You know, I think it's around here guys like you and guys like me ... split.
The split is between those who want to see a more military progression of ships as opposed to those of us who see it as simply a part of the design of a production.
Your view might be (don't mean to put words in) - that starships would follow a rather similar design path as one would see in actual navy or air force machines. This comes from a terrific sense of history and knowledge of functionality. My view (and certainly the design of the new enterprise) is definately in the world of contemporary design. The new enterprise shares a lot of design elements with cars we see today, which have a 'new' retro feel, as well as other design elements familiar today.
Now, I think it's great to go and create something contemporary... but as a bit of a military geek (damn History channel!) I certainly appreciate a more engineering and historical view of what a starship is. And I think TOS lent itelf to this feeling. If only because all the lads making that show were happy to survive WWII in the Pacific!
One of the things that delighted me about
Star Trek as I grew up was how many times things from the show matched reality. The connection between the real U.S. Navy and Starfleet fascinated me as I learned more and saw the parallels. It adds an element of verisimilitude to the production that makes it a more comfortable place to visit and relax in. When the ground rules keep changing in a show, or the production design changes for no reason other than to make it look cool, it sort of weakens the whole experience for me.
I actually loved the refit Enterprise when it came along. The only thing I hated was the lack of a spire at the focal point of the navigational deflector ... I couldn't figure out why you'd build a parabola and not have something at the focal point to gather (or emit) radiation (I eventually came to terms with this by reasoning that the glowing front we see on the refit and similar vessels is really just a radome, and the actual dish is still there, but behind it). But why were the Klingons different? And why was the transporter effect so different ... and ugly? Those
really bugged me, because the rules changed and that kind of inconsistency bugged me.
I'm willing to accept a fresh look at the franchise, but please, please, please put function behind the forms. Make the effort to establish an internally consistent, even plausible reality. Those who don't care one way or another won't notice that there's thought behind the designs and writing. But those of us who do will appreciate the production even more.
A good tool ... a guideline for this kind of consistency is to look at how things are done in the modern world and extrapolate from there. I'm convinced that's part of why the original show was as successful as it was. Because it was crewed by former military men who knew how a military organization looked and felt and they used that to guide their designs.
I'd love to get a team of aircraft designers to sit down and draw up their own
Starship Enterprise. And rocket designers, too. And shipwrights or submarine designers. I think the work of graduates from art school looks very nice. But people who design real machines built from real materials to do work in extreme environments isn't just good looking ... it's
fascinating.
... Please God, don't let this be the real thing, for the proportions of the thing are asthetically retarded and extremely offensive! Just for starters, the neck is as long as the ship's body! What the hell were they thinking?!! Talk about topping arse over head! I could go into justifying the terrible proportions and connecting points of the ship's main features, but really I cannot be bothered waisting my breath on the very rude and poor dynamics of the design!
