Here it is - no bloody "A", "B" "C" or "D"

[Brent]

The main problem I have with this ship is that it just does not really fit with the TOS and Film E. I mean, the E was already refit once and it came out perfect because they just enlarged and stylized the ship in somewhat timeless way. The engineering section looks like a bad Photoshop mistake and the ship, itself looks to pushed together, very stumpy. It just looks clunky and chunky. There is just none of the aesthetic beauty that the other ships in that collage have.

Well I think you can look at it two ways. First that this new design is something which works around the original design, OR you can imagine that this new design REPLACES the original in CANON. So the 60's TV Show was a low budget version of the new design.

Compare these two images, and tell me which looks more natural in the line of Enterprise Ships...

This is AWESOME, and really does prove the point. The new Enterprise fits with the rest, it looks natural, and I can accept that this is the Enterprise 1701.

 

[starburst]

[Sorry, but what the hell? This is so wrong it's hard to fathom that you're actually being serious. The TOS Enterprise design is not generic because it's part of a fictional class of starship on the show. It was a unique design about as far from generic as you can get while still looking somewhat simple and uncluttered. It has a few generic elements - the flying saucer primary hull, for example, but the overall design was and is not generic in any way.

By your bizzaro application of the word 'generic' the new ship is also generic, since it also presumably belongs to a class of fictional spaceships.

I think they are meaning in terms of in the show the Enterprise was not unique, there was also the Constellation, Defiant, Excalibur, Hood, Lexington, and Potemkin (was watching the Ultimate Computer the other night) to name a couple, so it is generic.

In the real world the design is unique, untill it is put next to other similar ships including the new one and the man on the street (as long as they have seen something to do with it somewhere) is likely going to recognise it as "that ship from Star Trek" mayb even know it as the Enterprise (hopefully not the Star Trek Enterprise like some morons I know)

 

[Cary L. Brown]

...

You are making no sense at all.
Or do you honestly believe that today's audience would accept a vision of the 23rd century as seen through the lenses of 1966?
The visual aesthetics you would like to see are those of the 1960s.

I wish I remember which thread I replied to this in (maybe TECH?), but the visual aesthetics of the 60s are in some ways still very futuristic looking. RE-interpretting that design aesthetic is one thing, something I'd be cool with. Pissing on that design aesthetic doesn't work for me. And what I'm seeing inside and out reeks of urine.

I don't object to ST-One's comment, because I know where he's coming from. He's not a fan of TOS... he's a huge fan, however, of TMP, and sees that as "the yardstick." (Am I misinterpreting you, ST-One?)

That's very well-represented by this design. It looks like a combination of 1950 fender-design and the 1970s TMP Enterprise. It does not, however, look in any way like the TOS Enterprise.

It's a fine design for a contemporary ship launched during the TMP era. And the sets and ship design clearly represent that 1970s design aesthetic.

But the 1970s are no more "contemporary" than the 1960s are. Both are a number of decades in our past. At least in the 1960s, most of the folks working on the TV series had some military service under their belts and many had served on real-world naval vessels or had worked with real aircraft. Thus, most of the stuff in TOS had the feel of being "real" (multi-color gels using for "funky technicolor lighting" being the main deviation from that, of course).

**********

The 1970's TMP ship was better in quality, but did not feel like a place where I could imagine actually living. It was too artificial, too mechanical, too psychologically uncomfortable. The reworkings for ST-TWOK and later didn't dramatically change that... though TNG did (until Generations, that is).

A ship is a place where people live and work. And humanity isn't going to change very much over the next several centuries (at least in the Trek world we've been shown!). That new bridge may look "kewl" but it would be an unpleasant place to spend your days... the lamps shining in the faces of the console operators being just one of many issues. It's not "modern." It's just BAD... couched in the cloak of "wouldn't this be cool" without thinking "WHY would it be this way?"

