They look like gun turrets.
Why the love for Ralph McQuarrie?
- Thread starter JRoss
- Start date
They look like gun turrets.
To pick a nit that has seemingly resulted from a typo (misplaced apostrophe) in the tweet from the McQuarrie Archives, his name was Ken Adam, not Adams. Sad to see he died just a few months ago; I wonder if he was aware his design was finally being put to good use after all these years? Or perhaps his passing served as an inspiration to revisit it in the first place?
I'm weird. I find the design a bit interesting. If you look at the lines and flow, it really isn't that far removed from the Enterprise-D, which was largely inspired by this design. The D just curved and smoothed it all up a bit more.
I'm not sure how I feel about a starfleet ship being dirtied up and covered with kibble. I will concede that the production now requires much higher resolution of imagery and that requires a bit more in the way of texture and visual elements to keep the design looking interesting on screen. It's just a further evolution of the Aztecing of the hulls that happened when the ships transitioned to the big screen.
I'm not sure how I feel about a starfleet ship being dirtied up and covered with kibble. I will concede that the production now requires much higher resolution of imagery and that requires a bit more in the way of texture and visual elements to keep the design looking interesting on screen. It's just a further evolution of the Aztecing of the hulls that happened when the ships transitioned to the big screen.
It's what I'm thinking too. It's an older, chunkier, more "armored" look to the Enterprise-D with a tiny saucer section. The design is raw right now, but it has the potential to become a nice looking ship.
What a distinguished and talented artist Ken Adam was! His Strangelove War Room set is deservedly iconic.
It's not the most beautiful design imaginable, but being a fan of the Titan ships, I think the negative reaction by 50% of fandom is way out of proportion to the reality of it's aesthetics. Again we see what happens when you mess around with the narrow visions of many Trekkies.
The design is very close to these Adams' views.
I've always thought the third one down would be the best one to start from. It has the opportunity for elegance. I do not like the wider secondary hull or the stubby engines. That lower one, again, at least has the opportunity to show some graceful angles as it streaks the screes or comes about.
I find it hilarious that the newest Star Trek TV show is borrowing from a Star Wars concept artist.
However, I like the design. I liked it as the Ariel shuttle carrier, and I like the study models that come out of it. However Discovery shakes out, I hope I can imagine that we see it many years later, post-refit, also docked at Spacedock:
However, I like the design. I liked it as the Ariel shuttle carrier, and I like the study models that come out of it. However Discovery shakes out, I hope I can imagine that we see it many years later, post-refit, also docked at Spacedock:
Oh for fuck's sake, can we please stop acting like people who don't like this design have a “narrow vision” or can't accept change in Star Trek. There are a lot of people who just don't find the ship well-designed or appealing. Doesn't mean we don't want something new and different.
Nope. Most remarks revolve around very pre-conceived ideas and long formed opinions about how a ship "Should" look..that a ship has to look "balanced" when with fictional technology it really doesn't. Then we get a long laundry list of what's "wrong" with the ship that's based on very closely measured distances between pylon and engine nacelles, etc that were are supposed to take as religion and talked about with the same fervor, and generally it amounts to a lot of BS.
RAMA
I think it is fair to point out that it is also possible for fans to be "religious" in their acceptance of every single thing that the Star Trek franchise releases.
Just because a person doesn't like a ship, a character, a movie, a series, or a plot point doesn't mean they are in some way defective or have an unbalanced view of Star Trek.
I like the design.
It is fun trivia that they are running with a design from the 1970's by a pair of legendary creators.
I like the design.
It is fun trivia that they are running with a design from the 1970's by a pair of legendary creators.
The "throwback" nature of the Discovery's design does seem to fit the overall philosophy of the show's creators who have hired Roddenberry's son, Nicholas Meyer, and have made other moves in an apparently conscious effort to include a lot of Trek's history in the show's development.
I think RAMA means its fine not liking something on a personal level due to aesthetic tastes - we all have different tastes - but trying to say it's 'technologically wrong' is very dubious, since there is nothing in Star Trek that would forbid a ship like this technologically, or even aesthetically. I mean the Defiant is a far greater departure from Starfleet's visual style, that Matt Jefferies set down.
It actually looks really appropriate as a lost era ship IMO, with a very distinctive generational look, that sets it apart just the same way as you can immediatly identify a TNG era ship.
In many ways it looks, to me, more naturally Starfleet-like than half the stuff we get in B-canon and video games; which usually involves getting the classic shape and stretching or, or rounding it, in a really unimaginative way. It looks like a retro ship from an era between TMP or TOS - which is probably exactly what it is meant to be. I believe people used to explain the MacQuarrie designs as being an early "shuttle carrier", from the days when transporters were perhaps less prevalent - maybe the Discovery needs that huge sweeping secondary hull as a landing deck, for its shuttle-bays, launching lots of them for long range planetary survey missions in deep space?
It actually looks really appropriate as a lost era ship IMO, with a very distinctive generational look, that sets it apart just the same way as you can immediatly identify a TNG era ship.
In many ways it looks, to me, more naturally Starfleet-like than half the stuff we get in B-canon and video games; which usually involves getting the classic shape and stretching or, or rounding it, in a really unimaginative way. It looks like a retro ship from an era between TMP or TOS - which is probably exactly what it is meant to be. I believe people used to explain the MacQuarrie designs as being an early "shuttle carrier", from the days when transporters were perhaps less prevalent - maybe the Discovery needs that huge sweeping secondary hull as a landing deck, for its shuttle-bays, launching lots of them for long range planetary survey missions in deep space?
The Adam design looks much better in my head if I imagine the secondary hull as being the bulk of the ship with a saucer section attached, rather than looking at the saucer as the primary component with the other elements being there to serve the drive of the saucer.
Basically it looks like the roles of the primary and secondary hulls have been reversed, and that's why it feels off to me.
Basically it looks like the roles of the primary and secondary hulls have been reversed, and that's why it feels off to me.
Trek has a long history of having ship designs that are supposed to fit some sort of almost real world science rules (mixed of course with a healthy dose of complete fictional nonsense) so I can understand fans who are thrown by elements that don't seem to "make sense."
That is a fan created myth. Jefferies was mixing and matching identifiable sci-fi ships of the time to create the Enterprise. I don't think science entered the mix at all.
Fans are just use to the saucer being bigger than the secondary hull.
Chicken and egg. The designs were made - then rules were created to explain them - then other designs were based on those rules.
