Official Trailer Review & Comments Thread!! [Spoilers, of course]

[AlanC9]

Meaning the thing has to be supported.

Supported by a structure.

Supported by a stucture that has to withstand the weights and forces we're dealing with here.

Sure, but those weights and forces aren't particularly large relative to their technology. We build aircraft carriers in drydocks right now, and maneuver subcomponents weighing up to 800 tons around in Earth gravity. Moving stuff around isn't any easier in zero-G, of course: inertia is still there. If anything, moving stuff is harder unless you have a really massive space station, since otherwise you've got an action-reaction problem.

Of course, you can move stuff around with tractor beams and get around this problem (assuming tractor beams are reactionless). But tractor beams would work on the planet too.

The parts of the ship also have to be strong enough to support the various components against gravity and even if we accept a "SIF" in place THAT has to be perfect because if it would fail the ship would collapse and crush itself under its own weight.

Then the ship's structure is that strong. QED. Not surprising, since it's a nonissue with Voyager.

In space you don't need to battle gravity or the weight of objects and you're not restricted by the limiting concept of "up" and "down."

I'm not saying there's no benefit. But planets have that handy atmosphere, and a lot of mass to anchor your construction materials to.

 

[AlanC9]

I have one. I've mentioned it before, too. When a complex system is first powered up, it rarely stays on for very long and even more rarely works. Now we see an anti-matter-fueled hunk of tritanium, duranium, and 23rd century composites being built as a complete system on Earth. Its first extended, under-stress test will be during launch. You've seen the results of the early rocket program, right? You've seen Challenger exploding? A starship is vastly more complex. And while there might be some tests prior to launch, no one knows for sure how everything will work under strain until this thing lifts off and raises itself into orbit.

And if main power fails at any point during that ascent, all that anti-matter, and all that structure comes crashing back to earth at nine point eight meters per second squared. At best, Starfleet's lost the work and time that went into building that ship, along with the resources and every soul aboard.

A lot of that rhetoric is irrelevant. Space travel is a proven technology in Kirk's time. Relative to their technological level a starship isn't as complex as the Challenger, which is at the outer limits of what we can do -- so far out that we're abandoning the technology and going back to Apollo on steroids.

And let's say the engines do fail. Some other ship just tractors you into orbit if that happens. Or ground-based tractor beams do it

 

[Trekker4747]

So, here's a question.

Is the ship being built in SanFran or Iowa?

 

[ST-One]

So, here's a question.

Is the ship being built in SanFran or Iowa?

Why is that so important?
Do these silly bits of minutiae really trump story-telling?

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

what i like most is that we've broken from all the stupid idiosyncracies that un-creative people just HAD to follow. that same dull droll music, that anti-septic feeling to everything, the very undynamic sort of writing. It's not so much that JJ is super special, i think any remotely independent spirit with his own vision could bring about this change, the real problem is that Star Trek was NEVER GIVEN to any new creative voices. Their big chance was post Voyager and post Insurrection... and they opted for things that seemed vaguely different but were actually just more of the same, nemesis and enterprise.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

And the seven supports seen look flimsy with minimal surface area at the contact points. It really should be contained within a dense lattice of tritanium to look more authentic from an engineering perspective. But maybe it's supported in a low-grav field. Which hopefully won't ever fail ....

I was curious, this is the best I could find of a real world situation. Looks very flimsy compared to the Enterprise structures.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/027712.jpg

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Seems like the Enterpise might be being built in San Francisco after all. From J.J. -

Abrams began with the initial scenes of a young Kirk riding in the Corvette and on the motorbike. "The idea with the trailer was to start with something unexpected and Earth-bound and then thrust you into the world of Trek. The scenes on Earth were important to feel a sense of future but also a real sense of now as well. Star Wars is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away but Star Trek is our future, so it's important that we not feel disconnected from that. There are a couple of sequences that take place in Iowa and some in San Francisco and it was just important that the movie feel connected to familiar terrain before it became about things that you more might expect."

Ah, but that doesn't say what you're reading in.

