Flux Chiller said:
decals for battle damage? Seems crazy. They certainly don't look like decals as there is depth to the damage! And why bother when you are blowing up the ship at the end of the film. The idea to resurrect the Enterprise only came late in the day of ST4 production as far as I can remember, intention was for them to use the Excelsior.
When they turned the Excelsior into the Ent B they didn;t worry about being able to convert it back again. In the motion picture industry, you live for the moment and let someone else worry down the line.
not always. the original refit model cost a small fortune, far more than a typical model of its size, and way more then the excelsior. (the budget for st:tmp was pretty much carte blance, and the modelmakers went berserk on it. get the cinefex and cfq issues on st:tmp and st2 for more about that) they knew they would want to use the model again, even if it wasnt appearing as the enterprise, and wanted to minimize the amount of repaint and repair work that would be needed. alas that backfired on them and the model neded a complete repaint. (remember they didnt actualy blow up the hero model for the explosion either..... nor was it one of the things up for grabs at the recent sothaby's auction, although the hero of the e-d was and the e-d hero model was also far more expensive and built to last in ways that your typical spfx filming model simply doesnt get.)
a side note: the guys at ilm hated the refit model because of its enormous weight. while a couple of guys could lift the largest millenium falcon filming model onto its mount for shooting, the refit required a forklift.
perhaps the term "stickers" and "decals" is being used loosely... a 3 dimensional decal, while being more like a prosthetic appliance in spfx makeup, is still a decal. (i dont know this one way or or the other.. just speculating.) no matter what, the fact is that it was all superficial and intended to be removed easily, but it didnt work out that way.
i still have the magazine, but its buried deep in my storage unit. your best bet would be to order the back issue on star trek 4. there are other guys on this forum with a far more extensive knowledge of the history of the refit model than i have.