10 Obscure Star Trek Secrets That Took Years To Discover

The Battle, an episode in The Next Generation's first season, introduced us to the USS Stargazer, one of Picard's old ships. The Stargazer was abandoned after a devastating battle against unknown attackers, who were later revealed to be the Ferengi. In the episode, the Ferengi salvaged the vessel and used it to lure Picard into a trap, as revenge for killing the Ferengi years ago. However, the ship in this episode was originally supposed to look very different.

The book Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion revealed that the original script described the Stargazer as Constitution-class, the same kind of vessel as Kirk's Enterprise. By the time the production team decided to change the model of the ship, they had already filmed several scenes where characters like Wesley and Geordi referred to the ship as a Constitution-class vessel, so the actors re-recorded their lines as "Constellation-class" and the new takes were placed over the old footage.

The name Constellation was chosen because it sounds so similar to the word constitution, so the over-dubbing is not very noticeable, but, if you look for it, you can still tell that Geordi is definitely saying "a Constitution-class starship."