And Godspeed. Thank you for your creativity, and for developing the prototype of the most recognizable and long-lasting starship designs in science fiction. You will be remembered and missed!

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Lord Edzo!

"Indifference is the worst thing of all, Armand."

--Albert, "The Birdcage"

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And thank you.

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"Verisimilitude," that is, the appearance of truth, is a Jeffries contribution to the entire Star Trek franchise that cannot be underestimated. I think it's impossible for modern audience to feel in their bones what a breakthrough the original Enterprise design was...how its fundamental "rightness" made us feel that we were watching real people having real adventures on that ship.

You only have to compare the Enterprise to its mid-1960s contemporaries to realize Jeffries' importance to the franchise. Everything else on TV and movies looked like pie tins hanging on fishing line. The Jupiter 2 from "Lost in Space," the various ships from "Land of the Giants," "The Invaders," etc....nothing looked 1% as real as the Enterprise. On television, the only work I can remember that even came close was the Seaview on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," and that vessel's creators had an advantage in that everyone knows how a submarine is supposed to look. Jeffries created a new aesthetic for spacecraft model design that was a leap beyond the flying saucers and sparking tubes of its time. Even in feature films, the Enterprise set a standard that was only surpassed by "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Part of the Enterprise's greatness was due to Jeffries actually thinking about how a real spacecraft might look and operate. For example, I read a fairly recent interview in which he said he deliberately made the Enterprise's skin smooth because he figured all its components would be accessed from the inside to avoid hazardous spacewalks. He put its engines out on struts to convey the sense that they harnessed dangerous energies that had to be kept at arm's length. To that fundamental functionality he added beauty and grace (something the designers of subsequent Enterprises could have benefited by).

It is faintly ridiculous to eulogize a man as great because he sketched out a make-believe spaceship for a TV show nearly 40 years ago. But I believe Jeffries made a significant contribution to his art and industry, and I am saddened by his loss.

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Of course we increasingly expect this sort of loss in our lives as our own end grows closer. Nevertheless, this one comes as quite a shock.

In designing the original Enterprise (no bloody A,B,C,D, or E--and forget about that NX-01 contraption), Matt created the most iconic fictional spaceship in TV/movie history. The Discovery from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was much more plausible, the star destroyers from STAR WARS more massive and impressive, and the subsequent Enterprise designs more rich in detail, but Matt's original was the coolest, inspiring blueprints and tech manuals and all of their associated geek fascination, not least of which my own.

I'm certain that the lives of many participants in the space program would have taken other routes, and Trek would never have had the same kind of success, had not Matt Jeffries cobbled together his oddly beautiful design of three cylinders attached to a flying saucer. He'll be justly remembered as a designer whose work resided wholly in the imagination, yet which undeniably impacted the real lives of people around the world. Blessings on him, and peace.

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We've lost another legend of the Original Series. It's fortunate that he was able to see the retrospective tribute recently at Paramount. I hope that Paramount decides to move the tribute up to include on the Star Trek VI CE DVD, as an equally fitting tribute to the Original Series' final bow on screen. He will be missed.

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