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Commercially available chairs in Star Trek
- mrexroad 3y agoLoved seeing the Opsvik chair in Lower Decks.
- masswerk 3y agoMarginal nitpick: The image for the Artifort F549 Tulip Midi shows Pierre Paulin's Little Tulip, 1965 for Artifort. The stills, however, do show the Tulip Midi.
- anjel 3y agoHugged to death so: https://archive.ph/20231019204516/https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/mikiphone/ https://archive.ph/20231019204516/https://rarehistoricalphot...
- cbm-vic-20 3y agoThat's quite a comprenensive list. I like that some of the Lower Decks designers include some of these, too! A nice touch of detail.
- vlachen 3y agoI cannot fathom how someone has the attention to analyze these shows to note the chairs being used. Frankly, the Stokke Globe Garden is so far in the background of the Lower Decks screen capture that I can't understand how someone picked up on it.
- woleium 3y agoUsually it’s a group of people who do so to receive social credit from each other on a successful entry. Us humans are designed to do all sorts of unpleasant weird shit for social credit.
- vlachen 3y agoYou're certainly not wrong there.
- doctor_radium 3y ago[dead]
- dpkirchner 3y agoI'd bet a lot of this relies on insider information -- a props supervisor and fan of the site may have gone out of their way to share the detail.
- vlachen 3y agoI wondered if that was a part of it, but this particular Lower Decks entry makes me wonder. It seems like an amazing level of consistency between very different forms of production. On the other hand, I suppose there could be a "Chairs of Star Trek" design handbook within the organization. This would be under the "Weird Shit" section.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoLower Decks is made by people who really care about the franchise. Chairs are just one small example, they get all the small things right to obsessive degree.
- hef19898 3y agoLower Decks is to Star Trek what some of the later series like Mandalorian and Rogue One are to Star Wars. Luckily, stuff like this still gets made!
- sumtechguy 3y agoST has a warehouse full of that stuff. Pictures, actual props, inventory lists and who to rent from, and original purchase orders. It is pretty detailed what they have access to for star trek especially after TNG. There are a few youtube vids where they show a very small sampling of what they have. Now some of the ToS stuff is more reliant on fan info. As a lot was cleared out in the 70s/80s for space for other things. A show like lower decks is all nostalgia type items so they are probably going thru that stuff very heavily.
- pmontra 3y agoA friend of mine has that chair or a copy of it. I'll ask if it's original. It's a tall chair and one must climb it, then you can look at the other people from above. Not uncomfortable but not comfortable too. We call it the Klingon Chair.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoRelated: Star Trek + Design https://star-trek.design/ https://star-trek.design/ (That's what came to mind from a few years ago, and I see in the credits this page was inspired/originates from it)
- TeMPOraL 3y agoI'm surprised they don't seem to have an entry for one of the more recognizable mug from Star Trek - the one they drank coffee from on the Defiant in Star Trek: DS9. It was present in many episodes of the Dominion War arc. The mug itself (a Thermos mug from the 90s) is an absolute pain to find anywhere, but I've managed to secure two of them last year (with shipping prices that would embarrass even a Ferengi) and did the necessary conversions: https://fosstodon.org/@temporal/109690528747856580 https://fosstodon.org/@temporal/109690528747856580 https://fosstodon.org/@temporal/109677869270157594 https://fosstodon.org/@temporal/109677869270157594 I gave one out as a gift, the other I've been using every day for over a year now. Got so used to it, I don't know how I'll ever be able to replace it.
- actionfromafar 3y agoDid you mean replicate it?
- bombcar 3y agoThis is the kind of niche old content the Internet was know for! Kudos.
- donatj 3y agoThis! This is what I want from the internet. Obsessively complete lists that seem unnecessary at a glance but will actually one day help you settle some weird argument or issue. I remember quite vividly a Geocities page that had wiring diagrams for a ton of Realistic brand CB radios my friend and I used to build an adapter for the DIN microphone.
- qup 3y agoDo you host any content like this?
- donatj 3y agoNo, nothing of that sort. I've got a couple websites still up with content back to the early aughts but they kind of just transformed into blogs as the years went on.
