Fun fact, the Bird of Prey model was actually fitted with motors that did indeed move the wings for what ever position they were required to be in. The same model would continue to be used in all later ST films, even in ST;TNG. But during its run on TNG the motors had ceased to function and the wings were forever stuck in flight position. It wasn't until CGI models were used that the wings could move again.
Being a fan for nearly four decades, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Klingon Bird of Prey is the 2nd Coolest Spaceship of all time, right behind The Millenium Falcon.
@@shathriel I really liked the look of the grissom, it wasnt a powerful warship, but it was an ideal science vessel, and i love the little saucer, its really cute lol
Great stuff. Although I must say that this edit makes the battle between the Enterprise and Klingon Bird of Prey seem so much more out of context it's hilarious. Ent: Fire two shots! BoP: Ow Ow! Don't like this! Gimme a minute to get ready... ... BoP: OK, take THAT! Ent: Nngnnn... Heh, that wasn't so bad. BoP: Wait for it... [Ent bridge explodes] Ent: AAAAAUGHH! Why, God, WHYYY?? BoP: LOL, I'm outta here. [Enterprise is destroyed]
And the BOP cloaking in the Amargosa system was also reused from "The Undiscovererd Country". Same with the the Enterprise-B warping towards the Nexus (which in this case was actually the Excelsior warping towards Khitomer).
On the other hand: Do you know why the wings were in attack position again in the 5th, 6th and 7th movies which were shot during TNG (except of Generations)?
But they did use some bits of CGI for footage of the Bird of Prey even as early as ST: Voyage Home, you know that bit when the ship sling-shots past the Sun and just zooms past the camera, that part. But I know what you mean by the models of the ship.
Seeing the original Enterprise blow up, falling into the atmosphere, and burning across the sky (in the movie) still wrench at my heart decades later...
@@Euripides_Panz I was amazed to learn that it was Nimoy himself who came up with the basis for the design of the Bird of Prey. He had instructed ILM to create a spaceship reminiscent of a Bodybuilder’s Crab Pose which absolutely gave the BOP an aggressive and menacing posture.
Oh without a doubt, especially this one. My gods... to just feel the emotion in the room as the Enterprise met her death. If travel through time was possible, i would re-live that moment, to witness every vantage point that I could. Based on how the scene still affects me to this day (even with my first introduction to Star Trek being Voyage Home), I can imagine the emotion in the theater was palpable.
+Alex Palmer I took my kids out of school to see this in the afternoon. When the Enterprise blew up, my youngest looked at me and said, "Star Trek's broken dad"
+Alex Palmer I think there is a market for the cheap local Cinema/Movie Theatre to play popular Movies on a big screen still. ones like this one would be fun to see on a big screen.
90 Lancaster I'd gladly pay full ticket price for a chance to see The Goonies in the theater (never got to as a kid), and of course I'd love to see Apollo 13 in the theater again
I never really appreciated just how much more artistic the space shots were for Star Trek III then in many other Star Trek movies. There are some truly beautiful moments - The Enterprise arriving and exiting Spacedock, the way the Enterprise flies under and around Spacedock with Earth and the moon in the scene as the Excelsior gives chase - the death of the Enterprise, the way the dying Genesis Planet seems to lash out at them in its final death throes as they escape in the Klingon bird of prey, and of course the sweeping vistas of Vulcan.
No like for Grissom? She was purely designed and built to be destroyed, but still. Even I have a $5 model of the ship next to the NX-01 and Equinox, close to scale to each other.
Another fact, originally the Bird of Prey's de-cloaking sequence was for the internal structure to appear first, with the skeletal structure following next, and then the external to appear all around it. This was dropped however not because of budget restraints or being too complicated. But because it was felt this sequence would take too long for the ship to fully de-cloak and leave it vulnerable to attack.
I wish the movie was 2 hours, alas it is a mere hour and a half. This can be a good thing in that it doesn't overstay its welcome, but as this is my (2nd) favorite Star Trek movie, I do wish there was more. It is certainly the most emotionally charged Trek film, by far. Almost operatic.... and I always choke up watching NCC-1701 melt away. "My God, Bones.... what have I done?"
g7 the sadder thing is, there are still some "purist" fans who consider the TMP refit to be an "abomination" much the same way as many current fans say of the JJ Enterprise, and that they were happy to see it destroyed.
James Horner's music on this film was so elegant & emotional. IMHO, it even tops the amazing music that he created for ST 2. I especially like the music at the beginning of the film where they show Spock's torpedo tube on Genesis & the scene where the Enterprise is returning to Space Dock.