Starfleet HQ and Starfleet Academy are both in San Francisco, and we know that there are scenes at the Academy already. So this doesn't "prove" where JJ's version of the Enterprise is being built.

FYI, in the original continuity, the COMPONENTS of the Enterprise were built at the San Francisco Naval Yards... right here:

And 1970s/1980s "semi-sanctioned" "fan-canon" even went so far as to establish the general arrangement in which the components were assembled. I did a "quick and dirty" version to illustrate that (since I couldn't find the original ref. materials).

I'm trying to relate where we see Kirk, there, to the actual SFNY. I can't seem to make it fit... but hey, maybe the bay has dried out???

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I watched it. Enjoyed it. Interviews with Orci have already indicated that ENT will get a nod in this film.

Yes a nod - not "and I was working for future guy all along!"

Extremely doubtful. I don't think we'll see Picard's fish in this one either.

Well, I know that Orci's original script did see a few tweaks... perhaps (just suggesting, here) it was originally going to be a really old Archer, not Captain Pike, who'd give Jim Kirk (at a younger age) his "get yer act together, kid!" speech?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

So Nero's ship is in geosynchronous orbit around Vulcan?

The "Abrams Trek Team" seems to have incorporated ideas from a few "lookey-loo" expeditions.

What you see coming down from Nero's ship is very much like what you drop from a deep-sea oil-drilling rig... but "gnarlier-looking," of course. I'm sure it works very much the same way... the "derrick" is stationary (or as close as possible) and lowers the drill bit on a long extensible drill-shaft. "Landing" it on the bottom is the tough part... once it makes contact and starts to drill, it's much easier to operate. But when it's approaching the ocean floor, it's swinging like a pendulum... that's the most difficult portion of the process. Do it wrong and you destroy the drill. And you simply can't "hold it steady" because you have ocean currents, waves, etc, etc (and in an atmosphere, with a much longer drop, it'd probably be even worse!)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It really should be contained within a dense lattice of tritanium to look more authentic from an engineering perspective.

Don't you think it's a little ironic to use "tritanium" in the same sentence as "authentic from an engineering perspective?"

what i like most is that we've broken from all the stupid idiosyncracies that un-creative people just HAD to follow. that same dull droll music, that anti-septic feeling to everything, the very undynamic sort of writing. It's not so much that JJ is super special, i think any remotely independent spirit with his own vision could bring about this change, the real problem is that Star Trek was NEVER GIVEN to any new creative voices.

Damn straight. The biggest mistake where "Enterprise" was concerned had nothing to do with mucking up "canon" and other orthodox nonsense - it was not letting new people manage and make the big decisions on the show.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Why is it easier to work in space?

No gravity: makes lifting things (either by hand or with machinery) easier not to mention a lot more freedom of movement and less stresses on supporting the structure.

Well, in Trek they have "antigravity lift" so there's an argument against that... but there's still an even stronger argument for zero-g final assembly.

Alignment.

In a zero-G environment, you can align components without the need to apply any significant force or load to those components. You can have the entire ship... with the millions of individual interconnection points... aligned and adjusted under no-load conditions. It will inevitably give a cleaner, more precise, final assembly. This is one of those things that simply works better in zero-g.

Of course, if you wanted to use gravity to your advantage, building in a gravity well... think about the direction that the forces would most likely be applied. Not "downwards" but instead along the ship's axis of travel.

So... if there was any advantage to doing final assembly "under load," I'd think that the thing would be arranged with the axis of travel being parallel to the gravity vector.

Sort of like it was a Saturn V on a launchpad, ya know?

Of course, that would look silly to the audience. But no more silly, I suspect, than what we're seeing here.

The reason, I think, that we're seeing it as shown here is that JJ and his crew visited a modern naval yard and saw a real, contemporary naval vessel in drydock, probably undergoing a reskinning. That's exactly what this scene is supposed to look like.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

They tried construction in space but the workers kept losing their tool belts.

 

[JoeZhang]

Wow? are people discussing this?

It was built on earth so the technology of the 24th century, which we don't understand, must makes it safer to do so. THE END.

