Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica
Some of us just think it's an ungainly duck of a design, made worse by the contentions that "the original just wouldn't work on the big screen/with today's 'sophisticated' audience."
It wouldn't.
Already addressed in the other thread about the ship - there are simply
no facts to support the knee-jerk reaction that "it wouldn't work." No facts, and damn little in the way of even informed opinions - just "nuh-uh." Which is not an argument; it's not even an opinion.
I liked Vector's subtle take on the E quite a bit, but putting the old E up on screen would prompt guffaws from the audience. Star Trek would become a parody of itself (if that hasn't happened already.)
Again, no facts support this. Maybe
you would laugh, but, c'mon, let's take fandom and emotion out of it and look at the
work - you claim the new ship will be better on the big screen and the ones I pointed out won't - yet you haven't seen the JJ-prise on the big screen
either, except for flashing glimpses - certainly nothing like the long views you get in the various stills, which are at the same resolution as anything else on your monitor. Having seen the TOS-R of "The Cage"
on the big screen, where it held its own but clearly wasn't designed for such a resolution, and it being plainly obvious that both
Vektor and
deg3d's models are considerably more detailed and considerably better modeled and lit than the TOS-R
Enterprise, yeah, I can say with a straight face that there's absolutely no argument I've seen to prove the original design "wouldn't work." It doesn't take a fan to look at a good design and appreciate it for that, without coloring it with nostalgia or a resistance to change. And obviously, in many respects,
you think the original design would work, because most of its layout is there in the JJPrise - only the details and proportions are changed. Basically, that boils your argument down to, "the original's proportions won't work on the big screen and with the modern audience," and even amongst many who
do like the new ship, its
proportions are the biggest complaint! So
that boils your argument down to "I like the new ship," and has
nothing to do with whether the old one would work.
Most people won't notice the change in shape from the old to the new, but they would notice and deride the general lack of detail on the original E.
Obviously, you didn't bother to read my post(s).
Not once have I said that the level of detail of the original shooting model, or even the TOS-R CGI version, was sufficient to look appropriate on the big screen. It's the level of detail that distinguishes the examples from the original model, and, according to your statement above, the JJPrise from the original, as well, because as you correctly observed, most people
won't notice the difference in shape. So we're back to my original contention that if the average moviegoer can't tell the difference (other than the amount of detail, of course), then there's no rational argument, and certainly no
facts supporting the opinion that the original
design wouldn't work. And by "design," I mean Matt Jefferies's
design, not the execution of it for the TV series - the updated examples are
still Jefferies's
design.
Who says that the redesign isn't as 'substantial' as the refit of TMP?
What does that even mean, other than "I don't like it and I'm going to invent a reason why."
No need to "invent" a reason - I've been pretty clear, if not concise, as to why I think it's a bad design. As for substance, the original was design by someone who was an actual engineer, not just an illustrator - a man who thought about what he was doing not just in the context of what would look pretty and futuristic and sexy onscreen, but in the context of what technology could achieve at the time and what it might achieve in the future, and how that growth in knowledge and technology might be used in the design and construction of something like a starship. Sure, he had some purely artistic constraints, not the least of which were simply Roddenberry's own aesthetics, but Matt thought about how power would flow, how the ship's crew might maintain their vessel, how they would access the ship with cargo and support craft.
That is substance. The new ship includes the most functional aspects of Jefferies's design not only because they are familiar, but because they
worked, and that's obvious even to those who aren't engineers or designers - but it then adds gimmicky details and shifts proportions that are purely superficial, and that superficiality is just as obvious.
Hey, I like sexy and superficial as much as the next guy - as a car design aficionado, I see it all the time on 4 wheels (sometimes more, sometimes fewer). Pretty much
everything I'm into is design-related. With that as my background, I can easily separate my love of
Star Trek from my appreciation or criticism of its visuals. And if it's my opinion that the original design, with resolution-appropriate details,
would work on the big screen and with a modern audience, it's with considerably more objectivity than those whose sole argument is, "No, it wouldn't."
Screaming "Enterprise" doesn't necessarily make it good.
.