******************

The exterior changes... well, I can see why they might have done a few of them. Reinforcing the neck is hard to argue against from a technical standpoint, for instance, so if that was the only major change, I'd have no problem with it. The elimination of the saucer "undercut" is hard to argue against (as anyone who's ever tried to figure out a valid reason for "why" would probably agree with).

But those nacelles? God, but they're goofy. They really do look like a graphic-artist-wet-dream-gone-haywire. The secondary hull no longer looks like a hull on a naval vessel, but instead a clay sculpture... more like Moya than like the Enterprise. And it doesn't even seem to match the primary hull (which does look, at least, very mechanical in nature).

****************

It's not a bad-looking ship, but it's not the same ship... and the changes weren't made (as far as any of us know) for story-driven reasons, nor for any REAL technology-driven reasons. They're made simply for "personal taste" reasons... and for no other reason.

If the TMP ship doesn't look "dated," when it's thirty-plus years old... why would you say that another ship made just a decade before that is inherently "ancient and silly?"

 

[3D Master]

Um, the Enterprise is a Constitution class vessel as were 90 percent of the other federations ships we saw in TOS.. So keeping it generic is part of the idea. It's a class ship from a time when there were atleast a hundred other ships exactly like the Enterprise. This isn't like Next Gen where the D was one of only a few large Galaxy class ships built. The TOS Enterprise IS part of the main fleet and that fleet was composed of the same class of vessels.

At the time of TOS there were only 12 actually.

Well I think you can look at it two ways. First that this new design is something which works around the original design, OR you can imagine that this new design REPLACES the original in CANON. So the 60's TV Show was a low budget version of the new design.

Compare these two images, and tell me which looks more natural in the line of Enterprise Ships...

Thanks for doing this!

This actually has changed my mind.

Clearly the JJprise is a prequel to the TMPprise, with an aesthetic nod to the original show. As such, I think I buy into the vision.

I'm sold.

I've been letting that chart working on me. My answer is the original Enterprise belongs, and the new one doesn't. But until now I had yet to figure why.

So now the why:

The JJprise looks like belongs in the early 24th century: it looks like in a crisis, may (potential) war or so, they needed ships fast and just threw something together. It looks like they took a movie era saucer, took some small older secondary hull and stuffed the two together. Its deflector dish was no longer functional though, so they took one from somewhere else and stuck it on there, and they found some thrown away experimental nacelles that were rejected to be mass produced but would still work good enough so they slammed those on there. It looks like those multiple era, totally wrong proportion kitbash ships they put in the BOBW starship graveyard.

Also, it rather highlights how wrongly designed the NX-01 really is. It obviously does not belong in that lineage. It looks more like a 2370s-2400s private yacht for some really rich mogul, than a 22nd century Earth vessel.

 

[starburst]

At the time of TOS there were only 12 actually.

Was this ever said on screen or was it background info like there only being 6 Galaxy class ships.

Also, it rather highlights how wrongly designed the NX-01 really is. It obviously does not belong in that lineage. It looks more like a 2370s-2400s private yacht for some really rich mogul, than a 22nd century Earth vessel.

See to me its the TOS ship which always felt out of place, the ultra smooth lines and lack of any visible hull plating even when close makes it look more advanced than the later ships.

 

[ancient]

At the time of TOS there were only 12 actually.

Was this ever said on screen or was it background info like there only being 6 Galaxy class ships.

It doesn't matter. We saw a few background ships that looked like the Enterprise, but not many. There was never an indication of a larger fleet.

 

[3D Master]

At the time of TOS there were only 12 actually.

Was this ever said on screen or was it background info like there only being 6 Galaxy class ships.

Captain Kirk: "There are twelve like it in the fleet."

I can't remember which episode it was in though, but it was on screen.

Also, it rather highlights how wrongly designed the NX-01 really is. It obviously does not belong in that lineage. It looks more like a 2370s-2400s private yacht for some really rich mogul, than a 22nd century Earth vessel.

