If this design is to be part of the Trek universe, I wonder how much of it is going to be... I mean, it looks as if at least that piece in the middle of the spine, with two rods sticking to port and starboard, was glued onto the model solely for allowing it to be suspended from the Art Department ceiling with wires. Do we assume that it's an important tri-isophasic thingamabob, or do we omit it from the model on the assumption that it was never intended to be there in the first place? Timo Saloniemi
It's a nice model in it's own right. But I could never see it as an Enterprise. It reminds of the airfix flying versions of trek ships u take out and use like a kite
They could have done something like this for Abrams's Trek movies, and much as I like the version they came up with it would have been nice to see more of a departure such as this represents. But at least the Enterprise as created for TOS was a fully-formed design and concept, unlike, say the shuttlecraft. I was leafing through "The Art Of Star Trek" earlier and was reminded that the "AMT shuttle" was not even nearly Jefferies' first choice as a design. He even tried to replace it with something a little more sophisticated for Star Trek: Phase II. Yet due mainly to the weight of tradition we're still stuck with variations of a flying wooden box even in a 150 million dollar movie.
I'm pretty sure that in the first season of Blake's 7 they built a small patrol ship in just that fashion, putting a superstructure on top of some sort of fiberglass or aluminum dinghy.
But the movie shuttles had, ya know, some curves... That was a huge departure. It was a shame that TNG adopted the same thing once they got rid of their season 1 shuttle. I really liked the curved lines and the ideas behind it (though never shown), like the forward entrance platform. Though the mock up was another boxed joke. Too complex I think they said.
John Eaves shows some of the early ideas for STXI shuttles on his blog pages. It seems to have been clear from the start, though, that STXI hardware ought to very closely resemble TOS hardware; all the ideas that could be considered "departures" were nixed early on. Timo Saloniemi
While I love this design, especially the one that publiusr linked to on sci fi meshes, I really can't see it being used in the Abrams' films. It's not that I think it's and ugly design, but because I think it's shape strays too far from the TOS Enterprise. While the new ship is certainly a different design then the TOS Enterprise, it still manages to evoke the shape and feeling of the original ship, and the Constitution Refit.
It needed to be redesigned a bit, but I disagree with the Roddenberry decision that it deviated too far from the original..all the same components are there. What I'd like to see..is someone who can rework it in 3D to be closer to the Galaxy Class design ethic. RAMA