A robot and a razor joined Enterprise in spacedock

One never knows what’s flying alongside the Enterprise

During the run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise didn’t spend a lot of time in space dock, but the times it was there, Dan Curry, the Emmy award-wining, visual effects guru, wanted to make sure it didn’t appear as though the Enterprise was there by itself. Being that it was a space dock, the area needed to look like it had other space crafts. Curry always wanted to put something in the background to make things look busier. Because it didn’t need to be detailed, Curry used what was handy, and as I’ve written before, he was a master at creating something magical out of ordinary things.

So when he needed something to fly around space dock, Curry looked close to home. His son, Devin, had a broken toy robot, and its foot quickly became part of a shuttlecraft. At first, Devin wasn’t happy that his father had taken the robot without his permission. But once he saw what Curry added to the model, he got excited.

The Enterprise wasn’t alone in space dock

A toy robot’s foot alone wouldn’t work for a shuttle flying around space dock. So Curry glued disposable razors to the side of the robot’s foot. Then LED lights were installed, allowing the shuttlecraft to light up. Devin Curry, in the book The Artistry of Dan Curry, said that after the makeshift shuttlecraft was used on the series, it sat in a glass cabinet, and he liked turning on the switches to see it light up.

And while we could never tell by watching the shuttlecraft fly by on-screen, how interesting is it to know that glue, a toy robot’s foot, and a disposable razor came together to become a small part of The Next Generation?  There’s little doubt that Dan Curry is quite the genius when it comes to visual effects!