As a navy veteran I can tell you light on the bridge is the enemy. We like the bridge or the C.I.C. or combat, Information,center to be dark so that the only thing your eyes lock onto is the gauges and computer screens. This will always be the case even on a star ship. My personal favorite was the Enterprise-A bridge and even that one is too bright. But you can see where the inspiration came from on the Titan’s bridge
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek at green alert and @@bestoftrekworstoftrek @@bestoftrekworstoftrekd the way they are on voyager or how the Titan seems to be normally
I'm a 39+ year military veteran, and I agree! There needs to be enough light to move about, but not so much that you would give away positioning as such. Even in fighter aircraft, they would go blackout when operating on night vision. Normally lit controls would be blacked out as well. Trek has gone so much into touch screen, that those glossy panels would be reflecting anything behind the personnel. If anything, those panels should be matte, so not to reflect. That would be better for the show also, less reflective surfaces during filming. For me, I don't like when the bridge personnel don't face the captain, how are they to hear the orders clearly. 'Enterprise', Voyager, and the Enterprise-E model had the best bridges. The newer vast bridges are so unrealistic, that there would be no way to operate/communicate on them in combat. And none of that Kelvin timeline seat belts. To me, they need to be practical swivel into place, seat-integrated personnel restraints.
Now I just imagine an upcoming scene on Discovery where the whole bridge is exploding, but someone needs to make a heartfelt statement, so everything stops dead...even the spark machines and flamethrowers.
The Voyagers was best in many respects, certainly the most cinematic of the TV series bridges and the best lit. One issue with it is the overabundance of unnecessary stairs particularly where the command chairs are . That one level should have been eliminated, every time the captain got off the turbo lift she had to take two little steps down and then one step back up to get to her chair in her high heel boots and her hair bobbing up and down. If she went to her ready room it was off of the turbo lift down a couple of stairs down a couple more to her room and then to get to her chair a couple out of her ready room and then backup one to her chair. For Tom Paris, getting off of the lift, had to go down two stairs go up one stair and then down two stairs to get into the well that they built the helm into. So if that one level where are the command chairs are was eliminated that would eliminate that one necessary step that is making everybody go up and down, and still have different levels to the bridge, keep the command chairs above line of sight of the helm and place it slightly lower than the stations in the rear like it was on the next generation. If you look at this set the somewhat flimsy railings on the far left and right behind the command chairs look tacked on, and don't even connect to the main rear railing with the computer station on it, completely unnecessary, and without those their the captain could walk straight off of the elevator take one step down and be at her chair and it almost looks like that's how it was originally planned, because as filmed with those little extraneous railings there she often has to grab it just to walk quickly around it because its in the way, and offers no function, it's just an obstruction. It also makes more sense to have one clear primary chair for the captain and one on each side but having two generic seats side by doesn't really look great. And of course this configuration was never used on any other hero ship. It doesn't help that they lack any character and look like stock vinyl seats out of a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier. All other captains chairs looked special in some way and function. Finally, wonderfully integrated side stations were built on the far left and right of the bridge and almost never used, very occasionally we would see someone in the engineering nook but the accompanying science one on the opposite side of the bridge was almost never shown , which is very unusual for a dedicated in an unexplored quadrant of space, we almost never even saw any blue shirt science people on the bridge which also was a huge oversight of this show, and those side stations really were well thought out , detailed parts of the bridge that were just nearly abandoned, as well as the large flip out computer console the captain had between her and the first officers chair. All of that aside, the bridge looks great has great color and is was always lit well and is better than some of the movie Bridges even. Just a couple of minor changes they could have made over the 7 years of running that would have made a little more logical sense.
The most hilarious addition to any of the bridges are the two Symbol M2007 Cyclone bar code scanners on the ops and helm of the JJ Enterprise bridge. Was that product placement, or did JJ not think anyone would notice?
Trek bridge design is optimized to deliver exposition, but it's a hopeless way to run a ship. Realistically sensors should be a whole department with a dozen people, helm control should be integrated with inertial controls and structural integrity fields - again a whole department, and so and for each position. No, the captain should never tell people what weapons to fire when at what targets and how to fire them in what pattern - you train your specialists to make those decisions. A ship's captain should have filtered & condensed information funneled to him so he can set best policy for the mission at hand and trust the various departments to carry it out.