- Izkata 3y agoNot mine and the site has sadly gone down, but enjoy this archive of The Indeed Project: https://web.archive.org/web/20201112020739/http://www.skulldude.com/sg1/indeed/main.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20201112020739/http://www.skulld... (Every time Teal'c says the word "Indeed" throughout Stargate SG-1)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RedShift1 3y agoI miss the era where if you're bored you would just go to a website and then spend half the day going over every nook and cranny of it.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoThis has internet-time-sucked me like it was 20 years ago. At least now I can put a name to 'What the frak is Worf sitting on?'
- queuebert 3y agoFor added aviation realism, the shuttle seats should have been worn and stained and covered by fake sheepskin seat covers.
- hef19898 3y agoAt least the set designers had style! Some nice designs there, for sure! If only someine would have thought of, I don't know, seat belts...
- RodgerTheGreat 3y agoIn a world where "inertial dampeners" exist and making invisible forcefields is pedestrian, physical seatbelts aren't terribly important. If inertial dampeners outright fail in a spacecraft designed for them you can expect to be reduced to a souplike homogenate whether you're wearing a seatbelt or not.
- hef19898 3y agoCourse, given the accelerations in Star Trek you are red smudge without them anyway. But then there is all the flowing around around the bridge, engineering, everytime a ship is hit... Maybe a seatbelt wouod have helped! Or some space space suits, proper footware for away missions. Alongside clothing...
- RodgerTheGreat 3y agoStarfleet is the Federation's solution to the existence of type-A personalities, giving them something exciting and challenging to do in order to prevent them from screwing up the socialist utopia for everyone else. All Starfleet technology is optimized not for efficiency, but for excitement; giving Starfleet personnel brushes with danger, interesting puzzles to solve, and opportunities to improvise and collaborate. Wouldn't surprise me if the inertial dampeners on the bridge are specifically tuned to toss people around a bit during battles to make them more immersive and raise the stakes. Why else would computer terminals spontaneously explode when the shields take a hit?
- JKCalhoun 3y agoSomeone in the props department had a massive furniture budget. I love it. It reminds me how the "chair" is one of those objects supposedly so hard to classify for things like machines, a little easier for humans. Although may of these designs cause even my brain to struggle with, "Is that a chair?" Some reminded me of the Wood Allen bit from Sleeper: https://youtu.be/H4ZBPz4DinU?si=OM5TOpkumyNwPOvG https://youtu.be/H4ZBPz4DinU?si=OM5TOpkumyNwPOvG
- hef19898 3y agoThey sure had a tremendous furniture budget! I guess the wardroom department was jealous!
- js2 3y agoWardrobe? Star Trek didn't even have a wardroom, just replicators, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardroom :-)
- Vaslo 3y agoRandom statement but no arm rests on many of those. My arms awkwardly dangle
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoThat's because I. the future people ... uh ... someone please finish this sentence for me.
- metadat 3y agoApparently, in the future people don't need or want to rest their arms. By itself, this is uncharacteristically dystopian for Star Trek because it suggests people will relax so much less that arm rests are unnecessary. Strange because Star Trek usually presents a more optimistic picture of the future. That futuristic look is more important.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hef19898 3y agoI guess it is only a design choice. Not so sure about the positive outlook so. The federation is militaristic to the point of the military, Starfleet, running diplomacy. And the objectively bad stuff starfleet does, the prime directive for examole can amount to genocide by negligence, is done in the name of moral superiority. Throw in some hero worshipping and personality cult, after all rules only apply to certain people, never the heros... The Klingons are welcome allies, despite all the shit they did during the various wars with the federation, while the Romulans are the evil, honorless villains... Reading between the lines, there is a lot of cold war stuff in the universe going on.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> The federation is militaristic to the point of the military, Starfleet, running diplomacy. Starfleet, despite the ranks, authority structure, style of discipline, use of “courts-martial”, and the fact it fights wars, is not, as Starfleet personnel are eager to point out, a military force. Also, usually, Starfleet doesn't run diplomacy, they provide transport for diplomats. They do sometimes fill in when the transported diplomats become unavailable, when an emergent needs happens without time to dispatch a diplomat, or when an individual Starfleet officer is requested by tbe parties to a dispute (where the Federation is a neutral mediator) or the other party (where the Federation is a party), but all of those are implicitly exceptional events that disproportionately happen to the particular officers on whom the franchise focuses.
