Star Trek: 10 More Secrets Of The USS Enterprise D You Need To Know
3. She Was Blue
Like many television and cinematic spaceships, the Enterprise-D is often depicted as gray or even silver. However that impression is actually just due to lighting and visual effects which often washed out the filming miniature's actual color: Duck egg blue.
During the ship's conception, designer Andrew Probert was concerned fans of Star Trek: The Original Series would reject the The Next Generation and the Enterprise-D, so he made efforts to link the two shows together. While Probert's Galaxy-class design was a radical departure from the classic and movie Enterprises, the designer nevertheless chose a hull color that he hoped would subtly bridge the gap.
Probert opted to paint the ship duck egg blue because the original USS Enterprise had appeared to be muted blue-green on 1960s televisions, despite the actual filming miniature being painted gray.
Unfortunately for Probert, the Enterprise-D ultimately wound up looking grey on TV on anyway.
It wasn't until the Enterprise-D's saucer appeared in daylight in Star Trek Generations that the ship's true color was revealed. This true color is also more easily discernible in the remastered versions of Star Trek: The Next Generation which were released in 2012 through 2014.