Visual Proof a Resdesign is a good thing

[3D Master]

Eric Cheung wrote:

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To get the point across to a new generation, changes may need to be made.

No, they don't. All you need to do is look at the picture of the Doctherman model above to understand that one. If you're incapable of grasping just how magnificent a model the original Enterprise is, maybe you should look for a different genre of storytelling.

[ST-One]

3D Master wrote:

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No, they don't. All you need to do is look at the picture of the Doctherman model above to understand that one. If you're incapable of grasping just how magnificent a model the original Enterprise is, maybe you should look for a different genre of storytelling.

You may like it. I may like it.
But that is because we are already fans.
Todays audiences want something that looks modern. And despite how much you and I like the original design of the Enterprise, it just doesn't look like something that would be designed for a film in 2008 or 2009.
It does look dated.

The movie-era Enterprise on the other hand...

[3D Master]

ST-One wrote:

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You may like it. I may like it.
But that is because we are already fans.
Todays audiences want something that looks modern. And despite how much you and I like the original design of the Enterprise, it just doesn't look like something that would be designed for a film in 2008 or 2009.
It does look dated.

Anyone who thinks it doesn't look modern is a fool. We couldn't even come close to constructing something that elegant and functional, even if we wanted to.

[Cary L. Brown]

3D Master wrote:

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Anyone who thinks it doesn't look modern is a fool. We couldn't even come close to constructing something that elegant and functional, even if we wanted to.

This is a fascinating argument... I keep hearing it, over and over and over. And the arguments NEVER CHANGE... never EVOLVE... it's just the same argument made over and over.

The two sides are, essentially, this:

1) "The original ship is old-fashioned." Sometimes the person making the argument tries to support their point with a further argument, but none of these have ever actually been demonstrated with facts or even significant logic, as far as I'm concerned.

"We know what real ships in the future will look like and this isn't it." Of course, that's nonsense. The people who are saying that are simply comparing a different FILMMAKING DESIGN STYLE (specifically, that of latter-day Trek) to the original design style, noting that they're different, and thus ERRONEOUSLY concluding that one is "more cool" or "more modern" instead of simply being DIFFERENT.

Key elements to this argument are things like "blue glow on the engines" or "solid red nacelle caps" "glowy deflector" or "blobby-curvy hull shapes" or "exposed greeblies" or even "hull marking font."

But these aren't "improvements." They're simply DIFFERENT ARTISTIC STYLE. They don't reflect more advanced filmmaking, or more advanced design.

When people say this, what they're really saying is "I want the old show design style to be changed so it matches the new show design style."

or ...

"The original design was cheesy and designed for stupid kids. Today, we're more sophisticated." That, of course, is total and complete nonsense. It's an argument which is never made by anyone who is above a certain age... anyone who's lived long enough to realize that people haven't fundamentally changed in any way... and that we're not REALLY any more sophisticated today than we were 40 years ago, as a species. We haven't somehow "evolved into a higher form" over a few decades, and our species-wide intelligence hasn't suddenly spiked just by virtue of a new generation or two having been born!

This argument is most popular with the same folks who think that the current generation invented sex... or that prior generations didn't know how to enjoy it. Or drugs, or "free thinking" or whatever else kids assume that they've come up with for the first time in human history. It's a combination of incredible naivety and incredible arrogance... and it's very common with kids, of EVERY generation, between the ages of 17 and 22 or so. Eventually, we figure out that the changes are mostly on the surface, and that reality is a lot more stable and consistent than we would have liked to have believed when we were young and stupid.

The people watching TV in 1966 were every bit as intelligent and socially sophisticated as the people going to the movies today. And what information we've learned, what changes we've seen, tell us NOTHING WHATSOEVER about what we should expect to see in a 23rd-century starship design, beyond what we knew in 1966.

The original design was created to appeal to intelligent, technically-savvy audiences who knew pretty much the same amount about spacecraft design as we know today. The only area where things have changed in a significant way has been in terms of computer technology. And I don't think ANYONE is suggesting, seriously, that the 1701 computer should speak with Majel Barrett's monotone voice with relay-clacking playing in the background, are they?

