Poll Enterprise-D vs. Enterprise-E, which do you like better?

This is the correct answer to the question (that no one asked).
If not as much as a character but played a huge part in the entire series.

 

The Enterprise D to me didn't make much sense as an exploratory ship. Having children and families aboard. The E to me, was more of a warship. I like both - but the D is just too engrained in my childhood for me not to like it more.

 

Better answer.

 

Yeah there will be quite a few people (me included) that grew up watching TNG. That was my introduction to Star Trek and I wasn't allowed to watch the movies as they were too violent for me as I was a little kid. So lots of us will be biased towards the E-D so it's difficult to give a subjective comparison.

 

I don't believe opening the doors of Hangar 12 would have had anywhere near the impact it had, if it had revealed the E rather than the D. It's an iconic hero ship, while the E was just something new and shiny for the films.

 

I grew up watching TNG. I watched all of the shows and movies when I was a kid. I would have wished we had seen more of the E, and perhaps gotten a series taking place on the E.

 

Galaxy-class for me, as it's tied with the refit Enterprise from The Motion Picture as my favorite ship design. It's not even close.

The Sovereign class looks like somebody stepped on the Excelsior and squished it.

 

^^this, pretty much.

"A" is indeed a 70s Art Deco modernization "for modern audiences", and yet there's something about it that's more than the sum of its parts.

"D" has neat curves, but I do appreciate the team thinking through ways as to how technology and making things streamlined and curved go hand-in-hand with efficiency... unless it gets tarted up or for the sake of dumbing down, which leads to:

Too many beans causes that...

To be fair, that's due to the Klingon attack causing the latest warp core breach, and the crew skedaddling to the saucer and lollygagging. It's due to Deanna, who gets the saucer at an appropriate angle for a smoother descent, that saves everyone's lives. It's a "show vs tell" situation, something modern shows have a more difficult time with so they just blop exposition onto the audience. Even 1970s sitcoms did a better job at showing serious issues rather than turning to the screen and talk people into a coma with it, but before I digress - here's a comparison of show vs tell in TNG:


(Does anybody have any no-doz? Sheesh... )


Oops, my bad - it was Talkie Toaster who saved the ship... Well, not entirely: Earlier in the scene, Troi announces how helm controls are offline - so she's SOL but knows someone else can probably reroute the system, as she'd read up on all the manuals on how the ship's components work. Data, upon hearing the situation and during the interim, reroutes those controls to his console; I recall vaguely how - for TNG - the mainframe had allowed for this contingency. Like how we have web-based applications nowadays where you can access the juicy stuff from any terminal anywhere. (Oddly enough, Data does not away for orders - shame, shame. Where's the damn courtmartial? )

Either way, Troi saved everyone's bacon, even when Tofu took over.

I love Frank Ashmore as much as everyone else, but I wanna be Paul...








P.S. I've not had even a single sip of cup yet...

 

I like both, and even think both were more suited for their eras, but I do at least narrowly prefer the D for being more grand and creative/innovative while less directly aggressive-seeming.

 

I mean can you imagine…

Picard: We come in peace.

Alien president: You come in a battleship.

…the D was just as armed for its day, but it included civilians, probably more labs, and a less aggressive profile. Sure we’ll trade with these people.

 

I enjoy the -D because it seems more classic, in my mind...but the -E is beautiful and seems more futuristic

 

I like a neckline.

 

When I was younger I preferred the E, both for its “newness” and for its profile being slightly more Constitution-like from some angles. But these days it’s definitely the D. The E feels like a warship, but on the D one could comfortably live out one’s retirement, if such were allowed. (Obviously it wouldn’t be, but I’m talking aesthetics.)

 

The Ent-E is impressive when its first seen, but then the newness effect wears off and its just another warship. All it has going for it are the interiors, and that is fires quantum torpedoes.

The Ent-D is my Enterprise.

 

Enterprise-D for me. It's got a unique design language and it just feels right. It's elegant and futuristic, without giving the impression that it's a flying sculpture.

If I were to try and look at this objectively though... it would still be the D, but with caveats. The HD era hasn't been kind to the ship in seasons 3-7 when they changed the model. This is a real bugbear of mine because of the drop in visual quality when they use the 4 foot model is significant.
Some people have mentioned that the ship looks top-heavy, but I think that's a 4 foot issue only. The initial 6 foot model was sharper, with the nacelle pylons sweeping upwards significantly more elegantly (very noticeable in fore/aft shots). The neck likewise has a more dynamic sweep upwards from the secondary hull.

Conversely, the 4 footer looks like it came out of a jelly mold, with exaggerated paneling, softened deflector and thickened saucer rim. The neck is squat and gives me the impression of a rubber duck.
The nacelles are boxy, as is the upwseep of the pylons, and so on and so on and so on.

It looks great again from Generations onwards, with the repainted 6 footer and subsequent cg models, but what a shame that some of tng's best episodes had to be saddled with that jelly mold version!

The Ent-E is fundamentally sound, but it's afflicted with the same issue that I have with modern car design: lots of creases and cutouts that serve no function but to look cool. Good car designs from 25+ years ago relied more heavily on good proportions, not extraneous frills. It's not that the Ent-E is over-detailed exactly - there are lots of scifi ships that ae very intricate - but I do think that it's over-ornamented. If they had reigned that tendency in, and kept the muscularity present in the early diagrams before the ship went on a diet, then it would be a much tougher choice!

 

agreed on pretty much everything. The exaggerated panelling on the 4-footer always bothered me a bit, but I can see how the lower saucer of the 6-footer could look too flat and undetailed. Ideally there should be something halfway between the two.