If so, then God bless 'em. :thumbsup: back atcha, baby!
ENTERPRISE design in the new film? (How many changes?)
- Thread starter gastrof
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If so, then God bless 'em. :thumbsup: back atcha, baby!
No one has really made a good argument in favor of the ship appearing exactly as it did in the original series. "Star Trek" is, after all, primarily popular entertainment.
It doesn't have to be. This isn't an historical movie; none of this ever existed and there's no such thing as being accurate - only being consistent with previous versions of Trek.
My guess is that they'll be pretty consistent with TOS, but only to a point - the ship will probably look more like the TOS ship than it will the Enterprise-E, for example.
My guess is that they'll be pretty consistent with TOS, but only to a point - the ship will probably look more like the TOS ship than it will the Enterprise-E, for example.
Not that I don't agree with this notion some seem to forget that actually.
You forget however to some its a way of life, a religion unto itself so obliviously anyone "screwing with the canon" is a heretic.
Sharr
No one has made an argument you like, you mean. No one ever will--when's the last time anyone changed your mind here on anything? As I've said, if most people--the pop in popular--won't be able to tell the difference and those of us who've been glutted with variation upon variation of the classic design in the last 28 years would like to see something very close (some changes are inevitable, since there were at least four distinct configurations of the ship in the original series) to the MJ original on screen, what's to be gained by yet another redesign? What can they come up with that's an improvement? I've yet to see an updated design--not yours, not Gabe's--which fits the bill. I doubt I will in Christmas '08, either. But you know what? So what? I'm less than 200 posts away from Rear Admiral, so I'll keep arguing because that promotion is almost as important as the MA in English Lit I'm due to complete this coming May.
(And the original Galactica looks marginally better than the new one--the original Cylon raiders look much better. The show was god awful but its ships were lovely.)
No, actually I said what I meant.
Starship Polaris said:
No, actually I said what I meant.
Oh. Well then, as is so gobsmackingly often the case, you're just wrong.
and 
and 
and whatever other smug emoticon fits the situation.
So, then, some clarification is probably in order.Starship Polaris said:
No, actually I said what I meant.
If what you're saying is "nobody has made an argument that there can be no difference in how the ship looked on a 1966 television screen, with images made from photography of an 11' long model"... you're 100% correct.
If what you're saying is that "nobody has made an argument that the DESIGN of the ship shouldn't be altered" then you're totally wrong, and should just admit it. This board has been filled with people making that argument, and making it quite soundly.
See, those are two different statements, and your comment (above) is just vague enough to make it look like you COULD be saying either one.
Darren Docherman's version, which I pasted in higher up in this thread, is CERTAINLY not the ship as it was originally seen in the original series... but the differences are only in terms of additional "layers of polish" in the presentation.
(By the way, that's a size-reduced image... the original is far more impressive... but would never show up on a BBS page. Go to the address mentioned in Darren's header on the image and you can see it in all its uber-high-res glory.)
Dennis's version would be acceptable, but I'm just SOOOO sick of seeing the "primary color LED lighting effect" (which makes me think of neon signs, not of advanced engineering) and really don't want this ship to have lights other than those which (1) represent marking lights, (2) represent crew-visibility lighting (ie, interior lights), or (3) represents extremes of heat and energy, and should look dangerous and hot, not "illuminated." That said... I'd be more than happy to see his TOS-revision presented as a Starfleet ship. Just not as the Enterprise.
Darren Docherman's version is my all-time favorite. Prof. M's early take on this was also waaaay up there, and the Defiant as shown on ENT is in nearly a three-way-tie. The CBS digital one is nice, but I prefer Docherman's to that one.
Docherman's ship is different... but the differences are ONLY in terms of "level of polish" and in no way CONTRADICTS what we've seen on screen in the past.
That's the limit of what changes a wise production would put into place. For those who don't care what the ship looks like... they'll never notice the difference either way. For those who DO care what the ship looks like, the majority want it to look like it always has.
Only a tiny fragment of this particular niche market... that fragment being made up of those who think that "I'm so cool that I can make it better and it'll be MINE, ALL MINE!" really want to see the ship "redesigned" in any noticeable way.
Plum said:
^^^
Well, I think I could make the argument. Your own modernized Enterprise design would be a fantastic design and feel for the new movie. A detailed and realistic "refurbishing" of the original, with minimal additions. Would work just fine for me.
Flattery will get you nowhere.
It's not a matter of whether it would work - a detailed version of the TOS ship would work, a TMP-ized version would work and quite likely something that none of us have thought of "would work" - the argument that hasn't been made is what would require an otherwise updated and recast new version of "Star Trek" made in 2007 to use a 1965 design."Historical accuracy" isn't the criterion. "Fidelity to our memories" - well, that's a very individual matter of preference. "Respect for 'canon'" - the TOS Enterprise is no more or less fixed in appearence as a matter of "canon" than is William Shatner's face on Captain Kirk, and the movie's going to be done without that. What's left - that it's more plausible in design than, say, the TMP version or than something we haven't seen yet? That's not persuasive either, given that we haven't seen the "new" version yet.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
I think the people designing/creating the 1701 for the big screen face a distinct challenge. I think the 1701 can look great on screen exactly as the 11-foot minature was designed. CBS's great work on the remastered Original Series shows that. But will it work on the big screen? Matt Jeffries wonderful design is noticably free of exterior tack-on parts or panels. It is a a cool looking ship, but the hull details are plain. This was intentional, of course, but it leaves little detail to show up on the big screen. I think the effects/designer folks have two choices:
1) render the ship exactly as it has already appeared, and incorporate some innovative features to make up for the lack of detail (like phasers emerging from behind sliding panels, etc.)