NOW... there are two different argument which are sometimes confused. One is whether the DESIGN is a good one or not, and the other is whether the PRESENTATION OF THE DESIGN is a good one or not. These are TOTALLY SEPARATE POINTS.

For instance, the image I showed (Darren's model) is of the same design, really, as the TOY IMAGE which was posted to argue against the design. This was a dishonest way to address the DESIGN, and I think that Darren's work is a great way to discredit that. The point of reposting that image is to drive home the point that the PRESENTATION can be good or bad, with the same design.

There's a "third way" argument which can be made as well... and in the Trek Art forum you can find a couple of folks right now who've been working on their own "high-resolution" versions of the 1701... faithful to the original design but with an additional level of "polish." The ship is the same ship, but we see detail which wouldn't have been visible on a 1966 TV screen, in other words. Other folks have done similar approaches, with different levels of faithfulness to the original design, but it's a true statement that the more faithful to the original it is, the more we seem to like it. I've currently got one of Vektor's renderings set up as my wallpaper at work, and people who are not Trek fans at all absolutely LOVE it.

Nobody has ever argued that the 11' model should be taken down from its display in the Smithsonian (as far as I know, it's still there... isn't it?) and used in this film. Much less the 3' model... and DEFINITELY nobody has ever suggested using a TOY (available at better WalMarts everywhere)!

The only legitimate argument is "is the original DESIGN the one which should be used?" And "original design" doesn't preclude some additional "polish" being added... but it DOES preclude changes to proportion, shape, or functional design... and to a lesser extent, to coloration and markings.

Those issues are the ones to discuss. And in those areas, there's no TECHNOLOGICAL rationale for changing ANYTHING. Nor is there any evidence I've ever been presented with to support the claim that "audiences expect something different," though I've heard many people make that claim (without backing it up in any way) repeatedly.

Ultimately, the argument seems to come down to "this is what I'm used to seeing on the screen and that other thing isn't... and I want what I'm most comfortable with" on the one hand, versus "this is what this particular ship has always looked like, and I don't want to see what I'm used to tossed aside and 'replaced' with something based upon someone else's stylistic sensibilities."

[Admiral Buzzkill]

3D Master wrote:

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Anyone who thinks it doesn't look modern is a fool.

Well now, there's an irrefutably tight, logical argument.

You're arguing about personal likes and dislikes, and that's all. You can't be right, and you can't be wrong. Ditto for ST-One and everyone else.

I don't actually care what the Enterprise looks like in this movie as long as it looks good and the design is intriguing. It's going to have a saucer and an engineering hull and two warp nacelles, which makes it a "Star Trek" ship as opposed to just about anything else.

[ST-One]

3D Master wrote:

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Anyone who thinks it doesn't look modern is a fool. We couldn't even come close to constructing something that elegant and functional, even if we wanted to.

I doesn't look modern.
Modern is what the Koerner-prise looks like (for better or worse).
Modern is what the parts of the Enterprise in the teaser look like.
The original design, because of the lack of details and 'simplicity' does look dated. No-one (even Matt Jefferies) would design the Enterprise in the same way again today - even if they used the same general layout. The best example of this is Jefferies refit from Phase II which became the movie-era Enterprise (the version of the Enterprise that still has to be surpassed as a design, IMO).

[ST-One]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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But these aren't "improvements." They're simply DIFFERENT ARTISTIC STYLE. They don't reflect more advanced filmmaking, or more advanced design.

Indeed, they don't.
The reflect a different approach to the design.

BTW: Usually you points get far better across if your post isn't TLTR.

[ST-One]

Starship Polaris wrote:

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You're arguing about personal likes and dislikes, and that's all. You can't be right, and you can't be wrong. Ditto for ST-One and everyone else.

Oh, I do like the old design. But to me it still looks dated but not bad.

Starship Polaris wrote:

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I don't actually care what the Enterprise looks like in this movie as long as it looks good and the design is intriguing. It's going to have a saucer and an engineering hull and two warp nacelles, which makes it a "Star Trek" ship as opposed to just about anything else.

Couldn't agree more.

[Cary L. Brown]

ST-One wrote:

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Oh, I do like the old design. But to me it still looks dated but not bad.

Couldn't agree more.

