"Enterprise" too advanced for 22nd Century

[Christopher]

Isn't that added in post production? I always thought background extras just move their mouths not saying anything just like there's no music during dance scenes.

Well, of course the practice was used on the stage for millennia before film was invented, and still is. Of course most dialogue and sound effects you hear in movies and TV are added in post-production, but either way, the method of creating background-crowd sounds is the same.

And yes, there is music played back on the set during singing or dancing scenes, so that the performers have something to sync to. It's just that it gets dubbed over with a studio-recorded track in post-production for better audio quality. I have an old bootleg album of discarded Star Trek audio tracks from the third season (which I bought decades ago before I understood what bootlegs were), including some on-set audio of the song scenes from "The Way to Eden." The songs have a doubled-over quality, because the actors on set are actually singing along with the on-set playback of the songs recorded earlier in the studio -- because just silently lip-syncing wouldn't look quite the same as actually vocalizing and putting breath into it. But later on, in post-production, the clean studio tracks of the songs would've been dubbed over the set audio, giving us what we hear in the final episode.

 

[Prax]

David Gerrold referred to it in one of his behind-the-scenes Trek books (probably The Trouble With Tribbles) as "natter and grommish." "Walla" is the more commonly used term for the practice, though.

That might be it, but it still doesn't sound familiar. I've heard it mentioned in various places and interviews not necessarily related to star trek. I was trying to figure it out a while back and just couldn't remember, and was reminded of it on this thread. I've never read any Trek books or related BHS material.

Isn't that added in post production? I always thought background extras just move their mouths not saying anything just like there's no music during dance scenes.

It can also be used in on stage performances. There must be different words that work. When a bunch of people say it over and over in the background, it sounds like numerous conversations are taking place.

 

[Kor]

When the ship design was first revealed, there were complaints that it looked "too advanced." Eaves or Drexler or somebody posted a rebuttal on their site, showing the various ways in which it was based on retro designs and deliberately made to look primitive. I wish I could find that now.

Kor

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I like how the NX had handholds all over the place, presumably in case the artificial gravity ever failed. Suggesting that gravity plating was still new when the ship was designed.

 

[Tuskin38]

When the ship design was first revealed, there were complaints that it looked "too advanced." Eaves or Drexler or somebody posted a rebuttal on their site, showing the various ways in which it was based on retro designs and deliberately made to look primitive. I wish I could find that now.

Kor

I could have sworn Ex Astris Scientia has some of the points, but I can't seem to find them, so I must be misremembering.

That's where haptic feedback comes in. According to the TNG Tech Manual, the touchscreens include a "transducer matrix" that generates tactile feedback so users can feel the buttons without needing to see them. There's a similar technology used in advanced touchscreens today, using vibrating actuators under the touchscreen that create the tactile impression of a textured surface: http://blog.caranddriver.com/we-try...ouch-screen-are-touched-by-its-effectiveness/

In Year of Hell Tuvok activates tactile interface (I'm assuming something similar to braille) when he is blinded. Could be part of the same system.

 

[Saul]

I could have sworn Ex Astris Scientia has some of the points, but I can't seem to find them, so I must be misremembering.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/enterprise_design_comment.htm
Scroll down the page.

 

[johnar]

Does anyone else think that "Star Trek: Enterprise" was too advanced for the 22nd Century?

From the sleek starship design of the Enterprise NX-01, which should have been more retro or more inline toward the pre-Constitution class, rather than the Akira-class looking one we got, to the 24th century style rank pips. Why would they use 24th century style rank rips? Couldn't the designers come up with a different rank pips for that period?

The uniforms were also wrong and ugly for the period. Should have been more like "The Cage" style era uniforms or completely different.

To the inside of the Enterprise itself. I think it was still far too sleeker. Although it did have push buttons like the Constitution class starship, the monitors and that were too advanced. The bridge resembled that of NASA control room.

Also, why did Captain Archer have a ready-room when Captain Kirk did not? They should have held their meetings in a briefing room or something similar.

It should've gone backwards, but instead they were stuck in the same 24th century style era. I think you can thank Rick Berman and Brannon Braga for that.

I hope non of my points were previously mentioned before.

Timeline interfered with by Star Trek First Contact.

None of the incursions into the past were without consequence / change in the timeline from that point onward.

Cochrane saw the Enterprise E through a telescope and in space before the first jump to warp speed (with two future passengers). Lily Sloane was aboard the big E and was an engineer / co-builder of the Phoenix. Wouldn't she have had influence on the Warp 5 project?

Personally I think folks were too hard on Berman and Braga who did an excellent job with ENT. Even with the boycott / fan fall off they managed a fourth season that was also brilliant.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Timeline interfered with by Star Trek First Contact.

