Is there an official class for the Kelvin yet?
- Thread starter Commodore_Rook
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This, I assume, is based on various interviews in which Abrams' "bashed" trekkies and derided people who cared about the technical details.
What the hell are you rambling about? My "assertion" was that the three center windows side by side represent about half the width of the top of the superstructure. There's nothing wrong with using the lower edge of the window row for that, and absolutely no need for single-pixel accuracy. The claim is true no matter which way you look at it: the set interior outline is a (rough) match of the exterior circular groove, as evidenced by the window comparison.
If you really want, you can repeat the experiment with something else than MS Paint and a quick slash with the mouse, for better than 10-20% accuracy. But that's gross overkill.
No points for you - that's a movie screencap.
Or are you talking about the "saucer is this many squares wide" thing? I'd love to get my hands on the real ILM model one day. But lamentably only these inaccurate fan works are currently available. The inaccuracy isn't in things like window rows or general dimensions, though, but more in the detailing of unseen angles. The "real" ship might be a few squares longer or shorter, but that's irrelevant to the general argument about how the window rows of the superstructure match the few interior sets or the ballpark size of the ship.
That's quite possible. For all we know, not even the center three things are windows; while they are of a subtly different size from the side squares and seem to have some sort of detailing "behind" them, they could still be anything from subspatial frammistats to escape pod hatches.
However, it doesn't appear satisfactory to claim that some features of a certain design are windows while other aren't... It's possible, and perhaps a necessary patch, but it's not satisfactory. We could well be looking at five windows, the centermost three of which lead to the bridge through shafts (the existence of which certainly cannot be disproven from the imagery). Some sort of depth to the windows is clearly established already by the fact that the outer panes are tilted while the inner ones are nearly vertical. Furthermore, the interior shots show there's no "window sill" while the exterior ones necessitate one (see for example the left pane here: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd0062.jpg). So some visual trickery is going on with those windows in any case. (That is, intentional user-friendly visual trickery in-universe, a pure unadulterated goof-up out-universe...)
Timo Saloniemi
Rather than inventing window ledges and shafts that don't exist, why not just say the Kelvin bridge is, like the Enterprise's, at the very front of the dome? We know the Enterprise ceiling rigging doesn't match it's dome - why hold old design conventions to a movie that we know has broken them?
I'd suggest the other two panels on the dome are windows, possibly with blast doors lowered. They could be a ready room and conference lounge arranged similarly to Voyager's.
There's also a round window on one side of the dome (not on Richter's model) - and there'd be very little point in placing a window along the a tiny bridge-surrounding crawlway a smaller ship would suggest.
ETA: The "autopilot malfunction" screen features a Kelvin deck plan, which I presume is the same graphic displayed on the left side of the bridge. Has anyone got an HD screengrab? It's not on trekcore.
I'd suggest the other two panels on the dome are windows, possibly with blast doors lowered. They could be a ready room and conference lounge arranged similarly to Voyager's.
There's also a round window on one side of the dome (not on Richter's model) - and there'd be very little point in placing a window along the a tiny bridge-surrounding crawlway a smaller ship would suggest.
ETA: The "autopilot malfunction" screen features a Kelvin deck plan, which I presume is the same graphic displayed on the left side of the bridge. Has anyone got an HD screengrab? It's not on trekcore.
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ST-One
Vice Admiral
Sorry, you are wrong.
Have you actually looked at that render of the Richter-mesh? Or the ILM-mesh?
If that bridge actually filled that dome it would be huge - we are talking about hangar-deck-huge here.
Could you at least try and get something right about the Kelvin-bridge?
Look at this picture again:
As you can see the windows are as tilted as the rest of the consoles.
We never get a camera angle that would allow us to see these outside 'window sills'.
This?
^That's the one, thanks
.
.
Which "other two" are you talking about? The two right next to the middle window/viewscreen on the front of the bridge, or those two low skinny things port and starboard that look like (and almost certainly are) sensors? The only other things on the dome that might be windows are on the BACK of it; they might as well be bathrooms.
