Why did he need to do it?

[Withers]

I've seen this argued before, but no one ever advances any actual evidence. The counter-evidence, OTOH, is widely available. There are numerous sophisticated, detailed, and "elegant and classy" computer redesigns of the Enterprise that have been shared on these very boards, many (indeed most) of which honor and respect the design aesthetic of the original far more than what we saw in this film.

Exactly. What you really want is the Enterprise from the 1960's. It would have looked stupid. And the idea that this board of hard core fans approves of some fan made sketches over what was shown in the movie only proves one thing; hardliners who are resistant to change would only be satisfied with something new if they themselves made it.

More people liked this movie than didn't like it and I think that's the bottom line. Whether you liked what they did with Enterprise or not this movie ensures there'll be additions to the STU which, in the end, is all that keeps something like this alive and strong for as long as it has been.

-Withers-​

 

[M'Sharak]

I've seen this argued before, but no one ever advances any actual evidence. The counter-evidence, OTOH, is widely available. There are numerous sophisticated, detailed, and "elegant and classy" computer redesigns of the Enterprise that have been shared on these very boards, many (indeed most) of which honor and respect the design aesthetic of the original far more than what we saw in this film.

Exactly. What you really want is the Enterprise from the 1960's. It would have looked stupid. And the idea that this board of hard core fans approves of some fan made sketches over what was shown in the movie only proves one thing; hardliners who are resistant to change would only be satisfied with something new if they themselves made it.

To be fair, what lawman refers to are a bit more involved than "some fan-made sketches" adapting the original design; witness one by Vektor and another by deg3D, to give just two examples, and MadMan1701a has done several takes incorporating elements of the old and the new. Look up Professor Moriarty's work, also -- particularly his re-do of the exterior shots for "The Doomsday Machine" here and elsewhere. They're all beautifully-done--not stupid at all, not approved of only by what you call "hard core" or "hardliners"--and there are more for the looking in the Fan Art forum.

Whether they would have worked for the new movie is ultimately a matter of opinion, and academic at this point besides; we have what we have, and people are within their rights not to like it if that's the way they feel.

 

[Withers]

Those aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination. I'm actually really impressed. Still, I don't really think they look "up to date" enough (especially when you think about what they did with the interior of Enterprise: it'd be like putting the new interior of a Beetle inside the original shell). Ultimately, adhering to the original design so closely would be ducking the blow from, again, the hardliners who don't like the idea of Enterprise looking much different than it did in 1960.

You put that design in an HD environment and you get people humming "One of these things is not like the other..."

Whether they would have worked for the new movie is ultimately a matter of opinion, and academic at this point besides; we have what we have, and people are within their rights not to like it if that's the way they feel.

I love how that always comes up to make the opposition to the opposition seem petty; "I have a right to my opinion." Well, so do I, and while I'm at it no one was suggesting otherwise.

-Withers-​

 

[Shazam!]

Now as someone who has a degree in industrial design I can say a redesign was absolutely necessary.

LOLOLOL

 

[F. King Daniel]

He changed it. It's done. They're not going to undo it to stop a few people crying on the internet.

Besides, as nice as the CG is in the above posted pics, the ship would still have been TV-scale, not the H-U-G-E Enterprise we saw. The bigger interiors (and exterior) all contributed to the big, epic scale of the movie. IMO. YMM(and does)V.

(also: how the hell would TOS Scotty have ejected that huge tank thing behind the red mesh fence?)

 

[lawman]

Besides, as nice as the CG is in the above posted pics, the ship would still have been TV-scale, not the H-U-G-E Enterprise we saw. The bigger interiors (and exterior) all contributed to the big, epic scale of the movie.

I'm not really sure I follow you here. First, in terms of the exteriors (which is mainly what we're discussing in this thread), the ship is generally seen in space. There's no sense of its scale whatsoever, unless it's shown in juxtaposition with some other object of a known size.

Second, in terms of the interiors, the important thing is that they make sense in terms of the form and function of the ship (a standard that the original Enterprise met fairly well), not that they look "big and epic." If you (as a member of the audience) are conscious that there's no actual story reason for something onscreen, just a desire to impress you (a member of the audience), that pretty much yanks your suspension of disbelief away lickety-split.

If the crew complement is considerably larger than the original ship, that would be one potential reason, except that (A)we're given no explanation why that would be so, and that (b) the interiors actually seem rather small, given (for example) Kirk's run from sickbay through a communications station and straight onto the bridge without apparently ever changing decks.

Third, there was obviously no agreement among the designers and set builders and FX crew what the scale of the whole ship was supposed to be, since as already noted, attempts on these very boards to estimate it based on screen captures of the bridge, the shuttlebay, the humans on its construction rigging, its window placement, etc., produce estimates that differ by as much as a factor of three.

