But when the design for the Leonov was constructed, it was a Russian ship, so we went backwards and sort of deconstructed industrial design, thinking that the Russians wouldn t be concerned about making it slick. It became again a very logical industrial design process. The rotating cabin block was because Peter Hyams did not want to have to wire everything and suspend actors on harnesses throughout the entire film. So the rotating cabin block gave some excuse for things setting down on surfaces. So that was a change specifically caused by the comments from the people at JPL, and involved retrofitting existing prop design to make it all look logical.
Lets skip ahead to Mission to Mars .
I proceeded to do that. They liked what they got. Then when Disney finally assigned John McTiernan to be director, he didn t like anything I d done. What they are doing now in the movies, is to assign design and prop building to a single source. I m sort of an extra, assigned directly to the director, which is the only way I ll work.