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Discovery in Variety

The design work on this series is okay, but it doesn't compare well to the Abrams films.
We've seen a lot of the same footage re-edited, so we've seen very little of the production design. So far it looks like it could compete with most movies, top notch for TV.
 
It's way off.

I've seen one source state $1.2 million. I'm going with $1.5 million until I can track down some source material from the period.

RAMA

WB produced Babylon 5 for an average of $880,000 per episode. Given the vast, obvious chasm between that show and Enterprise in terms of the apparent quality of sets, props and effects, I find it hard to believe that Paramount would have been able to produce the show for anything less than $2-2.5m per episode.
 
Yeah like I said...with lenses and shots at certain angles, the bridge could be made to look bigger or smaller than it is. In publicity shots, the 1701-D looked huge at the front of the bridge, just like most of the bridges do, but in fact the proportions were not all that different. It may be bigger, but oddly big? Nope.

RAMA

I don't know...Compare this image:
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To this image:
4ecee64c8e25b07546d4a0ac019ef649.jpg


While the Discovery bridge is certainly larger than the TOS bridge (there's no denying that), there really isn't that much extra "clear floor space"...

...except for the area directly in front of Isaacs, Martin-Green, and Yeoh, but I but we rarely see that part of the set on screen anyway (due to camera angles and such), just like there is clear floor space in front of and beside Sulu and Chekov that we rarely saw on screen, as shown below:

8940e1ad83b3f6481f22e301c6d1c529.jpg
 
WB produced Babylon 5 for an average of $880,000 per episode. Given the vast, obvious chasm between that show and Enterprise in terms of the apparent quality of sets, props and effects, I find it hard to believe that Paramount would have been able to produce the show for anything less than $2-2.5m per episode.
That's about HALF of DS9's budget....

RAMA
 
Looking at the Discovery bridge, everything seems so far apart from everything. I get the Captain's Chair should be isolated but it seems like the helms station is isolated from the con station (I don't know what these stations are so I'm going on assumptions). It's almost like while this crew is on the bridge, they will be so lonely at their various stations. At least with the Star Trek bridge, there seemed to be a sense of work-community.
 
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That Captain's chair looks pretty much home-made and a bit tacky. The Berman-era shows got good use out of high-end automotive seating as a base for their seating.
 
It's way off.

I've seen one source state $1.2 million. I'm going with $1.5 million until I can track down some source material from the period.

RAMA

TNG was pegged at $1.3-$1.4 million an episode pretty early on. I'm thinking $2-$2.5 million for the average Enterprise episode.
 
Yeah, Enterprise was well north of 2 million per - hell, even an hour of one of the Stargates, produced in Canada, cost that much.
 
We've seen a lot of the same footage re-edited, so we've seen very little of the production design. So far it looks like it could compete with most movies, top notch for TV.

They've spent a lot of money on it, but there's nothing particularly striking about any of the sets except their apparent size. "Generic" is the term that people have been throwing around, and that comes close to being true.

Simply because a design is rendered in great detail at great expense doesn't make it imaginative or convincing. Discovery's bridge is a bigger, costlier round room with lots of chairs and lights that don't really appear to do anything. It's most Star Trek bridges.

Mike Okuda was really the only artist who ever really made all those panels look like they might be designed as controls and interfaces. He's got the kind of genius that's just not showing here.
 
Well, they seem to sticking pretty close to the standard Starfleet designs from the other shows, so this is pretty much what I was expecting and wanting.
I think the big question will be the Klingon sets. From the bits and pieces I've seen and read those are going to be where the really different and unique stuff is going to be.
 
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They've spent a lot of money on it, but there's nothing particularly striking about any of the sets except their apparent size. "Generic" is the term that people have been throwing around, and that comes close to being true.

Simply because a design is rendered in great detail at great expense doesn't make it imaginative or convincing. Discovery's bridge is a bigger, costlier round room with lots of chairs and lights that don't really appear to do anything. It's most Star Trek bridges.

Mike Okuda was really the only artist who ever really made all those panels look like they might be designed as controls and interfaces. He's got the kind of genius that's just not showing here.

Exactly, what I was thinking. It´s an okay look for a bridge..would be okay for a movie...but its just kinda bland. The color pallete is very narrow...not really any contrasting color that "breaks the mold". And having the consoles GUI be one shade of blue is just bad design...imagine having to work with that every day. This is basically like using a monochrome screen. Its much harder to find things quickly.
 
Those sets are fantastic, I like the bridge lighting in that photo shoot, that slight greenish tint with the chrome gives it a link to The Cage. There's just a hint of retro-cool in there.

It's amazing how a lens can distort reality, I live in the UK and have been to the Dr Who exhibition in Wales, you wouldn't believe how small some of the tardis sets are, yet they can look quite large on TV.
 
^ I agree, I really like those sets! For me at least the art design for Discovery looks much more interesting than anything that came out of the last three movies; and I really liked the designs in them. Apart from the Kelvin and Franklin bridges maybe, which share some design cues with the Shenzhou bridge, and which I loved.
 
So, there's all of an eight-inch step-down from the outer stations to the two forward consoles in the "pit."

From a functional perspective, what's the point there?
It's funny that you mention that. While on the New Voyages TOS bridge, I noticed how small its steps were--too small to be functional. But, they look fine on the screen. Maybe the same here?
 
It's funny that you mention that. While on the New Voyages TOS bridge, I noticed how small its steps were--too small to be functional. But, they look fine on the screen. Maybe the same here?
I'm still thinking that when it's seen on screen, filmed through proper lenses and lighting, it will look different than the photos we see here.
 
I'm still thinking that when it's seen on screen, filmed through proper lenses and lighting, it will look different than the photos we see here.
Yeah, I wrote about that earlier in this thread too. If the magazine photographer didn't use the same angles and types of lenses as the production, it's going to look different than how it looks in the series.
 
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