Here's a curiousity: http://caoimghgin.blogspot.com/2008/11/starship-design-and-golden-ratio.html
1701 starship design...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
Have you tried applying that formula to the Fuglyprise yet?
Not myself. A friend just pointed this out to me.
Numerology applied to aesthetics, eh? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me!
Well, let's apply this newfound knowledge to JJ's little travesty.
Here're those proper proportions...
Here's how the original Enterprise measures up...
...and how the Fuglyprise fails to measure up...
And for the width issue, the original ship...
...and the wannabe....
Questions?
Here're those proper proportions...
Here's how the original Enterprise measures up...
...and how the Fuglyprise fails to measure up...
And for the width issue, the original ship...
...and the wannabe....
Questions?
No questions at all, Captain A, just pure and unabashed acknowledgment of the significance of this newly rediscovered evidence.
Every time I look at the 1701-XI, I feel like Detective Monk with a box whose lid is slightly ajar -- I have this unquenchable desire to bend it back into shape. (You'll thank me later.) Matt Jefferies had an implicit understanding of aesthetics and the mental geometry that tells us that things are balanced. Most efforts at taking the elements of the original 1701 and reconstituting them into a sister ship, look unbalanced because they fail to re-scale those proportions when they just shuffle the pieces around like Legos. The 1701-XI to me looks like it's been in a fender bender -- not a catastrophic collision, but nonetheless bent slightly out of shape. And this geometric test proves why.
DF "Knows Perhaps Too Much About 'Bent'" Scott
Every time I look at the 1701-XI, I feel like Detective Monk with a box whose lid is slightly ajar -- I have this unquenchable desire to bend it back into shape. (You'll thank me later.) Matt Jefferies had an implicit understanding of aesthetics and the mental geometry that tells us that things are balanced. Most efforts at taking the elements of the original 1701 and reconstituting them into a sister ship, look unbalanced because they fail to re-scale those proportions when they just shuffle the pieces around like Legos. The 1701-XI to me looks like it's been in a fender bender -- not a catastrophic collision, but nonetheless bent slightly out of shape. And this geometric test proves why.
DF "Knows Perhaps Too Much About 'Bent'" Scott
I've known about the 'golden ratio' for a long time but never thought to apply it to something like this...
It's normally used in connection with architecture and sometimes used to guide sculptors and artists.
Proves that Matt was indeed - an artist at heart!
It's normally used in connection with architecture and sometimes used to guide sculptors and artists.
Proves that Matt was indeed - an artist at heart!
It proves nothing, it's just another example of people looking for pattern and hidden secrets to aesthetics. As a photographer I had the rule of thirds drummed into me, yet many of the best photos taken have nothing to do with those proportions. If everything had to fit a specific curving line the world would be a lesser place.
The bashing of the "JJ-Prise" is also getting very wearing, it's more akin to religious outrage than artistic criticism. Some very talented people put a ton of work into the ship, and I for one have no issues with it. Compared to the thousands of amateurish cut & paste schematics littering Trek forums like these it's a near masterpiece. Granted, the brewery 'main engineering' set was terrible, but the exterior designs of the ships was fantastic. The original Jeffries design was very innovative, but 50 years on people should be allowed to bring things up to date without being treated as heretics.
The bashing of the "JJ-Prise" is also getting very wearing, it's more akin to religious outrage than artistic criticism. Some very talented people put a ton of work into the ship, and I for one have no issues with it. Compared to the thousands of amateurish cut & paste schematics littering Trek forums like these it's a near masterpiece. Granted, the brewery 'main engineering' set was terrible, but the exterior designs of the ships was fantastic. The original Jeffries design was very innovative, but 50 years on people should be allowed to bring things up to date without being treated as heretics.
Your forgetting that the "showcase" featuring those vehicles is possibly the biggest pile of vacuous, self-absorbed, mentally-deficient trash in the past decade.
