Why Fans Still Prefer the Original Star Trek Enterprise Shots

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]In 2005, the world felt like it was standing on the edge of a technological transition.

[00:00:06]Bookstores were stacked high with copies of The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

[00:00:10]Movie theaters were dominated by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

[00:00:16]Television audiences were glued to 24 as America continued processing the fears and anxieties that followed September 11th.

[00:00:25]And behind the scenes, broadcast television itself was changing.

[00:00:29]For the first time, the industry was preparing for a future built around high definition television.

[00:00:36]Flat-screen HDTV sets were beginning to appear in living rooms. Networks were aggressively searching for programming that could help sell those expensive new displays.

[00:00:46]And at Paramount, somebody realized something important.

[00:00:50]If audiences were going to rediscover classic television in high definition, then perhaps one of the most recognizable science fiction series ever created should be part of that future.

[00:01:01]So, Paramount announced a project that would completely reshape the way millions of people would experience Star Trek forever.

[00:01:09]The original series would be remastered.

[00:01:12]The episodes would be rescanned from the original 35-mm camera negatives.

[00:01:18]The images would be reformatted into widescreen presentations. Color balances would be adjusted. Film dirt and grain would be reduced. Advanced digital sharpening would be introduced. And perhaps most controversially of all, the original optical visual effects created during the 1960s would be replaced with brand new computer-generated imagery.

[00:01:39]To many viewers in 2005, this sounded exciting. The Enterprise would finally fly into the 21st century with modern visual effects and crystal-clear presentation quality.

[00:01:50]But for older fans, something about it never quite felt right.

[00:01:56]Because by that point, Star Trek no longer simply a television series. It was memory.

[00:02:01]It was childhood. It was ritual. And once you begin changing the texture of memory, people notice.

[00:02:10]>> [music] >> The following program is brought to you in living color by Trek World.

[00:02:18]>> [music] >> Now, for me personally, this story reaches much further back than 2005.

[00:02:26]It reaches all the way back to 1972. I was 8 years old. And like so many kids during that era of syndicated television, I discovered Star Trek in the afternoon lineup alongside shows like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch, and The Partridge Family.

[00:02:43]To my parents, especially my father, Star Trek probably looked like complete nonsense. Pointy-eared aliens, lasers, salt vampires, brightly colored uniforms, fake planets, cheap monsters.

[00:02:55]And yet somehow, here we are 60 years later still discussing it. We debate visual effects.

[00:03:02]We argue about which series was better.

[00:03:04]We compare models, miniatures, remasters, Blu-rays, and sound mixes.

[00:03:09]And many long-time fans eventually reach the same conclusion. We preferred the original versions. We wanted the episodes without modern CGI. We wanted the practical optical effects. We wanted the series to look the way we remembered it looking when we first saw it as children. So, we bought VHS tapes, then DVDs, then Blu-rays. And throughout all of that, we convinced ourselves that we were preserving the untouched original experience.

[00:03:36]But here is the fascinating truth.

[00:03:39]Most of us actually were not. Because even the so-called original DVD presentations were already digitally altered versions of Star Trek.

[00:03:48]To really understand what Star Trek looked like during the 1960s 1970s, we have to go back before the DVDs entirely.

[00:03:57]After the original series left network television, fans mostly experienced Star Trek through syndication broadcasts.

[00:04:03]If you wanted to own episodes yourself, your options were extremely limited.

[00:04:08]There were bootleg VHS and beta copies floating around conventions and collector circles. Quality varied wildly. Some were blurry. Some were generations removed from the original source. Others had commercials still embedded in them.

[00:04:24]But then, in 1985, Paramount Home Video stepped in.

[00:04:29]Through a licensing arrangement with Columbia House, the original series began appearing as part of a mail order VHS subscription program.

[00:04:37]For many fans, those tapes became the definitive home video versions of Star Trek. Then came August of 1999.

[00:04:46]That was the moment Paramount released the original series on DVD for the first time. The packaging emphasized that the episodes had been digitally enhanced and remastered, and those words mattered because Paramount had not simply transferred the old masters onto discs.

[00:05:02]They had already altered them.

[00:05:03]Each individual frame of film had been rescanned photographically at high resolution.

[00:05:09]Noise reduction was applied. Color timing was adjusted. Sharpening processes were introduced, and the result was cleaner, brighter, and more polished than what audiences originally saw on television decades earlier.

