• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

The Big E bridge: What changes WOULD you like?

Jadeb

Commodore
Commodore
The Enterprise thread has turned into an exterior ship design/visual reboot discussion, so I thought this might be a bit of fun. Maybe even illuminating. I frequently see the suggestion that TOS purists reject modernization, but I certainly don't -- I just want a general respect for what came before. So I'd be interested to see what everyone is willing (and unwilling) to compromise on. For me:

Needs updates:
The viewscreen can be bigger. Even much, much bigger. Semi-panoramic, if they like. The whole bridge can be bigger, for that matter.

The static displays above the consoles (the ones the characters have to look up to see) should be modern displays. It might be cool if each whole, long rectangular space were a single screen, rather than monitors inset into useless real estate.

The jellybean buttons can replaced with a combination of touchscreens and buttons, like on the Discovery.

The Burke chairs ought to be replaced so they don't look like, well, Burke chairs.

The helm console can be bigger and more arc shaped.

The astrogator needs updated. It can be a hologram for all I care.

The lighting can be dimmer, but hopefully brighter than on the Discovery.


Non-negotiable:
The bridge should be round and have the step-down pit design of the original. There must be a railing.

The nav and helm should be one unit, in the same relative position as in TOS.

There should be some blinky lights, as there are on Discovery.

There must be a pulsing light thingy under the viewscreen.

Would like the workstations to have the familiar U shape, though the U can be bigger.

If based on the main TOS design, the bridge should have some color like the original.

The turbolift door should be in its proper position, though it can be the shape of the Discovery doors.

No freestanding stations blocking sight lines like in the Abrams movies.


Preferences:
Would like to see some wood trim on the captain's chair. I always thought the organic material was a nice tactile touch that would be appreciated by a captain stuck in a ship for long periods.

Be cool if the crew chairs preserved the elegant tulip legs of the original, in some small way. That's very Star Trek. So are the pointy backrests.

Would like the back of the captain's chair to be the same height as the original and flat along the top, so that it doesn't extend above the captain's shoulders. It's not a throne.


You?
 
Last edited:
I'd like to see something like this.
xQAPOdvl.jpg
 
I wonder if this is somewhere on the bridge (I brightened it up a bit in photoshop)
vNyAV6V.png


one thing I noticed in the production trailer, was a lot of red on some sets, the wall next to Spock's quarters (or at least his in TOS), around this console/screen, and on the walls behind one of the shots showing the filming crew.

I'm thinking the enterprise's interior accent colour will be red. Which it sort of was in TOS

Edit:

Wow I never noticed how much red was on the TOS sets before.
 
Last edited:
I wonder if this is somewhere on the bridge (I brightened it up a bit in photoshop)
vNyAV6V.png


(Snip)

Wow I never noticed how much red was on the TOS sets before.

Gotta sell those color TVs.

I like the use of rectangles in that image -- echoes the original display designs. But too much blue. I want a warm feel to the Enterprise. I doubt we're getting it on the bridge, but I hope we do end up with lots of red overall.
 
The flashing, blinking lights mostly replaced. A few for old time's sake but that's it. The chairs more modernized. And that's about it for changes, if I were doing it.

I'd love if they kept the goose-necks from "The Cage" but that probably won't happen.

Forward! into the past, maybe.
View attachment 4699
A lot of what GR wanted either wasn’t feasible in 1964, or was cost prohibitive. This MA article has a lot of information about the genesis of the bridge. If I were designing the Disco-E, I’d start there.

This is a good design. If you squint, it looks kind of like the Discovery bridge. I like it, but not for the Enterprise. At least not during Pike's tenure. I like to imagine this is how it could've looked when April was in command.
 
You really don't even need to replace the flashing buttons with touch screens, just replace them with a modern keyboard style interface with LED lit keys.

I've never understood Sci-Fi's obsession with touch screens. No ship is going to use touch screens for control. It provides zero tactile feedback and touch screens suck to use for any sort of real control solution, this is why touch screen controllers are god-awful.

maxresdefault.jpg

This is a cockpit of an extremely modern plane, notice the lack of touch screens and instead for some reason glowing buttons exist?
 
As a contractor, I'm primarily a freelance Videographer, but I also work in control rooms for public access stations, and I use physical buttons, switches, and levers on the switchboards. I prefer it because I don't have to look at the buttons, I just have to feel them to switch cameras or adjust audio levels. Comes in handy if I have to make a snap-change and don't have time to think about it.

I'm not actually expecting them to do this in DSC, but I'll vouch for physical buttons.

The way I even type is dependent on physical buttons and being able to feel the keyboard, so I don't look at it. It wouldn't be the same if I were using a touch-screen keyboard for instance. It would be something slower and pokey.
 
Last edited:
This is a cockpit of an extremely modern plane, notice the lack of touch screens and instead for some reason glowing buttons exist?
DSC has glowing buttons as well.

The F-35 cockpit has a giant touch screen. With buttons along the sides for important stuff.

The Boeing 777 has touch screens, again with the important stuff having physical buttons/knobs.

Do you dislike TNG because everything is a touch screen?
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top