The Neo-Connie. Oh man, so much is so wrong with the new "flagship" of the Federation. And you had the Enterprise-F right there, and STO had an amazing layout for it in the Aquarius Bridge design. They even put a transporter pad on the bridge floor, so the captain and command crew didn't have to waste time to beam places.
Personally, my favorite Starfleet bridge turned out to be a trap... that of the Dauntless. Not so much because of function, but because of the look. As for TNG, the IDEA behind it was that everything would be so automated in the 24th century, that you wouldn't need as much function... to then allow for more character-driven stories. That of course didn't work out the way it was expected to considering how tech-heavy TNG episodes (though certainly mostly character-driven) became as opposed to TOS episodes.
I have to disagree about the TOS Bridge I think it its super practical even for filming given a a lot of today is shot on steady cam rigs. Also it was shot on 35mm film which was the cinema standard for wide screen they just never cropped the frame. Every person is within a head turn of the captain and all within earshot of the captain and everyone else on the bridge. The captain has instantaneous access to all the information needed to make a command decision without having to leave the chair. Helm and navigation have a clear view of the main viewer and are out of line of site for the captain everyone else also has an unobstructed from their seated position with the turn of their head or chair Having people just swap stations that is not a part of their department even in a crisis is just not a good idea and dangerous, this only works in Hollywood land. In reality you would never let someone unqualified operate the station as they could do more harm than good.
@@Carwyn.MorrisLike Enterprise recreating part of it, the problem comes in possible shot compositions. It works for a few scenes, but if you have to shoot it day in and day out, there's only going to be a couple of good sightlines, and would get stale pretty quick. Just my opinion. I'm not saying it can't be done.
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek No it wouldn't be an issue because you would be shooting through Wilde walls and shooting into the set. most of the time up to a 1/3rd of the set is taken away and that is standard on most sets. the limitation is on the cinematographer's imagination or what is called for in the script. But there is no more difficulty or limit to what or how you can shoot on the TOS bridge set compared to any other bridge set. They all shoot pretty much the same.
The smaller ships (your Inrepid, California, and Defiant classes) DO have much better bridges. They're way more economical with their space. It's like the designers lose that ability the bigger the ship gets.
02:54 there's a fan edit with a real STARFLEET ARMADA replacing those god awful crappy ships there's even a CROCODILE DUNDEE meme picture of it " NOW THAT'S A FLEET ! "
The D's bridge is beautiful, no doubt, and mostly functional. But those panels on the sides with the red lights that don't seem to do anything...I don't think I remember anyone doing anything with them until Generations.
My only real problem with the Enterprise-A bridge from Undiscovered Country is the fact they stripped out the gorgeous Okudagrams from the Helm/Nav station, and pasted in random junk and an obviously spray-painted sound mixer board. It was a little less egregious on the Excelsior bridge, since it combined both on a panel that never had a pre-existing design to begin with. ... but to take what we had already seen, strip it COMPLETELY bare, and cover it with crap from the prop dump... it just rubbed me the wrong way.
The "best 5" is a pretty fucking low bar... None of them are even slightly "good". They're serviceable for filming, to some extent, but logistically and ergonomically, they're fucking awful for their purposes. Without exception.
As a navy veteran I can tell you light on the bridge is the enemy. We like the bridge or the C.I.C. or combat, Information,center to be dark so that the only thing your eyes lock onto is the gauges and computer screens. This will always be the case even on a star ship. My personal favorite was the Enterprise-A bridge and even that one is too bright. But you can see where the inspiration came from on the Titan’s bridge
Very interesting. As far as realism...that's cool. As far as a tv show that we the audience need to see...bad. Thanks for the knowledge!
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek at green alert and @@bestoftrekworstoftrek @@bestoftrekworstoftrekd the way they are on voyager or how the Titan seems to be normally
I'm a 39+ year military veteran, and I agree!
There needs to be enough light to move about, but not so much that you would give away positioning as such. Even in fighter aircraft, they would go blackout when operating on night vision. Normally lit controls would be blacked out as well.
Trek has gone so much into touch screen, that those glossy panels would be reflecting anything behind the personnel. If anything, those panels should be matte, so not to reflect. That would be better for the show also, less reflective surfaces during filming.
For me, I don't like when the bridge personnel don't face the captain, how are they to hear the orders clearly. 'Enterprise', Voyager, and the Enterprise-E model had the best bridges. The newer vast bridges are so unrealistic, that there would be no way to operate/communicate on them in combat.