[00:05:23]Ironically, these remastered masters were not even originally created for the American DVD market.

[00:05:31]The restoration work had actually begun years earlier for a Japanese laser disc collection released between 1992 and 1993.

[00:05:41]Those collections were titled Star Trek log one, log two, and log three.

[00:05:47]When Paramount finally launched the DVDs years later, they used those enhanced Japanese masters rather than the untouched video masters previously used for VHS. That means many fans spent years believing they were watching untouched originals when in reality they were already watching altered presentations.

[00:06:06]And if you're fortunate enough to still own one of those old VHS releases and a working VCR, the differences become immediately obvious.

[00:06:15]The image behaves differently. The color feels different. The grain structure changes. The sharpness changes. Even the atmosphere changes.

[00:06:25]The Blu-rays and DVDs may technically look better, but they don't always look historically authentic.

[00:06:32]And that brings us to the real purpose of the series. Over the next several videos, we are going to examine the original non-CGI footage of the famous 11-foot Enterprise model exactly as it appeared throughout the series.

[00:06:47]We will begin with the pilots, then season 1, then season 2, then season 3.

[00:06:54]We will examine where each effect shot first appeared, how it was reused, when it was modified, and which episodes recycled that footage later. And for these examinations, I'm going to use the best non-CGI source material available.

[00:07:08]Most likely that means the earlier DVD masters rather than VHS copies because they still preserve enough detail for us to carefully study the miniature photography itself.

[00:07:19]To really understand these shots, we have to travel all the way back to December of 1964.

[00:07:26]Right after Christmas, Richard Dayton delivered the original 11-foot USS Enterprise miniature to the Howard Anderson company for use in Star Trek.

[00:07:35]Photographs from that day show Richard alongside Mel Vernon posing proudly beside the finished model outside the Anderson effects facility.

[00:07:43]And that brings us to the very first appearance of the 11-foot Enterprise in the original pilot episode, "The Cage".

[00:07:50]The shot lasts less than 13 seconds, yet it remains one of the most ambitious miniature photography sequences ever created for the Enterprise during the entire series.

[00:08:01]The camera movement changes direction multiple times. First, the Enterprise appears to glide into frame from the left.

[00:08:07]Then the camera slowly zooms toward the model, creating the illusion of rapid approach.

[00:08:14]Finally, the viewpoint rises above the ship at an angle, making the Enterprise appear to tilt downward toward the audience.

[00:08:22]Although the entire shot appeared in the opening of "The Cage", the full sequence would never again be used intact.

[00:08:29]Instead, editors divided it into three separate stock footage elements.

[00:08:35]Those fragments became some of the earliest reusable visual effects material in Star Trek history.

[00:08:41]The first section, which I call TC-1, appeared only three additional times after "The Cage".

[00:08:48]The footage was slowed down significantly, roughly 40% slower than originally photographed, but it didn't survive long in circulation.

[00:08:57]One major reason was the nacelles.

[00:09:00]At that stage, the engine still featured solid wooden caps instead of the illuminated nacelles later installed after the pilot phase.

[00:09:09]Ironically, the final reuse of TC-1 occurred years later during the third season episode, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"

[00:09:17]Why they suddenly revived the shot after so long remains uncertain, but in Star Trek production history, cost-cutting usually explains almost everything.

[00:09:27]After season 2 wrapped, the Enterprise miniature was placed into storage for several years.

[00:09:33]So, when the effects department suddenly needed another usable shot, they likely dug through the archives and reused whatever material remained available.

[00:09:40]The second fragment, TC-2, came directly from the middle section of the original shot. The framing never rises high enough for us to see the top of the bridge dome clearly. Like TC-1, it disappeared fairly quickly because the unlit nacelles no longer matched the updated appearance of the model.

[00:09:57]TC-2 only appeared three times within the first six episodes produced. The third section, TC-3, had a longer life.

[00:10:05]It first appeared during season 1 with a relatively standard starfield background, but by season 2, the footage evolved into the infamous flashing version many fans remember from episodes like By Any Other Name and later again in Is There in Truth No Beauty.

[00:10:22]Then came one of the most important turning points in Star Trek production history.

[00:10:26]NBC rejected The Cage.

