The bridge of the Starship Enterprise D is hallowed ground, man. It is one of the most iconic spaces in all of TV geekdom, a place where magic happened, where some of the most memorable moments of Star Trek: The Next Generation went down.
And now, it’s been junked. A recreation of the set built for the Star Trek: The Experience ride in Las Vegas, was taken down when the ride was discontinued, and the original set was destroyed during the filming of Star Trek: Generations. As Dan Seitz writes at Uproxx, “They could have sold this set in a charity auction and made a fortune. They could have donated it to Make-A-Wish. They could have just shipped it to the Smithsonian, or some other Americana museum. Instead they did this.”
There are more images at Uproxx, and yes, they will make your childhood weep.
All’s not lost, however — a group calling themselves The New Starship are dedicated to restoring the set and finding a home for it. They’re about to launch an indiegogo campaign to raise the $US175,000 they say it would take to take those depressing bits of wood and padding and make them magic again. In an interview with Ars Technica, one of the group’s founders, the awesomely-named Huston Huddleston, says that they want to “take what we have and restore it to the closest recreation of the TV [set] as possible, with the help of our highly skilled group of Hollywood professionals, and make it open to the public for meetings, movie showings, fundraisers, tours, filming, anything!”
Hopefully this whole thing has a good ending. That image of Picard’s stained, ripped-up chair is a real downer.
The Enterprise-D’s Shoddy Treatment Will Make Your Childhood Cry [Uproxx]
Make it so: How three guys got most of the Enterprise-D bridge [Ars Technica]
Leave a Reply