Discovery Size Argument™ thread

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Come now, why would they scale the ships to one size on the show and then give us a different size?

Because they've always done that, since TOS! The Galileo shuttle is said in dialogue to be 24 feet long, but the exterior mock-up is only 22, and the interior set is too big to fit inside either!

No Trek production has ever consistently adhered onscreen to the scale(s) established for its ships offscreen. They go with what looks dramatically and aesthetically pleasing for a given shot every time!

And I know you know this as well as I do, because you used to be the one pointing it out here at every opportunity you got. What's up with that, man? I don't grasp your game in all this. Help me out. I'd honestly like to understand where you're coming from. Are you just trolling? (Not an accusation, a genuine question.)

-MMoM

 

[Kemaiku]

So that massive saucer section in Star Trek '09 could very well belong to a DSC era ship that predates the timeline split, similar to but larger than the Kelvin. Interesting.

 

[XCV330]

So that massive saucer section in Star Trek '09 could very well belong to a DSC era ship that predates the timeline split, similar to but larger than the Kelvin. Interesting.

which saucer are you discussing?

 

[DaveyNY]

which saucer are you discussing?

I would imagine it's the U.S.S. MAYFLOWER primary hull, being referred too.
The one the Enterprise almost ran into when dropping out of warp.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

So that massive saucer section in Star Trek '09 could very well belong to a DSC era ship that predates the timeline split, similar to but larger than the Kelvin. Interesting.

Lol, in a movie where all the ships are already like crazy big, they just had to add insult to injury by randomly placing a GINORMOUS ship in a shot for like 2 seconds to further drive us crazy.

 

[Kemaiku]

Lol, in a movie where all the ships are already like crazy big, they just had to add insult to injury by randomly placing a GINORMOUS ship in a shot for like 2 seconds to further drive us crazy.

The 2009 Enterprise is barely longer than the 1987 Enterprise D, with less overall volume still. Even Vengeance about equals the D for interior space.

Man, she must have been a damn King Kong level nightmare inducing ship in the 80's, still being bigger than anything else.

 

[Longinus]

The 2009 Enterprise is barely longer than the 1987 Enterprise D, with less overall volume still. Even Vengeance about equals the D for interior space.

Man, she must have been a damn King Kong level nightmare inducing ship in the 80's, still being bigger than anything else.

Umm... What has the real time has to do with this? D was over a century later in in-universe time.

 

[Kemaiku]

Umm... What has the real time has to do with this? D was over a century later in in-universe time.

And in the Kelvin universe, Marcus became head of Starfleet instead of Nagura, and gave rise to a far more rapidly advanced, semi-militarised Starfleet.

This was gone over in exhausting detail in 2013 for christ sake.

 

[Longinus]

And in the Kelvin universe, Marcus became head of Starfleet instead of Nagura, and gave rise to a far more rapidly advanced, semi-militarised Starfleet.

Yep. And that never seemed even remotely plausible to me.

This was gone over in exhausting detail in 2013 for christ sake.

But that is true, so there is no need to rehash this again.

 

[F. King Daniel]

And I know you know this as well as I do, because you used to be the one pointing it out here at every opportunity you got. What's up with that, man? I don't grasp your game in all this. Help me out. I'd honestly like to understand where you're coming from. Are you just trolling? (Not an accusation, a genuine question.)

Even when they cheat with scenes and sets and whatnot (which they do all the time from TOS up to the present), they usually have one intended size they're trying to convey. My impression from @thribs' post was that they have a secret "real" scale and one fake that they tell us.

For example, the '09/ID/Beyond Enterprise is actually 366m in the shipyard shot in '09, some of the innards in '09 and ID require a size of 1200m to fit but what they're aiming for and what is mostly depicted is 725m. But my impression from what @thribs said (which I may have misunderstood?) was that they really made Discovery and Shenzhou and whatnot to a consistent size but then told us a fake bigger size for some reason.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Even when they cheat with scenes and sets and whatnot (which they do all the time from TOS up to the present), they usually have one intended size they're trying to convey. My impression from @thribs' post was that they have a secret "real" scale and one fake that they tell us.

For example, the '09/ID/Beyond Enterprise is actually 366m in the shipyard shot in '09, some of the innards in '09 and ID require a size of 1200m to fit but what they're aiming for and what is mostly depicted is 725m. But my impression from what @thribs said (which I may have misunderstood?) was that they really made Discovery and Shenzhou and whatnot to a consistent size but then told us a fake bigger size for some reason.

I'm pretty sure there is an entire writer's room devoted to thinking up the most esoteric ways of driving us crazy. This suggestion has got to be from that room.

"They always argue that ships are too big for the era, so let's make them appropriate sizes, but then tell them that they're bigger."

 

[XCV330]

I honestly dont give a damn what size the ships are. I'm never going to be on board one, and as long as they basically look right and most of the scenes are plausible inside them.. I got a box of fucks. There are only so many fucks in that box. I can't just give them out for every little thing.

 

[DaveyNY]

I honestly dont give a damn what size the ships are. I'm never going to be on board one, and as long as they basically look right and most of the scenes are plausible inside them.. I got a box of fucks. There are only so many fucks in that box. I can't just give them out for every little thing.

Man, my box of fucks has been empty for a long time now.

 

[starsuperion]

Umm... What has the real time has to do with this? D was over a century later in in-universe time.

Hahaha you think this new STD series is in in universe with TNG.
Aren't you cute.

 

[thribs]

Come now, why would they scale the ships to one size on the show and then give us a different size?

