Joseph R . Jennings Joseph " Joe " R . Jennings , sometimes simply credited as Joe Jennings , was an ( assistant ) art director and production designer , who as such has served on three " Star Trek " live - action productions . Jennings was an art director on " " , the television project that was to become , ultimately earning him an Academy Award nomination . He , along with Production Illustrator Michael Minor , was the co - designer of the refit - for that project , after he was brought in on recommendation of Matt Jefferies . Jefferies had declined to return permanently to the " Star Trek " franchise , though he had on a temporary basis done preliminary design work for the project , and from which Jennings and Minor proceeded . Prior to this assignment he had been Jefferies ' ( uncredited ) assistant during the second season of , befriending both Matt and brother John Jefferies . ( " " , pp . 26 - 28 ) When the movie was upgraded to a motion picture project in October 1977 they were to be joined by Robert Abel and Richard Taylor , and in a later stage by Andrew Probert . To the unsuspecting Jennings the upgrade , of which he was informed on 21 November 1977 , was something of a nasty surprise , as he recalled decades later , mellowed but still not amused , " " We were within two weeks of starting the new series , and somebody said , " Wheeew , let ' s make a motion picture ! " Just like it was a whole different thing , you know . They ' ve always thought that about the TV people . We did something , sort of down here and they did things that were sort of up there , that we could not do up here , what they did down there , whatever ! " " ( " " ) As far as Jennings was concerned , the situation on what was now " The Motion Picture " grew from bad to even worse , as Robert Abel & Associates , the company brought in for the visual effects for the movie , was allowed to establish a by Taylor headed art department in January 1978 , Astra Image Corporation , to serve alongside his own art department resulting in confusing situations with hugely overlapping responsibilities . Not only this , but from the start there was intense strive and conflict between the two art departments as Astra was perceived , by Jennings and Minor in particular , as performing a power - grab by aggressively trying to assert total creative control . Minor elaborated , " " It wasn ' t long before the Abel group started doing their own designs for what they thought the whole feature should look like . Not just the special effects , mind you ; they wanted to upgrade everything . They wanted to control the design of the costumes , the sets , effects , everything . They were like an octopus . And it was not a fair ball game , in my opinion . They would spend long hours closeted with Paramount brass , and yet the art department – would get maybe 30 minutes to show off what we were trying to do . So , we knew something was in the works . " " Four years later , Jennings , still thoroughly chagrined , added , " " We made a camel . It started out to be a horse , but a committee got hold of it . Everyone got into the act on that movie . There was creative pulling back and forth , fumbling around , coming and going of people " ad infinitum " and " ad nauseam " . Everyone who worked on the art direction provided too much input to be ignored , so we all got credit , and Hal Michelson , brought in as art director , ended up getting credit as production designer . " " The situation finally came to a head in early March 1978 , when Jennings , fed up with Astra , either decided to leave the production or was let go , as related by Unit Production Manager Phil Rawlins , " " Joe Jennings was still with the project when I came on . Joe is a good Hollywood art director , and the reason he left the picture is because Bob Abel and Richard Taylor wanted complete creative control of the look of the picture . They just kept complaining about the sets and complaining about the sets until Joe had to leave the movie . " " Jenning ' s close co - worker Minor , was even more vehement in his appraisal of the situation , which was co - responsible for the production of the movie becoming fraud with delays , confusion and difficulties , " " It was one of the most soiled and shabby chapters of Hollywood history , in terms of how people were treated . The trouble , as always , was that the wrong people were in charge . We ' re in a business in which the people at the top , who make the decisions , really don ' t know a damn thing about making pictures . I think we all knew then that we were associated with a bomb . It ' s too bad the movie happened at all . " " Later that month Michelson filled the position , vacated by Jennings , as – adding insult to injury to Jennings – " Production Designer " , instead having to settle for the latter ' s lesser desirable , and thus lesser paid , " Art Director " - title . ( " " , pp . 71 - 72 ; " Cinefantastique " , Vol 12 # 5 / 6 , p . 