And none of that Kelvin timeline seat belts. To me, they need to be practical swivel into place, seat-integrated personnel restraints.
Now I just imagine an upcoming scene on Discovery where the whole bridge is exploding, but someone needs to make a heartfelt statement, so everything stops dead...even the spark machines and flamethrowers.
The Voyagers was best in many respects, certainly the most cinematic of the TV series bridges and the best lit.
One issue with it is the overabundance of unnecessary stairs particularly where the command chairs are .
That one level should have been eliminated, every time the captain got off the turbo lift she had to take two little steps down and then one step back up to get to her chair in her high heel boots and her hair bobbing up and down.
If she went to her ready room it was off of the turbo lift down a couple of stairs down a couple more to her room and then to get to her chair a couple out of her ready room and then backup one to her chair.
For Tom Paris, getting off of the lift, had to go down two stairs go up one stair and then down two stairs to get into the well that they built the helm into.
So if that one level where are the command chairs are was eliminated that would eliminate that one necessary step that is making everybody go up and down, and still have different levels to the bridge, keep the command chairs above line of sight of the helm and place it slightly lower than the stations in the rear like it was on the next generation.
If you look at this set the somewhat flimsy railings on the far left and right behind the command chairs look tacked on, and don't even connect to the main rear railing with the computer station on it, completely unnecessary, and without those their the captain could walk straight off of the elevator take one step down and be at her chair and it almost looks like that's how it was originally planned, because as filmed with those little extraneous railings there she often has to grab it just to walk quickly around it because its in the way, and offers no function, it's just an obstruction.
It also makes more sense to have one clear primary chair for the captain and one on each side but having two generic seats side by doesn't really look great.
And of course this configuration was never used on any other hero ship.
It doesn't help that they lack any character and look like stock vinyl seats out of a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier.
All other captains chairs looked special in some way and function.
Finally, wonderfully integrated side stations were built on the far left and right of the bridge and almost never used, very occasionally we would see someone in the engineering nook but the accompanying science one on the opposite side of the bridge was almost never shown , which is very unusual for a dedicated in an unexplored quadrant of space, we almost never even saw any blue shirt science people on the bridge which also was a huge oversight of this show, and those side stations really were well thought out , detailed parts of the bridge that were just nearly abandoned, as well as the large flip out computer console the captain had between her and the first officers chair.
All of that aside, the bridge looks great has great color and is was always lit well and is better than some of the movie Bridges even.
Just a couple of minor changes they could have made over the 7 years of running that would have made a little more logical sense.
It's a solid bridge that holds up really well!
The most hilarious addition to any of the bridges are the two Symbol M2007 Cyclone bar code scanners on the ops and helm of the JJ Enterprise bridge. Was that product placement, or did JJ not think anyone would notice?
Trek bridge design is optimized to deliver exposition, but it's a hopeless way to run a ship. Realistically sensors should be a whole department with a dozen people, helm control should be integrated with inertial controls and structural integrity fields - again a whole department, and so and for each position. No, the captain should never tell people what weapons to fire when at what targets and how to fire them in what pattern - you train your specialists to make those decisions. A ship's captain should have filtered & condensed information funneled to him so he can set best policy for the mission at hand and trust the various departments to carry it out.
But then we couldn't have the captain telling them to reverse the polarity of a photon torpedo so it has a rotating tachyon emp pulse frequency
The Inquiry class bridge was the Discovery set with a few changes.
Thanks for the knowledge! The front consoles just look so fake, I assumed.
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek The front consoles are CGI but the set behind Riker is all real. Even the same captain’s chair
The Neo-Connie. Oh man, so much is so wrong with the new "flagship" of the Federation. And you had the Enterprise-F right there, and STO had an amazing layout for it in the Aquarius Bridge design. They even put a transporter pad on the bridge floor, so the captain and command crew didn't have to waste time to beam places.
Generations D - Amazing! Liked the Prometheus too
In that same vein, I liked some of the alternate reality bridges from "Parallels"
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek yes! Soooo good!
Personally, my favorite Starfleet bridge turned out to be a trap... that of the Dauntless. Not so much because of function, but because of the look. As for TNG, the IDEA behind it was that everything would be so automated in the 24th century, that you wouldn't need as much function... to then allow for more character-driven stories. That of course didn't work out the way it was expected to considering how tech-heavy TNG episodes (though certainly mostly character-driven) became as opposed to TOS episodes.
