Star Trek: 10 More Secrets Of The USS Enterprise D You Need To Know
4. She Was Almost CGI
In the planning stages of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the producers explored different options to bring the USS Enterprise-D to life, including simply reusing the model of refit USS Enterprise that had (at that time) appeared in Star Trek: The Motion Picture through Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Thankfully that idea was scrapped in favor of a new design, but the question of how to realize the ship on screen was still not immediately settled.
As it was a promising new technology at the time, producers Robert Justman and Edward K. Milkis explored the possibility of using CGI to create the new Enterprise. Test footage was commissioned of a computer-generated Enterprise-A as a proof of concept, but the result didn't convince the producers. Finding finished CGI effects "unsatisfactory" for use in a weekly television series, the producers opted instead to pursue the traditional approach to the show's VFX using a motion-control miniature.
A CGI model of the Enterprise-D would take another seven years to reach the screen in Star Trek Generations for a few key VFX shots.