Reactions to the Kelvinverse Enterprise

[Lance]

to my taste, the most notable vehicles in film in the past ten years have been the ones a kid could draw: the bubble ship from oblivion, the lightcycles from TRON: legacy, krennic's shuttle from rogue one, and yes the enterprise from the kelvin timeline films. you compared the enterprise to an over-complicated sneaker, i see the opposite. one of the few examples of clean, simple, discernible design in cinema in this era -- this is obviously in the tradition of the clean style star trek has always had, but abrams and ryan church's embrace of this is also why the kelvin enterprise is so successful.

Reminds me of a quote from Rick Berman when they were designing the DS9 station: he said one of the real appeals of Matt Jefferies Enterprise was it's a design any kid can draw, it isn't "overdesigned", and he kept sending back early concepts for DS9 because of this. The final design of the station reflects this, less is more approach.

 

[pst]

You're not seeing what I'm seeing, then. For instance, the diagonal beams inside the shuttlebay are a great example of complexity for the sake of complexity, putting form over function. Then you have the brewery engine-room, etc... I mean, I can post screenshots and draw circles around things that don't make sense that seem sort of grafted on to provide more detail but I guess you will disagree.

ah. you’re talking about the interior engineering section. i understand the industrial bowels of the ship aren’t for everybody.

i was talking purely about the exterior design of the ship, that’s the iconic image of these films.

 

[Qonundrum]

So we're supposed to be forcibly emotionally appeased by indiscriminately throwaway dialogue taken grossly out of context from fictional movies as crutches such as "people can be frightened of change", whatever that means? At least there's a detailed representation of what's being told for the Kelvinverse 1701 design. And the revamped thing looks like a reject 1940s art deco pipe stove suffering from gigantism and morbid obesity. Note that I wasn't originally fond of the "D" either (looks like someone stomped on a clay mold of the 1701 then re-sculpted it) but the more I saw it on screen with its graceful curves and camera angles, it grew on me. All the Kelvinverse has a is a Star Wars warp effect.

If nothing else, all art and design are subjective.Some like it, some don't. It's one of the few universal truisms. Some hate the 1960s designs. It's all good.

As for Kelvinverse, if it piques the audience's interest to see what came before and how it differs on all levels, that's great - even the 80s movies have stronger themes being played with and they're action-based too. On its own, the Kelvinverse likely wouldn't have lasted two minutes if it didn't use the name "Star Trek". The first two movies just juggle some names and old movie/tv show scenes and plop them around for a thrill, having no real depth to any themes it might accidentally be putting out, mostly because they'd be semi-recycled in the process. I know because I did the same sort of schlock in high school creative writing class (just not slapping in the name "Star Trek"). At least "Star Trek Beyond" did a good job with its tale...

Then again, some TNG movies don't hold a candle to the TOS movies either and a couple TOS movies simply haven't held up thematically either... but Trek has always been best suited on television...

 

[fireproof78]

I guess I'm weird because when I see complex shapes I search and usually find their form.

For me, the Kelvin Enterprise could be best described as graceful, beautiful and powerful.

 

[Rahul]

Y'know, a lot of people probably don't remember this (I wasn't a member of this forum at the time, so I'm not sure how you guys handled it) but there was a LOT of negative reaction to the new USS Enterprise NCC-1701 as she appeared in the 2009 Star Trek. My question is: why? Was it that the new design was percieved to be a poorly crafted design? Was it because it was new, and "people can be frightened of change"? Or was the design picked on specifically due to the association with a movie that so many people reject as being too "Star wars-y"?

DISCLAIMER: It's not my favorite Enterprise, but the 2009 design isn't a bad ship by any stretch IMO. I LOVED both Star Trek 2009 AND Into Darkness, so there's also that possibility that I don't mind the design so much because I associate it with the movie(s) that dawned a shining new era of Star Trek, which I was eager to be a part of.

They really fucked it up by having THIS be the first shot:

That shot sucks balls. It was all part of J.J. Abrams weird idea of showing "scale" in making the ship "break the frame". EVERY shot in ST09 is like that. But the design is a very organic one, with lines flowing. It needs to be seen as a whole" Otherwise the curves and lines are weirdly cut up.

As a whole, I really started to love the design:

That being said, it has same weird issues: The nacelles are WAY too close to each other, and the secondary hull is too small in comparison to the saucer. The top view looks completely broken and out of proportion. But the side-, front- and rear-view look IMO extremely great and like a perfect update of the original design.

Bonus points for actually being tall. Since the end of TNG, all Star Trek ships are flat as flounders - they even flatened the Enterprise on Discovery! - making them all (Defiant, Voyager, NX-01, Disco) look weird from the side and the top view the only "good" angle to capture the whole ship. This one is the opposite - and looks utterly magnificant from the side!

 

[Rahul]

Ryan Church's original design featured slightly wider nacelles and it looks pretty much perfect, imo

Holy shit!
That's it! That are the perfect proportions for the design! That's how it should look like!
It's beautiful. I want THAT.

 

[PixelMagic]

A few more renderings of the 1701-A I've done since the ones pst posted, if you're interested. Note, this model is based off extensive reference or the actual Beyond CGI model, so it's easily 95% accurate to the shape/details.

