What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Mudd]

That's almost exactly my opinion of the Ent-E.

Except that, the way you're putting it, it sounds like it's intentionally designed to look bad from all of the other angles. I don't believe that for even a hot second, in either case, or pretty much any other (similar) situation for that matter.

I'm not even saying that special care was given only to certain angles while literally ignoring or neglecting all the others angles, really.

But as a sarcastic criticism of the end result, yeah, that's almost exactly my opinion of the Ent-E.

It's what ILM's guys said about the Refit, while working on ST III.

And they were right. Trek ship design is complicated and specific enough that every one of them has "good sides" and bad sides, and they aren't the same from ship to ship.

Years later, TNG folks photographing the D said they'd started out with the mandate to shoot a library of stock shots matching those from TOS - close profile moving screen left and right, etc. - and discovered that the ship didn't look good in all of them. The famous angle of the TOS ship approaching and passing above the camera was not so great - in their judgments - but moving away with the camera below and behind was good.

They said that the eye "wanted" to see the saucer as a circle, and the fact that it was a wide oval often made it look distorted and somehow wrong.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

but moving away with the camera below and behind was good

View attachment 52870

That was a beauty, no question! I knew which one you meant, even before the pic!

They said that the eye "wanted" to see the saucer as a circle, and the fact that it was a wide oval often made it look distorted and somehow wrong.

It's what ILM's guys said about the Refit, while working on ST III.

And they were right. Trek ship design is complicated and specific enough that every one of them has "good sides" and bad sides, and they aren't the same from ship to ship.

Interesting!

 

[137th Gebirg]

The TMP refit had no bad angles. To me, anyway.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

The TMP refit had no bad angles. To me, anyway.

Indeed that Enterprise was a beautiful ship. It just looked lovely from every angle.


Just on that what were some of the open panels on the underside of the saucer? When they started that whole flyby sequence with Kirk you see a couple of largish panels open on the underside of the saucer like they were large spaces for something, at least that's how I remember it. Haven't watched any version of TMP in a long time

 

[Maurice]

The -D's main fault, if you can call it that, is that you can't shoot it at typical distances from slightly above and the front unless you're willing to let the entirety of the ship, except the saucer top, disappear.

 

[Dukhat]

the thing about the jjprise is that it does look good... from certain angles. and it looks like it was designed specifically to look good only in those angles.

I've mentioned this before, but the Abramsprise always looked to me like it was designed by three different people who had no communication with the others about how the individual parts would go together.

Guy #1: designed the saucer. Just took the TMP refit saucer and made minimal changes.

Guy #2: designed the secondary hull and nacelle pylons. Started out by mashing the TOS and TMP hulls together, then decided that for some reason the hull needed to seriously taper to the back, and have the pylons be curvy and super-thin.

Guy #3: designed the nacelles. Went with round nacelles and some afterthoughts of fins, but that's where the resemblance to the TOS nacelles end. Decided that they needed to be ridiculously oversized (especially considering the pylons they would be attached to), and apparently took cues from the Gold Key comics with exhaust coming from the ends of the nacelles.

When you put this all together, it looks like some strange mishmash of parts that are out of scale and makes the whole ship look severely unbalanced. The thing is, I know that only one guy, Ryan Church, designed the ship, not three guys. And Church's other ships were just fine. It makes me think that he just made what other people told him to make without regard to aesthetics. And, to top all that off, they then decided to ridiculously upscale the ship despite it not making sense with the size of the escape pod hatch Kirk's pod shoots out of.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I love you too Enterprise D but from side on and some angles you make me laugh and think you are a duck

 

[korblborp]

i don't think they deliberately made the rest of it look bad, just focussed on certain angles, and the fish-eyeing effect, when designing it. things like the nacelles being so extremely tapered and rising at the back (side note: i always thought they looked like the Doomsday machine, and don't know if that was purposeful), and being too close together...

