Andrew Probert and Rick Sternbach: The New Enterprise

[yotsuya]

My opinion of the new movie was originally quite high from seeing the casting and the uniforms and particularly this image.

An excellent resemblance and virtually identical uniforms. A wonderful job of keeping the old look. I had such hopes.

Than along comes the first image to clearly show the new Enterprise. I made a similar comparison of the two ships. (the top image is from the smithsonian)

There is no way to reconcile this horrible re-imaging of the Enterprise with the quality of the casting and wardrobe. Where the first image shows about a 90% matching to the original, the second image (and the same goes for the bridge set and corridors) shows only the vaguest homage to the original. I'd say a 25% match to the original.

A friend put it best. "Don't these people know that the Enterprise is one of the characters?" The basic design (like the uniform pattern) shouldn't have been changed. Adding more details, yes. Color tweaks, yes. Updating the old girl for a modern audience, yes. If its supposed to fit in the existing Trek world you can't throw out the old design so completely.

Now if they are going for a reboot then I have to admit that I will reserve judgment on the new design until I see it more fully in the movie. For a reboot there are no rules.

For keeping with established Trek, I give the new Enterprise and the rest of the art design and 'F'. They failed miserably. I do give them an A for casting, however.

 

[ancient]

I don't even think it's "arty", Ancient. I think it looks junky. Say what you will about the quality of Trek writing over the last fifteen years, their set-designs have been beautiful and realistic.

These sets just don't look realistic at all.

By 'arty' I mean that there are a lot of extraneous details that seem to perform no actual function - like the corridor wall pattern. They are there purely for artistry, sort of like a cathedral cieling.

Now, how the artistry looks is another matter. I'd say it is pretty tacky.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

I can't find a Production Designer name attached to this film

Scott Chambliss.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Where the first image shows about a 90% matching to the original, the second image (and the same goes for the bridge set and corridors) shows only the vaguest homage to the original. I'd say a 25% match to the original.

All by intent, certainly.

 

[USS Mariner]

The captain's seat?... hemorrhoid heaven, the way it drops down like that.

"It looks as if officer training requires you to deal with constant back problems and ass crampage." - Me

As for the uncarpeted floors,... maybe they're setting us up for comic relief on floor-waxing day.

I honestly think it's supposed to facilitate easier butt racing.

I'll be here all week.

 

[USS Mariner]

Where the first image shows about a 90% matching to the original, the second image (and the same goes for the bridge set and corridors) shows only the vaguest homage to the original. I'd say a 25% match to the original.

All by intent, certainly.

Intentional failure is admirable, in a pathetic way.

 

[ancient]

I did this comparison picture. The TOS drawing is from e-a-s.org, I sketched the new ship as best I could.

It looks like they made the saucer wider and the engine hull longer, but kept the overall ship length about the same, which is why the new ship seems a bit squished from some angles:

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

All by intent, certainly.

Intentional failure is admirable, in a pathetic way.

I'll have to take your word for that.

The new chair, BTW, has basically the same curve built into the seat (not just the cushion, in both cases) as the TOS chair.

 

[ancient]

My only problem with the new captain's chair is the armrest being angled. They should at least have a little flat lip on the inner side, that way his arms won't slide off them during a long duty shift. It's a minor complaint though.

The seat itself looks pretty similar to the TOS version.

 

[JuanBolio]

I did this comparison picture. The TOS drawing is from e-a-s.org, I sketched the new ship as best I could.

It looks like they made the saucer wider and the engine hull longer, but kept the overall ship length about the same, which is why the new ship seems a bit squished from some angles:

That looks pretty damn good! Well done as always, sir.

 

[Captain X]

Cut it? No. Its a modular design - its built to come apart.

You don't build ships to come apart, you build them to stay together. Modern ship-building techniques do involve building the ships in sections and then assembling them in the yard, but that actually is final assembly - they aren't just tacking it together to see how it fits. If the parts don't all fit together by that point you are very fucked and just wasted a lot of time, money, and material. And even if they somehow just tacked Enterprise together on the surface, you would still have to cut the tacks in order to get it apart again, but those would have to be some really strong tacks to keep everything together like that.

The point would be to make sure the systems work together properly before doing the hard and dangerous work in space.