58 ) Jennings was also the production designer for , partially responsible for the design of the studio model . For this , he and Minor were credited as the " sole inventors " on design patent , No . ( there called a " toy spaceship " ) , that was issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office to Paramount Pictures on 28 February 1984 . He was less than enthusiastic about Nicholas Meyer ' s ideas to make " Star Trek " more militaristic in " Star Trek II " , and thought the torpedo bay s were simply ridiculous – as they should be fired directly from storage . In an interview in the " " - special feature , " Designing Khan " , he has stated that seeing the ensign s with hooks pulling the grating off the torpedo conveyor before launching it drove him crazy , since any real ship that took that long to load weapons would probably be destroyed in about ten seconds . Concurrently , he considered the battle between the " Enterprise " and , originally scripted as pounding at each other at close range in open space – likening it to a man - o ' - war slugging match from the era of sail and , ironically , exactly portrayed as such in the 2011 version of " The Three Musketeers " where the " Star Trek " battle was paraphrased – ludicrous , pointing out that , more realistically , spaceships would go at each other in high - speed passes under open space circumstances ( as was adopted in the Battle of Wolf 359 and Dominion War battle scenes in their respective , later episodes , as well as in the films , most notably ) . Together with Minor he came up with the concept of the Mutara Nebula knocking out both ship ' s navigational and tactical systems as a more believable rationale for the slower paced close quarter combat between the two vessels , which was ultimately accepted by the writing staff . After the sequence was filmed , Jennings gleefully recalled Meyer ' s reaction , " " You were right . Thanks for not saying so ! " " ( " " ) Coincidentally , his concerns with the torpedo bay were later addressed by Meyer in , where it was indeed strongly implied that torpedos were fired directly from storage in in which Captain Montgomery Scott uttered the line , " " Negative , Captain . According to Inventory we ' re still fully loaded . " " , after the " Kronos One " was unexpectedly hit by a torpedo volley from the " Enterprise " s torpedo bay . As already indicate above , while working on the two " Star Trek " features , Jennings enjoyed a particularly close and enduring working relationship with former protégé Mike Minor , for whom Jennings had arranged one of his first jobs in the motion picture industry on the television show " " . Brought in on the " Phase II " project and its follow - up by Jennings , an appreciative Minor later stated , " " We worked together like . " " ( " Cinefantastique " , issue 44 , Vol 12 # 5 / 6 , p . 58 ) On 27 September 2009 , Joe Jennings , together with fellow designers John Jefferies , Herman F . Zimmerman and Scott Chambliss , were honored for their " Star Trek " contributions in a media event called the " Star Trek Designers Talk Trek History At Art Directors Guild Event " at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood , and in which all designers discussed indepth their work on the franchise . The event was moderated by another " Star Trek " alumnus , Daren Dochterman . Career outside " Star Trek " . Besides " Star Trek " , Joe Jennings ' additional art direction credits included the television shows " Gunsmoke " and " Project U . F . O . " and such films as " Kansas City Bomber " ( 1972 , featuring Georgia Schmidt ) and " Gone with the West " ( 1975 , starring Robert Walker , with makeup by Fred B . Phillips ) . He was also production designer on the films " Yellowbeard " ( 1983 , starring Kenneth Mars ) and " Johnny Dangerously " ( 1984 , starring Joe Piscopo and Ray Walston ) , the 1986 mini - series " North and South , Book II " ( starring Kirstie Alley , Mary Crosby , Jonathan Frakes , Jim Metzler , Leon Rippy , William Schallert , Jean Simmons , Kurtwood Smith , David Ogden Stiers , and Anthony Zerbe , with costumes by Robert Fletcher ) , and the television movie " Ironclads " ( 1991 , starring Virginia Madsen ) . The 1992 television movie " The Jacksons : An American Dream " , was Jennings ' last recorded motion picture credit . Apart from his " Star Trek " Academy Award nomination , Jennings also received Emmy Award nominations for his work on the mini - series " Roots " ( 1977 , starring LeVar Burton , Thalmus Rasulala , John Schuck , Madge Sinclair , and Ben Vereen ) and NBC ' s " Shogun " ( 1980 , featuring John Rhys - Davies and W . Morgan Sheppard and narrated by Orson Welles ; with cinematography by Andrew Laszlo and on which he immediately embarked upon after " The Motion Picture " ) . He shared the latter nomination with set decorator Tom Pedigo . Academy Award . Joe Jennings received the following Academy Award nomination in the category " Best Art Direction - Set Direction " :