Went with round nacelles

and they don't stay that way, they square off at the back!


can't really fault Church for following instructions he's given, conflicting as they seemed to be but

and they tweaked her between movies, making the already weird bits weirder and weirder...

 

[Forbin]

I really can't say a single good thing about the JJPrise, I'm sorry. I saw no good angles, not a single sensible feature, and an overall design that had no attractiveness at all. I like Dukhat's description, like it was mashed together from parts made by different people. A bad kitbash (and yeah, I know I've mad a few).

 

[Farscape One]

I really can't say a single good thing about the JJPrise, I'm sorry. I saw no good angles, not a single sensible feature, and an overall design that had no attractiveness at all. I like Dukhat's description, like it was mashed together from parts made by different people. A bad kitbash (and yeah, I know I've mad a few).

Agreed.

I thought the JJ Enterprise was ugly.

 

[Tallguy]

I really can't say a single good thing about the JJPrise, I'm sorry. I saw no good angles, not a single sensible feature, and an overall design that had no attractiveness at all. I like Dukhat's description, like it was mashed together from parts made by different people. A bad kitbash (and yeah, I know I've mad a few).

It's incredibly well rendered. It's one of the examples I use when people say something like "CG will never be as good as models" or "I can just TELL when it's CG". A model may have looked as good. But never better.

The JJPrise was as gorgeous as it was ever going to be. A beautiful presentation of a fugly design.

 

[Forbin]

It's incredibly well rendered. It's one of the examples I use when people say something like "CG will never be as good as models" or "I can just TELL when it's CG". A model may have looked as good. But never better.

The JJPrise was as gorgeous as it was ever going to be. A beautiful presentation of a fugly design.

On that level I can agree, yeah, CGI rendering has reached that quality.

 

[seti alpha]

I think one of my most controversial Star Trek opinions is that the "Saucer and Nacelles" design / layout is done too much. It feels too "samey" in a sense? I like the idea of there being a lot of different Federation ships that don't have that layout.

The Enterprise NX-01 is probably my favorite design of the ships since it feels "bold" to me.

Agreed, and one of my favorite things about prequel type shows like Enterprise was getting to see Vulcan and Andorian ships from before Starfleet when they had their own ‘space navies.’ I’d love to see more unique Tellarite, Orion, Caitain, etc designs, like one can see in Star Trek Online.

 

[MurphyCooper]

Agreed, and one of my favorite things about prequel type shows like Enterprise was getting to see Vulcan and Andorian ships from before Starfleet when they had their own ‘space navies.’ I’d love to see more unique Tellarite, Orion, Caitain, etc designs, like one can see in Star Trek Online.

Yeah. I will re-iterate that the "Saucer and Nacelles" look is so over-rated and overdone that it overshadows other more unique designs.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I love the Vulcan ring ships, and those ones they used to land in First Contact, those were pretty neat

 

[cooleddie74]

The Vulcan ring ships were a perfect nod to both Vulcan culture and the original Matt Jefferies ringship design for the TOS Enterprise.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

The Vulcan ring ships were a perfect nod to both Vulcan culture and the original Matt Jefferies ringship design for the TOS Enterprise.

I wish we had seen that very early version of the Enterprise, I was hoping that the series that bares its name would have shown at least one version of that ship in flight but disappointment.

 

[cooleddie74]

At least the ringship Enterprise was made canon by both TMP and "First Flight(ENT)."

 

[Ceridwen]

I wish we had seen that very early version of the Enterprise, I was hoping that the series that bares its name would have shown at least one version of that ship in flight but disappointment.

You might be interested in the penultimate episode of Lower Decks.

 

[drt]

The Vulcan ring ships were a perfect nod to both Vulcan culture and the original Matt Jefferies ringship design for the TOS Enterprise.

The problem with the 22nd century Vulcan ringships is the design was technologically superior to the saucer-and-nacelles ships, which in the real world would have meant humans would have copied the superior design and never even bothered with the saucer-and-nacelle ships.