See to me its the TOS ship which always felt out of place, the ultra smooth lines and lack of any visible hull plating even when close makes it look more advanced than the later ships.

The far less curviness of the TOS Enterprise, more straight forward geometric shapes, shows to me it's more primitive. As technology increased, they were less and less restricted to the shapes of their hulls, giving them whatever shape they wanted, culminating in Galactic Swan, the Galaxy Class.

Then of course, you get the E, which wasn't built in peace times, but it's a straight forward battle ship. Where the Galaxy-class does not care about a profile and firing arcs, they almost seem to have gone out of their way to make especially the saucer an easy target, the Enterprise-E is all about making its profile as narrow and small in ever angle as possible. A ship meant to go into battle.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

At the time of TOS there were only 12 actually.

Was this ever said on screen or was it background info like there only being 6 Galaxy class ships.

Sigh... kids these days...

It was established, in dialog, there "there are only a dozen like her in the fleet." For years, afterwards (and it still goes on today) people who actually have WATCHED Star Trek debate that. (I'm of the opinion that there were twelve Constitutions which were refit into explorers and sent off on a 5-year "beyond the borders" exploration mission, but that there may have been more ships of similar construction in the fleet)

Since 1966, Star Trek fans have known, however, that there were only twelve ships like the Enterprise. So this is kind of like knowing your ABC's in terms of discussing Star Trek. Sort of like knowing the difference between "Doctor Spock" and "Mr. Spock."

You kids and your newfangled TNG-era shows...

Also, it rather highlights how wrongly designed the NX-01 really is. It obviously does not belong in that lineage. It looks more like a 2370s-2400s private yacht for some really rich mogul, than a 22nd century Earth vessel.

See to me its the TOS ship which always felt out of place, the ultra smooth lines and lack of any visible hull plating even when close makes it look more advanced than the later ships.

Well, that's the thing... it's the original. (And I don't give a damn what anyone tries to tell me, it's the original and nothin's gonna replace it!) The TMP-era ship fit in with it perfectly well. The Excelsior design fit in perfectly well with the TMP-era refit. The Galaxy was the first major "feel deviation." The Ambassador was a "morph" between the 1701-D and the Excelsior. And the Sovereign really abandoned the TNG-era feel entirely in favor of another "Branch offshoot" of the TMP design.

The NX-01 was a mish-mash... they tried to take bits and pieces from various ships. But I agree... despite their taking a few details on the underside of the primary hull, and trying to replicate a couple of details on the nacelles, to reflect a "hint" of TOS, it never really felt like it was leading towards TOS-era design.

But I've never really objected to any Trek ship design before. This one is the first, and the ONLY, time I've done so. And that's because it's not saying "this is an earlier ship" or "a contemporary design" or something of that nature. It's telling us "forget the ship you know... and accept our kewler version."

 

[scotthm]

Honesty, there's a world of difference between all of them. I don't see any obvious progression either way. The TOS ship tends to stand out because it looks primitive compared to the others.

I would have been far happier had they just started with the Refit, and 'downgraded' it a bit with 'older' nacelles, and possibly a more primitive deflector, maybe more along the lines of what the Phase II Enterprise was supposed to look like.

---------------

 

[Qonos]

At the time of TOS there were only 12 actually.

Was this ever said on screen or was it background info like there only being 6 Galaxy class ships.

Captain Kirk: "There are twelve like it in the fleet."

I can't remember which episode it was in though, but it was on screen.

Also, it rather highlights how wrongly designed the NX-01 really is. It obviously does not belong in that lineage. It looks more like a 2370s-2400s private yacht for some really rich mogul, than a 22nd century Earth vessel.

See to me its the TOS ship which always felt out of place, the ultra smooth lines and lack of any visible hull plating even when close makes it look more advanced than the later ships.