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Beauty render

Interior Work in Progress (unfinished as of yet)

A couple of helm console doodles. Not sure which direction I'll go here...

 

[Smellmet]

They are awesome. I must admit on the two moving bits of footage (I've seen the second one before) it gets some real nice angles. I don't think what we saw of it in beyond was very flattering to be honest. The first one looks like a redo of the end of TVH. It's sterling, movie standard work either way.

 

[pst]

interesting how close she looks to the 09 version from this angle and in your voyage home recreation. also really appreciate the blue markings they gave her (and you've included in your renders)... it's the rare starfleet vessel in the franchise with blue pin striping these days.

 

[Mudd]

I loved the JJPrise when I first saw it.

I'm not much of a fan of its successor, the "A."

 

[dswynne1]

Wait, but in that case, why not amp up the heresy and focus on Kirk’s Academy days and first mission on the Aegis itself, without shoehorning 2267 into 2258? No Chekov, McCoy, Pike, Scotty, Spock, Sulu, Uhura; just Finnegan, Marcus, Mitchell, Ruth and other characters that make sense. Isn’t that some impact Nero supposedly had on the timeline?

Actually, I'd go see such a film. Hell, why not just have a Pike film?

 

[fireproof78]

Hell, why not just have a Pike film?

I personally would love a Pike film, either Greenwood or Mount at this point.

 

[Gabriel]

Well I owe the Kelvin universe. If it wasn’t for it I would have never gotten into Star Trek. About 5 or so years ago I finally found out about Star Wars. My mom had the discs. One day she said I should try Star Trek. She had all the movies on dvd. I thought I wouldn’t like it. She said to start with Star Trek the motion picture. I got confused. I thought she was just talking old and meant the first Star Trek film so I picked the first film that was an order from left to right. She had Star Wars in order so I thought she would have Star Trek in order. She didn’t. I end up watching Star Trek 09. Star Trek 09 is not the best Star Trek movie but it’s a good action movie. I liked it. It wasn’t until days later when I found out my error. And while I like Star Trek the motion picture today. If I had watched it That day. I probably would have passed Over Star Trek. Because especially for younger audiences Star Trek 09 is a lot more interesting than Star Trek the motion picture.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm 35, I've been a fan all my life and I think 2009 Star Trek is the best Trek movie

 

[Gabriel]

One thing I like about the Kelvin universe is the enterprise. Well people don’t really like how they redesigned it I happen to really like it. It could be because that was the first enterprise I ever saw In great detail. Then again I could also be that I seem to like starships other people don’t like. I for example I like the sovereign class. I actually preferred it over the galaxy class. Don’t give me wrong the galaxy class is a nice ship but to me the sovereign is better. One thing about the constitution class (Ryan church version) it’s a while like the first version and the second version I don’t really like the third version (beyond) whenever they slim the neck and how the saucer stick out more. And why didn’t really like the refit it has grown on me. I have also grown to like the other ships we saw in Star Trek 09. However I definitely do not like vengeance just too massive and frankly a little bit on the ugly side. I don’t think I like with the coping universe is are the uniforms they look a lot more refined. Although I will admit the Admiral rank stripes a little weird. However I do like the dress uniform and I’ll see you like the fact that they actually get them a cover (Military for hat). I know that’s old fashion by their time but it’s still kind of completes the look. By the way I know this is bit a topic but did somebody ever write a book or something explaining about what happened Federation when they found out (prime or kelvin) the romulan are related to the Vulcans. Im sure it wouldn’t be a big deal I’m sure they trust the Vulcans by now

 

[Scout101]

Wasn't great, but didn't hate it. Things change, it's fine. The interior, however, was kinda dumb. Didn't make a ton of sense as a spaceship. Or much of anything else. The Engineering/brewery section was particularly bad. I could get over the Apple Genius Bar bridge set, at least.

Discovery did the Enterprise a ton better (except for the random turbolift scene where the ship is apparently a hollow waste of space. Pretty perfect exterior and definitely beautiful bridge that calls back the series much better

 

[F. King Daniel]

Discovery did the Enterprise a ton better (except for the random turbolift scene where the ship is apparently a hollow waste of space. Pretty perfect exterior and definitely beautiful bridge that calls back the series much better

The Turbolift Funhouse™ is on the USS Discovery, not the Enterprise (the Enterprise just fits 100+ shuttles, drones and fighters now... TOS would have played out quite differently if their Enterprise could do that)

 

[Nyotarules]

Looked fine to me, but I'm not a Star Trek tech design fan

 

[Kor]

Mainly I think the nacelles look bulbous and grotesque. The rest of the ship looks fine to me.

Kor

 

[Scout101]

The Turbolift Funhouse™ is on the USS Discovery, not the Enterprise (the Enterprise just fits 100+ shuttles, drones and fighters now... TOS would have played out quite differently if their Enterprise could do that)

Sorry, you're right. Neither of them understand interior space, i guess. At least the DISCOPrise interiors were otherwise better, and I'll just ignore the incredibly stupid turbolift scene.