Clearly Janeway liked it too, seeing as she copied it along with (and even more faithfully than) the rest of the ship's design!
Voyager is my favorite!
I have to disagree about the TOS Bridge I think it its super practical even for filming given a a lot of today is shot on steady cam rigs. Also it was shot on 35mm film which was the cinema standard for wide screen they just never cropped the frame. Every person is within a head turn of the captain and all within earshot of the captain and everyone else on the bridge. The captain has instantaneous access to all the information needed to make a command decision without having to leave the chair.
Helm and navigation have a clear view of the main viewer and are out of line of site for the captain
everyone else also has an unobstructed from their seated position with the turn of their head or chair
Having people just swap stations that is not a part of their department even in a crisis is just not a good idea and dangerous, this only works in Hollywood land. In reality you would never let someone unqualified operate the station as they could do more harm than good.
I was only saying it would be a pain to do ultra-widescreen on that set, and part of why the SNW bridge looks SOO much different and bigger.
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek it wouldn't be an issue 50mm anamorphic lens full frame would shoot perfectly fine.
@@Carwyn.MorrisLike Enterprise recreating part of it, the problem comes in possible shot compositions. It works for a few scenes, but if you have to shoot it day in and day out, there's only going to be a couple of good sightlines, and would get stale pretty quick. Just my opinion. I'm not saying it can't be done.
@@bestoftrekworstoftrek No it wouldn't be an issue because you would be shooting through Wilde walls and shooting into the set. most of the time up to a 1/3rd of the set is taken away and that is standard on most sets. the limitation is on the cinematographer's imagination or what is called for in the script. But there is no more difficulty or limit to what or how you can shoot on the TOS bridge set compared to any other bridge set. They all shoot pretty much the same.
Feel like you neglected the Protostar bridge with the transparent canopy. Such a great design.
Hmm. Maybe the flamethrowers are a by-product of all the New Era Ships also having fireplaces onboard?
Be fun to see more defiant like designs. Stripped down, strictly utilitarian, built for war, etc.
Gonna be real sad if I don't seen the Protostar Bridge on this list. Its become one of my favourites.
It looks great and seems so functional.
The smaller ships (your Inrepid, California, and Defiant classes) DO have much better bridges. They're way more economical with their space. It's like the designers lose that ability the bigger the ship gets.
Intrepid bridge was chefs kiss
It's really well balanced
The bridge of the inquiry class was a redress of discoveries Bridge yeah that's been thoroughly examined already improving its not CGI
Those front consoles just don't look real at all, but thanks for the trivia!
SNW, DSC, and PIC Bridges have WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY too much real estate. Let the Widescreen format be damned. Make them smaller!!!
I like the SNW bridge, but as a whole they have way too much dead space.
02:54
there's a fan edit
with a real
STARFLEET ARMADA
replacing those god awful
crappy ships
there's even a
CROCODILE DUNDEE
meme picture
of it
" NOW THAT'S A FLEET ! "
The D's bridge is beautiful, no doubt, and mostly functional. But those panels on the sides with the red lights that don't seem to do anything...I don't think I remember anyone doing anything with them until Generations.
They were the computer and supposedly storage
@@mem1701movies"the" computer was a 3 core system, spread over the ship. And not on the Bridge
My only real problem with the Enterprise-A bridge from Undiscovered Country is the fact they stripped out the gorgeous Okudagrams from the Helm/Nav station, and pasted in random junk and an obviously spray-painted sound mixer board. It was a little less egregious on the Excelsior bridge, since it combined both on a panel that never had a pre-existing design to begin with. ... but to take what we had already seen, strip it COMPLETELY bare, and cover it with crap from the prop dump... it just rubbed me the wrong way.
05:03
" TONIGHT I DINE ON
TURTLE SOUP ! "
give a thumbs up
&
leave a comment
if you get the reference
I don’t like the single helm blocking the viewscreen designs
The A.
The "best 5" is a pretty fucking low bar...
None of them are even slightly "good". They're serviceable for filming, to some extent, but logistically and ergonomically, they're fucking awful for their purposes. Without exception.
WORST
JJ ABRAMS & KURTZMAN DREK
BRIDGE LAYOUTS