot of good stuff in the six-part interview, which begins here.

lestatdelc (Apr 18, 2017)

I wasn’t born when TMP or even TWOK came out, but I can honestly say I loved both bridge concepts with the exception of the chairs. The chairs were terrible, but I guess expected from the Aqua Net era of big fluffy things.

K ONE (Jan 8, 2019)

I wonder if there is any information on the design work undertaken by Frank Israel? I seem to recall reading some years ago that he contributed to (among other things) the design of the TMP bridge, but I cannot find that source now and I may be incorrect.

Geoff (Mar 17, 2019)

There are a number of errors on this page.

1. The Jefferies concept art on blue appears to be from Roddenberry’s Starship proposal, as the spherical side compartment matches the external feature on on the side of the nose of that ring ship (seen in the rec deck illustrations of vessels called Enterprise).

2. The photo captioned “Star Trek: The Motion Picture floor plan” is the TWOK floor plan (note where Spock’s station has been moved).

3. The photo captioned “Bridge set during production of Phase II”… um, there was no production of Phase II; the series was snuffed several weeks before shooting was to commence. Only tests were shot. Furthermore, that’s Robert Abel on the set, who was hired for TMP, so it’s TMP pre-production, regardless of whether or not the announcement had been made.

Maurice Molyneaux (Mar 23, 2019)

Hi, Maurice, thank you for your comments!

1. I’m not sure you’re right. The Hollywood Auction site where I found the sketch and Memory Alpha both claim it was a Phase II design by Jefferies, based on Pato Guzman’s. Another website claims it was a design for The Original Series, but I don’t think that’s right.

2. You’re right here. Good catch! I’ll change the caption.

3. I don’t know when this photo was taken, but judging from the uniforms and the console it must have been from when they were still officially making Phase II? The decision to make a motion picture was after all made several months before the production was officially changed. This photo could be from that period, between August 1977 and early 1978? I’ve added to the caption that it’s Abel, though. Thanks!

Nick Ottens (Mar 23, 2019)

The first two images, which Maurice has indicated as being from the proposed series, Starship, are definitely not from early development of The Original Series’ bridge. If you look at the floorplan, you’ll see two versions of the main viewscreen. The larger version is labeled “View screen size if dual-tape opticals are used in the series.” This indicates that a smaller screen would be used if the planned series had used traditional film optical visual effects to create images on the screen, a process that is difficult, time consuming, and expensive. The use of electronic/video compositing for visual effects was not really practical at the time of the original series’ development. It only became commonplace in the 1970s. The term “dual-tape opticals” suggests they had planned to do real-time compositing during principal photography, which suggests this plan was probably not prepared later than the 1970s.

A smaller screen would make it easy for directors to compose shots that do not include the screen, so it would be easier to limit the number of optical effects shots. If they had used video for visual effects, the process could have much faster and cheaper, so a larger screen would have been more practical.

I do not believe they were done for Star Trek: Phase II either. Somewhere in the mid-1970s, Lincoln Enterprises sold prints of these sketches, along with a rendering of a variation on Matt Jefferies’ “ring ship” design, as being part of a proposal for a series that Lincoln’s catalog referred to as “Starship.” Unfortunately, we know very little about this proposal beyond the content of those drawings. However, they do not appear to be part of the Star Trek: Phase II development.

If you look closely at the text in the drawings, you’ll notice a spherical chamber called a “metafier” and a computer terminal labeled as “omniputer.” These distinctly non-Star Trek terms suggest to me that they were not for a Star Trek project.

Mike Okuda (Dec 24, 2024)

Thank you for your additional comments! I think Maurice was right all along then, and Hollywood Auction (and I) got it wrong. I’ve made necessary changes in the article. Thanks to you and Maurice for helping set the record straight on this!

Nick Ottens (Dec 24, 2024)

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