@@sillypuppy5940 Krull, during the escape from the spiderweb scene! 👍🏻😍 really was a slight remix of his Star Trek music...still great though, J. Horner is a Legend right up there with J. Williams and Nobu Uematsu. 🎵🎶🎵
I was 9 when this movie came out, and I remember being very much taken with the myriad ship designs that had emerged by this time. In particular, I was very much taken with the futuristic look of the Excelsior and even the under-appreciated USS Grissom, and I *never* forgot the practicality of the Bird-of-Prey's wings for landing in atmosphere.
I love how this is almost an alternate ending where the brave klingon commander finally destroys Kirk and the Enterprise before escaping the dying planet and returning home to a hero's welcome on Qo'Nos. Its Star Trek 3.1 :D
Something I hated was the tv commercial that showed the enterprise being destroyed, I couldn’t believe they did that back then. I still went to go see it the Saturday on the weekend it came out.
One amusing thing about the Enterprise is the "Tail Lights" above the shuttle bay doors are nearly as big as the Impulse engines on the saucer. I like the idea that is common in Star Trek Online Star Ships to give them vessels smaller Impulse secondary thrusters in the base of the Warp Engine Pylons - that seems like it would aid a great deal in steering as although the "Connie" has Reaction Control thrusters they are pretty small compared to the size of the ship and seem more suited to docking manoeuvres than doing complex manoeuvres at speed. She is kinda pretty though in a way than the Soverign Class Enterprise E or the NX-01 just isn't - those seem more "Functional" The Connie class is alike a big ol' swan sauntering along on a space lake..
well hearing anything in space is well, meh,, lol,, but let's go with it yea, what you are hearing is the warp coils charging then suddenly discharging in random order, condisering the amount of power that is pumped into those coils, it's no surprise it would sound as it did when the coils reached ther max charge then suddenly stability was lost, the items you see in scottys hands shortly after are from the nacel control rooms, you can bet they are related to the loss of control on the warp coils. i think they did a pretty cool job on the sound plus it did have a comedy element to it.
these scenes killed me as a 9 yr old child.. at 7:47 the weakest photon torpedoes ever fired at a ship which just came out of cloak(should not have had shields up yet) although it was pretty rapid fire from a single tube... at 8:12 this scene destroyed my childhood... Kirk, from TOS "the naked time": Now I understand why they call the ship "she"...she gives she takes...a warm beach to walk on...Never Lose you, Never. ST III: My God, Bones...what have I done? Bones: you killed your wife to save your bros. Scotty(probably): well at least she didn't fall into the hands of the Klingons... (Kirk protected 30 year old tech from falling into enemy hands) Me: 😭😭💔💔💔😭😭
It's the same model. It was used throughout the films, into the series, until Generations. Enterprise-B had the additions put on with the condition that they could be removed from the model. The additions were never removed because it was discovered some time later (for VOY) this would have caused permanent damage. It was used a final time as the USS Lakota. After that, a newer, smaller model was built.
Good question, especially since the BOP model was used for all of the shots in Generations (the explosion was yanked wholesale from Undiscovered Country).
Spacedock was always such a dumb idea. Why would you need ships to go INSIDE a bigger ship in space, and why do you need doors to keep the ship separate from the outside??
crazy74656 such a beautifully honorific name for a peaceful science exploration starship. I'd like to imagine that Starfleet had also commissioned a USS White and a USS Chaffee. It makes its destruction all the more heartbreaking. I remember being outraged when I first saw it and it still hurts now all these years later. Ad Astra Per Aspera.
I still don't know what those large hatch doors on the side of the hull near the deflector are. They are like 4 times as big as the torpedo launchers too. Emergency reverse impulse brakes ? Probe launchers ? Why do they look like doors on a Submarine.
You mean the things that are North, South, East, West around the dish? I've just googled a schematic of the mighty Enterprise and it says they are "Space-Energy Field Attraction Sensors" Apparently. No, I have no idea what that means. Best ship they ever had imo.
Without getting into the whole Star Trek/Wars thing, I dont know. I always thought of it as they maybe got inspired by Cloud City, also consider that Industrial Light and Magic did all the CGI for these Trek movies.
STIII had some of the most epic special effects of all the movies! Still rips my heart out to see the Enterprise destroyed, though, even after all the times I've seen it (and tried to recreate it)! Thanks for the ship edit!