So all you're really saying here is "gosh, it looked big and impressive," without offering any reason why a different design with comparable CGI wouldn't have looked just as good. (I'd have preferred a design with more "classic" aesthetics like the Kelvin, but there are lots of other ways this one could have been improved, really.)

 

[OneBuckFilms]

The trouble is lawman, that nobody I know of was actually thrown out of the movie.

Precisely because the ship appeared BELIEVABLE to GENERAL AUDIENCES, this aspect of the movie worked.

 

[startrekrcks]

It has been changed the enterprise they are hardly going to change it now so stop the whining and try to get over it.

 

[M'Sharak]

It has been changed the enterprise they are hardly going to change it now so stop the whining and try to get over it.

I think I've asked you not to do that before, haven't I? In fact, I'm sure of it.

 

[lawman]

The trouble is lawman, that nobody I know of was actually thrown out of the movie.

Precisely because the ship appeared BELIEVABLE to GENERAL AUDIENCES, this aspect of the movie worked.

This is a very short post, but it embodies several flaws in argumentation.

First, the experience of people you personally know (even if you could actually speak for them) is hardly representative.

Second, the appeal to the reactions of "general audiences" (which are not coextensive with people you know) is neither here nor there to those of us who are fans. (I'm not a fan of NBA basketball, so although I may watch an occasional game, I'd hardly imagine that someone who is would or should care about my opinions on the coach's strategy in a particular game.)

Third, you don't actually have any way of knowing what "general audiences" felt stretched their credulity and what didn't, since insofar as I know there have been no large-scale surveys on the matter.

Fourth, asserting that the ship "appeared believable" is no particular defense of the redesign, unless you can show that it was more believable than some alternative design would have been.

Fifth, we weren't really talking about "believability" anyway, but about aesthetics: whether the redesign is an attractive one. Acknowledging that this is a subjective matter, I nevertheless think it's relevant that the visual appeal of the ship is at least a matter of some ongoing controversy, whereas the appeal of the classic design has never been contested by any significant number.

All that said, I'm trying to keep this in perspective. This thread is about the ship design, so that what we're discussing, but I'd never contend that it's the biggest problem in the movie. Most of the blame for this movie's problems falls at the feet of the writers, who had nothing to do with the design, just as the designers had nothing to do with the story.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

lawman, the point of the thread was to determine whether or not a redesign was necessary.

Right in the title, it asks "why?", and I believe JJ Abrams actually answered this.

In the DVD Commentary, he stated that the TOS Enterprise was never convincing on screen to him, and that the first time he believed the Enterprise visually was the scene where Kirk and Scotty went over to the Enterprise in TMP.

So from JJ Abrams' perspective, the TOS Enterprise simply would not have held up to a modern audience.

Whether or not the TOS Enterprise would work on the big screen with added details or not ignores the context of a $150m summer movie, which could not bank on canon and nostalgia for the suspension of disbilief.

The BELIEVABILITY of the TOS Enterprise unchanged vs. the believability of the new design speaks directly to how an unfamiliar audience can respond to the design on screen.

The general shapes as drawn by Ryan Church reflect a requirement to make things sleeker, "cooler" if you will, for those unfamiliar with Star Trek.

Prior to this movie, many who saw the Enterprise saw the 60s version, and more often than not probably thought of a 60s sci-fi show with go-go boots, space hippies, campy dialogue and cheap looking FX.

This movie had to get past this, to make Star Trek "cool" to non-Trekkers, to make it accessible to same, and to make it believable to same.

 

[startrekrcks]

yes to make it up to date for a modern audience

 

[lawman]

lawman, the point of the thread was to determine whether or not a redesign was necessary.

The explicit question was "why was it so necessary for Abrams to redesign the ship?" The implicit question seemed to be "why did he replace something beautiful with this?"

...I believe JJ Abrams actually answered this.

In the DVD Commentary, he stated that the TOS Enterprise was never convincing on screen to him, and that the first time he believed the Enterprise visually was the scene where Kirk and Scotty went over to the Enterprise in TMP.

So from JJ Abrams' perspective, the TOS Enterprise simply would not have held up to a modern audience.

Now, that's a fair answer to the explicit question. It cites the actual source.

What we can take away from this is that Abrams was clearly never a fan of TOS (which we already knew), and that he's apparently unable to separate his reaction to a piece of design work from his reaction to the SFX with which it's rendered. Also that as director, he exercised his prerogative to substitute his own reactions for those of the hypothetical audience.

Realistically, I think any reboot by any director would inevitably have given us a redesigned ship in some form, just to put the stamp of "newness" on it, so I don't think we can fault Abrams for that. What I've been saying throughout is just that this particular redesign was ill-conceived and unattractive.

The general shapes as drawn by Ryan Church reflect a requirement to make things sleeker, "cooler" if you will, for those unfamiliar with Star Trek.