The far less curviness of the TOS Enterprise, more straight forward geometric shapes, shows to me it's more primitive. As technology increased, they were less and less restricted to the shapes of their hulls, giving them whatever shape they wanted, culminating in Galactic Swan, the Galaxy Class.

Then of course, you get the E, which wasn't built in peace times, but it's a straight forward battle ship. Where the Galaxy-class does not care about a profile and firing arcs, they almost seem to have gone out of their way to make especially the saucer an easy target, the Enterprise-E is all about making its profile as narrow and small in ever angle as possible. A ship meant to go into battle.

I'm guilty of a bit of exaggeration. I admit that but 12 is still a fleet they all look the same as indicative of their class and by Meriam-Websters deffinition that makes them Generic.

I do agree with you that the TOS looks More Primative with the line of the ships and everything which is one thing that infuriated me with Enterprise the Enterprise which predate TOS's Enterprise looks more advanced than the ship that came along after it. So with Berman and Braga having already f-d up the time line I can see the new Enterprise as a ship built after the Temporal Cold War Era in the new continutiy that we were left with after the prequel. (Even though I hated Enterprise) With the other ships the Jefferies version was retconned out way before Abrahms gave us this new offering. That's one of the reasons I can accept it.

In other words the pooch was screwed long before this movie.

 

[Stardate]

My 2 cent on new Enterprise is that it is hard to judge on one photo. My first impression is that it has TOS and TMP influences. I need more pictures on thickness of the neck. If seems to have smilier neck design as Enterprise-C(i hope). That is a good because both TOS and TMP neck are thin and fragile. Overall new Enterprise is a improvement on TOS Enterprise(my opinion).
However after viewing this only photo for new Enterprise, i do have some issues with it. 1. Engineering section need to push back(a little) 2. Saucer section lowered by one level. 3. Pylons wider when it connects to the nacelles. 4. Nacelles caps smaller.
I include image of two ships.
1. The top ship is a fan drawing of the new Enterprise.
2. The middle ship is my alterations.

 

[number6]

@Cary L. Brown

Your argument assumes that the average person knows Star Trek enough to be concerned let alone aware of the design changes made and it also implies that if the person is aware of the changes that they'll actually care. To the average person(non trekkies. there's a lot of them btw) who's even just slightly aware of the existence of Star Trek they'll probably recognize the Enterprise as a saucer connected to a cylinder via a neck with 2 engines, which, guess what: The new Enterprise keeps all those basic characteristics. They're not going to be concerned about anything more detailed than that if they're even concerned at all in the first place.

QFT!

 

[starburst]

Sigh... kids these days...

It was established, in dialog, there "there are only a dozen like her in the fleet."

I have read that in books, one (think it was Mr Scotts Guide) said that out of the 12 original ships the Enterprise was the only one left (abvoiusly this cant be taken at face value)

That Kirk quote does ring a bell thought, cant remember which episode it was in though

 

[Inquisitive]

But I've never really objected to any Trek ship design before. This one is the first, and the ONLY, time I've done so. And that's because it's not saying "this is an earlier ship" or "a contemporary design" or something of that nature. It's telling us "forget the ship you know... and accept our kewler version."

Please try to cut down on the dramatics and hyperbole! No one is saying this replaces TOS or somehow invalidates the existence of TOS Ent, it just a re-imagining of that ship, and there is nothing wrong with that! The previous series of Star Trek will continue to exist, so just because someone has decided to re-imagine a portion of that history does not make the events occuring around that time invalid.

 

[Corran Horn]

@Cary L. Brown

Your argument assumes that the average person knows Star Trek enough to be concerned let alone aware of the design changes made and it also implies that if the person is aware of the changes that they'll actually care. To the average person(non trekkies. there's a lot of them btw) who's even just slightly aware of the existence of Star Trek they'll probably recognize the Enterprise as a saucer connected to a cylinder via a neck with 2 engines, which, guess what: The new Enterprise keeps all those basic characteristics. They're not going to be concerned about anything more detailed than that if they're even concerned at all in the first place.