You don't have to put the whole ship together on the ground to do that, you can definitely test systems while the ship is in parts, and when you get it together in orbit you test everything out again - seems to be working well enough for the ISS. And in the case of a ship, when you're done putting it all together, then you go out on a shakedown cruise just to make sure everything is working the way it's supposed to.

I saw very little that struck me as "realistic" in 24th century Trek.

Looked more sensible to me. Or at least it didn't look like it was like something out of a '50s B movie.

 

[Captain X]

On the Bridge-slash-Revlon commercial set, you're absolutely right about all those round BRIGHT lights in everyones' face. There was none of that on the 'D', (except for those bad corridor deck-level under-lights) and you will never find them in a real setting, like a contemporary submarine control room for instance.

 

[JuanBolio]

The Constitution class WAS built to come apart, as are most Starfleet vessels. The nacelles can be jettisoned or swapped out, the bridge module is interchangeable, the saucer can separate, etc...

We know the components for the Enterprise were built on the ground (The Galaxy-class too, for that matter). I don't think seeing a test assembly is that much of a stretch.

 

[JoeRalat]

DUDE I LOVE THAT PHOTO!!!! OMG!! LMAO!! That was a good one!

On the Bridge-slash-Revlon commercial set, you're absolutely right about all those round BRIGHT lights in everyones' face. There was none of that on the 'D', (except for those bad corridor deck-level under-lights) and you will never find them in a real setting, like a contemporary submarine control room for instance.

 

[Captain X]

The Constitution class WAS built to come apart, as are most Starfleet vessels. The nacelles can be jettisoned or swapped out, the bridge module is interchangeable, the saucer can separate, etc...

We know the components for the Enterprise were built on the ground (The Galaxy-class too, for that matter). I don't think seeing a test assembly is that much of a stretch.

Except that isn't what we're seeing - we're seeing them still skinning the thing out as a whole ship, like old-school ship building. And as I explained, it seems to work just fine for the ISS to test the separate sections out before sending them up - they didn't put it all together here on Earth first, then take it apart and send it up so they could put it back together again.

 

[JuanBolio]

The Constitution class WAS built to come apart, as are most Starfleet vessels. The nacelles can be jettisoned or swapped out, the bridge module is interchangeable, the saucer can separate, etc...

We know the components for the Enterprise were built on the ground (The Galaxy-class too, for that matter). I don't think seeing a test assembly is that much of a stretch.

Except that isn't what we're seeing - we're seeing them still skinning the thing out as a whole ship, like old-school ship building. And as I explained, it seems to work just fine for the ISS to test the separate sections out before sending them up - they didn't put it all together here on Earth first, then take it apart and send it up so they could put it back together again.

No, but the ISS is very different from a 23rd century starship.

Seeing it fully assembled on the ground is never what I had in mind, either - but it can be explained easily enough. As easily as warp drive, transporters, and disintegration beams, if not more so.

 

[ancient]

I did a front view. The ship looks a little more cwazy from the front:

ETA: And I think this pic is a better way to compare them.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I'm gonna keep this one...

On the Bridge-slash-Revlon commercial set, you're absolutely right about all those round BRIGHT lights in everyones' face. There was none of that on the 'D', (except for those bad corridor deck-level under-lights) and you will never find them in a real setting, like a contemporary submarine control room for instance.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

I did a front view. The ship looks a little more cwazy from the front:

And it may actually be cwazier than anyone imagines. If the scene in the trailer really is Enterprise's shuttle bay, then the ship scales out to be as big as or bigger than the Galaxy class. As a friend of mine observed, even if the saucer rim windows have similar proportions to those on the refit, they may be about thirty feet wide. This may make any injection kit or garage kit or deck plans or fan diagrams almost impossible to nail down in any definitive scale. Toys won't suffer from the same requirement for accuracy.

Rick
www.spacemodelsystems.com

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I did a front view. The ship looks a little more cwazy from the front:

And it may actually be cwazier than anyone imagines. If the scene in the trailer really is Enterprise's shuttle bay, then the ship scales out to be as big as or bigger than the Galaxy class. As a friend of mine observed, even if the saucer rim windows have similar proportions to those on the refit, they may be about thirty feet wide. This may make any injection kit or garage kit or deck plans or fan diagrams almost impossible to nail down in any definitive scale. Toys won't suffer from the same requirement for accuracy.

Rick
www.spacemodelsystems.com

I think that's a hangar elsewhere, unless there are some crazy giant windows occupying the spot where the nacelle pylons go.