#Klingon bird of prey bridge manuals#
#Klingon bird of prey bridge windows#

As Scotty himself said, 'Reading Klingon is hard', suggesting that there are already problems to decipher the manuals for the ship in its current configuration. Even if we believe that the refit was necessary because of battle damage, we can't assume that the Vulcan engineers or Scotty would have the expertise to do that or would even have another Klingon bridge readily available. This alone would be no problem, if we consider that Klingons, like the Federation, could use bridge modules. Kruge's 'throne' was removed, all stations re-arranged, and even the floor and the walls were moved. Side note On a side note, not only was the size of the very same ship subject to change considerably from 'Star Trek III' to 'Star Trek IV'. It would require a huge BoP for the Merchantman to be more than just shuttle-sized, but this would be in strong contradiction to most of the later appearances of the very same BoP (which will become the 'HMS Bounty' in 'Star Trek IV'). The freighter was rendered much too small apparently just for the dramatic impact of the mighty Bird-of-Prey destroying it. When the ship appears for the very first time in 'Star Trek III: The Search for Spock', the VFX comparison with the Merchantman is a moot case. It will be supplemented as new evidence becomes available. The list is extensive, yet far from being complete. The following paragraphs summarize the appearances of Birds-of-Prey, their VFX dimensions, names, crew sizes and other details pointing to the ship's length(s). Many fans take this as a sign that the different types should differ in their sizes too.

Various designations have been used throughout the years, creating the impression that 'Bird-of-Prey' is merely a generic term for the ship's appearance, whereas the actual types or classes are called B'rel, K'Vort or D-12. The Klingon Bird-of-Prey is the most obvious example in Star Trek for excessive scaling of a starship, sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional.

If this is true, 110m could be just right.

#Klingon bird of prey bridge windows#

Most notably, there are pairs of rectangular openings in the front section of the ship that might be windows and that would give us three decks in this section. Unlike it is the case with most Federation starships, there are few details on the miniature that would allow to verify this figure. Nilo Rodis originally devised the studio model with a length of 360ft (roughly 110m) as illustrated on the ILM size comparison chart for 'Star Trek III'. Since ENT: 'The Expanse' we know for sure that the familiar BoP is actually neither a Romulan design nor a design inspired by Romulans, but a 23rd century version of a similar, yet much older genuine Klingon ship of the 22nd century. In spite of the 'worn out' look of the Bird-of-Prey studio model it is advantageous to assume the ship type was new as of the 2280's to explain the fact it is still not obsolete 90 years later during TNG and DS9. The plausible explanation for the Romulan-Klingon technology transfer (Klingon D7 battlecruisers for the Romulans and in exchange Romulan cloaking devices for the Klingons) is that they formed an alliance in the 2260's, although it was never mentioned in any episode or movie. The Romulan reference was dropped in the final version, probably to simplify the story. In an early draft of the script, Kruge was intended to steal the ship from the Romulans, which would explain its name and appearance (inspired by the Romulan Bird-of-Prey from TOS: 'Balance of Terror') as well as the fact that the ship is equipped with a cloaking device. The Klingon Bird-of-Prey ship type was designed by Nilo Rodis of ILM and was first featured in 'Star Trek III: The Search for Spock' as the ship of the Klingon villain Kruge.