And in that regard, I believe they failed. There have been more detailed discussions on these boards before analyzing things like visual balance and proportion and consistency of visual motifs (and that's just the exteriors; the interior sets are a whole other can of worms), and I don't want to rehash all of that. Suffice it to say that even if the thing was worth doing, it wasn't done especially well.

Prior to this movie, many who saw the Enterprise saw the 60s version, and more often than not probably thought of a 60s sci-fi show with go-go boots, space hippies, campy dialogue and cheap looking FX.

This movie had to get past this, to make Star Trek "cool" to non-Trekkers, to make it accessible to same, and to make it believable to same.

Yeah, well, fuck 'em. In life or in art, it's seldom worthwhile trying to reinvent yourself just to be popular with people who don't even know you.

What's trendy is by definition transitory, after all, so it's far from likely that the audiences that flocked to this movie will be there for the long haul. And the visual aesthetics of the ship, meanwhile, will IMHO look dated far more quickly than the version from the '60s.

 

[Shazam!]

ThPrecisely because the ship appeared BELIEVABLE to GENERAL AUDIENCES, this aspect of the movie worked.

Is that why so many people have made reference to engineering obviously being shot in a brewery?

 

[RealTime]

I don't know why I'm asking this, but why oh WHY was it so necessary for Abrams to mess with the Enterprise? WHY?

If I had the ability to tinker with the design of the Enterprise and her interiors, I would most definitely do so. If only to produce something that was unique from everything that came before while attempting to maintain some familiarity. I would guess Abrams and Co. felt the same need to update the design.

If you're given reign over something, why not make it uniquely yours?

Given that need, the question is whether it was done right. Obviously a highly subjective view point but IMO, the new E seems a mix of different styles and a little disproportionate in terms of the secondary hull and the engine nacelles. When I first saw the TMP refit Enterprise, it was beautiful. When I first saw this one, I was saying "huh?"

RT.

 

[RealTime]

Precisely because the ship appeared BELIEVABLE to GENERAL AUDIENCES, this aspect of the movie worked.

Is that why so many people have made reference to engineering obviously being shot in a brewery?

This is anecdotal evidence but with the people I've seen the movie with, no one has made mention of the engineering "brewery", good or bad. Yet plenty of them have said "cool ship!"

Perhaps the only people with an opinion of the brewery are right here on these boards.

Personally, I thought the engineering set design was terrible - didn't match the rest of the interiors nor felt like you were still flying around in a starship (too large and feeling too "grounded" for that).

RT.

 

[startrekrcks]

that was their decision on what it had to look the engineering personally I don't care what it looks like in my opinion sad I know

 

[OneBuckFilms]

ThPrecisely because the ship appeared BELIEVABLE to GENERAL AUDIENCES, this aspect of the movie worked.

Is that why so many people have made reference to engineering obviously being shot in a brewery?

So many is a select few, and I was under the impression we were talking about the exterior.

I see the Brewery as a flawed B plan, since they could not use the original designs due to budget constraints.

I liked the intended aesthetic, though I agree that THIS aspect was not great.

 

[Peter the Younger]

ThPrecisely because the ship appeared BELIEVABLE to GENERAL AUDIENCES, this aspect of the movie worked.

Is that why so many people have made reference to engineering obviously being shot in a brewery?

So many is a select few, and I was under the impression we were talking about the exterior.

I see the Brewery as a flawed B plan, since they could not use the original designs due to budget constraints.

I liked the intended aesthetic, though I agree that THIS aspect was not great.

I heard a few casual viewers mention it, but it wasn't a big deal. Having said that, it was certainly a B plan, they admitted as much, and given the movie's success I'm guessing you will see a somewhat more futuristic Engineering next time.

Funny thought - watch them build an actual Engineering set, but using the same type of catwalks and scaffolding found in the Busch brewery.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Is that why so many people have made reference to engineering obviously being shot in a brewery?

So many is a select few, and I was under the impression we were talking about the exterior.

I see the Brewery as a flawed B plan, since they could not use the original designs due to budget constraints.

I liked the intended aesthetic, though I agree that THIS aspect was not great.

I heard a few casual viewers mention it, but it wasn't a big deal. Having said that, it was certainly a B plan, they admitted as much, and given the movie's success I'm guessing you will see a somewhat more futuristic Engineering next time.

Funny thought - watch them build an actual Engineering set, but using the same type of catwalks and scaffolding found in the Busch brewery.

When I look at it, I see lots of primary-colored lights, and that reminds me of TOS, with it's colored lights on all of the sets.

I think they need to create something with a vaguely similar feel, but with a lot more definition, and a little more indication of where it is inside the hull. Some connection between the Inside and the Outside, or at least give some indication as to the ship's geography.