You are quite mistaken if you ever thought this is what they were trying to do.
For those of us who don't hate the Nu Enterprise but don't love it
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trevanian
Rear Admiral
Chambliss' second of three takes on the bridge design was very much a retread of the original bridge (with upgraded styling), but he and Abrams were bored by that attempt. So you are quite mistaken in thinking that this was outside their scope of approach.
But the fact remains that they were never trying to recreate the original look.
And this is the fundamental problem I have with JJ's approach to the film as a whole. If you are not a fan, don't like the look of the original wanna make your own stamp on the franchise, then for gods sake do something else! When someone who is not even a Star Trek fan hears the name Kirk, Spock, McCoy or original starship Enterprise a certain image comes to mind, why at least as a set designer not pay homage to that look?
^ The new design doesn't pay homage to the old one? Seriously? Well, my mother wouldn't notice the differences. At least she couldn't tell me where exactly they are. This new ship is the Enterprise. This new set is the bridge of the Enterprise.
And yes, my mother is always right.
And yes, my mother is always right.
^^ My parents can't tell the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek even after many years of me forcing them to watch it. I just think they could have done a far better job with the designs, it looks very lacking in an artistic sense and I know many others who feel the same.
Well, saying that you just don't like the new designs because you think they are lacking in an artistic sense (which of course you have every right to think) is something completely different than saying that you don't like them because they don't pay homage to the original designs (because they obviously do).
^^ My mistake, I ment both, for if the design sets truly paid homage to the original the colour scheme, the location of the doors, the size of the bridge, the look of the corridors, the proportion of the ship would strongly echo the original, it just doesn't flow with what we know of as the TOS era.
But this isn't the TOS era as well know it - the timeline has changed.
Even so, IMO the NuEnterprise does echo the original TOS enterprise, whilst also being remarkably similar to the Refit. It is an alt-timeline, afterall - and they have gone for a look that doesn't indentically attempt to replicate the TOS enterprise, rather updating it according to whatever events/technologies have influenced this Trek XI timeline.
It still screams 'Enterprise' to me.
and I'm glad they have chosen this direction.
Even so, IMO the NuEnterprise does echo the original TOS enterprise, whilst also being remarkably similar to the Refit. It is an alt-timeline, afterall - and they have gone for a look that doesn't indentically attempt to replicate the TOS enterprise, rather updating it according to whatever events/technologies have influenced this Trek XI timeline.
It still screams 'Enterprise' to me.
and I'm glad they have chosen this direction.
The designs from Matt Jefferies in the 1960s were not simplistic.
please see:
designing the Enterprise:
sourced from "DESIGNING THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE" - FEBRUARY 2000 ISSUE 10 'STAR TREK: THE MAGAZINE'
http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/1701.html
This and this other thread:
'Will the new enterprise be larger than the TOS? '
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=81516
discuss the designs and the subtleties between the two.
This is always an issue with a designer and a design's execution as we have heard about on ST:TNG with the CGI work on a TV budget and time deadline.
The beauty of it is once a model is built in a standard CGI software (Lightwave 3D) it can be used for a number of things: magazine cover renderings, feature films, TV series, poster renderings, graphic novel renderings. The question is whether the CGI model designer is willing to license the CGI model.
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A lost opportunity for who? Certainly not the filmmakers.
Rii
Rear Admiral
On the contrary, it looks very much like the Enterprise. Now if the film was attempting to convince us that it was the Executor, Sulaco, Discovery or a TARDIS, then we'd have a problem; because it looks like the Enterprise.
In the case of the Enterprise, it seems to me that the image that comes to mind for most people is the basic Enterprise shape -- and this design retains the basic Enterprise shape.
The same non trek fans who would recognize the original TOS ship as the "that ship from Star Track [sic]" will also recognize this new design as such. I doubt the non-fans would notice any difference whatsoever.
Rii
Rear Admiral
They might observe that the new ship appears to be "kewl", "bitchin'", or "fully sick".
And now it's a cash cow for JJ Abrams and all them Kewl toy companies.Ah, the Roddenberry approach then.
Don't be so mean and give the Great Bird of the Galaxy a little bit credit (even if he had an ego almost half as big as the Shat's and the right kind of wife to back it up)...
Roddenberry created Trek and tried to make money with it. There is nothing wrong with it. It was a cash cow for him and Paramount.
This is exactly the case.
Good; Abrams and his people are the ones doing all the work now.
Yeah. We know. We've been reading about this for almost 3 years now.
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I was not aware of that... references, please?
And that, on its face, is the one "potential 'out' for this whole issue.
We know that this is a different timeline. That doesn't explain the several rather "cheesy" design decisions made (lights in the face, etched plexiglass circuit traces, bar code readers, eye-frying all-white, all-bright color scheme, etc) but if the story is OK, and if we're not left (at the end of the movie) with the suggestion that this is what it "really" looked like all along, it can be overlooked on the "alternative timeline" basis.
I know, some of the folks here are convinced that there cannot (or should not) be a "reset button" at the end of the flick. However... there are only three ways to reconcile aspects of what we've already seen... and in particular Kirk going from "disgraced black-shirt-wearing outcast" to "captain's-stripes-wearing commanding offier of the Enterprise."
- 1) The movie's climactic action (with Kirk in black) concludes, and then the movie (for some reason) pops forward a significant number of years.
- 2) The movie shows a complete disregard for real "promotion system" rules and decides that "alt-Kirk" goes from being the disgraced black-shirt to a full Captain (leaping over other officers, both on the ship and throughout the fleet, who have at least as much qualification and far more time-in-service than he does!)
- 3) The movie's climactic action involves a "reset" that puts things back how they're supposed to be, with Kirk never "really" having been a disgraced black-shirt at all, but rather having gone through the history we remember (or mostly that history?).
Is there ANY other option for going from "Blackshirt Kirk" to "Captain Kirk?"
So, the real question is... which of those is what we're going to see in this film?
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