10 Legendary Star Trek Ship Kit-Bashes
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00:00Hello, Ellie here. Today's video is brought to you by Surfshark, but more on that in a bit.
00:06Hello my friends, how are you? Sean Ferrick here for TrekCulture. I've said it before,
00:09I'll say it again. You know me, I love ships. I love playing with model ships,
00:14I love seeing them fly around. Good lord, didn't any of you build ships in bottles when you were
00:19kids? Please tell me you get the reference. I'm sure you do. With all of that, we are going to
00:24have a look at those ships that had a bit more of a, shall we say, rushed production schedule.
00:31Some of them may surprise you, others may haunt and scar you the rest of your lives.
00:36I'm Sean Ferrick for TrekCulture and here are 10 legendary Star Trek kitbashes.
00:42Number 10, the Proto-Nebula class. The USS Melbourne was introduced in the best of both worlds part
00:48two. Well, I say introduced. The ship itself had been introduced by name in part one,
00:55with the appearance happening in part two. We have come to understand and expect a nebula class now
01:02to have that triangular shaped sensor dome, for want of a better word, above the very galaxy class
01:09saucer section, but that was not always the case. In fact, the Proto-Nebula class had two smaller warp
01:16nacelles where that triangular piece was going to be. Two physical models of this Proto-Nebula,
01:23USS Melbourne, were built. One was going to be heavily damaged and destroyed to be shown in the
01:30debris field after the Battle of All 359. The other was then kept and used for a display piece in
01:37Captain Riker's ready room in the episode Future Imperfect. It's also the only kitbash that was seen in
01:44both the best of both worlds part two and Emissary as it was glimpsed through the window of Cisco's
01:50escape pod from the Saratoga. There is the longstanding story of Emissary also introducing
01:54an Excelsior class USS Melbourne. So in the universe, the Excelsior USS Melbourne was already in service,
02:02with this new USS Melbourne being rushed into release to face the Borg, and I bet they'd wish they'd left it
02:09in space dock. Number 9, USS Elkins. The Elkins is barely shown on screen in the Season 6 opener of
02:17Deep Space Nine, A Time to Stand. The script called for a battered Federation fleet to be limping back
02:23toward their territory after having seven levels of shite knocked out of them by the Dominion.
02:30To fill out the numbers of this fleet, they called for several new ships to be created,
02:36one of which was the USS Elkins, which was named after VFX designer Judy Elkins. The body was based
02:42on parts from an F-14 jet, the nacelle struts were based on the Danube class runabout, and the nacelles
02:49themselves were borrowed from the Miranda class. Number 8, Intrepid Type. The Intrepid Type appeared in
02:57Star Trek Enterprise, and it's heavily based on Doug Drexler's design for the NX-01. The saucer section
03:05itself was halved, as well as the nacelles being swung up and stuck to that half saucer section.
03:12This was an example of CGI kitbashing rather than model kitbashing, and by model kitbashing I mean
03:20of course taking pieces that were commercially available. This, according to senior CG supervisor
03:26Rob Bonchoone, was a case of having to deal with creating these new designs with precious little
03:32turnaround time. In fact, this one, while it got some of the most screen time of any support vessels
03:38from Starfleet in Enterprise, they didn't really refer to it as anything until it was named Intrepid
03:43Type on screen. It was generally referred to as the one with the half saucer right up until it,
03:50with its additional numbers, helped to support NX-01 in the various battles against the Zindi,
03:57and whatever time traveling nonsense was happening that week. Number seven, the Challenger Class.
04:03The Challenger Class, so named by designer Ed Miarecki, was named after the Space Shuttle,
04:09and it was unique among Starfleet starships at the time that the two nacelles were not perfectly in
04:16line with each other. This technically broke Gene Roddenberry's rule of line of sight. In fact,
04:22Miarecki originally designed the ship with only one nacelle, but Mike Okuda would go on to suggest
04:28that maybe adding a second one would help to fill out the overall design. Okuda then said that actually
04:35he regretted that bit of advice because it made the ship look a bit like a lollipop. The Buran was one
04:40of 39 vessels that were lost at Wolf 359, and you can see it as the Enterprise slides into the field of
04:47destruction in the Best of Both Worlds Part II. What up my dudes, it's Chad Tarka. Some people
04:53think I might be a famous meteorologist, I like to think I'm just a friend of the weather. Right now
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05:58Number six, the Jaeger class. I'm not going to lie to you folks, I hate this ship. I hate it. And because of
06:05that, I'm kind of delighted to have the model. I mean, I mean, I mean, look at it. The model was
06:12designed by Gary Hutzel and it was actually praised by Mike Okuda because, I mean, whatever else you want
06:19to say about it, it is an immediately recognizable silhouette. Like you look at this and you know it's
06:25not an Enterprise. The model was built from commercially available Voyager and Maki Raider model
06:31kits. It was often seen then in various episodes of Deep Space Nine as a ship that was lazily floating
06:38by the station. Now, this was never shown in a close up high definition way. So if we ever do get
06:46around to that long fabled remaster of Deep Space Nine, you have to wonder. I can appreciate the absolute
06:55ingenuity of taking these two ships and sticking them together and throwing them in the back.
