Andrew Probert and Rick Sternbach: The New Enterprise

[Christopher]

Overall, for me, it looks as if they have taken a very different design approach for the new Enterprise battle section and warp nacelles/pylons and simply 'bolted' on a slightly modified saucer section from TMP.

Err, a bit of terminology clarification: The term "battle section" is anachronistic in this context. It only has meaning when applied to a Galaxy-class starship, whose aft section is intended to separate from the saucer and function as an independent battleship in combat situations. The proper term for the aft/lower section of a Constitution-class ship is "secondary hull" or "engineering hull." The saucer is technically known as the "primary hull."

 

[Clawhammer]

I still have a problem with the pylons and the nacelles; the shapes still don't feel right to me, maybe because they don't seem to be done in the same style as the saucer or the neck. I have seen something of a top view, which tells that the nacelles are pulled in much closer to the ship CL than those of either the refit or the TOS Ent (so the pylons must be tipped up at a 75 degree angle or so). But if the pylons are connected to the hull so close to the narrow aft end of the ship, now my tech brain starts worrying about what kind of structural strength we're seeing. Sure, it's all bogus and the pylons could be attached to the wide beam of the secondary hull with some amazing heavy-duty gamma welding, but it looks a bit flimsy. And before people jump on me for aiming guns at Ryan Church, I'm just putting out some design thoughts.

Rick
www.spacemodelsystems.com

I agree with most of the above: I think (pre)designing a ship like the Enterprise in a way that a lot of people can/will accept it is a brave and hard thing to do. The result isnt what I had expected, but I'm pretty used to it now. Based on the only released image so far, I would have done a couple of things different:

The way the neck ends in the engineering section looks shapeless in the released image. Even if it's valid it still just looks kind of blobby. It might be shadow, but I think it really could have benefit from some sharper edges.

The pylons: They are tilted, rotated over 2 axis and have to connect between the upper and lower engineering blend. It makes the ship look like it's always in the TOS intro state, warping towards the camera. I would have gone with slightly more mechanical pylons to balance the organic engineering section and the straight forward saucer some more.

Balance: In this image the balance looks shifted to the back, if compensated by forward movement it might bring grace.

I'm going to watch the movie, and I'm already looking (forward) to the artwork on this board based on the designs used in the movies.

 

[captcalhoun]

if I was redesigning the 1701 all I woulda done was add impulse engines to the saucer's rear and torpedo tubes to the neck. it's been good 40 years and doesn't need to be fucked with.

it's like the TARDIS. when nu-Who was being worked on, they twatted around with about a dozen diifferent dematerialisation effects before realising the old one worked and why change it?

 

[David cgc]

In the picture below, the overall diameter of the front of the nacelles looks way too large and close together.

After seeing a few extrapolations of the ship from the teaser, I and others decided it was fairly likely the warp engines were increased in size and moved closer together to "cheat" the final shot to get a better composition. Same reason the nameplate is off-center, as well.

 

[Christopher]

if I was redesigning the 1701 all I woulda done was add impulse engines to the saucer's rear and torpedo tubes to the neck.

Uhh, what? There already are impulse engines on the saucer's rear.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Maybe he wants to add more?

 

[captcalhoun]

if I was redesigning the 1701 all I woulda done was add impulse engines to the saucer's rear and torpedo tubes to the neck.

Uhh, what? There already are impulse engines on the saucer's rear.

make em more defined then, with a red glow

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Further, Roddenberry insisted on other changes besides the separation feature. According to The Art of Star Trek, GR had Probert shorten the nacelles and move the bridge from the center of the ship back to the top where it had been in TOS.

Which is inaccurate in one detail, visible in the sketches. Gene asked for the bridge on top and the nacelles to be longer. The book gets that latter point wrong.

Thanks!

My copy is back in San Diego; so I couldn't double check the sketches or the prose, but the inaccuracy doesn't suprise me as the Garfield-Reeves non-fiction Trek books are filled with minor and majore inaccuracies.

 

[bullethead]

On Trekmovie.com's article for this image, Rick Sternbach expressed that he was disappointed by the design.

That's not actually what Rick said. He offered some initial criticism which he then revised when he was given more information (that the rest of us don't have yet):

If you use your browser's search function to find "Rick Sternbach" in the first article's comments, you'll find a comment where he say's he's disappointed by the design. It's only a line or two though and really easy to miss among all the other comments, so you have search by name.

 

[Christopher]

^^Yes, Rick already responded to me in this thread and clarified his comments, thanks.

 

[Ronald Held]

I would like Rick's and anyone else opinion to help out. Does the new design make sense in a structural/functional Trek sense? Also, is there any sense of evolution from the NX-01, Daedalus class to this design to the TOS movie versions? Or is this ship not in our continuity by the time the movie ends?

