Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Longinus]

People would probably then just bitch about how not having the starships clearly on screen is obviously a sign that the fx people did shoddy work. Damned if they do damned if they don't.

I'm sure someone would, but you can try to counter any criticism that way. You can always find someone to complain about anything. Always. And it is not like they routinely have shown ships clearly on Discovery either. Ironically this episode has perhaps the clearest shot of the Magee class. Furthermore, the lack in quality is much more excusable by this being an eight minute short than a failure on more conceptual level.

 

[Jesse1066]

As far as I'm concerned that's a Magee-STYLE ship and not actually one, any more than the Prometheus-class starship thrown into the Battle of Procyon V with the Enterprise-J was really a 180-year-old Federation starship.

Just an easy reuse of an existing GCI model to save money.

I'll just imagine it looked like this.

 

[Noname Given]

More excusable in the time of physical models and the fact that other designs literally didn't exist unlike now, and less jarring due the smaller time gap between the eras.

Oh please...because it didn't bother you, it's 'more acceptable'.


And please since STP takes place in 2399 - that's 35 years since the first episode of TNG (in universe) - and CoM takes place probably 10 years before that. Given Starfleet was still using Oberon's, Mirandas as well as Excelsiors; all through the run of TNG and even into the TNG feature film era - no, it really ISN'T that much of a time gap.

 

[Longinus]

I'll just imagine it looked like this.

Where is this from (STO?) and why didn't it look like that?

 

[fireproof78]

Furthermore, the lack in quality is much more excusable by this being an eight minute short than a failure on more conceptual level.

It being an 8 minute short is an excuse for lots of things.

 

[Captain Shaw]

it's so much easier to justify the reuse of models in that episode (or the horrendous kitbash ships in DS9, among other things) because they were in the background and not quite so easily scrutinized. "children of mars" put these anachronistic ships front and center. but obviously your mileage my vary.

There was no excuse for the yeager class.

 

[Jesse1066]

Where is this from (STO?) and why didn't it look like that?

Yeah, it's from STO, and it probably didn't look like this because it only exists as a (relatively) low poly videogame model.

 

[Oniramen]

I think people are blowing things way out of proportion. The Short Treks don't have the same budget that the actual shows do, and I'm just really happy to have new Trek to absorb. This being said by someone who will happily obsess over starship design, pour over blueprints, and talk about the difference between ships and what their mission profiles might be. I really think people have primed themselves for the worst-case scenario, and are letting their fear drive their opinions.

 

[Noname Given]

I think people are blowing things way out of proportion. The Short Treks don't have the same budget that the actual shows do, and I'm just really happy to have new Trek to absorb. This being said by someone who will happily obsess over starship design, pour over blueprints, and talk about the difference between ships and what their mission profiles might be. I really think people have primed themselves for the worst-case scenario, and are letting their fear drive their opinions.

^^^^
TLDR - Just another day ending in "y" on TREKBBS

 

[BillJ]

I'll just imagine it looked like this.

My eyes!

 

[Oniramen]

^^^^
TLDR - Just another day ending in "y" on TREKBBS

Maybe, I'm new here lol. I would like to say that I'm impressed with how cool headed people have been in this thread. I've seen way bigger meltdowns, more heated arguments, and just meanness come out in the last couple days in other fan communities.

 

[Henoch]

Maybe, I'm new here lol. I would like to say that I'm impressed with how cool headed people have been in this thread. I've seen way bigger meltdowns, more heated arguments, and just meanness come out in the last couple days in other fan communities.

In the end, we are all Trek fans, or we wouldn't be on this site.

 

[Longinus]

I think people are blowing things way out of proportion. The Short Treks don't have the same budget that the actual shows do, and I'm just really happy to have new Trek to absorb. This being said by someone who will happily obsess over starship design, pour over blueprints, and talk about the difference between ships and what their mission profiles might be. I really think people have primed themselves for the worst-case scenario, and are letting their fear drive their opinions.

It is just a bit worrying because they're making the Picard at the same time and should be able to borrow period appropriate assets from that show... and if they don't have them either, then that's a bigger problem.

 

[valkyrie013]

Most of the work is in Maya, the Eaglemoss ones are made off of lightwave, You can do model conversion, actually quite easily.. As a person who uses these programs, its realitivly easy to import the base model into a new program. However.. when it comes to the textures it could be a mess, and then your dealing with a model that was made with very little detail.. so some clean up and re texturing is a minimum.. and sometimes that can take longer than starting from scratch...
Even if they got it from eaglemoss, still would have to import it, clean it up, re texture, re LIGHT it.. take a few days atleast.
So i go to my original thought..
No budget to make new ships, not given time ( which costs money) so they just used something that was screen ready like the ship, the tug, the work bees, hell even the dock.. Now us looking at it.. Yes.. they should have tossed a few days worth of money for a few guys/girls/they/shen to put a new (old) ship in.

No new Tng and forward stuff has been on tv/movie since 2004 ( ending of the garbage Enterprise Seres finale) with the Ent D. so no Akira, no voyager, no promethius.. nothing, with a thought of.. Can they even find it??

 

[fireproof78]

I think people are blowing things way out of proportion. The Short Treks don't have the same budget that the actual shows do, and I'm just really happy to have new Trek to absorb. This being said by someone who will happily obsess over starship design, pour over blueprints, and talk about the difference between ships and what their mission profiles might be. I really think people have primed themselves for the worst-case scenario, and are letting their fear drive their opinions.

I think you are on point in terms of fear. There is a huge level of fear that the production doesn't care. Well, in a one way they don't care...the way that we fans do, who can pour the time over starship design, blueprints and the like. They care about what kind of product they put out in terms of the quality and the presentation while working within constraints of time and budget.

I think the production teams do far better work than they will ever be given credit for.

 

[cooleddie74]

I'll just imagine it looked like this.

The Defiant's ugly cousin!

 

[pst]

I think the production teams do far better work than they will ever be given credit for.

for sure. it's entirely likely for whatever behind the scenes practical reasons it came down to "should we use these ships? or should we have no ships?" and the people behind the scenes chose to just go ahead and use them. probably not the greatest choice, but it was likely done somewhat thoughtfully and in no way intended to make people like us' heads explode. but oops.

 

[Jesse1066]

The Defiant's ugly cousin!

"She may have flaws, but she has teeth."

 

[cooleddie74]

And she looks better than the DSC Shran.

 

[NCC-73515]

I think it's ultimately the studio telling them what to use