Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The USS Enterprise E You Need To Know

The 10-foot model of the Enterprise-E was constructed by Industrial Light and Magic for its debut in Star Trek: First Contact.

As highly detailed and carefully constructed as the miniature was, the visual effects industry was changing in the late-1990s and physical models were quickly being supplanted by CGI. While the physical model of the Enterprise would serve for slower and close-up shots (including Picard, Worf, and Hawk's trek across her hull), a CGI version of the ship was used liberally in Star Trek: First Contact, seen warping into action, flying through the temporal rift, and engaging the Borg in battle.

The versatility of the CGI Enterprise-E was so great that, by the time Star Trek: Insurrection went into production two years later, ILM's physical model was needed only for reference for the fully computer generated VFX of that film.

While physical models of small sections of the Enterprise-E were used in Star Trek Nemesis, ILM's 10-foot model of the Enterprise-E appeared only in Star Trek: First Contact and was the last fully completed, fully detailed filming miniature constructed of hero ship in the Star Trek franchise.