13 Silly Mistakes You Won't Believe Made It Into Star Trek Movies
7. Is That The Excelsior Or The Enterprise-B?
Reusing footage is a cost-effective way of keeping a film full of engaging shots while still maintaining a manageable budget. While Star Trek: Generations has a very obvious case of re-using footage during the climactic battle between the Enterprise-D and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, it is an earlier scene that stands out for this list.
The Enterprise-B is a modified version of the USS Excelsior. Knowing that the ship was going to take damage to the deflector dish and surrounding area, the design team added additional struts to the engineering hull. This would allow them to show the damage to the vessel without doing any damage to the very expensive Excelsior filming model.
In another bid to save money, the shot of the Enterprise-B at warp is another re-use of footage, this one also comes from Star Trek VI. The problem with this is that the footage is supposed to show the modified Enterprise moving across the screen but instead clearly shows the original Excelsior model.
To add further insult to the filmmakers' injuries, actual damage was done to the filming model, despite the extra modifications. This was later retooled as the USS Lakota before being auctioned off.