Someone page me when you get onto discussing the carpets...

 

[Cary L. Brown]

what i like most is that we've broken from all the stupid idiosyncracies that un-creative people just HAD to follow. that same dull droll music, that anti-septic feeling to everything, the very undynamic sort of writing. It's not so much that JJ is super special, i think any remotely independent spirit with his own vision could bring about this change, the real problem is that Star Trek was NEVER GIVEN to any new creative voices.

Damn straight. The biggest mistake where "Enterprise" was concerned had nothing to do with mucking up "canon" and other orthodox nonsense - it was not letting new people manage and make the big decisions on the show.

This I agree with... the trick to telling a good Trek story is to, first, come up with a good story... and then "clean it up" to make it fit in with everything else (and thus have it be part of what we all know as "Star Trek")

The mistakes which were made, IMHO, with the early days of Enterprise were that they were afraid to make real, significant changes... they stuck with Formula. Sure, the theme was different, but the episodic music was the same. Sure, the names of some of the tech was different, but it all did the same thing. Sure, the language was more "contemporary" but the characters were still "idealized" Trekkian types in most ways (though with new gimmicks, of course). It felt the same as TNG-and-onwards... and that wasn't necessary or even desirable.

They could have changed the feel, and stuck closer to the "canon," and ended up with a series which was more exciting and less divisive.

In this film, what I'm afraid of is that they're making the exact same mistake... trying to keep the "feel" while altering the "canon." This is going to "feel" sort of like classic Trek, but it's not going to fit.

These aren't really the same characters (they're new characters based upon the old ones... in some cases fairly close, in some cases dramatically different). It's not the same ship (it just looks vaguely similar). It's not the same history (it just has a few things in common).

I'd be happier if they gave us the new characters and admitted that they're new characters... gave us the new ship and called it what it is - a new ship... and so forth.

I'd also be happier if they gave us new insights into the original characters (which means the same people, even if not played by the same actors) with the same histories on the same ship, of course. And it's POSSIBLE (though admittedly unlikely) that this film COULD end up giving us that... through some cliche'd "reset button" event.

 

[blaXXer]

Wow? are people discussing this?

BOOL! THE END!

FTFY

/obscure?

 

[ST-One]

Wow? are people discussing this?

It was built on earth so the technology of the 24th century, which we don't understand, must makes it safer to do so. THE END.

Someone page me when you get onto discussing the carpets...

The colour of the carpets in front of the bridge-window (yes, I still think it's a window) looks like the colour of Sulu's and Chekov's uniform-shirts

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1385/trailer011yy4.jpg

 

[controlfreak]

The colour of the carpet is completely wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111!!!


Abrams has raped my childhood!

There better be some canonical explanations for this otherwise I am spending my hard earned money on drugs instead of this film!!!!!!!11!!1!111

 

[siskokid888]

I'll get in on this, for grins - at no time did we ever see on screen a ship being built in space. The Enterprise was being RE-FIT in TMP - parts were changed, but it was already a complete structure. The Excelsior was seen as a completely built ship. My memory is faulty, but I don't recall in TNG, DS9 or VOY seeing ships being built in space. In DS9 they mention the martian ship yards, which to me lends more creedence to the "built on the surface" theory - why call them martian shipyards if the ships are built in space? In ENT, once again as I recall, we saw some work being done on the NX-01 in space, but the main structure was in place. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I don't recall ever seeing a ship being built in space, so how this is "canon" (gag) I don't know.

 

[RoJoHen]

There better be some canonical explanations for this

Pike: "How do you feel about the carpet?"
Kirk: "I don't like it."
Spock: "Agreed. This carpet is not logical."
Pike: "I thought so. I'll call Empire today and get it replaced."
Uhura (singing): "(800) 588-2300..Empiiiiiiiire!"

 

[dougkeenan]

In ENT, once again as I recall, we saw some work being done on the NX-01 in space, but the main structure was in place. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I don't recall ever seeing a ship being built in space, so how this is "canon" (gag) I don't know.

NX-02