It happens quite a lot. The Defiant is an example of a ship that was bigger in some shots than in others in order for it to stand out.
Insurrection is famous for its scaling errors.

 

[thribs]

Compared to what?

The shots you get of them in the bridge on the Shenzhou make it look bigger Compared to the saucer making the ship
Look smaller than it is.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Even when they cheat with scenes and sets and whatnot (which they do all the time from TOS up to the present), they usually have one intended size they're trying to convey. My impression from @thribs' post was that they have a secret "real" scale and one fake that they tell us.

For example, the '09/ID/Beyond Enterprise is actually 366m in the shipyard shot in '09, some of the innards in '09 and ID require a size of 1200m to fit but what they're aiming for and what is mostly depicted is 725m. But my impression from what @thribs said (which I may have misunderstood?) was that they really made Discovery and Shenzhou and whatnot to a consistent size but then told us a fake bigger size for some reason.

I may have misunderstood equally or more so, but I figured they were just saying that if the size(s) "on paper" don't match the size(s) "on screen" to begin with, we can consider ourselves free to disregard any or all of them if we choose, just as the production ultimately would. They're all "fake" and none of them are "consistent"! And surely "they cheat" is pretty much the exact opposite of "they're trying to convey one intended size"?

Whose intended size are we talking about here, exactly, anyway? Ryan Church's? J.J. Abrams'? John Eaves'? Alex Jaeger's? Someone else's? You are undoubtedly better-versed on the subject than I am, but I'm highly skeptical that Abrams ever said: "Okay, in this shot I want the Enterprise to be 725m instead of 366m." (I doubt the man thinks in terms of meters—or is that metres—at all, for that matter!) Rather, I'd think he just said "it doesn't look big enough to me here, make it look bigger" or maybe even "make it twice as big as it was" or something like that, and left the VFX guys to figure it out.

And glancing at Memory Alpha, it seems the ship was "intended" to be all sorts of different sizes by different people at different points. Any one of them would contradict something. So unless a size is explicitly stated within the fiction, why worry about which it "really" is? Because size charts?



-MMoM

 

[Fandango831]

It happens quite a lot. The Defiant is an example of a ship that was bigger in some shots than in others in order for it to stand out.
Insurrection is famous for its scaling errors.

Same can be said of the Bird of Prey, Excelsior class ships on screen, and a lot of perspective shots throughout Trek history. The end state will be that hardcore fans trying to make Star Trek "real" will never be happy with size comparisons/charts done till the end of time. In the end productions will almost never be 1/1 between sets, physical models, CG models, and then of course various production designers, concept artists, and writers inputs and opinions on scales and ship-canon. All of which can literally vary on a per episode basis let alone per season.

Fundamentally as long as it looks good and accomplishes the shot that'll be good enough since well... it's not reality. I more than get the enthusiasm of a lot of ship fans as I've been building models since I was 15 when my dad could purchase me AMT models and even now collect a great deal of the Eaglemoss replicas. However some fans will forever be mad at how Star Trek "fails" to adhere to 1/1 scaling gospel and not view itself as if it were truly real per every production ever in history. Hell I had a fan endeavor to chew me out once trying to preach to me design methodology of TOS compared to the TOS films as if they were quoting a mechanical engineers workup for a modern naval destroyer. Sometimes fantasy should remain fantasy.

If there is one thing I'll say about aspects of DSC is that there are details in the show that really shine that fans over look just because of the aforementioned. Hell ECHenry wonderfully pointed out how the shuttle warp scene scaled for distance nearly 1/1, or how the slight upscaling of ships allots for set equality with the CG renders that designers of past have mentioned before. None of it is perfect and it shouldn't be because it's a show but those details are there if you look.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I may have misunderstood equally or more so, but I figured they were just saying that if the size(s) "on paper" don't match the size(s) "on screen" to begin with, we can consider ourselves free to disregard any or all of them if we choose, just as the production ultimately would. They're all "fake" and none of them are "consistent"! And surely "they cheat" is pretty much the exact opposite of "they're trying to convey one intended size"?

Whose intended size are we talking about here, exactly, anyway? Ryan Church's? J.J. Abrams'? John Eaves'? Alex Jaeger's? Someone else's? You are undoubtedly better-versed on the subject than I am, but I'm highly skeptical that Abrams ever said: "Okay, in this shot I want the Enterprise to be 725m instead of 366m." (I doubt the man thinks in terms of meters—or is that metres—at all, for that matter!) Rather, I'd think he just said "it doesn't look big enough to me here, make it look bigger" or maybe even "make it twice as big as it was" or something like that, and left the VFX guys to figure it out.

And glancing at Memory Alpha, it seems the ship was "intended" to be all sorts of different sizes by different people at different points. Any one of them would contradict something. So unless a size is explicitly stated within the fiction, why worry about which it "really" is? Because size charts?



-MMoM

By the time the film was done, they'd (I'm guessing someone at ILM, approved by JJ or another producer) decided on 725 meters. For Into Darkness and Beyond, new additions to the ship (the plaza at the saucer centre, the saucer separation area, all the little people in the windows) were scaled to fit in that intended size, although ID kept the oversized engine room, shuttlebay and wrongly shaped bridge window for some shots. If they'd kept designing new stuff that only fitted into 1200m or 366m, the answer would be a lot less clear.

 

[Tuskin38]

DS9 and the defiant are also widely inconsistent


Fluctuating sizes must be a pain for games.
I know Star Trek online (for their starships at least) just uses the numbers either given to them by CBS, or whatever is in the tech manual/encyclopedia. I’m not sure what they use if there is no number at all. I’m guessing just an estimate.