- jccalhoun 3y agoI love the creativity of the set and prop people using existing things like this. I remember seeing the same kind of cassette case that I had used as a prop on TNG (and apparently DS9) https://www.yourprops.com/Starfleet-Carry-Case-Large-replica-movie-prop-Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation-TV-1987-YP65958.html https://www.yourprops.com/Starfleet-Carry-Case-Large-replica...
- stewartjarod 3y agothis is fantastic. I can tell that Star Trek has had a little bit of influence in the chairs that I like.
- donatj 3y agoAppears to be missing the painfully bog-standard office roller chair used in the center of the court in the courtroom episode of TNG where Data needs to plead with Starfleet not to be disassembled for research. It might be on there, it’s a huge list, but I could not find it.
- Aardwolf 3y agoIs it the Omnific Chair? It looks bog standard and mentions Enterprise-D courtroom
- donatj 3y agoSure looks like what I was remembering! The listed `TNG: "The Drumhead"` also sure looks like the courtroom I remember but is not the episode I was referring to. I may have been remembering the wrong courtroom episode, I was thinking it was from “Measure of a Man” but all my Googling only shows red more interesting chairs in that episode. I’ll need to do some digging through the episode when I’m out of this meeting!
- ta1243 3y agoDrumhead (where the warp core is sabotaged and there's a mcarthyist style investigation) had the infamous chair This podcast was inspired by the chain in The Drumhead https://trekmovie.com/2021/06/02/the-shuttle-pod-crew-takes-a-seat-to-talk-star-trek-chairs/ https://trekmovie.com/2021/06/02/the-shuttle-pod-crew-takes-...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zingababba 3y agoI have a HÅG Capisco, nice chair.
- robg 3y agoAny call outs for ones that are especially comfortable?
- twelfthnight 3y agoMentioned elsewhere, but the Hag Capisco is a great chair. Sadly it has risen in price and isn't a particularly good value anymore, but is a cool piece of furniture nonetheless.
- ericfrazier 3y agoNow this is what I come to HN for.
- clockworksoul 3y agoThis is so obviously the product of a labor of love that it's impossible not to admire it.
- anilakar 3y agoAs a kid, it was fascinating to see Picard drinking tea from the same Bodum glassware we had at home.
- apricot 3y agoMy parents had the same octagonal glasses used in TNG. I still have a couple, and often think of the Enterprise when I use them. https://star-trek.design/glassware/octime-double-old-fashioned-glass-by-arcoroc https://star-trek.design/glassware/octime-double-old-fashion...
- DHPersonal 3y agoAs I looked through the shots of the chairs in the episodes, I noticed that the old shows had some wild lighting: sometimes like a Halloween set, sometimes like a task light was just set up on a tripod next to the camera, and sometimes like a cube farm. The new shows all seem to go for web developer's / Twitch streamer's dungeon with no overhead lighting, wall-mounted spotlights, and RGB rim lights everywhere.
- hammock 3y agoI notice in old James Bond movies (and others) the lighting was rather simplistic. A big spotlight casting harsh shadows on the walls behind the main actors that don't make any sense if you stop to think about it. It seems more thought / technique is put into lighting design these days and it's probably better, though of course our current age has its own cliches (the Twitch dungeon style for example)
- sonofhans 3y agoMy son and I just watched our way through the Bond movies, and I remember this exactly. Was it “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” or one of the later Roger Moore gigs? I remember that one in particular was lit and shot exceptionally poorly. This isn’t a matter of time period, it’s skill and attention. At the time of the Bond films it was well-known how to do good lighting, and people had been doing it for decades. Contrast the crappy Bond films with any beautiful old movie, like “The Third Man” or “Citizen Kane,” still legendary for great cinematography.
- anonymfus 3y agoVisual style of old James Bond movies was heavily influenced by Hitchcock's movies, specifically by North by Northwest
- charlieo88 3y agoLighting in black and white movies was much more important where you didn't have the additional dimension of color. My understanding was the Star Trek lighting team came with black and white experience.
