Guys Guys Guys, about the welding thing. I seem to remember Scotty using a welder many times during TOS - I think to gain access to engineering once or an engineering panel. During the TNG they simply couldn't be bothered going to the workshop to get a welder so they frequently used phasers. About the construction of the enterprise on the ground. I'm not too hot on this for obvious reasons, but I believe even Galaxy Class vessels were constructed on the ground. Check out this memory alpha page on Utopia Planitia for evidence. My first reaction to the picture is that I like what I see, I would like what everyone else on this board would like and that is to see more and soon.
Keep in mind that what they put up on screen as a teaser lacks the polish of a finished product, and even being in raw form, it still looks good enough to serve its purpose; whet "our" appetites. I will reserve final judgment for the completed material when it is released, but so far what I’ve seen from the trailer is encouraging. Also, I don’t see a problem with them constructing the ship on Earth. Space dock construction/launch scenes have been done ad nauseam in previous Trek films, but ground launches have not. If done right, to see a ship the size of a carrier lift off and head into space could be “spectacular”. Or it could be downright silly, depending on one’s point of view.
I'm always amazed by fan reactions. A picture of a redesigned Enterprise, with significant changes is posted, and rather than a long argument about the pros/cons of the redesign of the ship, we instead have a long argument about torches and welding in a scene that will never appear anywhere except in this teaser. Seriously, I didn't see it coming.
Let's think about this from a non-fans view.... Let's say the teaser DID have the ship in spacedock.... Joe 6 Pack : bbboooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggg, same old, same old, when are they going to do something diffrent with these things.... Star Trek has played it SAFE for far too long folks. If you want these guys on our side for a EVENT film you just can't play it SAFE, you have to shake things up, if that means show the ship being bulit by welders on Earth, then by GOD show that to connect to the unwashed masses. Star Trek can't live on fans alone anymore, we're too divived, just look at all the NEGITIVE posts, doesn't that tell you something ? It should, it tells me that Star Trek can't support itself on the old gaurd at all any more, we're too critical, we can't agree on anything, it was bulit on earth, it was bulit in space, GOD, no wonder the unwashed masses make fun of us, we sound like spoiled rotten kids. It's time we all pulled together for once, leave our percived notions at the door, and gosh darn it, support this NEW film, if not for ourselfs then for those fans yet to come, this club shouldn't be a members only thing, we need new blood. - OR - Do you want the franchise to end ? If you do that's verry selfish of you. - W - * Sadden by the way we've been behaveing as of late *
Yeah, come on, everyone knows what a welder is, and that it's used to build metal stuff...like ships. No one is going to know what's happening if they show a guy with a vaacum-cleaner like thing with glowing buttons making laser-noises. Sorry.
Some take things too much to heart, and they become too attached to something that in the end is just entertainment. If the shot makes it to the final cut, great, if not, no biggie either.
Of course not...were such things to exist, they wouldn't be much like "Star Trek" or any of our current popular imagery at all. A lot of Trek fans aren't enormously fond of actual science fiction and the speculation/projection/extrapolation that's part of it - witness the continuing howls at the mere suggestion of universal wealth or a moneyless economy in the 24th century.
I assume so, but why mar the paint job on the way UP to orbit, before you even get started, before anybody can throw a bottle of champagne at it from a kilometer off? Of course you could speculate the ship is like a self-cleaning oven, which would explain why there is never any visible hull damage during TOS before they started messing with it. They reference the hull overheating/superheating alot in TOS, usually because some alien beam is heating them up or they are being pulled down into atmosphere. Whether this heat is what leaks through all the pseudowhatsis fields or some other kind of energy, I don't know or care (though I guess you'd need more of those TNG-era systems, the inertial and structural whatevers, if you were taking off from a gravity well. Have no idea if mass/inertia issues exist when pivoting at warp -- and before anybody says you can't turn in warp, I suggest you watch ELAAN OF TROYIUS, TMP or parts of many TOS eps to see that it is very clear that the ship turns while at warp; if they weren't able to maneuver while at warp, interception of an incoming warp 7 object would be a 'terminal' maneuver in more ways than one.)
TrekMovie.com: So what is your guys logic for setting it on land? Roberto Orci: Besides the thematic stuff we discussed, which is to connect it to today and make it clear. Firstly, there is the notion that there is precedent in the novels, etc that components of the ship can be built on Earth and assembled here or there. And the second thing is that the Enterprise is not some flimsy yacht that has to be delicately treated and assembled. The idea that things have to be assembled in space has normally been associated with things that don’t have to be in any kind of pressure situation and don’t ever have to ever enter a gravity well. That is not the case with the Enterprise. The Enterprise actually has to sustain warp, which we know is not actually moving but more a warping of space around it. And we know that its decks essentially simulate Earth gravity and so its not the kind of gravity created by centrifugal force, it is not artificially created by spinning it. It is created by an artificial field and so it is very natural, instead of having to create a fake field in which you are going to have to calibrate everything, to just do it in the exact gravity well in which you are going to be simulating. And the final thing, in order to properly balance warp nacelles, they must be created in a gravity well. TrekMovie.com: Looking at the reaction from this one little thing, are you now thinking about what it will be like for all the other judgment calls you made? Roberto Orci: Not really. The main judgment call is going to be whether or not the theory of the movie works. And the theory sort of encompasses it…either you buy the movie or you don’t. So we aren’t going to sweat every little detail. We are going to sweat whether or not you buy our interpretation of it. But this is not a surprise. When we were constructing the trailer we knew that many were going to criticize it. We have our eyes wide open I think. But again, of course it is terrifying. I think I said on your site that in those times when canon is fuzzy, then we are ‘The Supreme Court’ right now and the court has to rule one way or the other. TrekMovie.com: So who sits on the court? Roberto Orci: It is the five of us: me, Alex [Kurtzman], JJ [Abrams], Bryan [Burk], and Damon [Lindelof] http://trekmovie.com/2008/01/19/interview-orci-answers-questions-about-new-trek-trailer/#more-1466 I guess he never saw STAR TREK-THE MOTION PICTURE. The computers balanced the warp engines and intermix. Also, when were the novels ever considered "canon"? -Chris
Wow, is that a real interview? That's some far-out reasoning and justificating (yeah, I know that ain't a word, but I guess I have 'creative license' the same as the next guy.) If they've put that much ... I guess you'd call it 'thought' ... into this gravity well/warp calibration thing, it must be a plot point. Otherwise, you'd be thinking they were only coming up with these remarks to deflect complaints that they were pulling this stuff out of their nether regions .... oops!
He said there was precedent in the novels. In other words, he's not pulling something radical out of thin air and trying to cram it down our throats.
Doing work on the saucer -- not building it from scratch -- down on Earth was in a novel by Brad Ferguson, but I think he is radically pulling from thin air on the other part ... I've never heard of anybody using that "build warp engines in a gravity well" thing, in comics or novels (though to be fair, I haven't kept up on trek fiction in the last 13-15 years. Please advise if this is a development.) Hence my thought that this could be a plot point.
Nothing Orci said is any more outlandish than any other BS technobabble spouted by any other Trek show or movie to justify plot points. It's a Trek tradition.
How many times will the words "invert the main deflector" be used? And will it involve gravity wells? Well, one thing is for sure. If they are building the ship in frisco, it'll have bird-shit all over it.
The welding discussion is pretty fun to read I'm so sure someone else has mentioned this already, but... aren't there some crewmen welding things in the second DS9 title sequence?
Now that I recall, I think it was one of the Lost Years novels that had the saucer being built on earth. -Chris