Star Trek: Enterprise opening title sequences

Real world article
(written from a production point of view)

The opening title sequences for Star Trek: Enterprise contained a number of images referencing modern-day as well as historical exploration and space travel leading up to the launch of Enterprise NX-01 in 2151.

Two versions of the opening title sequence were created by Montgomery/Cobb, one for the prime Star Trek universe to the tune of "Where My Heart Will Take Me" which was seen at the beginning of the majority of episodes, and the other which documented the rise of the Terran Empire in the mirror universe episodes "In A Mirror, Darkly" and "In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II" which was done to an instrumental.

Prime universe

  1. ↑ Sourced from Harmonia Macrocosmica, a 1660 star atlas by Andreas Cellarius. Detailed versions of the image can be found here (plate 11).
  2. ↑ This map was a modified version of the 18th century Dutch map "Platte kaart van de geheele waereld om te dienen tot de Nederlandsche reizen" (flat map of the whole world to serve the Dutch travels). A detailed version can be found here. Additional travel routes have been added to the original map. Most Dutch island names were given by explorer Jacob Roggeveen and are no longer in use. The Dutch used on the map is archaic by modern standards.
  3. ↑ StarTrek.com elaborates ancient Polynesians were among the first to explore the open oceans in their outrigger canoes. [1](X)
  4. ↑ Historically, the Royal Navy has had two ships named HMS Enterprize (spelled with a 'z'): an eight-gun sloop captured from the Spanish in 1743, and a ten-gun tender later captured by the Americans in 1775.
  5. ↑ This schematic is Plate IX from "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles : and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics", an eighteenth century handbook by James Ferguson.
  6. ↑ This is actually one of the later shuttles with the name Enterprise digitally inserted. The footage shows the orbiter's name on the forward fuselage under the cockpit windows, where the operational shuttles had their names painted; Enterprise had her name painted on the payload bay doors just above the hinge and behind the crew module, where it remains to this day. [2] [3]
  7. ↑ Superimposed is another illustration from "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles : and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics" by James Ferguson. This time it is Plate III.
  8. ↑ The vehicle's importance to the history of sea exploration was tied to the fact that it was the first submarine to operate on the principles of flight. [4] A full size version of the map can be seen here.
  9. ↑ Superimposed is yet another illustration from "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles : and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics" by James Ferguson. This is Plate XI.
  10. ↑ Stock footage from the Apollo 11 mission (Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 16).
  11. ↑ Superimposed is the first of a number of appearances of Plate XII from the book "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles : and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics" by James Ferguson.
  12. ↑ Stock footage showing the launch of STS-95. John Glenn is the astronaut in the center. (Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed. vol. 1, p. 306))
  13. ↑ Identified as the International Space Station by the panel number "NOD1/C2-07" [5] [6]
  14. ↑ The drawing is another appearance of Plate XII from the book "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles : and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics" by James Ferguson.
  15. ↑ The ship was designed by Production Illustrator John Eaves specifically for the opening sequence as step between the space shuttle and the Phoenix. [7] It was given a lifting body design and its designation was intended to suggest that it was a descendant of the real-life NASA space shuttle Enterprise (Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 2, p. 117). A StarTrek.com feature on the opening sequence described the ship as a "hypersonic spaceplane". [8](X)
  16. ↑ Footage reused from Star Trek: First Contact. Overlayed is Plate XII, a diagram from the book "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles : and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics" by James Ferguson.
  17. ↑ The Emmette was designed by Production Illustrator John Eaves specifically for the opening sequence. The design on the bottom was intended to match the design of the top of the Enterprise NX-01. [9]

Mirror universe

  1. ↑ Featured immediately after the identifying imagery of HMS Enterpize, the clipping was, according to Star Trek historian David Tilotta, actually intended to show Enterprize in action. [10] The very same ship had already been featured almost three decades earlier in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", through the Guardian of Forever, as well as in the prior Enterprise fourth season episode "Storm Front, Part II" as part of the resetting time stream. The clipping originated from the 1945 RKO Pictures swashbuckling movie The Spanish Main and depicts the studio model of the "hero" ship, the Barracuda, in action against a Spanish man-of-war. Contrary to what the Star Trek clipping use suggested, the original movie was shot in Technicolor. [11] Many of RKO's assets were acquired by Desilu Studios, after the former went defunct in 1957, which however did not include its backlog catalog of movie productions, it being divided over several other major Hollywood studios. The first Star Trek use of this particular clip by Desilu therefore constituted a copyright infringement, as currently understood.
  2. ↑ This footage is reused from the 1927 Paramount Pictures silent World War I movie Wings. [12] Pictured is an American Curtiss P-1 Hawk standing in for a German Fokker D.VII fighter aircraft.
  3. ↑ The footage is reused from the 1927 Paramount Pictures silent war movie Wings. [13] The same scene, albeit flipped, was also seen in the resetting time stream shown in "Storm Front, Part II".
  4. ↑ The footage is reused from the 1927 Paramount Pictures silent war movie Wings. [14]
  5. ↑ This footage is taken from an actual, contemporary German newsreel. [15]
  6. ↑ This footage is reused from the 1990 Earth Cold War Paramount Pictures film The Hunt for Red October. [16]
  7. ↑ This footage is reused from the 2000 Universal Studios World War II film U-571.
  8. ↑ The footage of the building being destroyed is reused from the episode VOY: "Dragon's Teeth", which depicted a conflict on the Vaadwaur homeworld.
  9. ↑ The footage of the Bird-of-Prey being destroyed is reused from ENT: "The Expanse" in which it was shown to be Duras' Bird-of-Prey.
  10. ↑ This footage is reused from ENT: "The Xindi".
  11. ↑ This footage is reused from ENT: "United".
  12. ↑ This footage is reused from ENT: "Countdown".

External links

This article is issued from Memory Alpha. The text is available under CC-BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.