- tzs 3y agoI wonder how they chose chairs. I would guess that at least for the most used chairs, like the Captain's chair and the other chairs on the bridge, they had an overall look they were going for on those sets and picked chairs specifically for that. Did they also do that for all those other chairs, or if they needed to have say a meeting take place on some new planet with a new race and needed 5 chairs did they just send someone off with instructions to go round up 5 identical chairs, maybe adding that they should look futuristic or something like that? Did they have chair rules, like this species likes round chairs and that species likes angular chairs?
- vikingerik 3y agoMostly, the meetings didn't happen on the planets, instead the aliens came onto the Enterprise - so they were using the existing sets and chairs rather than building and buying new ones every week.
- sambeau 3y agoIt's amazing to think that Charles Rennie Mackintosh's late 19th Century chairs made it all the way through to the late 24th Century.
- bjpirt 3y agoThis is one of my favourite distractions when watching Sci-Fi films set in the future - spotting objects from now. For example: - In Luke's home in Star Wars IV there's a lot of Tupperware - https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2014/02/in-praise-of-tupperware-and-star-wars.html https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2014/02/in-praise-of-t... - In Alien, Ripley drinks from a Tupperware mug - https://twitter.com/EverRotating/status/1156650673972363264 https://twitter.com/EverRotating/status/1156650673972363264
- russdill 3y agoOne of my favorites was seeing my toy chest from when I was a kid in Wrath of Khan "Little Tikes kid’s Apollo Space Capsule Toy Chest." - https://third-wave-design.com/2018/11/30/houston-we-dont-have-a-problem/ https://third-wave-design.com/2018/11/30/houston-we-dont-hav... It also pops up in a ton of other places.
- ebergen 3y agoI love these to. The manual control for Moya in Farscape is a Logitech TrackMan.
- slg 3y agoI think the most famous/beloved/notorious version of this is the guy in Star Wars running around with a completely unaltered off the shelf ice cream maker. https://www.reddit.com/r/Thatsabooklight/comments/bf20dp/i_present_to_you_willrow_hoods_aka_ice_cream_man/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Thatsabooklight/comments/bf20dp/i_p... I just found that link through Google, but that is apparently a whole subreddit devoted to this type of use of modern objects getting repurposed as some fantastical movie/TV props.
- jonah 3y agoSure looks like an electric ice cream maker but it's not the exact model pictured. Look at the pattern of vents on top of the motor, how far the "arms" overhang the pot, and the thickness of the pot lip for example. ;)
- pmarreck 3y agoThis was unexpectedly fascinating.
- streakfix 3y agoIndeed
- dingosity 3y agoFWIW. This is still the coolest thing I've seen on the web this month.
- UberFly 3y agoI agree. One of those gems I wasn't expecting. Thanks again HN. The comments are great too.
- michaelteter 3y agoI remember my suspension of disbelief being challenged in Star Trek TNG (my favorite) when they started using my Dansk cutlery and also my crystal highball glasses! What are the odds?
- cout 3y agoA long time ago, someone gave me two boxes like this: https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-9744GR/ https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-9744GR/ I was tickled when I saw two red-uniform officers carrying them around on TNG.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoWe have a bunch of those. A local grocery store used them for deliveries a long time ago and I guess they didn't want them back because we probably accumulated a dozen or so. They are surprisingly well built and held up well to being in the sun for 15 years.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoStarfleet technology at its finest.
- hotnfresh 3y agoI've had a tan one since I was a kid. I know we had it by the late '80s, dunno exactly when my parents got it. It shows no signs of wearing out, at least 35 years and a bunch of moves (plus some hard use—it wasn't just a toy box when I was a kid, but a toy itself! And a table, and a chair...) later. If the new ones are still made like that, I'd love a few more at that price. But I have a feeling the plastic's been CAD'd down to as thin as possible to meet some minimum spec, like with everything else. [EDIT] Oh, mine's slightly different: the handles aren't a molded element of the outside, but holes through the box itself, with finger-shaped curves. They're great, very secure to hold, though that does mean small stuff can fall out, and they can be tricky if the thing's packed too full.