2) Make a lot of distinct changes to the exterior so that more details show up on screen. This is what happened with The Motion Picture, of course, and it yielded a fantastic design. Now, they can't completely redesign the ship for this movie, but they could alter the exterior design elements to the point that fanboys (myself included) might be very unhappy about it.
Personally, I'll be most happy if they come up with the baddest, best digital rendering of the original ship ever for this film. If they make exterior alterations to the ship I can live with that as long as they look good. But an altered 1701 better look damn good.
1) render the ship exactly as it has already appeared, and incorporate some innovative features to make up for the lack of detail (like phasers emerging from behind sliding panels, etc.)
2) Make a lot of distinct changes to the exterior so that more details show up on screen. This is what happened with The Motion Picture, of course, and it yielded a fantastic design. Now, they can't completely redesign the ship for this movie, but they could alter the exterior design elements to the point that fanboys (myself included) might be very unhappy about it.
Personally, I'll be most happy if they come up with the baddest, best digital rendering of the original ship ever for this film. If they make exterior alterations to the ship I can live with that as long as they look good. But an altered 1701 better look damn good.
Your post is over-exaggerated to the point of being childsih.
How does your comments have anything to do with the topic at hand other than to try to get under the skin of some people. But unfortunately I think that's not possible because I don't see any Star Trek fans around here treating the show like Religion.
When Jefferies went back and revised the ship for "Star Trek - Phase II" he made several changes to the contours that rebalanced and improved his original design. He "fattened up" the engineering hull and slenderized the saucer a bit by increasing its diameter without increasing the height. He also beefed up the interconnecting hull between the two.
This had the overall effect of just improving the esthetic proportions of the thing - it didn't represent any real in-story functional or engineering improvement of any kind (as the new engines arguably did) it just moved the center of mass a bit making the design less forward-and-top heavy.
Those changes were carried forward into the TMP version as well.
Okay, then...
Please point out how it's "unsound" to state that for those who don't care about such things, which is the majority of the audience, making changes to the ship design won't have any effect, positive or negative. Do you disagree with that?
Please point out how it's "unsound" to state that for those who DO care about such things, with is a minority of the audience but a majority of FANS, most want the ship to be the ship that they know and are familiar with. Do you disagree with that?
Those two points have been made repeatedly. You don't think that they're "sound arguments?" Please point out, in whatever level of detail you think is appropriate, how they fail.
However, the argument that "if the ship isn't 'updated' it won't sell for modern audiences" isn't acceptable... it isn't an argument, it's merely an assertion, and carries no logical weight whatsoever. If you choose to make a point like that, you need to support it with a reason WHY you think that's the case. Fair enough?
I do all the time on these very boards, who scream or pout if one change is made to some obsuce detail or if Roddenberry is questioned in anyway or if someone suggests maybe they might have a whole new "vision" of what Trek could be and that vision might not accommodate all that has gone before.
And the larger kicker - that Star Trek is "Our Future", its not nor shall it ever be.
If my remarks get under someones skin then what does that tell you? Says to me I hit a nerve since if it held no truth they wouldn't care in the least but oh well.
There are those who have allowed the details of this franchise to become all consuming to their lives - I used to be there, a long time ago when I was much younger but I am not so myopic about it now and realize "hey its just a tv show" and Gene Roddenberry wasn't all he made himself out to be.
My comment was meant as an observation with another point that was brought up: ""Star Trek" is, after all, primarily popular entertainment.", not philosophy, or metaphysics or a path to a better humanity - its popular art at best. A few take it way to seriously.
You don't have to like that I think this but I do.
Sharr
Dammit, Cary, Starship Polaris has spoken, spoken often and almost as often followed it up with that "cool guy" emoticon. Isn't that enough for you? No? Me neither. 
The real topsy-turvy problem is when the supposed metaphysical or philosophical or political "importance" of the thing treads over its value as popular entertainment - the dedication of the folks working on the original show to the primacy of its entertainment value was what made it attractive enough to engender any interest at all in other layers or aspects of its content.
Of course, I started off this leg of the thread as a bit of a joke - IESB is so often wrong (recently described as being "unwilling to print any rumor unless they've heard it") and their report in this case is so vague as to be meaningless. That folks took offense on behalf of the old version of the ship so quickly is evidence itself of how tightly wound fans often get not only about details but in anxious contemplation of these things. I honestly expect that the movie ship will look a whole lot more like the TOS version than the IESB folks seem to want to suggest - just not precisely. If it's in the ST:TMP refit ball park, it'll be damned close. Guess we'll see.
Well we are going to see the first and best Trek ship on a massive movie screen in a higher more colourful resolution than we have been used to...So i can live with any changes they make, although as i said i don't think they will make any major ones except in the detail and claret of the ship for the big screen.....
Roll on Next year.
Roll on Next year.