When the current actors are too old or have passed away they should make morr prequels but during every lightly-explored or transitional period. We need more of the Amiral Kirk reign, Captain Sulu reign, Pre-TNGs1 reign (from the film6-TNG time gap), Ent-TOS gap reign, and perhaps a Kelvin reign to explain why the Kelvin was not TOS based and had a weird design.
1,2, and 3 will always be my favorites. I know a lot of people hate on 1 for being too slow, but this has always been my favorite iteration of the enterprise, and they captured it so beautifully in every film. Watching it travel slowly though V’GER was honestly just so mesmerizing to me. I also love how they handled its destruction. Looks so majestic as it goes down, just like it should be
7:16 - 9:05 This kind of makes it look like the Bird of Prey kicked the Enterprises ass and flew away in complete victory. If you didn't know the rest of the story.
the funny thing, it is not supposed to be a Klingon ship. In the original draft, it was a Romulan ship and crew, later rewritten to be a rogue Klingon crew in a captured Romulan vessel. Hence the bird of prey, cloaking device, and neutral zone - all Romulan exclusives by this point. Despite the retcon in Wrath of Khan (please... "Neutral Zone" as a semi-spherical region of space? Someone didn't do their homework), there was never a Neutral Zone between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. Otherwise, you never would have seen Koloth and Kirk together on Deep Space K-7. The Klingons had never used the cloaking device before, in fact, to cloak is the most dishonorable battle tactic one can have. Klingons fight you face to face in glorious battle, not sneak around to stab you from behind. You know, like Romulans would do. Alas, this was not to be, and we have some of the worst retcon in Star Trek, thanks to the two movies. That being said, I still love them both, in fact, Search for Spock ranks in my top 2. It just would have added to the rogue nature of Kruge and his men, if they kept with the original plot. And it would have made so much sense (remember how shocked the freighter captain was to see the decloaking vessel. He thought he was dealing with Klingons)
+K1productions Hey there, i know your post is like 1year old, but i have to correct you about the neutral zones :) (about the script tho of the bird of prey being romulan first thats true, but they changed all and without errors like you seem to think) About neutral zones, since star trek II was stablished that there are 2 (klingon-border neutral zone, and romulan neutral zone) there's no error in here like you imply. Klingon neutral zone was stablished (tho this is a bit of soft canon, in the organian peace treaty in TOS), and it's spherical cos space is 3d and its a zone between fed and klingon space. It's well mentioned on screen in all movies, specially in star trek VI, when they discuss the abolition of the klingon neutral zone for the khitomer accords and dismantling the space stations on that border cos klingons can't no longer afford hostilities. K7 was indeed one of the stations on the border of the neutral zone. So, klingon neutral zone exists since organia to the end of star trek VI, when it becomes just a border line territory. (about klingons having cloaking devices, remember TOS the enterprise incident: klingons gave their D7 klingon cruisers to the romulans in exchange for the cloaking tech, back then were allies until romulans, of course, betray them later. Klingons "honor" most times it's a facade and hipocritical, if they can kill you having an advantatge they will, and then when you are dead and a cold corpse, they will sing a song about it. Klingons love to have cloaking as Romulans do, and if it weren't for the treaty of algeron and the tomed incident, federation would use too cloaking in ships; they do have cloak tech but for other uses) The Romulan neutral zone is the oldest one, existing since the end of the Earth-Romulan war, and until "today" (it doesn't exist anymore since the Hobus incident destroying Romulus and Remus.. The romulan star empire doens't exist now per ser, its the Romulan Republic, tho you can say its soft-canon if you want). You can say the romulan neutral zone is the most known and popular and you can get confused with the klingon one but indeed the klingon neutral zone existed, no errors on it. A "3rd" "neutral" zone would be the fed-cardassian neutral zone, but it was called the Demilitarized Zone in the series (it's the same concept), that existed from 2370 (fed-cardassia peace treaty, that made the Maquis) to the Dominion invasion in the war (they killed everyone and absorved the territory). So, as you can see, there's no errors. Plenty of neutral zones in Star Trek. ;)
