Andrew Probert and Rick Sternbach: The New Enterprise

[CuttingEdge100]

You know, if I was going to have re-booted the TV-series; I would have made the TV-series enterprise look more like Phase II.

I would have made the sets look more modern reflecting more modern advances in computer technology

I would have made the uniforms look slicker although retaining some basic qualities.


I would certainly not have made the bridge look like something out of Galaxy Quest, I would not have put a guy in his late 20's as Captain Kirk, especially a guy that doesn't even look like him. I would not have taken all the undesirable characteristics of the TOS model (and even TMP's model) and Galaxy-Quest-ized them and accentuated all the undesirable characteristics*. I would not have put a scene of Kirk racing around in a Corvette


CuttingEdge100
* Even the TMP model has undesirable characteristics, excessive surface detail for one, excessive gridding around the saucer-rim.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

You know, if I was going to have re-booted the TV-series; I would have made the TV-series enterprise look more like Phase II.

I would have made the sets look more modern reflecting more modern advances in computer technology

I would have made the uniforms look slicker although retaining some basic qualities.


I would certainly not have made the bridge look like something out of Galaxy Quest, I would not have put a guy in his late 20's as Captain Kirk, especially a guy that doesn't even look like him. I would not have taken all the undesirable characteristics of the TOS model (and even TMP's model) and Galaxy-Quest-ized them and accentuated all the undesirable characteristics*. I would not have put a scene of Kirk racing around in a Corvette


CuttingEdge100
* Even the TMP model has undesirable characteristics, excessive surface detail for one, excessive gridding around the saucer-rim.

I disagree. Galaxy Quest had a better bridge design :P. In the sense that it was more coherent, design-wise.

 

[ancient]

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'm pretty sure that is a land based hangar in the trailer, probably a launching facility to get cadets to their starship assignments. However, those shuttles are HUGE and we know that the Enterprise has at least two of them, as seen in the first picture of the Enterprise. Judging the scale is difficult.

The 15 decks of the USS VOYAGER are thicker than the original ship's 24. That makes a deck of VOYAGER over 160% the thickness of a deck on the original ENTERPRISE. ETA: My point there is: the ship can still have only 24 decks and suddenly be 1500 feet long.

That kind of scale-up is pretty likely, I think, judging by the size of the bridge, engineering apparently being a redressed factory (!) and the monster size of the ship's shuttles.

I disagree. Galaxy Quest had a better bridge design :P. In the sense that it was more coherent, design-wise.

Yeah, the GQ bridge was actually quite nice, imo. It's been forever since I saw that movie though.

 

[arch101]

Mr. Probert- You once told me that I might be a bit harsh with my criticisms of John Eaves' on-screen work. You said that he was working under the direction of the producers, and that what we saw wasn't truly representative of his work. Well, he's now working for a whole new crew of producers, and I still see the same overcomplicted designs, stubby wings on shuttles and millions of little lights. Should I still be feelin' for him or can I be harsh now?

 

[USS Mariner]

No, all this means is that they simply like John Eaves' crap. (Literally. They're scat hoarders.)

 

[Cary L. Brown]

No, all this means is that they simply like John Eaves' crap. (Literally. They're scat hoarders.)

The problem is that the guys doing the design now aren't technically-oriented at all. Andrew Probert is a smart, technically-minded guy, as is Rick Sternbach (hence why we actually give a @#$* what they have to say in here!) When you have people who actually think it looks "hi-tech kewl" to have "printed-circuit board traces" in HUGE, INCH THICK LINES, on plexiglass panes... which to anyone who has ever dealt with a single remotely technical application of any sort looks just about as "high-tech" as the vacuum tubes and Graff generators in Flash Gordon's rocketship... that's an indication that they need to start looking outside of the Hollywonk Graphic Arteest community again and maybe.. gasp...even consider hiring someone who has an actual technical background?

Hell, California is FULL of designers and engineers who are looking for jobs. How tough would it have been to hire just ONE of them as a "technical consultant" for the production, just to be there to say "guys, this is utter crap" every once in a while?

 

[ancient]

I think those circuit things may actually be diagrams of circuits. Of course, that doesn't explain why they would have a big glass barrier on the bridge to look at circuit diagrams. That seems more like an engineering thing.

Are they maybe an homage to Scotty's engineering circuit-board readout? I'm hoping they are animated and not just static paintings.

 

[USS Mariner]

No, all this means is that they simply like John Eaves' crap. (Literally. They're scat hoarders.)

The problem is that the guys doing the design now aren't technically-oriented at all. Andrew Probert is a smart, technically-minded guy, as is Rick Sternbach (hence why we actually give a @#$* what they have to say in here!) When you have people who actually think it looks "hi-tech kewl" to have "printed-circuit board traces" in HUGE, INCH THICK LINES, on plexiglass panes... which to anyone who has ever dealt with a single remotely technical application of any sort looks just about as "high-tech" as the vacuum tubes and Graff generators in Flash Gordon's rocketship... that's an indication that they need to start looking outside of the Hollywonk Graphic Arteest community again and maybe.. gasp...even consider hiring someone who has an actual technical background?

