Am I the only one who remembers a theater full of people watching the TMP Enterprise going.... "Oooooo... aaaaahhh.... kool... etc."?
No, you're not. But I also remember the same people walking out of the theater saying that they fell asleep halfway through. ST-TMP really wasn't all that much of a SUCCESS. Had they started off with a story like TWOK (but with the budget of TMP), you'd have had a much more successful film, and things would have turned out totally different for the franchise. Whether that would have been better or worse is debateable, but it's hard to deny that it would be true.
Now all I am reading is how bad it was.
Really? Who's said that? Please provide quotes.
I'd hazard a guess that you might throw ME in there, because I was said two things that aren't 100% gushingly ooshy-gooshy-positive about it. I said that in a certain sense, I'd have preferred the Gabe K "refit" concept because it looks like it could have been built on top of the original Enterprise, while the TMP Enterprise was, except for a "paperwork shuffle" at Starfleet, an entirely new-build vessel, not just a "refit." No structure, no framing, no hull plating, no interior living spaces, no technology... NOTHING from the original was still there for the TMP ship. It was, really, an all-new ship BASED UPON the original. That bugged me a bit.
Andrew Probert stated, at the time, that he'd really pushed for this to be treated as a new ship, even with a new registry number (NCC-1801 as I recall) and that his design work assumed, from the outset, that at most it might have retained (I'm paraphrasing from memory here... Andrew, if you read this, feel free to correct my wording!) the original dedication plaque.
Also, I was a bit critical of the nacelle design, which I think was overly "busy" with details that seem to have been added for "coolness factor" without having any apparent technical function (the guy who did that final nacelle design is on-record as having been trying to make them into "art deco" rather than "machinery.")
Those are my two "quibbles" about the TMP E design. But show me, anyplace, where I've said "how terrible it is." Or show me where anyone else has said so. FYI, the TMP E is my SECOND favorite Trek ship design (the TOS one is my first favorite... no surprise there, huh?).
I think you're playing a bit too much of the "either you're with me or agin' me" game. Being critical of a piece of work isn't the same as saying it's bad. EVERYTHING... without exception... is subject to FAIR criticism. But criticism needs to be based upon analysis, not emotion, and needs to be something you DISCUSS, not something you FIGHT OVER. And it's NEVER about "absolutes."
I LOVE the TMP E. That doesn't mean it's without flaws. I LOVE the TOS E even more. Perhaps it has flaws, too... though I think that there are less flaws in that one than in the TMP one, or in anything that's come along since. (1701E was a beautifully designed ship... my issues with it come from it feeling more like a cruise-liner or a blimp than as a powerful, aggressive, fast design... and that was because GR didn't WANT that sort of approach, after all!)
Maybe Abrams re-working that we are all SPECULATING upon will make people go... "Oooooo... aaaaahhh.... kool... etc." as well. Then ST will live on with lots of ticket sales.
That's a post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy. "If this happens, and this happens, than this caused the other thing."
I am absolutely convinced that the production team DOES want the audience to say "oooo" and "ahhh." OF COURSE THEY DO.
I'm just of the opinion that you'd get even more "oohs" and "ahhhs" if you did a really spectacular presentation of the original design on screen than you will if you get "yet another Trek ship." Which, for better or worse, seems to be what we're seeing.
Of course, I'm also not even slightly convinced that we WON'T see the "real" 1701 design on screen in this very movie, either. I really think that what we're seeing there is the "alternative timeline" version that's been discussed, and we won't see the "real" version until the end of the film.
I happen to like the OP's work-up. I'm convinced that the TOS Enterprise in the CAGE and Where No Man Has Gone Before had probably seen a refit at least once... perhaps even from the model the OP made.
Well, to be fair, we haven't seen the design in the sort of detail we'd need to see... but the SCALE is dramatically different, it seems, and some of the detail has been twisted into other forms than what we've seen before. For instance, they've taken the "bridge dome" from TMP, which in TMP contained only the bridge itself... and expanded it to essentially replace the entire A/B/C-deck superstructure. If the presentation in the trailer can be trusted, the shape has been retained but its FUNCTIONALITY has been lost.
Still... the fact that this ship seems to be significantly larger... including a much thicker saucer... makes the idea that it would simply be "refit" into the ship we know to be outside of the realm of plausibility as far as I'm concerned. This CANNOT be the same ship. The only way you could "refit" this into the 1701 we know is by melting it down and making a new ship from scratch.
Or by correcting the space/time continuum.
). The shuttle looks a little like the 1701-D's first season shuttle, doesn't it?