Anyway, the forward bridge windows work just fine, especially if you assume the glass (or transparent aluminum) is a couple of feet thick. Given the shift of perspective as the camera moves around the bridge, they couldn't be anything OTHER than windows.
It's not a deckplan as much as it is a systems graphic of the saucer. Doesn't give enough detail that would be helpful in this case.
^The "other two" I was talking about the blocks on either side of the bridge windows, on the front of the dome, as seen from the outside. I think they could be "closed" windows of adjacent rooms.
Those? I thought it was well established that those were the forward sensors? There are, after all, two identical features in exactly the same location on the BACK of the dome.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Whatever these things are, they are neither identical nor in the exact same locations in the front and the back; the front two are extruded out from the hull in some grill-pattern, the back two are (as far as can be seen) smooth and inset into the hull, and they aren't the same shape.
About what? The (very low) accuracy needed for making the argument that the bridge windows are of a certain size vs. the superstructure? No, I'm not.
The exact size of the bridge set vs. the superstructure? That's up to interpretation. But the pink-line diagram perfectly makes my point, and complaining about it is inane.
What nonsense is that? I look at the pictures from the movie. For example the one you inserted shows a top part of the superstructure that perfectly matches the distance between the window rows in the spine, as well as the interpretation that said distance would be in the order of three meters or so.
In that scale, apparently the originally intended one, the dark outline of the superstructure top would provide for a bridge set that is about ten meters across, or perhaps even smaller. A corridor outside would also be available, justifying the two windows flanking the forward triplet, as well as the other round and square portholes in other directions.
Yup - that is, nearly vertical. The outside windows are slanted almost 45 degrees.
We get the multiple angles from about the location of Robau's or Kirk's head where the saucertop becomes visible just outside the minimally slanted inner pane's lower edge. In the picture I linked to, the pennant paint is visible outside that edge. Not physically possible considering the 45 degree angle of the exterior - so, a goof in the real world, but a possible techno-gimmick in the Trek world.
If we can say these windows feature techno-gimmicks, then all bets are off, really. Which makes these arguments sort of meaningless, and that's a shame. But it's sort of realistic that these wouldn't be simple transparent plates; they might have various zoom/magnification features built in, separately from the HUD overlay system, and those might pervert our sense of perspective here.
There doesn't seem to be sufficient furniture there to establish this as the bridge plan... Some of the curving "wall elements" don't even appear to be placed symmetrically enough to represent this set or any other. It's an intriguing graphic, but not very helpful, I guess.
Makes sense - but so does the idea that these are darkened windows. If the ship has largish windows forward, they'd probably be deemed necessary in other directions as well.
Furthermore, neither the front nor back ones are identical to the three bridge windows as seen from the outside, as those are e.g. more heavily framed, slightly larger and more inset than the two forward ones. So, possibly three different kinds of window there. Or one kind of window and two of sensors. Or one each of window, sensor and radiator, or whatnot.
At any distance, though, the impression for all of them is of darkened windows, whether intentional or not.
Timo Saloniemi
ST-One
Vice Admiral
What?
In the scale they actually used, the bridge is much smaller.
Yes, the interior-set doesn't match the exterior perfectly.
No, we don't get multiple angles. Multiple shots, yes. And most of them view straight forward.
And no gimmickry is needed. Even with the Richter-mesh, which places the bridge-windows too low on the dome and has a wider superstructure, it is possible to see the ship's registration from the inside of the bridge. So it IS physically possible. It all depends on camera position and focal length of the lens.
That's just what you want to see.
Umm, sorry. We're so speaking past each other here.
Whatever mesh we talk about, be it the onscreen ship (were there multiple versions of that?) or the fan work for the five-views, we can see at least two things: a window spacing in the spine, and a superstructure that features a two-tier design. The height of the upper tier (the simple truncated cone with 45 degree walls) matches the distance between the window rows. So it ought to be a fairly natural assumption that both these dimensions represent an integer number of deck heights, either one or two decks. And the airlock door in the spine heavily suggests it's just one deck, as do the various windows and portholes.
