Doug Drexler Spills on the USS Stargazer from "Picard"

[Mark_Nguyen]

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Lots of interesting stuff about the creation of the ship. He touches on the design language used, modularity of the saucer, linking tech to story points, and his thoughts on why nacelles are bigger again. He confirms a dual warp core on the Sagan-class design, the use of TNG-era decals, TMP-era cues, and more. Great video!

Mark

 

[137th Gebirg]

Thank you for posting that. I find these BTS videos fascinating, especially when it's Mr. Drexler doing them. Er... Excuse me... DOUG F***ING DREXLER!

 

[Riley]

I commented on his NX-01 video that he should credit Alex Jaeger since the NX-01 is 99% the Akira. He didn't respond to my comment. I thought he was better than that.

 

[Ronald Held]

Is that really true?

 

[137th Gebirg]

Jaeger did create the Akira. The suits wanted the NX to look just like it because they didn’t really care if it looked like some obscure (they thought) background ship from First Contact. Drexler knew the fans would have a problem with that (it quickly became the “Boba Fett” of the Sector 001 fleet - next to nothing known about it, yet immensely popular), so he essentially flipped the engines upward and made it a bit more greebly. There’s clearly an implied design lineage, but it wound up being an essentially different ship. Ex Astris did a work up on this topic years ago.

So, long and short of it, Drexler is the creator of the NX, but there are enough design cues derived from the Akira that he probably should have at least given Jaeger some credit.

 

[David cgc]

So, long and short of it, Drexler is the creator of the NX, but there are enough design cues derived from the Akira that he probably should have at least given Jaeger some credit.

Don't forget, he also needed to personally respond to a bitter rando insulting him about it. To be the better man.

 

[AntonyF]

I didn't know Drexler was still involved. That's cool.

 

[137th Gebirg]

He really is an awesome and kind person. If he neglected to mention Jaeger, I chalk it up to a simple oversight regarding some arcane bit of trivia from 30 years ago, with absolutely zero malicious intent. His Trek cred is beyond reproach, and on par with other such luminaries, like the Okudas, Rick Sternbach and Andrew Probert.

 

[DonIago]

I just wish the Stargazer had been given more to do during PIC.

 

[Dukhat]

I commented on his NX-01 video that he should credit Alex Jaeger since the NX-01 is 99% the Akira. He didn't respond to my comment. I thought he was better than that.

Well, were you nice, or were you a jerk?

And to be fair, the NX-01 isn’t 99% the Akira. Maybe 20% by the end of the day.

 

[Mage]

I commented on his NX-01 video that he should credit Alex Jaeger since the NX-01 is 99% the Akira. He didn't respond to my comment. I thought he was better than that.

So you insulted a man who did his best to come up with an original design that is influenced by the Akira, after the studio's said 'just use the existing ship you already have' on a platform that his and you now feel neglected when he decided to be the bigger man and just ignore a nonsense comment on YouTube?
Smart move.

 

[publiusr]

Both designs were inspired by the P-38, so Kelly Johnson and Hall Hibbard are the roots of the design tree.

 

[Riley]

Jaeger did create the Akira. The suits wanted the NX to look just like it because they didn’t really care if it looked like some obscure (they thought) background ship from First Contact. Drexler knew the fans would have a problem with that (it quickly became the “Boba Fett” of the Sector 001 fleet - next to nothing known about it, yet immensely popular), so he essentially flipped the engines upward and made it a bit more greebly. There’s clearly an implied design lineage, but it wound up being an essentially different ship. Ex Astris did a work up on this topic years ago.

So, long and short of it, Drexler is the creator of the NX, but there are enough design cues derived from the Akira that he probably should have at least given Jaeger some credit.

Hence my comment on his video. It's not hyperbole to say that the NX Class is 95% Akira. All I wanted was to see if Drexler would acknowledge this.

Don't forget, he also needed to personally respond to a bitter rando insulting him about it. To be the better man.

I'm not bitter. I simply stated that Alex Jaeger's work contributes to most of a design for which Drexler takes sole credit. The fact that he didn't acknowledge this on his own in the videos he's done is, to me, unfortunate and dishonest.

He really is an awesome and kind person. If he neglected to mention Jaeger, I chalk it up to a simple oversight regarding some arcane bit of trivia from 30 years ago, with absolutely zero malicious intent. His Trek cred is beyond reproach, and on par with other such luminaries, like the Okudas, Rick Sternbach and Andrew Probert.

I don't disagree that he seems like a good person. That said, I think he should give credit where it's due. The fact remains that Drexler's NX Class would not exist without Jaeger's Akira Class.

