Star Trek Watch: 10 secrets of the U.S.S. Excelsior you need to know

TrekCulture is giving Star Trek fans a great look at the U.S.S. Excelsior

Star Trek has created so many great starships and some of them have become as important as the show they were introduced on. One of the most important and prolific ships of all time never got its own movie or series based on it, that’s the U.S.S. Excelsior. The ship is most known for its appearances in the final four Star Trek films that featured the original cast and crew.

It had a shelf life that went from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered country and even saw a return of sorts in the second episode of Voyager’s third season, “Flashback”.

The ship was most known for being helmed by Captain Hikaru Sulu in the fourth, fifth, and sixth films but was originally guided by Captain Styles.

The intriguing backstory to its design.

We try not to spoil the videos we cover, as we want you to not only support us but the video creators as well. So we’re not going to go full into every detail TrekCulture offers in their video but the first fact the video offers (it’s number 10 on their list) was really intriguing and needed to be commented on.

The ship was designed by concept company ILM and made a bunch of models for the movie. The ship originally named the U.S.S. Valiant, was produced by a designer named Bill George. George created the model as if the U.S.S. Enterprise had been designed using Japanese influences. As George was a bit of a fan of Japanese architecture, the ship took on its own unique design.

The ship has long become one of the more iconic ships in Star Trek lore and while it was heavily used, the fact there was no show or movie about it specifically, and yet still has the fanbase it does, shows you how well the ship resonated with fans of the franchise.