John Eaves working on STXI

[igrokbok]

Both Church and Eaves are part of the new breed of very talented designers that, sadly, are interchangable with about every other designer. The originality lies in giving teh movie a familiar look and style that rings true to TOS, a series that resembles nothing that has come down the pike before or since..including TNG.

Will this film have an identity or will it look like any number of futuristic movies and shows that have come to pass over the past 15 years? All the stuff from Star Wars, Firefly, BSG...so much of it all looks the same..as beautiful as the art production is...it's all interchangable.

STar Trek, TOS style, should never EVER resemble anything else...other than STar Trek. The day you can drop an X-wing or Seremity OR ENTERPRISE E...into a TOS themed Star Trek and no one notices is the day TOS loses it's unique identity.

Sadly, I think that day is a little over a year away.

 

[RAMA]

Samurai8472 said:
I can't seem to find the article on trekmovie.com

http://trekmovie.com/2007/10/17/trekmoviecom-update-on-latest-shatner-enterprise-and-casting-rumors/

 

[RAMA]

SeerSGB said:
I really like Church's work, I think his "Crystal ship" has a very Tholianish feel to it



As for Eaves...no, no, no, a 1000 times no. I was hoping they'd invent Rick Sternbach or Andy Probert back, not Eaves. Eaves is my least favorite of the Trek designers over the years.

Just seems like a strange reaction...aside from a lot of nice pre-production artwork that never made it to the screen, Eaves also designed one of the top 10 most beautiful starships in history: the S'ona battelship. His ships tend to have graceful lines, and less of the "Aliens" aesthetic...perfect for Star Trek. Probert's forte is with interiors and props, and while Sternbach is a great space scene painter and awesome with props, he tends to be repetitive with his starships, and they're often "chunky" looking. Of them all Eaves is the superior starship designer. But I don't really know what he is working on in the new movie.

RAMA

 

[Corran Horn]

See, I disagree. Starship have no need to have really graceful lines. They need to be functional. The sweeping look of the Enterprise-E just looks like...an indulgence. The original Enterprise looked both graceful and functional. So did the refit. A lot of the TNG-era ships did too. But the E-E has never done it for me.

 

[CoveTom]

^ I disagree, to a point. I agree with you in that the TOS Enterprise and the refit both appear graceful and functional. But I disagree that starships "have no need to have really graceful lines." I mean, of course you're right that they don't. This is the vacuum of space we're talking about here. A ship could function just as well if it were a box (as evidenced by the Borg) as something very sleek and aerodynamic looking.

But graceful ships are one of Star Trek's trademarks. It's what makes the look of Star Trek unique in the science fiction world. I think production designer Joe Jennings says it best on the documentaries on the TWOKE DVD. He had to fight back then with those who wanted to follow the mold of Star Wars and have ships with alot of surface detail and a more "functional" look. And he said that "Star Trek has always been the Chris Craft of science fiction" and that the sleek, streamlined ships are a part of the lexicon.

And he was right. The quite unique design of Star Trek's ships is one of its hallmarks. And as Jennings said, if you're going to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she can't be accosted by a goose, it's gotta be a wolf.

 

[RAMA]

Corran Horn said:
See, I disagree. Starship have no need to have really graceful lines. They need to be functional. The sweeping look of the Enterprise-E just looks like...an indulgence. The original Enterprise looked both graceful and functional. So did the refit. A lot of the TNG-era ships did too. But the E-E has never done it for me.

They don't strictly "need" to be graceful, but as the learned in TOS, the ships need to look appealing to be on screen. That's why 99.8% of fan designs for the NX-01 then and now were crap, and why a ship based on the Akira was used instead..it was popular and aesthetically pleasing.

The E-E tends to do well in fan polls, it IS popular, but that's not Eaves' only design.

Sternbach has a knack for making a graceful ship look blocky, I don't know how he does it..possibly too much raised detail.

http://www.lcarscom.net/fsd/art.html

RAMA

 

[dru]

I'm disappointed to see Eaves involved since so many of his designs have been too busy and not iconic.

I'd rather see Probert involved since he worked on TMP Enterprise.

 

[Kokomo]

dru said:
I'm disappointed to see Eaves involved since so many of his designs have been too busy and not iconic.

I'd rather see Probert involved since he worked on TMP Enterprise.

