Correct Coloring for Star Trek Enterprise 1701 Refit and 1701-A

Modeling Subjects Science Fiction
1

Hello,

I have just recently purchased the Polar Lights 1/1000 USS Enterprise 1701 Reft, and I am happy to say that I am impressed with the amount of detail with the little kit, but I am having some coloring questions with the ship.

The kit comes with some greenish-blue decals for the secondary hull that are for the Refit, but Polar Lights offers an optional decal sheet that also has a set of the greenish-blue, grey, and more of a blue-blue coloring for that area of the model/ship.

I have read somewhere, and for the life of me I can’t remember where, that the Refit for the the first three movies, TMP, WoK, SFS, that the Enterprise had the green coloring on it and that in VH, FF, and UC, that the 1701-A has the blue markings. I’ve rewatched the movies and in the first three I can’t tell if those areas are green or blue. There was a shot in UC, that lets you see the blue markings clearly for the 1701-A. The 1/350 kit does have the bluer markings

I have also checked multiple websites for referance materals, and most of the pics that I find are of the 1701-A with the blue markings when the picture was in an area that showed that area of the ship. I know that this pretty much boils down to modeler’s choice, but I’d like to make an accurate model.

Does anyone have a good website for referance to distinguish the difference between them or know for sure what the color difference is or if there is a difference? For I don’t know if the the green was just specificly for the Enterprise 1701, and the blue was for the Yorktown before the renamed it Enterprise 1701-A. Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be apreciated,

Justin

2

The Enterprise seen in Star Trek the Motion Picture has a green-gray color on the engineering sections of the ship. The original pearlescent white color to the hull was a problem for ILM’s special-effects crew as they used a different system to composite the ship with space backgrounds. ILM repainted more than once model, each time slightly altering the colors. Eventually the green sections became blue- a color ILM used other models they built. (Excellsior- etc) Basically, the 1701 -A uses the blueish strong back, STTMP/WOK uses the green. The first film Enterprise hull is Pealescent White with various panels painted interference shades of green, gold, red, and blue that flip-flop in colors, as the eye moves across them. Later films used a variation of shades of white or gloss and flat paints to achieve the “Aztec” patterns on the hull.

3

I’m surprised you could see much of the color on those blue/green sections, Draco! The FX folks often ended up either intentionally or accidentally “bleaching” out those colors in the compositing process. one example is how the 1701-D model was a mix of light blues and blue-greens but looks gray on screen much of the time, or the Vulcan Shuttle ended up not being the odd shade of purple its creator had originally intended.

4

The movies played havoc with cannon. Changing the color with each film.

The good news is you can pretty much just pick the one you like the best and go with it!

oh, and Kugai, the vulcan shuttle was ‘mauve’.