 

[Rick Sternbach]

On Trekmovie.com's article for this image, Rick Sternbach expressed that he was disappointed by the design.

That's not actually what Rick said. He offered some initial criticism which he then revised when he was given more information (that the rest of us don't have yet):

If you use your browser's search function to find "Rick Sternbach" in the first article's comments, you'll find a comment where he say's he's disappointed by the design. It's only a line or two though and really easy to miss among all the other comments, so you have search by name.

Yes, I was slightly disappointed in the initial viewing of the design, what with the elements of the Refit and what to me are odd-looking nacelles and pylons and the proportions of the engineering hull. In a question of pure mechanics, yes, I was puzzled by what appeared to be an incorrect placement of the nacelles so that the Bussard collectors didn't see open space, but that turned out to be an illusion, and I did get to see an ortho view of a port side elevation that confirmed it. Yes, I used a colorful metaphor related to elephants and committees, in the sense that the major assemblies did not look like they all came from the same "foundry," so to speak.

All that said, however, I do think that the new Enterprise design fits the rest of what appears in the trailer, so for me, it's the entire aesthetic that skewed. Will it all work as a film? Probably. Does it feel like it fits with the rest of the 40-some years of the franchise? No, but that's just my opinion. Will I see the movie? Sure. Will I debate design points? Sure again; it's good to study and critique and exchange ideas but without trampling on the people who created the designs in a personal way. I'm sure Ryan Church and the other designers are okay folks; I just don't respond as positively to their concepts the way some others have, or feel that Star Trek needs to be radically updated or made more hip and cool for another new generation of filmgoers. Anyhow, May 09 will come soon enough, and we'll all have fun going to the flicks.

Rick
www.spacemodesystems.com

 

[Jon1701]

You know, my initial reaction was one of :

"Well, that wasn't what I expected"

Which has now given way to :

"I quite like it"

The more I look at this design, the better it gets. Its definitely a grower. I haven't seen the trailer yet, but to me this design would segue a lot better into the TMP refit than the original ever did.

Jury is still out on those nacelles though

 

[Captain Robert April]

If this was supposed to be a new ship from, say, fifty years after Nemesis, I'd probably accept it (Enterprise-G, maybe?).

But as the original? No way, no how.

 

[Rivas_Jakarta]

It's a-aight.

 

[Ronald Held]

I have trouble accepting the design.
I do agree with some of Rick said, and will go see the movie if for nothing else to try to understand why all of the changes occured.

 

[jolau]

I keep telling myself it's probably a reimagined version of the Trek universe. If already canon TNG/DS9/VOY era ships appear in the film, then I may have a problem with it.

 

[Timo]

It's unlikely that any would. After all, most of the existing Trek starship designs are from the wrong eras; there is virtually no material there relevant for the 2230s-2250s or for whatever brief glimpses of 2260s we will get.

At most, we might get to see something akin to the couple of freighter/civilian designs added to TOS during the remastering effort. But the odds of any of those creations being seen as such are low, too.

So that won't be decisive in determining whether STXI represents a parallel fictional universe or just a slightly surprising revelation of what the "standard" fictional universe of Trek looked like in the 2230s-50s. Many other things could be decisive, yes, but the appearance of a familiar ship or craft design is too unlikely to affect anything much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[EJD1984]

After seeing the trailer (multiple times), overall I like the design. The only thing I question is the spacing of the warp nacelles - They're just pulled in towards the center line of the ship too far for me - it's throwing the whole aesthetic balance off. That's the only change I would make.

On the TOS & Refit, the warp support pylons angle were directly projected from the center line of the secondary hull (though on subsequent designs that "requirement" was thrown out the window).

Unless there is going to a surprise for us regarding their placement. The warp nacelles placement could be variable (i.e. Voyager), and the higher warp the ship travels, the further they'll move apart. From what I recall in the trailer, we only see one quick shot of the Enterprise entering warp.

Though I'll admit that there doesn't seem to be any obvious external hinge in the initial picture released to support this theory (hope).

 

[Christopher]

^^Well, maybe they're going for a really advanced technology that isn't based on anything as crude as a great big hinge, but is more a sort of flexible, shapechanging structure, like the variable-geometry wings that have been proposed for cutting-edge aircraft designs. Not something like KITT on the new Knight Rider, but more something almost organic like a bird changing the angle of its wings. That could explain why the nacelle struts appear curved in the front-view shots in the trailer.

(And no offense meant to Rick about the crudeness of a nacelle hinge like Voyager had. I meant "crude" in comparison to something really advanced and far-future. And I imagine that if the ship had been a CG model from the start instead of having to work within the limits of a physical miniature, the "hinges" for the nacelles might've been subtler in their design.)