Pep Vendrell As for Star Trek II establishing things, they did a lot of poor retconning that I wish could be taken back. But I will also re-correct your correction about the Spherical neutral zone. First, it would imply the Klingon Empire is surrounded on all sides by Federation territory, which is not true. The Klingon Empire is vast and extends out beyond the Federation's reach which leads to the second point. The spherical zone we see during the Kobayashi Maru test was only a single sector of space. Or not even sector, as they say "Gamma Hydra, Section 10". And where within that small bubble does the Neutral Zone end, and Klingon territory begin? The zone we see on ST2 is WAY too small, especially if the Enterprise could reach the center of it in 2 minutes. It took a D'deridex Warbird over an hour to cross their Neutral Zone nearly a century later, and they are roughly as fast as the Enterprise D. Also, there is a HUGE difference between the Neutral Zone and the Demilitarized Zone. Further the DMZ only covers a small area between Federation and Cardassian territory, not the entire border. For example, there is no such zone between Deep Space Nine and Cardassia. Further, the Neutral Zone has far greater implications. It is not simply a border, but a treaty by which if crossed by either side, means a declaration of war. Now, they have cheated that many times with the Romulans, but the implication was always there. In TNG, there was always deadly earnestness about any time either the Enterpirse or Romulans challenged the border, and always two steps away from total war. This is not the case with the Klingons. The Organian Treaty never established a neutral zone, only a cessation of hostilities. Otherwise we never would have seen a Klingon, as any time they entered Federation Space, it would have been war. And yet, how many times have we see them in TOS? I can count six episodes of the top of my head, and the only time it was outright conflict was when they were basically forced to fight ("Day of the Dove"). Meanwhile the only times we see the Romulans (three episodes I recall), the risk of war was right at the top. As for Star Trek VI,... it was directed by the same guy who directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Retcon. The same guy who turned Kirk into a racist, and despite promising Gene Roddenbery he would change it,... he kept it in the movie after he died. Which, I'm sorry, was a total dick move. It was clear that Nick Meyer didn't understand a lot about the Star Trek universe, but because of pure nostalgia factor, everyone treats it as some kind of Trek Bible that should not be questioned. And yet, just like the Bible, there is a list as thick as the book itself of contradictions. Not just the NZ, but the uniforms, physical torpedoes, character appearances, characters themselves, established histories, the list goes on. Oh, and the only reason we saw Klingons in the opening is because they wanted to re-use the K'tinga Battlecruisers from The Motion Picture.
+K1productions I wouldn't take so seriusly the spherical representation of star trek II neutral zone, you delve too much into it. Both neutral zones circunvent the space around the faction, klingon or romulan, and about time of going around at warp.. there are episodes in TOS that made 7 parsecs in 2 minutes (or something like that) until TNG they didn't take more seriusly warp timetables, and still overlook them for script pace. Look into definition of a neutral zone and a demilitarized zone. No matter the space they cover, it's the same concept: entering it would mean war. Nothing more. both neutral and demilitarized. Look it on. Agreed they cheated many times in TNG entering it. As i said, establisment of the klingon neutral zone when they made the organian peace teatry is soft canon (i said on purpose cos i thought you would jump on me, and you did anyways) Besides, you are comparing the terms of the organian treaty with the earth-romulan. You know what terms they had? cos i'm sure they weren't the same. Earth-romulan one, they had a war, and they didn't want to see each other never again. Besides, there's plenty of times romulan ships are outside of the neutral zone and romulan territory in TNG and they don't go to war either. You know that there's a lot of space around and all is not fed territory, right? Crossing the neutral zone and go to the enemy territory is an act of war, but they made it plenty of times and neither would want to go to war. Again, you are taking this too much seriusly. I love star trek VI and, sorry but, if my kid would have been killed by a klingon and my ship blown a part because of them, i would become racist as well. Wouldn't you? was a great movie and Kirk evolved to be a better person (the star trek theme) Will have to disagree about it :) i think Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer did great jobs and star trek is alive thanks to them. Can't wait for the new trek series with Meyer involved. :) And take it easy. I think you get angry too much about these. My post was to only demostrate that both neutral zones existed, nothing more. You want to look into errors made in all the series? i'm sure you will find them. LLAP!
Pep Vendrell its not that I get angry, in fact Search for Spock is my second favorite Star Trek film (though as you would image, Wrath of Khan is NOT my first, lol). I only wish they spent more time looking at the source material rather than shrugging their shoulders saying "its just a movie, nobody is going to care". I would expect such things from an outsider like Nick Meyer,... but not Leonard Nimoy.
Actually, These scenes are only partially animated, like phasershots etc. The ships itself ARE models. I have a book with pictures of them shooting scenes with them. Just because you don't really see it, doesn't mean its done by computers. Doing such scenes with computers in 1984.. I dunno in which world you live in.. but seriously. You might want to look at computergames and systems from that time to get an idea...
I think this goes to shot how crappy and small TVs were back in those days. I watched all the films as a kid and never noticed until now that the Enterprise was still showing the battle damage from the Reliant battle in the previous film!