Church's ship isn't exactly Vance-level uninspired, proportion-less dreck, but in light of that film, I can't say I don't see where that might come from.
Having played around with "alternate" takes on redesigning the Neuprise myself, Church's take isn't really all that bad, which surprises even me. The problems with this design are with the laughably incongruous styles of detailing on the various parts and the lack of refinement in component connections. All of those problems weren't Church's fault, as various concept paintings he's made show the ship without these problems. Obviously, someone else asked him to make those changes.
I ask everyone, don't shit on Church. Shit on the people who have no business in the arts and entertainment, or any field that requires the use of pen and paper.
You should be able to figure out who I'm talking about.
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applying the golden ratio to the TOS phaser indicates that its a travesty of design, to the tricorder, that its an abomination, and to spock's ears, that he's probably some sort of satanic beast. nor does it apply to the shuttle, spacedock, miranda, excelsior, thus enterprise B, nor the C, D, or E, and certainly not to the defiant. applying it to DS9 shows how preposterously stupid the designers of that were, but whereas they were a bunch of spoon-headed cardies, i suppose it can be forgiven.
it seems that, with the singular and shining example of one ship, the entirety of star trek is utter rubbish, and i therefore dismiss it all entirely.
BSG, on the other hand, is frakking brilliant.
it seems that, with the singular and shining example of one ship, the entirety of star trek is utter rubbish, and i therefore dismiss it all entirely.
BSG, on the other hand, is frakking brilliant.
Exactly so.
Rules and principles really shout be "drummed into" students, so that they become something one knows and doesn't have to think about - and can then use or disregard as suitable to a specific work. That art is, however, governed or defined by obeisiance to so-called rules of aesthetics is the sort of thinking that misleads someone into thinking that they can become a four star chef if they buy the right cook book.
^
This.
In regards to the JJ-Prise... I still dislike the direction they went with it. Originally I absolutely hated it with a venom. But after seeing in on the big screen (IMAX) and also seeing and reading about the design process in the art book for the film, I can tolerate it now. But I still see no reason for them to have changed it, other than to follow the stupid Hollywood mentality of late that dictates that in order to please or win over an audience, you have to shock them.
IMO, with today's level of CGI, they could have taken the TOS Constitution-Class, right out of the box, and made it look absolutely fantastic on the big screen, just as they made the Defiant look amazing in "In A Mirror Darkly". Bottom line... they just didn't want to. And that's why it sucks... because it represents laziness.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
TOS and its direct forebears derived their "aesthetics" from Matt Jefferies "industrial design" approach to the starship concept. The warp nacelles were at least made to look they were derived from science and engineering. TOS tried to look like it was depicting a future Universe in which science and technology are the tools elevating intelligent races to new heights in the Cosmos.
The 2009 JJ Abrams movie is derivative of TOS, of course. But the outlook behind it is obviously very different. Everything is meant to be flashier; there's glitter and glow and glare everywhere. And the nacelles were made to out-organic the aero-look that was evolving in the post-TNG era. So what did the JJprise do? Why, the nacelles were made to look like sex toys, of course! How else would you get Generation Y's attention? They look like giant marital aids, don't they?
TOS and its direct forebears derived their "aesthetics" from Matt Jefferies "industrial design" approach to the starship concept. The warp nacelles were at least made to look they were derived from science and engineering. TOS tried to look like it was depicting a future Universe in which science and technology are the tools elevating intelligent races to new heights in the Cosmos.
The 2009 JJ Abrams movie is derivative of TOS, of course. But the outlook behind it is obviously very different. Everything is meant to be flashier; there's glitter and glow and glare everywhere. And the nacelles were made to out-organic the aero-look that was evolving in the post-TNG era. So what did the JJprise do? Why, the nacelles were made to look like sex toys, of course! How else would you get Generation Y's attention? They look like giant marital aids, don't they?
You're not displaying a great understanding of logic. Or a sense of humor, for that matter.