None of the incursions into the past were without consequence / change in the timeline from that point onward.

Cochrane saw the Enterprise E through a telescope and in space before the first jump to warp speed (with two future passengers). Lily Sloane was aboard the big E and was an engineer / co-builder of the Phoenix. Wouldn't she have had influence on the Warp 5 project?

You can't prove that those events weren't part of history all along.

 

[Christopher]

Timeline interfered with by Star Trek First Contact.

None of the incursions into the past were without consequence / change in the timeline from that point onward.

That was not the producers' intention. Their goal from the start was to show the origin of the Trek history we already knew, not to create a separate branch. I mean, look at season 4 and how much it did to set up the TOS we know -- the Vulcans undergoing reform and embracing melding again, the ridgeless Klingons being created, the first steps in the Romulan War and the alliance that would become the Federation. And as dreadful as "These Are the Voyages..." was, surely the fact that it was supposedly set during "The Pegasus" proves that Berman & Braga intended ENT to be the history that led to TNG.

 

[Anthony Sabre]

Funny. The only aspect of ENT I ever thought was too advanced was the special effects. Otherwise, the technology in the series fit the time period quite well.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Funny. The only aspect of ENT I ever thought was too advanced was the special effects. Otherwise, the technology in the series fit the time period quite well.

What you wanted 60s era production values?

 

[F. King Daniel]

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/enterprise_design_comment.htm
Scroll down the page.

EAS: Yelling at clouds since 2001.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

EAS can be super, super nerdy at times. But I do visit there occasionally so what do I know

 

[Tuskin38]

He also hate-watches things because of the website. Hes going to sit through Discovery only because he needs to for the website, even though hes been very vocal about his extreme dislike of what hes seen so far.

 

[Prax]

I think that there are many different contributors on that site, and more than one person writing articles.

 

[johnar]

You can't prove that those events weren't part of history all along.

Omission, my friend. Simple omission.
Before Cochrane's disappearance, he spoke of people from the future. ← not in any other version of Trek or reference to the man.

IMO, even the time travel events prior to TOS "the naked time" resulted after that timeline alteration.

 

[Christopher]

Before Cochrane's disappearance, he spoke of people from the future. ← not in any other version of Trek or reference to the man.

He was disbelieved, so there's no reason people would've brought it up. It would've just been dismissed as one of his quirks.

 

[johnar]

He was disbelieved, so there's no reason people would've brought it up. It would've just been dismissed as one of his quirks.

Possibly. But complete omission until ENT? Doubtful.
I see your point, but I can also see that the incursion into time past in Naked Time as the very first.

 

[Mytran]

By the time of TOS, nobody gave much though to Cochrane except as a historical figure. Do we really sit down and discuss the tales of the Wright brothers every time we board a 747?

I can also see that the incursion into time past in Naked Time as the very first.

I would say that the casual way Kirk comes to the conclusion that they are in a time warp in Naked Time suggests that time warps are always a possibly with warp engines, even if they are rare these days.
Perhaps in the early days of human FTL exploration many vessels were hurled back in time due to improperly balanced warp engines? If they went on to colonise planets in the distant past, it would certainly help to explain all the exactly human-like aliens that the TOS-E used to encounter.

 

[Christopher]

Possibly. But complete omission until ENT? Doubtful.

Why? Zefram Cochrane was never even mentioned in TOS outside of "Metamorphosis," except for a throwaway reference to the "Cochrane deceleration maneuver" in "Whom Gods Destroy." TNG and DS9 contain exactly zero references to Cochrane as a person, only to the occasional thing named after him (e.g. shuttles, measurement units, and institutions). He was referenced only four times in Voyager, one of which did, in fact, reference the time travel from FC.

Here's the dialogue exchange about it from ENT: "Regeneration":

ARCHER: There was something familiar about all this, but I couldn't put my finger on it until I find this speech Zefram Cochrane made eighty nine years ago. When I was a kid, I read everything I could about him. It took me a while, but I finally found it in the database. He was giving a commencement address at Princeton when he started to talk about what really happened during First Contact. He mentioned a group of cybernetic creatures from the future who tried to stop his first warp flight when he was living in Montana. He said they were defeated by a group of humans who were also from the future.
T'POL: As I recall, Cochrane was famous for his imaginative stories. He was also known to be frequently intoxicated.
ARCHER: No one took him seriously, and he recanted the whole thing a few years later. But you have to admit, there are similarities.

Even Archer, who had known Cochrane personally, had trouble tracking down this mostly-forgotten anecdote. It was barely mentioned in the history books because it was dismissed as a drunken fantasy and was retracted by Cochrane himself. Given the hagiographic approach later history took to the man, they surely glossed over his drinking and his eccentricities, so most people learning about Cochrane in school would never have heard this story.