Hell, California is FULL of designers and engineers who are looking for jobs. How tough would it have been to hire just ONE of them as a "technical consultant" for the production, just to be there to say "guys, this is utter crap" every once in a while?

You're preaching to the choir here. Rick and Andy are the guys who inspired me to shoot for Industrial Design as a major.

[BillMaherSarcasm]Besides, movies are an art form. "Technical consultants" don't belong in an art form.[/BillMaherSarcasm]

 

[Psion]

I think those circuit things may actually be diagrams of circuits. Of course, that doesn't explain why they would have a big glass barrier on the bridge to look at circuit diagrams. That seems more like an engineering thing.

Are they maybe an homage to Scotty's engineering circuit-board readout? I'm hoping they are animated and not just static paintings.

You mean like a block diagram of various ship's systems? Something that updates when Scotty re-routes auxiliary power and stuff?

That's not such a bad notion.

I still ain't feeling much love for this bridge, though. It looks cheap.

 

[Timo]

How about scaling the nice drawing so that the various elements of the two ships match, one by one?

If, say, the new saucer were shrunk to the dimensions of the old one, the secondary hulls would also become nearly identical. Only the new nacelles would be smaller than the old ones. Or, in terms of internal chronology, the nacelles of the 2240s-2250s would in time be replaced by nacelles that are longer by a fifth.

And people on the rim of the TOS saucer might enjoy a bit more headroom than people on the rim of the movie saucer...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kirk1980]

Yeah, I do wonder what Misters Probert and Sternbach (seems odd for me to say that without adding 'and Okuda', having grown up loving that -D Tech Manual!) would do if given the chance to give us a Trek XI Enterprise with the stricture that it couldn't be just a more detailed 1960's Enterprise.

Curious minds (or at least mine anyway) want to know!

 

[B.J.]

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'm pretty sure that is a land based hangar in the trailer, probably a launching facility to get cadets to their starship assignments. However, those shuttles are HUGE and we know that the Enterprise has at least two of them, as seen in the first picture of the Enterprise. Judging the scale is difficult.

Regardless of the function of the facility (I think it's ground based as well), it looks to me like they filmed this inside one of the huge blimp hangars. Perhaps this was in Hangar One at Moffett Field near San Francisco?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

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'm pretty sure that is a land based hangar in the trailer, probably a launching facility to get cadets to their starship assignments. However, those shuttles are HUGE and we know that the Enterprise has at least two of them, as seen in the first picture of the Enterprise. Judging the scale is difficult.

Regardless of the function of the facility (I think it's ground based as well), it looks to me like they filmed this inside one of the huge blimp hangars. Perhaps this was in Hangar One at Moffett Field near San Francisco?

I don't think that's a real set... this is a "virtual set" in the same way that the "prequel SW" sets were. Perhaps they were modeling it on the monster hangar at Moffett, but I'm sure it wasn't actually shot there. Just as much as I'm sure that they didn't really have hundreds of extras in cadet uniforms, and dozens of full-scale shuttle mockups.

 

[Captain X]

I think that shot is supposed to be at the Academy where all the cadets are getting assignments.

 

[ST-One]

Yeah, I do wonder what Misters Probert and Sternbach (seems odd for me to say that without adding 'and Okuda', having grown up loving that -D Tech Manual!) would do if given the chance to give us a Trek XI Enterprise with the stricture that it couldn't be just a more detailed 1960's Enterprise.

Curious minds (or at least mine anyway) want to know!

I'd pay to see that

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I think the production design of the interiors is the weak link so far, here - extravagant mediocrity, for the most part.

Not the first time in the history of the Franchise, of course. They'll do.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I think the production design of the interiors is the weak link so far, here - extravagant mediocrity, for the most part.

Not the first time in the history of the Franchise, of course. They'll do.

I suspect we'll see a series of fan-made "Forrest Gump'ed" versions of this film come out over time. With replaced visuals, and even replaced set details via CGI. And maybe a few of the more obnoxious (ie, Kirk groping Uhura) shots left out in the name of good taste...

 

[Probert]

Yeah, I do wonder what Misters Probert and Sternbach would do if given the chance to give us a Trek XI Enterprise with the stricture that it couldn't be just a more detailed 1960's Enterprise.

If this truly is a sequel, I would have created something between Cochrane's ship and Kirk's-TOS,... but closer to Kirk's. I also might have suggested using Jefferies' 'RingShip' as the TOS predecessor.

This is what makes me still think this is a 'reset' or new beginning for Star Trek. The sets look like a really bad Japanese SF movie, or maybe Italian, and are certainly not up to the standards set by Gene so long ago.

And, yes, that shuttle (shudder) hanger looks like the old blimp hanger at Moffet Field.

Andrew-

 

[GodThingFormerly]

The sets look like a really bad Japanese SF movie, or maybe Italian...

TGT

 

[Ronald Held]

What sense does it make, if the ship is larger than the E-D?