USS Enterprise-D with retcon redesign

If Star Trek Picard producers decide to reappear USS Enterprise-D or Galaxy-class starship in some form, it is obvious that they will change some things. Will that change be radical as it was with USS Enterprise TOS to USS Enterprise DIS (known as Discoprise also)? No, I don't think so. First of all there is no need for that, bcs Galaxy Class from late 80s and early 90s even today looks fresh and futuristic. But changes will happen.

What is going on already?

USS Enteprise-D / Galaxy Class: Star Trek TNG vs. Star Trek PIC

- Different bussard collectors - three red balls
- Different look - now we have more darker metalic look
- Differenct neck - no windows

Photo:



We have also seen Ten Forward, it seems more or less intact.

But what will also change? Engine room, transporter room, coridors, main bridge???

I think that they will make everything bigger bcs of widescreen cameras nowadays.

I think they will remove carpeting and place shiny (more or less) floor/ground. I also think that they will remove small viewscreen and put there bigger or maybe even viewscreen - window.

And I think that they will put there LCARS full HD and digital like it was in Star Trek Picard Utopia Planitia room:



and retcon this stations:



What else?

 

1701-D was destroyed in "Generations". I doubt they'd rebuild much of the ship for anything more than what's necessary for a dream sequence.

I'm impressed at how PIC's interior consoles' teal/orange (from the video clip) manage to look far more bland and banal than "80s beige with blue, purple, and orange", and the hues used have more saturation to them.

Or is the idea to hide the person as if it's just wallpaper and the teal job wall panel is the exciting stuff?

That moment aside, onto what works great:

1701-D CGI still looks genuinely and unsarcastically impressive. The blue, teal, and red hues are perfect in detail. The "shiny tin can" hull hue admittedly grew on me. (Where are the light sources, and how many since its lighting looks a little weird but it's still an impressive CGI model.)

The lack of windows is inspired and adds a bit of gravitas as the forces and mechanics in keeping such a ship stable would be weakened if the main support neck was loaded with windows (transparent aluminum or not).

The DSC version of 1701 was actually pretty nice. Its shorter neck and wider-angled pylons grew on me as well. Retconning in the warp blue into the nacelle design was excellent.

 

Interesting. I hadn't noticed the bussards until you pointed them out. Seems like they were trying to make a subtle DSC reference. Either that, or PIC takes place in the Discoverse and not the prime universe...

 

Less manspreading?

 

I think there were always three bulbs.

 

The D had 2, the E had 3.
10 Forward is also 10 Slightly To Port in PIC - but it's only a dream anyway

 

Honestly, I would like that hypothesis.

 

.... ?!

They... they didn't destroy an actual ship in Generations, you know that right? They didn't have to "rebuild" anything for the dream sequence.

 

Where is this "no windows on the neck" thing coming from? What's all that texture there?

I believe they mean that as there will never be a call to have the Ent-D appear on screen for an extended period of time, there's no need to recreate much of it.

 

The physical ship model was destroyed in 1994.

PIC uses a completely new CGI model made from a computer.

You know that, right?

 

^^this

Why rebuild more of a set interior than necessary? And CGI has been the de facto standard since the mid-1990s. With a few exceptions, but I'm keeping this TLDR...

 

They weren't destroyed.

 

I gather that if there ever emerges a story need for either the E-D or a Galaxy class vessel, TPTB will either

a) again create a quick-and-dirty thing to do what is required of it, giving absolutely zero thought to any "change" or "evolution" or "retconning", or

b) create a detailed thing to do the in-focus job required of it, and for that purpose carefully researching and ending up with an utterly unaltered TNG vessel faithful to the original piece of plastic.

The thing in the SF HQ lobby ceiling was of the former type, and the symmetric Shuttlebays 2 and 3 will never be repeated. Background ships in LSD will never be shown in enough detail to count as "variants". But there might yet be a story need in PIC or even DSC for an actually accurate E-D or Galaxy, and the current stock won't serve so something new will be whipped up. Be it a or b.

(What nobody will do is refurbish an old model or piece of footage. That would be an incredible chore.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

So you think they will change nothing?

 

They could always visit the smashed remains of the D on Veridian III. Picard remembers he left his Q continuum wayfinder there.

 

If they do that, it should be like Cameron's Titanic. Picard as an old man returns to the rotting wreck and we see how the corridors transform back and forth from how they are now to how they were... XD

 

Really they need to make a better CGI model than what was in Picard. That model, even when I’ve seen online shots from HD origins, that ship looks like it’s from the Nintendo 64/PlayStation 1 era of CG. I hate to say it, but the E-D seen in “These Are The Voyages” looks better, even though overall Enterprise’s CG has never looked good.
But at the same time we have seen older footage of the E-D integrated into widescreen material, such as in “Star Trek Generations” where the under neck shot of the E-D separating was from “Encounter at Farpoint”, and the overhead flyby during Picard’s log about Data’s emotion chip and Dr.Crusher’s inability to remove it, was also from EAF. And with TNG’s Remaster, hopefully CBS saved the digital video files for the models, so that if they needed them in the future, they would have them.(plus the film was scanned at 2k, so the video would be 2k.)

 

The Enterprise-D filming model wasn't destroyed. They built a large model of the saucer section specifically for the crash landing.

 

The shuttle bay door on the saucer was slab like in that one

 

I feel like we won't see the D again for a while unless somewhere down the line someone wants to do a Trials and Tribble-ations type episode for some show. I wish there was a way to have them use the refurbished Star Trek Experience D bridge in a Short Trek. And have the E-E show up in Picard or another show.