So you insulted a man who did his best to come up with an original design that is influenced by the Akira, after the studio's said 'just use the existing ship you already have' on a platform that his and you now feel neglected when he decided to be the bigger man and just ignore a nonsense comment on YouTube?
Smart move.

I addressed this previously. I didn't insult him, I simply mentioned that Alex Jaeger's Akira design should be acknowledged because Drexler himself did not.

 

[Dukhat]

Both designs were inspired by the P-38, so Kelly Johnson and Hall Hibbard are the roots of the design tree.

There's a bit of a difference. The producers of ENT didn't start with wanting the NX-01 to look exactly like a P-38.

 

[Dukhat]

I don't disagree that he seems like a good person. That said, I think he should give credit where it's due. The fact remains that Drexler's NX Class would not exist without Jaeger's Akira Class.

It wasn't Drexler's fault that the producers wanted to use the Akira, unaltered, as the NX-01. It also wasn't his fault that he took it upon himself to make changes to the Akira in such a way that he was still obligated to keep the basic design attributes to keep those producers happy. I'm sure if he had his way he would have come up with a completely different design.

Now if it was his idea from the get-go to base the NX-01 on the Akira, I could understand him needing to give Jaeger credit. But he was fixing up somebody else's dumb decision. If anything, Drexler should have told you that if you need such acknowledgment, then you should be asking the ENT producers for it, not him.

 

[Mage]

It wasn't Drexler's fault that the producers wanted to use the Akira, unaltered, as the NX-01. It also wasn't his fault that he took it upon himself to make changes to the Akira in such a way that he was still obligated to keep the basic design attributes to keep those producers happy. I'm sure if he had his way he would have come up with a completely different design.

Now if it was his idea from the get-go to base the NX-01 on the Akira, I could understand him needing to give Jaeger credit. But he was fixing up somebody else's dumb decision. If anything, Drexler should have told you that if you need such acknowledgment, then you should be asking the ENT producers for it, not him.

#endofdiscussion With you on this one dude. We've disagreed in the past but here we agree.

 

[publiusr]

If anything, Drexler should have told you that if you need such acknowledgment, then you should be asking the ENT producers for it, not him.

He's far too kind to throw anyone under the bus.

I am glad that everything turned out the way it did--or we wouldn't have this:

Diogo Vincenzi - USS Atlantis - Kusanagi Class

This one has been a long time in the making. I started this ship back in 2019 while working on the USS Enterprise. It started as an exercise to see if I could take an existing Star Trek design, in this case the Akira Class, designed originally by Alex Yeager, to a different era in Star Trek, in...

diogovincenzi.com

That was the best the catamaran concept ever looked.

I loved the NX-01's lower saucer but the top was too bulbous for me.

I saw a version of this floating around but with NX-01's bridge:

U.S.S. Constitution (Axanar Era) [4YW] by Quantum808 on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

A post ENTERPRISE series riff, but it points towards the 3-footer.

It is hard to design a good pre-TOS ship that looks detailed enough on modern screens. Masao's Valley Forge could just as easily be a post-TOS ship.

His Lancaster would have been awesome.

One of the things I look for are pre-FJ fan artworks, wondering what other artists could have brought to the table:

File:Analysis.jpg - Fanlore

fanlore.org

Not unlike this:

New Warp-Drive Propulsion Concept Moves Fictional Starships Closer to Engineering Reality

A new warp-drive study proposes a novel segmented design that brings hyper-fast space travel one step closer to becoming a reality.

thedebrief.org

Disney seems to want to work with some "A.I. slop" artists. I think Paramount/CBS/whatever should be similarly inviting.

 

[Just a Bill]

Dexler says in the video that "GNDN" goes all the way back to the Original Series. I've heard this statement before, but I have never seen a GNDN reference in TOS. I think it must be a TNG invention. Does anyone have a bona fide TOS reference?

 

[Kor]

Dexler says in the video that "GNDN" goes all the way back to the Original Series. I've heard this statement before, but I have never seen a GNDN reference in TOS. I think it must be a TNG invention. Does anyone have a bona fide TOS reference?

John Jeffries mentioned it in audio commentary on TOS season 2. I don't think Jeffries worked on TNG.
Nobody seems to have ever found any screencaps from TOS that show the letters "GNDN" visible anywhere, so maybe it was just on piping or whatever that wasn't captured on film.

Also, Christopher once mentioned seeing GNDN in an episode of Greatest American Hero, which Jeffries also worked on, and which predated TNG.

Kor

 

[Tuskin38]

I think Paramount/CBS/whatever should be similarly inviting.

hell no