The end result? A superstructure top deck whose dimensions are roughly known: a height of one deck height (or about 3 meters, give or take), and a series of diameters, of which the one for the dark circle atop is very close to the diameter of the bridge set (which we can see in better lighting when it gets used in the Kobayashi Maru simulation).
That's a fairly solid "chain of evidence", which I find hard to ignore. Other things are quite debatable, and depend on one's initial bias, but the superstructure seems to reflect the thinking for a 300m- ship, not 450m+.
But no "scale" was ever "used" for the Kelvin, as she was not photographed against known entities. A rather bogus size was given outside onscreen canon, but that doesn't count as "using".
In contrast, our close-ups of the Kelvin revealed docking ports and portholes that allow us to compare the ship against her supposed human crew. And that scale still seems to represent the original thinking of a 300m- vessel.
But the thing in the movie shots is that the saucertop with the registration (which merely establishes that it is saucertop and not some other surface, such as a window sill or the top of the lower level of the superstructure) is licking the lower edge of the inner window, not starting after a bit of a window sill. That is the impossible bit: with 45 degree slope to the windows, there'd have to be some "internal" sill (which isn't there, because the inside windows slope less), and/or "external" sill (which the exterior images actually suggest is there) visible from such an angle.
It's not severely "aphysical", just a minor detail, but it's another such detail (in addition to the mismatching slopes of the inner and outer windows) that makes using these windows as a scale- or location-establishing feature a bigger problem than it ought to be.
Not "just". Sure, I want to see windows - but that's because three out of seven of those dark squares are supposed to be windows, by deliberate and even desperate artist intent. The artists succeeded: the things do look like windows. But if four out of the seven were intended to be something else, then the artists failed there. They should have done something else - say, octagons, the infamous Ronthorntonagons, or then squares of some non-windowlike color.
Timo Saloniemi
ST-One
Vice Admiral
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Oh, and, you were wrong about the windows representing the radius of the dome.
My crude method of measuring it in on of these shots (which are all distorted by the camera's focal length) gave me a length of less than half of the dome's radius:
(We see about half - more or less - of the length of these three windows here.)
My crude method of measuring it in on of these shots (which are all distorted by the camera's focal length) gave me a length of less than half of the dome's radius:
(We see about half - more or less - of the length of these three windows here.)
Take a look at this shot, with the bridge door open:
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2100911252026/memoryalpha/en/images/0/04/Kelvin-Bridge.jpg
The corridor at 4 o'clock from the viewscreen suggests quite clearly that the Kelvin bridge is a room at the front of the dome, with more around and behind, just like the 2009 Enterprise.
[Images posted inline should be hosted on webspace belonging to you. Since I'm pretty sure Memory Alpha does not explicitly permit hotlinking, I've converted this to a link. - M']
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2100911252026/memoryalpha/en/images/0/04/Kelvin-Bridge.jpg
The corridor at 4 o'clock from the viewscreen suggests quite clearly that the Kelvin bridge is a room at the front of the dome, with more around and behind, just like the 2009 Enterprise.
[Images posted inline should be hosted on webspace belonging to you. Since I'm pretty sure Memory Alpha does not explicitly permit hotlinking, I've converted this to a link. - M']
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ST-One
Vice Admiral
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Oh, and, you were wrong about the windows representing the radius of the dome.
My crude method of measuring it in on of these shots (which are all distorted by the camera's focal length) gave me a length of less than half of the dome's radius:
(We see about half - more or less - of the length of these three windows here.)
As I said before, those grey features next to the windows have a grille-like texture to them; given their proximity to the bridge (and how awkward it would be to fit a room in there behind them) they are almost certainly sensors of some kind. Combined with their counterparts in the back of the dome they're probably part of the guidance and navigation system or Starfleet's equivalent.
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