USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?
- Thread starter EJD1984
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She's about 85-90% there. And let's face it, the Enterprise's impulse deck changed configuration more than once before the regular series went into production so the idea that the NCC-1701 had just one look for her impulse engines following her launch was destroyed in, oh, 1965.
The lighting is just DSC's idea of "edgy." Hopefully she'll look brighter and be exposed to more direct lighting sources in Season 2.
The lighting is just DSC's idea of "edgy." Hopefully she'll look brighter and be exposed to more direct lighting sources in Season 2.
Apparently, space is dark.
It's a neutral-gray reflective metal. Think bare aluminum or maybe steel. It's Columbia NX-02 to Discovery's golden NX-01. EDIT: new NCC-1701 reminds me more than a little of the NX-01 Refit Drexler came up with a few years back. Some of the shapes are similar.
I made no color corrections to this still.
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And the Enterprise herself was always more of a robin's egg blue or grey if you listen to some of the people who worked with the original shooting model back in the '60s. She's not as dark to the eye as the NX-01 but definitely not as bright and pearlescent as the TOS and TOS-Remastered appearances of the ship.
I stuck with them for a season, just to give the show a hearing, rather than not watch and rely on second-hand information, but CBS and DSC's showrunners have told me loudly and clearly that my presence in their audience is not desired, tonight's final shot of the finale was them kicking me out of the door
It looks like she still has the tractor beam emitter on the underside of her engineering hull. It may not be the yellow circle with a red outline but there's a shape of some kind where the tractor beam is located in TOS.
See you for the premiere.
It... could've been better. My biggest objection is the shortened neck making the whole ship look like it's scrunching down (and right after we fixed the JJ-Prise having it's engines too close together making it look hunched-up in the shoulders. Overcorrecting!), and the TMP-style nacelle pylons. That fantail is pretty gross, too. And why did they move the black grill on the nacelles so far back from the dome? Why even have it at all?
Moreover, it doesn't really look like a Discovery ship. Every single other ship, even the relatively-unique Discovery, has been pretty standardized in terms of parts and pieces and textures, but this is entirely its own thing. The TOS pennants are great, but I don't understand why they're there, given all the other ships used the TMP pennants with the arrowhead.
I don't know, I've been trying to brace myself mentally for this by telling myself Star Trek is transitioning to a more loose production-design philosophy, using the Halo game series as a point-of-reference, where virtually everything that appears from one game to the next is redesigned, either moderately or radically, even after technical advancements stopped being a concern. They just dick around with how everything looks for the hell of it, which is a mixed bag considering I have my own favorite incarnations of various ships and props and characters, but the benefit is that every production team (generally) is producing a unified, cohesive product. The old stuff looks recognizably (usually) like it did, but also of a kind with the new stuff stylistically. This, though... it looks like they did it in a vacuum, without much thought for how it fits in with Discovery or the DSC Starfleet style. It looks like any generic "update the Enterprise" you might see on-line, especially in the way a lot of them can make it seem kind of dinky and toy-like by thickening up the proportions, making it look blobby, rather than muscular (which I'm sure was the goal), which is another issue this version has.
And, of course, they've also got the problem that the TOS design was already updated once, and it was perfect. That would've been my first step if I couldn't just gussy up the original. "Look at everything that didn't change between the series and the first movie. You can't change that either. Anything else, you can change, but not the same way as they changed it for the movie. Make sure it looks more like the series version than the movie one when you're done. Go."
I really think this cliffhanger tease was a terrible idea. It doesn't offer anything beyond the promise of fanservice (not even actual fanservice), it seems designed to imply the Discovery crew is going to be overshadowed in their own season premiere, and it hems them into a starship team-up when they clearly haven't come up with a good idea for it, yet, or else they would've ended with that. Even if they were committed internally to using the Enterprise in the next season premiere, they should've kept their powder dry and devoted the full strength of season two pre-production to redesigning the exterior, especially since they're aching for some sort of VFX reckoning with regards to style, polish, and consistency that'll probably alter the look of exteriors in the show. I wasn't expecting the Star Trek Beyond version of the Enterprise-A to appear in the next movie as-is since the next director would almost certainly have their own desires for what a new Enterprise should look like, and they've opened up exactly the same issue on DSC. I'd say there's no more than a 50/50 chance that that model appears as we saw it tonight in season two.
Moreover, it doesn't really look like a Discovery ship. Every single other ship, even the relatively-unique Discovery, has been pretty standardized in terms of parts and pieces and textures, but this is entirely its own thing. The TOS pennants are great, but I don't understand why they're there, given all the other ships used the TMP pennants with the arrowhead.
I don't know, I've been trying to brace myself mentally for this by telling myself Star Trek is transitioning to a more loose production-design philosophy, using the Halo game series as a point-of-reference, where virtually everything that appears from one game to the next is redesigned, either moderately or radically, even after technical advancements stopped being a concern. They just dick around with how everything looks for the hell of it, which is a mixed bag considering I have my own favorite incarnations of various ships and props and characters, but the benefit is that every production team (generally) is producing a unified, cohesive product. The old stuff looks recognizably (usually) like it did, but also of a kind with the new stuff stylistically. This, though... it looks like they did it in a vacuum, without much thought for how it fits in with Discovery or the DSC Starfleet style. It looks like any generic "update the Enterprise" you might see on-line, especially in the way a lot of them can make it seem kind of dinky and toy-like by thickening up the proportions, making it look blobby, rather than muscular (which I'm sure was the goal), which is another issue this version has.
And, of course, they've also got the problem that the TOS design was already updated once, and it was perfect. That would've been my first step if I couldn't just gussy up the original. "Look at everything that didn't change between the series and the first movie. You can't change that either. Anything else, you can change, but not the same way as they changed it for the movie. Make sure it looks more like the series version than the movie one when you're done. Go."
I really think this cliffhanger tease was a terrible idea. It doesn't offer anything beyond the promise of fanservice (not even actual fanservice), it seems designed to imply the Discovery crew is going to be overshadowed in their own season premiere, and it hems them into a starship team-up when they clearly haven't come up with a good idea for it, yet, or else they would've ended with that. Even if they were committed internally to using the Enterprise in the next season premiere, they should've kept their powder dry and devoted the full strength of season two pre-production to redesigning the exterior, especially since they're aching for some sort of VFX reckoning with regards to style, polish, and consistency that'll probably alter the look of exteriors in the show. I wasn't expecting the Star Trek Beyond version of the Enterprise-A to appear in the next movie as-is since the next director would almost certainly have their own desires for what a new Enterprise should look like, and they've opened up exactly the same issue on DSC. I'd say there's no more than a 50/50 chance that that model appears as we saw it tonight in season two.
There's enough of the old girl still there, but with a few plastic surgeon upgrades and new makeup for the 21st Century...
Isn't it a shame that that "60's" styling is sooo outdated that They felt the need to completely change it.
<SNARK>
Heh ... now They have a year to figure out a way to completely fubar it.
Isn't it a shame that that "60's" styling is sooo outdated that They felt the need to completely change it.
<SNARK>
Heh ... now They have a year to figure out a way to completely fubar it.
Even so, we got the absolutely amazing time-lapse construction sequence justifying building an all-new Enterprise that'll be lucky to only be changed as much as the STID version was altered for Beyond when it makes its proper debut. Were that tonight's appearance was so well-motivated.
The nacelles are basically the nacelles from "WNMHGB" with the support pylons from TMP and the inner chiller bar/grill of the NX-01. They're close enough to the originals to be recognizable while still being different.
Well, they needed something for people to make a fuss about for the next year, so the Internet doesn't forget about the show.
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