I agree with Dennis' sentiment there as well. I love seeing new and different starships.

I LOVE seeing new, different ships. I want to see as many new ship designs as possible... especially ones that look "real" and yes, ones that deviate from the "established" style that's become so hackneyed over the years.

My only quibble is that I don't like seeing someone come along and try to "redefine" something that's already done.

Of course, none of us really know what, exactly, the various ships in the film (including, almost certainly, more than one "version" of the 1701...) will really look like. So far, all we have are a few shots from a trailer which has been put out, essentially, an entire year before the movie is to be released.

Maybe that's the ship... and the only version of the ship. Maybe it's an "earlier incarnation" and by the time we're seeing the "approaching TOS" timeframe, the ship will look much more like what we expect it to. Maybe that's an "alternative timeline" version. Maybe it's not the model to be used in the film at all, and was just something thrown together specifically for the trailer, independent of the film's production SFX team (which, honestly, is far more likely than I think anyone has realized thus far!) Maybe the bits and pieces of the model aren't supposed to look like a finished ship but is just intended to "look cool" without being "realistically" arranged (ie, the nacelle positions in the final shot might have been tweaked to make the image more "impactful").

We don't know... though there are now some people who DO know (the guys who are just now getting started on the special effects work)! Thing is, I don't think they're talking, are they?

[Sheridan]

From what we've seen of the teaser trailer the Enterprise will probably have a level of changes in-between that of Vector's Enterprise and Gabriel Koerner's Enterprise(the one being used on Star Trek Reborn). It's quite obvious that it's not going to be completely redone so I don't understand why we're are still arguing over whether if they should create a completely new ship design or not.

I would also like to point out that Moore's re-imagined Battlestar Galactica show with all the radical changes he did to the story and characters still kept the original design of the ship. I'm guessing it was updated a bit but overall its basically the same design that they used in 1978.

Also, today's navy ships and air craft carriers are pretty ugly when compared to cruise ships so maybe the same parallel exist in the future in space.

[I Grok Spock]

Starship Polaris wrote:

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That's not at all the reason the Enterprise is at NASM. The "greatest scientific minds of the world" didn't get a vote or offer any opinions.

Exactly. It's there to get your ass to the gift shop.

[Eric Cheung]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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...but it's a true statement that the more faithful to the original it is, the more we seem to like it. I've currently got one of Vektor's renderings set up as my wallpaper at work, and people who are not Trek fans at all absolutely LOVE it.

But we're not the target audience. I'd argue that even the people that admire your wallpaper at work aren't the audience. It's people that are younger than most of us. If you're working in an office you're probably a little bit older than the target audience for this movie. This movie is for smart people to be sure, but smart people of a new generation. Every generation's idea of what the future will look like will be different, and as a result there are certain aesthetics that will probably change in futuristic science fiction.

Nicholas Meyer said something wise in one of his commentary tracks, I'm paraphrasing: No matter what time period in which a movie is set, you can usually tell, within about five years, when the film was made.

It's just a fact of art for better or worse.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I Grok Spock wrote:

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Exactly. It's there to get your ass to the gift shop.

Where it's slowly falling apart. NASM doesn't treat the Enterprise like the Apollo capsules or the Enola Gay or any of their real-world "science treasures." Money for restoration and preservation is hard to come by. The 1992 repair and refurbishment was contracted out for a good deal less money than a museum restoration would have cost, or it would not have been done at all.

[3D Master]

Sheridan wrote:

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I would also like to point out that Moore's re-imagined Battlestar Galactica show with all the radical changes he did to the story and characters still kept the original design of the ship. I'm guessing it was updated a bit but overall its basically the same design that they used in 1978.

No, he didn't. The Galactica only has a barest resemblance of a similar shape. The two ships are nothing alike.

[Sheridan]

3D Master wrote:

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No, he didn't. The Galactica only has a barest resemblance of a similar shape. The two ships are nothing alike.

Yeah, I've only seen one episode of the old BSG so I didn't realize just how different they were but they still are more similar to each other than what you portray. My point is he didn't throw out the old design and pick a completely different one. He took the basic design of the old ship and updated it which is what I expect they'll do with the Enterprise.