QFT!

Same here.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Your argument assumes that the average person knows Star Trek enough to be concerned let alone aware of the design changes made and it also implies that if the person is aware of the changes that they'll actually care.

Actually, no it doesn't. But I'll expand on that in a moment.

To the average person(non trekkies. there's a lot of them btw) who's even just slightly aware of the existence of Star Trek they'll probably recognize the Enterprise as a saucer connected to a cylinder via a neck with 2 engines, which, guess what: The new Enterprise keeps all those basic characteristics. They're not going to be concerned about anything more detailed than that if they're even concerned at all in the first place.

Yes. That's true. Some people will see this and think "It's that Star Track ship, where Doctor Spock fought the Kling-peaches." And they won't care. Of course, they also wouldn't care if the ship looked exactly like the original version, even going so far as to pull the model out of the Smithsonian. And no matter what, they won't remember anything about the movie after a week's gone by... it'll be forgotten and washed away by the latest episode of "American Idol - Human Sacrifice Edition."

So who's the change supposed to be for? What POSITIVE will it accomplish?

People who pay enough attention to the movie to care... will notice.

Some of them post on this BBS and think that the original sucked and want to see the original "redone." They'll be happy-ish... but undoubtedly will think that they could have done it even better. They'll simply be happy that the "canonistas" (as they call them) have been disenfranchised.

Some of them post on this BBS and think that the original is the foundation upon which all the rest of the stuff has grown, and if you rip up those roots, the rest of the tree will inevitably be firewood. They'll notice, and will care, and won't like the changes.

There are some who are "casual fans" and know, very well, what the ship looks like... and they'll go in and notice "that's not right."

Who, other than the production staff, actually profits from making this sort of change? (And in their case, they "profit" only in the area of ego, not in terms of financial profit.)

If this is really what it implies... an attempt to "over-write" TOS, instead of to "extend and expand upon TOS"... then there's gonna be a permanent, irrevocable schism beyond anything that "fandom" has ever seen.

And that will mean that Trek is really dead. This movie will have just performed a final act of necrophilia.

 

[Stardate]

But I've never really objected to any Trek ship design before. This one is the first, and the ONLY, time I've done so. And that's because it's not saying "this is an earlier ship" or "a contemporary design" or something of that nature. It's telling us "forget the ship you know... and accept our kewler version."

Please try to cut down on the dramatics and hyperbole! No one is saying this replaces TOS or somehow invalidates the existence of TOS Ent, it just a re-imagining of that ship, and there is nothing wrong with that! The previous series of Star Trek will continue to exist, so just because someone has decided to re-imagine a portion of that history does not make the events occuring around that time invalid.

Ups, i just heard that they are going to remastered TOS again with new Enterprise

 

[number6]

Cary,I really think you're overstating and overthinking this. If this is THE ship, then, yes, I am disappointed that it looks less like the original than I had hoped. I showed this picture to a friend of mine who, while not a huge Trek fan, is a sci-fi fan and he said, " It looks the same." So I do believe that it is we, the select few, who are really obsessing about this. The casual fan and non fan are not going to see this and be as bummed out. They want to see a Star Trek movie and are less concerned with these trivial bits of minutae.

Frankly that's what I want to see, too.

 

[Kryton]

Didn't the "only 12 like her" line come from "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" when Kirk is showing Captain Christopher his ship?

 

[Nightfall to-Ennien]

It's telling us "forget the ship you know... and accept our kewler version."

Begging your pardon, but no, it isn't.

They're not going to go back and dub over all the images of the original Enterprise with this version. The original Star Trek will still be there after the new movie is released. The film cannot and will not change anything that already exists, and the Grey Lady we know and love already exists. She resides in the Smithsonian institution, and in our hearts and minds. For those of us who love her, she will ALWAYS exist, and this new version can make the original Constitution class starship no less valid a visual representation of a twenty-third century spacecraft than she ever was.