No, it doesn't say 1200m for the final size. The 725m length is mentioned in the well-hidden Note 4 associated with the chart.
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Ship sizes: ALL LIES! (big pics)
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Yes it does Commrade
The Defence rests, game, set, match
The Defence rests, game, set, match
You're not paying attention to the text. Look at the second sentence below that chart: "The Romulan vessel shrunk in the final design, but was still massive in scale to any of the Federation starships." There is a superscripted number 4 at the end of that sentence, as we can see in your lower image here.
Now, open p. 160 with all the tiny page numbers and credits, the second sheet of paper from the back cover. Just above the movie credits there is a list of seven notes, with Note 4 saying: "The scale of the Enterprise changed during the design process too, with the 'official' length of the ship ultimately confirmed as 725.35 meters." That corresponds to the 2379.75-foot figure.
Now, open p. 160 with all the tiny page numbers and credits, the second sheet of paper from the back cover. Just above the movie credits there is a list of seven notes, with Note 4 saying: "The scale of the Enterprise changed during the design process too, with the 'official' length of the ship ultimately confirmed as 725.35 meters." That corresponds to the 2379.75-foot figure.
Bottom line: THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE FRACK THEY WERE DOING!!
I don't have that page
The E is officially near a mile long. Ready to wipe out a Star Destroyer and eat Galaxy Class ships for breakfast
The E is officially near a mile long. Ready to wipe out a Star Destroyer and eat Galaxy Class ships for breakfast
Quite obviously, 1200m is not the official size, and how come you don't have that page? Anyone else have the same problem? I have the UK edition, BTW.
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They studied at the Star Trek III School for Haphazard Starship Scaling.
You rarely get an agreed-upon size by finding consistency in VFX shots, you get it when the designer hardwires the number into the design itself, by adding features which cannot work at any other scale. The Ent-D isn't 2108 feet long because we made a thorough analysis of TNG effects shots and determined that it was always scaled consistently next to other ships, but rather because Andrew Probert designed the miniature with such a length in mind, so it isn't really possible to rescale it lest the detailing stops making sense.
Exactly. And the details on the nuEnterprise point to a mammoth 1200m ship. At the official 725m, the bridge window is only 4' tall on the exterior, the doors either side of the shuttlebay would only fit Keenser, the shuttles wouldn't fit inside as seen etc.
Here's my post from earlier, showing that the 725m figure doesn't fit the details, but the 1200m figure does (clearly it was when that chart from the "Art Of" book was in vogue that the CG was built):
Here's the 2009 Enterprise stuff, supporting a 1200 meter size:
Top and front shots of the Enterprise model are Tobias Richter's.
Here is the early size chart from the "Art of the Movie" book, which the CG model appears to have been actually built and detailed to. Even in the shipyard scene, where the ship model is scaled down to 1200 feet (366m), the explosed decks support the 1200m figure (which has been fudged Excelsior-style down to 725m)
But my original point is this: Why fudge at all? Why not just say Excelsior is 700-777m, the refit Enterprise ~350m, nuEnterprise 1200m, etc.? Has anyone considered that the last few technical manuals may have sold a little better if the statistics matched what was on-screen in Star Trek, especially in an age where we've got the technology to easily spot a bogus figure?
Maybe they'll modify the CG model with a bigger window at the front and different shuttlebay for the next movie. Or maybe they'll leave it, like they have with the 700-800m Excelsior all these years.
But what are your measurement uncertainties (see here for a good example)? There is a lot that could go wrong: perspective, the lack of official CG schematics, the not-quite-certain size of the bridge window, etc. If the final result happens to be 1200m ± 500m, it's not good enough. You would really need to have the official CG model and know precisely how large they made the shuttlebay, precisely how large they made the bridge window. Also, if they decided to use 2379.75 feet in the future, we could be seeing more indisputable evidence for that. Perhaps they'll modify some of the detailing to match.
As for the Excelsior, while there may be a few details that support such a length, I don't think the average deck spacing in the secondary hull would work, and it wouldn't make sense to insert a windowless deck between every two rows of windows. That's the problem: the overall design must make sense. One or two inconsistencies cannot be allowed to twist the entire concept out of shape, especially since we know that the 467m size was used by the TNG/DS9/VOY production team. It's not just a theoretical number.
As for the Excelsior, while there may be a few details that support such a length, I don't think the average deck spacing in the secondary hull would work, and it wouldn't make sense to insert a windowless deck between every two rows of windows. That's the problem: the overall design must make sense. One or two inconsistencies cannot be allowed to twist the entire concept out of shape, especially since we know that the 467m size was used by the TNG/DS9/VOY production team. It's not just a theoretical number.
That would be the aforementioned middle finger to the fanbase.
A very popular school, I hear. The producers of TNG and DS9 are among its best known graduates.
Some of the detailing DOESN'T make sense, especially in discrepancies between interior and exterior set design.
Some, perhaps, but you try to measure all of it and see which number fits best. For starters, we can count the 42 decks on the Ent-D.
In the case of TNG and DS9, they were laying out shots for a tv screen, so certain concessions have to be made. Not so for a big screen movie.
Plus, at least in the case of TNG and DS9, whenever you tried to get figures on how big a given ship was, the vast majority of time, you got a pretty solid figure. The only real wild card is the Defiant, and even then we're talking a relatively small difference between competing figures.
In the case of the JJPrise, we're talking about the ship varying from slightly larger than the TMP refit to bigger than the Enterprise-E, all in the course of a single film. That is sloppiness and amateurishness on an epic scale.
Plus, at least in the case of TNG and DS9, whenever you tried to get figures on how big a given ship was, the vast majority of time, you got a pretty solid figure. The only real wild card is the Defiant, and even then we're talking a relatively small difference between competing figures.
In the case of the JJPrise, we're talking about the ship varying from slightly larger than the TMP refit to bigger than the Enterprise-E, all in the course of a single film. That is sloppiness and amateurishness on an epic scale.
Not catering to the handful of OCD fans who will freeze frame a Trek movie to measure and figure out how big the Enterprise "really" is doesn't equal giving a "middle finger" to the fan base.
I'm a pretty OCD Trek Nerd myself and after watching the movie in the theater and a dozen times on DVD I would never have known about the size issues save for people whining about it on the internet.
And I would guess that 99% of viewers who saw the movie never noticed either.
99% of the movie's viewers saw the film as a disposable popcorn flick, whose first and last foray into Star Trek was that film.
Actually, I have a hard time believing that the director stands over the artists' backs as they toil away over their computers and says "No, make it bigger. You know, the internet is gonna be all over my ass if everything isn't pixel-perfect!"
Realistically, he has to trust the people who work for the FX shop to do their jobs. He can't be everywhere.
Dude, you need to de-grump.
Yes, and he was pleased with the results.
But you realize a film director doesn't have the luxury of time and obsession like we do here.
See how much time WE'VE had to listen to offhand comments made both before and since the film was made, lengths included in the Blu-ray of the film bonus content, frame-by-frame toggling between scenes, running shots through Photoshop, comparing apparent scales between shots. Armchair quarterbacking at its finest (worst?).
Ultimately, film effects serve the story and the characters, not the other way around. Sometimes, I think some of us wish it were, though.
