Some new opinions/information from folks who've seen the film....

As some here may know, I spend a lot of time hanging around at the Replica Prop Forums. One nice feature of this is that a lot of industry professionals hang out there too, including a couple of posters who've had involvement with the new film in one way or another. (One poster works for the prop house that supplied the props for Trek XI, for example.)

There's been a running discussion in the locked Off Topic forum about the movie, and there have been a few interesting posts by insiders; for anyone here who has an RPF account, this is the thread. But I thought I'd grab some of the comments that seemed interesting and present them here for us to freak out o...discuss.

I posted a few links to artwork on this board for people to see, and that sparked the following discussion:

I find interesting the comment that the engines are even bigger than any of the art here has shown. But as seems to be the pattern, reactions to the film as a whole are positive. I figure if it can win over a skeptic...

 

Carson Dyle's comments are particularly observant - what he says about the difference between TOS's and Meyer's versions of Kirk is clearly so, and his logic about the rest of it is hard to fault.

And of course Engineering looks like a brewery - that's where those scenes were shot:

http://www.filminamerica.com/Movies/V/v62.jpg
http://www.filminamerica.com/Movies/V/v14.jpg

Yeah, parts of "V" were shot there as well, many years ago.

BTW, do you get any sense from the discussion over there whether the engines are both longer and of greater diameter, or just one or the other?

 

Good hunting, Malakai.

"The last thing the movie needs, from a marketing standpoint, is for Abrams to admit the truth, i.e. that he and his geeky friends have made a big geeky movie for their fellow Trek geeks."

Very interesting.

 

I know people who've seen the movie keep saying it's great, but the more I hear the more I don't like. Your post was very interesting, but very disappointing.

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Well, the registry is only open until Staurday, so....

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You know, that's an interesting point of nettiquette that I probably should have considered.

So let's say I didn't ask. Hypothetically. What should I do?

(EDIT Okay, I posted a general thread over there asking in broad terms about reposting etiquette. We'll see where that goes...)

 

Edit the post to remove the names of the posters? If Paramount is at all sensitive about who has and hasn't seen Star Trek at this point, those folks may have a certain level of exposure. If one is sufficiently diligent, a casually protected handle is almost as easy to put a person to as an actual name...

 

The RPF has limited time "registration periods" of about a week or so every year. IIRC, it has something to do with controlling studio shills, who tended to pop up and try to get bootleggers in trouble. Or something like that. All I know for sure is they try to control who does and doesn't have access to stuff, which includes locking the OT forum. (Why I don't know; nothing that special happens there.)

I sent out a batch of PMs. We'll see what they have to say...

 

Got a couple of responses already in the general purpose "what's board policy on reposting?" thread I put up; the consensus so far seems to be that the stuff there is out in public, so no worries.

Excellent. Be sure to say hi to Rabbitooth.

Nobody's been that specific. Carson did say at one point that it's hard to get exact measurement from the film because there's never a really good side view, though, but his impression is that they're just bigger.

 

One thing I love is despite reservations people have about the set design and the ship exterior, almost everyone says the rest of the film is so good, it does not matter.

 

Is it because of the fact that the film might appeal to a broad audience?

 

Movie sounds great. Set and Art design sounds a little haphazard.

No worries, they can tweak that stuff in the next movie

 

No. Why would I want the appeal of Star Trek to be restricted?

One of the things I don't like is that I absolutely hate the way the Enterprise looks in this film, particularly the exterior. The bridge may be tolerable, but the posts above are making me uneasy about other design aspects. And before you tell me that the look won't matter if the story and characters are good, then just remember that this is a motion picture, and not a book.

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That's inexcusable. They're not really going use this design in the movie, are they?

 

Definitely some interesting comments. I don't know who any of these people are, so it doesn't really mean anything lol... We can already tell how massive the engines are from the trailer. It doesn't particularly bother me there. I wouldn't be surprised about the engine room, that area is so open to interpretation from TOS it was likely to become something very new.

 

And the sad thing is, they're so damn close. Move the neck forward a bit, REDUCE the engine size, and I think they'd have met with nearly universal approval of the design. As is, it'll have to grow on us. Not butt ugly bad, but still a draft away from very very good. Oh, what could've been!

 

There are several shots of the ship in action (as well as being constructed - on Earth) in the trailer, and not a one that it doesn't look excellent in. So the exterior is good.

The sets, I'm not as impressed with - but then, the bridge set for ST:TMP was one of the worst ever and they were able to "tweak" it through three more films with the general approval of Trek fandom.

As far as this being a "motion picture" rather than a book - well, in the trailer alone it's clear that this is more of a motion picture than any of the previous versions of Trek.