The 25th of Star Trek 3, The Search for Spock

June 1st, 1984 — My gosh how could I forget that the 25th anniversary was today. So for the third movie installment we got a lot of great new things to feast our eyes on. The USS Excelsior, The USS Grissom, The Starfleet Space dock, The Klingon Bird of Prey, The destruction of the USS Enterprise, Christopher LLoyd as Kruge, Robin Curtis as the new Saavik, A new James Horner score. and the directorial debut of Leonard Nimoy. Despite the superstition of this one being an odd numbered film and not really well received by the fans, I loved it!!!  It took a while to get used to Robin Curtis because I was so in love with Kirstie Alley, but over time I decided I like her better. Here are some quick pictures to remember this great day In Star Trek theatrical release dates:

the poster

ILM at its best

 

Dave Carson and Nilo Rodis designed the space dock for ST3

what an iconic image!!!

Bill George's USS Excelsior

 

One of my all time favorite Trek ships

we were all a gasp at this shot... didn't know it was coming!

 

the planet Vulcan

 

LLoyd as the legendary Kruge

and Nimoy as Spock the director!

I have a Myspace page and forgot about it!!! plus list your requests.

I made this page ages ago and forgot about it, here’s the link if you want to come over and hook up. Lots of images there so feel free to come and browse!!!  Also There have been many requests for things and I can’t find them all so as Doug did here is a post to list all the requests and wish list things in one place,,,This way  my old mind can go to one place and then best fill the the posts with the things you want to see and read about.  Thanks all and Happy Monday!!!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=265568022

jeager-n-eaves battle over the borg queen

Way back in 1996, First Contact was being conceived at a feverish pace.  The LA art department was fairly small, and we were working in conjunction with ILM on all the new ships and visuals.  Due to distance and a hole in communications, we would often find ourselves working on the same things!!!  At least three or four times on this one, Alex Jeager and I would be working on the same project at the same time and not knowing it until the big concept meetings would occur.  Herman Zimmerman was my boss, and he would hand out the assignments and then be the one to show the work for approval.  For Alex,  Jeff Mann was the ILM supervisor and he would do the same.  After those meetings, Herman would come in and go over what took place and would always say, well here is what ILM has come up with and it sure is similar to what we are doing.  HMMM…it appears that we are both trying to work out the same things, he would chuckle, and then we would dive into Alex’s awesome work and try and come up with a happy medium.  It was great fun to see what would happen after these meetings, and I really loved becoming acquainted with Alex through  the whole design process.  Alex had come up with this incredible design of the Queen using a gal from ILM as the model.  I heard rumors of a small crush going on here but can’t confirm the facts, HAAA!  Anyway, I loved the stiff-spined look to the details and the over the shoulder stance was beautiful!!!  My version was incredibly heavy with cables and a huge mechanical rig to piece the head and torso together.  I was asked to funnel the cabling back to a smaller amount and lose the rig.  This proved to be still too much so Alex took it down to three hoses which turned out to be the perfect amount.  With the use of three you really got the sense of the mechanics without  overshadowing the Queen with too many peripheral special effects details.  Also included is the storyboard sequence created by Alex that set the scene perfectly for the introduction of the Queen.  Awesome work, Alex, and great to relive those fun times today!!

Queen to king -- checkmate

the heavy lady

 

thinner rig

alex boards 1

alex boards 2

 

and her majesty the queen, Alice Krige in full makeup