Observations in TNG: "The Last Outpost"

In early season 1 episodes, the color of some of the LCARS displays at the aft stations of the bridge would change from green/yellow/blue to red when the ship was at red alert. Red displays like this can be seen early in this episode. In later seasons, the color of the displays did not change when the ship was at yellow or red alert.

Mike Okuda: "I did the art for the bridge aft stations and had those panels rigged so they could change from normal to red alert with the flip of a switch. There was a problem that the red lights provided by the special effects department just weren't very bright, so it wasn't really worth doing."

First appearance of the Ferengi Marauder. Here a nice view of the ship's ventral side.
Appearances of the Ferengi Marauder

We can also see the Ferengi logo for the first time.
The Evolution of the Ferengi Emblem

The planet was redone with much sharper contours of the continents. Similarly to the SD version, the new HD Delphi Ardu IV is also re-used as the Selay homeworld in "Lonely Among Us".

Note that there is now a lot more contrast in the shots of the Enterprise and the Ferengi vessel against the planet.

When Geordi enters the bridge, a large gray cube can be seen in the turbolift behind him.

Mike Okuda explains: "The 'gray cube' in the turbolift is something called an 'apple box'."

A very good look at the ship wall from an unusual perspective.
Enterprise Lineages on Display

We can see that the island of the aircraft carrier USS Enterirse CVN-65 is the original version with the characteristic radar dome, before the 1979 refit.

On a different note, the port door to the observation lounge is connected to a corridor in the first season. From season 2 onwards, both observation lounge doors lead to short beige corridors that lead to the bridge. In the first season, sickbay doubled as the observation lounge. The port door is the main door to sickbay, which is connected to the main corridor set, explaining why a regular corridor appears behind the door here. Between seasons 1+2, the observation lounge was built as a separate set, explaining why the corridor changes appearance.

Small details, like the galactic coordinates of the Tkon Empire or the star time ref can now be made out. A possible "47" reference is also visible (300472).

Mike Okuda: "The 47 in the Tkon graphic was not deliberate."

The small error was corrected when the footage of the Tkon star charts was recomposited.

Mike Okuda: "In the tabletop hologram in 'The Last Outpost,' note that one side of the rotating image is now flipped, even though the images themselves are identical to the original."

Integrated window blinds only appear in two TNG episodes. They are seen here, in the observation lounge, and again in "The Child" in Troi's quarters.

Mike Okuda: "In 'The Last Outpost,' the director tried an experiment: He put a light on a boom arm outside the obs lounge windows, which moved slowly up and down, as if the ship was maneuvering as it flew. The results didn't look so good, and it wasn't tried again."

Also in this scene, we see a shadow in Data's face move up and down as he is explaining the hologram.

This shot of the planet surface is rather blurry. It is one of many anamorphically lensed shots in the early seasons where -in lieu of using a motion control camera- the shot was filmed in 2.35:1 Panavision and later "pan & scanned" to achieve a camera move.
Pan & Scan Effects in TNG

Mike Okuda confirms this: "The use of anamorphic shots was an ingenious solution that allowed for a camera move during visual effects shots without the need for motion control photography. The compromise is that there was a loss of picture clarity."

Well, Riker's face is recognizable now, but overall the shot is still blurry owing to the limited resolution of the original material.

However, the sky was completely redone for this shot.

The Tkon logo nicely mirrors the shape of the blade wielded by Portal 63.

Mike Okuda: "I based the design of the Tkon logo on Rick's [Sternbach] design of Portal's bladed weapon, so Rick's design came first."

The Tkon weapon was later seen again as a Klingon weapon in "Sins of the Father" in K'mpec's office and on Boreth in "Rightful Heir". A similarly designed, but transparent weapon was seen in Karnas's office in "Too Short a Season".