[00:10:28]Yet remarkably, the network ordered a second pilot. On June 11th, 1965, the production officially received authorization to proceed.

[00:10:38]And Gene Roddenberry wanted changes made immediately.

[00:10:41]Most importantly, he wanted the 11-ft Enterprise illuminated.

[00:10:45]Running lights would now glow across the saucer and secondary hull. That required major modifications.

[00:10:51]The port side of the model had to be drilled open so electrical wiring could pass through the structure.

[00:10:57]Light bulbs were installed inside the hull, dorsal section, and saucer.

[00:11:03]Windows were cut directly into the skin of the model so illumination could shine outward.

[00:11:09]Blinking anti-collision lights were also added. Once complete, the Enterprise was mounted onto a new swiveling stand that dramatically expanded the range of possible camera angles.

[00:11:20]Unlike The Cage, this second pilot generated dozens of new photographs and motion picture clips of the 11-ft model.

[00:11:27]For Where No Man Has Gone Before, the production photographed six primary Enterprise effects shots.

[00:11:34]Technically, they filmed seven, but one remained unused until later in the series. The first major shot is what I call slow approach. The name is fairly self-explanatory.

[00:11:45]The Enterprise glides gradually toward the viewer.

[00:11:48]That shot became heavily reused.

[00:11:51]Different speeds, different flipped orientations. Nine additional appearances across the first and second seasons. Eventually, it was replaced once illuminated cell footage became available. Another shot from the pilot appeared in an astonishing 41 episodes, and every single time you can still identify the old solid nacelle caps instead of the illuminated replacements.

[00:12:14]That meant the Enterprise often alternated between lit and unlit nacelles within the same episode depending entirely on which stock footage editors selected.

[00:12:24]The famous barrier approach shot only returned once more during By Any Other Name in season 2.

[00:12:32]Then came one of the most recognizable shots in the entire original series.

[00:12:37]I call it Ride into the sunset. This footage survived throughout all three seasons.

[00:12:42]If 41 appearances sounded impressive, this clip appeared 60 times.

[00:12:48]You can identify it instantly because the nacelles feature visible vent lines on the rear caps.

[00:12:54]The shot was constantly recomposited against different planets, backgrounds, and visual elements.

[00:13:01]Sometimes the footage was even flipped horizontally. And perhaps most importantly of all, it became the only Enterprise shot featured in the opening credits of all three seasons of Star Trek.

[00:13:15]Another memorable clip, which I call in orbit, enjoyed a much shorter career.

[00:13:20]It only appeared once more after the pilot, specifically in The Enemy Within.

[00:13:26]Yet oddly enough, it became part of the opening credits during seasons 2 and 3.

[00:13:33]That choice remains strange because the wooden nacelles are clearly visible.

[00:13:38]And the oversized illuminated bridge window stands out dramatically.

[00:13:42]Then we come to a shot I personally remember vividly from syndicated broadcasts growing up. I call it breaking orbit.

[00:13:50]The perspective was unusual because the Enterprise appears to rise outward from a planetary surface directly toward the viewer.

[00:13:57]Despite its memorable appearance, it only appeared during the first two episodes of season 1.

[00:14:04]Now, remember earlier when I mentioned there were technically seven shots filmed during the second pilot. The missing shot finally surfaced later in the episode Dagger of the Mind. And this particular shot became legendary among long-time fans.

[00:14:18]For years, convention stories claimed the production somehow created fake reversed lettering to simulate the port side of the Enterprise.

[00:14:26]Many fans dismissed the entire story as myth, but later examination of the original miniature during restoration work at the Smithsonian Institution confirmed what actually happened.

[00:14:37]The effects team temporarily covered the normal starboard lettering with painted paper matching the nacelle color.

[00:14:43]Then reversed lettering was applied on top.

[00:14:46]That allowed the crew to remove the temporary disguise quickly without damaging the model itself.

[00:14:52]In practice, though, the process proved cumbersome.

[00:14:56]Eventually, it became easier simply to flip the film shot horizontally and cut away before the registry became visible.

[00:15:03]And there's a reliable way to identify these disguised shots.

[00:15:07]If the registry appears readable while the small wooden block beneath the pennant is also visible, you are not actually looking at the true port side.

[00:15:17]You are looking at reversed lettering applied to the starboard side. So, that concludes our journey through the two original Star Trek pilots.