- 3y ago
- gdubs 3y agoOne thing I really love about Strange New Worlds is that they finally realized that fans love the beautiful, comfortable looking ships of the earlier series. For a solid decade it was like all Star Trek ships felt like some "alternate timeline" from Next Generation in which the Federation is an endless war, and the ships are all dim and militaristic. A huge part of the show was about exploration. And doing it in style. I love that about Strange New Worlds. It has captured a lot of great elements — another notable mention being the more episodic nature, and a return to more diplomatic narratives.
- parl_match 3y agoDespite Lower Decks' jokes and loose adherence to any "hardness" of its sci-fi, I've found it to be one of the most casually optimistic of any star trek in a long time. The first few episodes are a bit rough, but I actually really enjoy it now.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoI bailed partway into the first or second episode I think. I've heard it's good trek though. Is it like the Orville where it tones down the comedy a bit later on? Orville felt like a parody of trek for the first few episodes, then just became trek for the rest of its runtime.
- parl_match 3y agoThe comedy gets better. It's also a much lower stakes show - they're ensigns, not captains. That allows it to be a little more flexible.
- lallysingh 3y agoNo it stays heavy on the comedy.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoOof. Well hopefully it gets a little less cringey.
- gumby 3y agoMcCoy’s instruments were a salt and pepper shaker taken from the cafeteria.
- cratermoon 3y agoLudwig Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Chair is a timeless classic and it could very plausibly be in a future Earth home, as could any Mies van der Rohe design. It'd be worth a small fortune in that condition. The Emeco Navy Chair is another one that could plausibly appear in a future Earth setting. Putting the Goodform Model 2123 in the offices of the alternate future/past in "Assignment: Earth" is a nice touch. I have a hard time believing anything from IKEA not have fallen apart in a couple of centuries.
- wrs 3y agoThis is a good book about the influence of midcentury modern design on TOS specifically, including interviews with the production crew and specifics on all the commercial items the authors were able to track down. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Star-Trek-Designing-the-Final-Frontier/Dan-Chavkin/9781681885629 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Star-Trek-Designing-t...
- wtfmcgrill 3y agoI got one of the cups from DS9 and it's by far my favorite mug
- Arrath 3y agoI've wanted one of those for years
- TeMPOraL 3y agoI've made one myself. Securing the Thermos is a challenge, but it is possible. I bought two from some small online store in Canada a year ago. There was also someone selling them in India, IIRC, and a vendor in New York. Decals you can buy on eBay - there's apparently a seller that specializes in selling vinyl decals from Star Trek and other franchises. The recipe is simple: - Get rid of the Thermos logo (surprisingly, the weird Internet advice to rub it off with sugar turns out to be 100% correct); - Apply the decals - Enjoy EDIT: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37933834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37933834 for photos.
- anonymou2 3y agoWhy would they ever need chairs in zero g !!!
- RedShift1 3y agoArtificial gravity. It's like real gravity, but artificial.
- tempodox 3y agoSo cool. Do any of these have inertial dampening built in?
- tanepiper 3y agoI just visited the Vitra Design Campus on Monday! It was a pretty awesome experience and I'm sure a of these chairs are in their overall collection too.
- hyperific 3y agoI love that lists like these exist. Like the Internet Movie Firearms Database[1], or the list of split diopter shots[2]. [1] https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page [2] https://letterboxd.com/lubber/list/split-diopter-shots/page/3/ https://letterboxd.com/lubber/list/split-diopter-shots/page/...
- charonn0 3y agoI never realized that Worf's weird chair with the round things was an actual chair.
- ant6n 3y agoTheres this weird little seen where he just sits in it, his parents come in and he stands up.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoThe 60s were so wild. What happened?
- Thrymr 3y agoThey got replaced by the 70s.
- tifik 3y agoCute model names for 'Prosim Sedni' and 'Prosim Sni', which means 'Please Sit' and 'Please Dream' in Czech.
- MaikaDiHaika 3y agoThe dedication is just insane haha!
- thisisauserid 3y agoSweet. I gotta get me one of those Worf sex chairs.
- rabbits_2002 3y agoWho was giving the set designer so much money lol
- vunderba 3y agoGood thing members of Starfleet have excellent medical benefits, because 90% of these chairs look like they'd give you an instant case of sciatica within minutes after sitting in them.