07:00Doesn't mean that I like it. Number five, Curry class. The Curry class that was introduced in
07:06another of the ships introduced in Deep Space Nine's A Time to Stand was named after famed artist
07:12Dan Curry. He designed this ship to be one of the fleet that was limping its way back to Federation
07:17space with their tails between their legs. He came up with a kit bash for the Curry class in just a few
07:22hours, raiding the boxes of model kits and coming up with pieces of Excelsior and Miranda class ships.
07:28For the overall shape of the vessel, he took inspiration from World War Two landing craft.
07:34This is, they had the engines toward the back, the saucer section there, but they had the shuttle craft
07:40or the shuttle bay right up the front. So think of those landers on D-Day where the front drops down and
07:47well, unfortunately, a lot of people never came home again. Now, despite the ship only being on screen for
07:53seconds, it was one of the ones that Eagle Moss commissioned for their collection. I have to say,
07:59I really like it. Number four, Cheyenne class. This four nacelled vessel was, if you like,
08:05something of a spiritual sequel to the Constellation class USS Stargazer, USS Hathaway and USS Constance.
08:14This was another one of those very quick kitbashes that was put together for the Wolf 359 fleet.
08:21It has the legend of being one of the luckier ships. I'm going to say one of, I mean,
08:27the luckier ship. The Awani was the only vessel to survive the Borg invasion and the Borg destruction
08:35at Wolf 359 as it would return as part of Picard's fleet in redemption. Designer Ed Miarecki built the
08:42ship using commercially available parts of the Galaxy class and also, and it will not be the only time on
08:49this list, highlighter pens were used as well. Number three, New Orleans class. The New Orleans
08:56class had something of a false start when it came to Star Trek The Next Generation. When it came to new
09:02designs, the Galaxy class, the Constellation class and even later on the Ambassador class were all major
09:09new designs for the series, with Excelsior, Oberth and Miranda class filling out some of the gaps in
09:16Starfleet. Now, this left the impression that Starfleet was generally staffed by much older vessels,
09:24so Ed Miarecki was given the task, create something new that we can use to fill out the gaps. The New
09:30Orleans class is a put together of the Galaxy class saucer section and the Galaxy class star drive
09:38section. Now, the nacelle struts are swept back and up but it wasn't enough, so the feedback came down
09:45if you gotta give it something a little bit extra and those marker pens, three marker pens were added,
09:51two to the top and one underneath to give the New Orleans class its own distinctive look. With this
09:58design it was ready to go into service, once, as the USS Kyushu, the best of both worlds part two,
10:06didn't get a lot of screen time. Number two, Springfield class. The Springfield class was another
10:11of the Ed Miarecki kitbashes that were put together for the Battle of O359. The only known model that was
10:18built was to be named the USS Chekhov, named after Pavel Chekhov, but it would then only be seen burning in space.
10:27The main saucer section was based on the Galaxy glass saucer section with, you guessed it, some more
10:33marker pens used for nacelles. However, it had a separate secondary hole, complete with its own
10:40Galaxy glass inspired deflector dish as well, giving it quite a distinctive silhouette. Two changes were made
10:47to the USS Chekhov in the best of both worlds part two. The first was that the spelling of the name
10:54was changed. So rather than C-H-E-C-K-O-F, which is Pavel Chekhov, it was changed to drop the additional
11:03C and then just became Chekhov as in the playwright. The second change, when it was deemed too depressing
11:10to have the name of an original series character called out among the dead of Wolf 359, is that it was changed
11:17to the USS Tolstoy when being said out loud by Shelby. Number one, Centaur Class. The Centaur Class
11:26went from one of the briefest glimpses to becoming one of the most beloved extra designs of a starship
11:34in the franchise. The story of how it came to be is quite a funny one. Adam Buckner, who had been
11:39working under Gary Hutzel, was tasked with coming up for new designs for Deep Space Nine's A Time To
11:46Stand. Before this, however, between seasons five and six, he had gone traveling and was using this
11:52time to try and come up with new ship ideas. He was traveling in Spain and he met a young man named
11:58Guillermo. In the course of chatting, he promised Guillermo a ship of his very own. Flash forward now to
12:03production on time to stand and the order came in. It's like, look, we need a ship that's going to be
12:08seen moving fast. We don't need massive amount of detail on it because it's going to, you know,
12:13it'll be in shot, but it's going to be zipping in and out and heading off again. So Buckner taking parts
12:20of the Excelsior Class and the Miranda Class put together with little extra bits stuck on and some
12:28UV strips to create the blue of the nacelles created what we then found to be the Centaur.
12:35And that could have been the end of it, but it wasn't because years later the Centaur would return
12:42in Star Trek Resurgence. It would also appear as part of the unlucky fleet that faces off against the
12:50living construct in Star Trek Prodigy. Now both times it was refined a little in terms of the design,
12:56but still it was that original Centaur. And yes, Buckner did get a model of the Centaur to Guillermo.
13:04That's everything for our list, folks. Thank you very, very much. What did you think? Do you like
13:07lists about these sort of lesser known ships? Let me know in the comments below. Don't forget to get
13:12in touch with us over on Twitter at TrekCulture, on Instagram at TrekCultureYT, on both Blue Sky and
13:18TikTok as well. I'm at Sean Ferrick on the various socials. You are wonderful. You are fantastic.
13:23Give a bit of love to the editor who looked after this video. And to our friends in the Middle East,
13:29we pray for a quick and safe ceasefire. Everyone look after yourselves. Stay safe. Make it so.