Totally off subject I know, but I love your avatar! :thumbsup:

 

[CaptainDonovin]

Well I for one love the E-E and thought Eaves other works were pretty cool so I'm glad he's involved. As for Ryan Church I think this movie is going to look great.Just hope the script is as good as they say it is.

 

[Skippy 2k]

I liked the Enterprise-E but I hope the new/old ship is not too far off from what its allways looked like. I understand if they "must" make minor changes for the big screen but hopefully just minor.

I also hope to see something of it, not having to wait more than a year. I was messing around today and rendered up another image of Dennis's phoenix, played some more with lighting. I realize the phasers are from the torp ports I had just put them where they were seen in tos (usually).

 

[theARE]

I think the Enterprise-E is one of the better later designs. It does have some of the grace and beauty of the original, so I don't have a problem with Eaves being involved.

Cant find a link, but I read an interview with him about the design process on the E, and every draft they made, they found themselves getting closer and closer to the original Enterprise.

I think from that he would appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the original and will probably stay as true as possible to it.

 

[Blip]

RAMA said:
...even the E-E is very popular

Y'know, I think that probably says more about some of the fans than it does about the design...

That would be the E-C!!

Hell yeah! :thumbsup: I preferred the Ambassador-class after the design received a slight upgrade (with the different Bussard endcaps etc), but that one easily comes right after the E-A on my list! It looked capable as a battleship, without the funky redundant panelling, heavy plating, or pointless black paintjob that a certain successor received (read this Eaves! )


*waits for the web-based pitchforks to start being thrown by the armies of enraged Sovereign fans*

 

[dru]

Kokomo said:
Totally off subject I know, but I love your avatar! :thumbsup:

Thanks!

 

[ST-One]

Blip said:

RAMA said:
...even the E-E is very popular

Y'know, I think that probably says more about some of the fans than it does about the design...

If this were TNZ I could give an appropriate answer.
But since it isn't I refer you to my avatar.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Skippy 2k said:
I liked the Enterprise-E but I hope the new/old ship is not too far off from what its allways looked like. I understand if they "must" make minor changes for the big screen but hopefully just minor.

I also hope to see something of it, not having to wait more than a year. I was messing around today and rendered up another image of Dennis's phoenix, played some more with lighting. I realize the phasers are from the torp ports I had just put them where they were seen in tos (usually).

Ack... something's wrong with the image you uploaded to Imageshack... it won't download for me, at least.

 

[TeutonicNights]

Skippy, that's awesome :thumbsup:

 

[Tai]

I bought a bunch of the now defunct "Star Trek: The Magazine", back when it was an expensive monthly, and they had a lot of his concept drawings in there. Most of the stuff that made it to the screen was his second or third effort after input from Berman and Braga... whereas his first impressions on paper were wonderful.

His concept for the holoship didn't look like a box, it looked like a Starfleet ship that could have a multi-role purpose. His shuttles and fighters were nice, as well as the other vessels he designed.

As far as the NX-01 goes, his early concepts of those were wonderful as well. They looked like earlier versions of the NCC-1701.

 

[Tyson]

"As far as the NX-01 goes, his early concepts of those were wonderful as well. They looked like earlier versions of the NCC-1701."

One, one of his concepts looked like the NCC-1701 with panel lines all over it. The rest looked like knives or 24th century speedboats.

Eaves is into the "kewl" design aesthetic. That works fine for things like Star Wars and Transformers, but Star Trek's style has (until fairly recently) always been more refined and sleeker than that. His previous major Trek work, with the possible miraculous exception of the Akira, is tiresome, repetitive and visually too bloody busy. For the 24th century this was tolerable, but after seeing his work on ENT, he Eaves seems like a one trick pony to me, and I don't want to see him try and tackle anything close to TOS.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Since we're descending into the usual argument about the look of the NX-01... there was an Enterprise sketch made for Harve Bennett's abandoned Academy movie which looks amazingly like the Akira, albeit in TOS styling. Saucer and nacelles but no secondary hull. The drawing appears onscreen in a documentary on the STVI SE DVD and has been seen by everyone here I'm sure.

 

[Skippy 2k]

Professor Moriarty said:
Ack... something's wrong with the image you uploaded to Imageshack... it won't download for me, at least.

Hmmm, still having trouble? Seems to work fine for me. Something I have been curious about, what ever happened to the new 1701 Vektor was working on? It looked like the old ship but with some updates hidden weapons ports and such?

Not really much action to it but I rendered an animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3XuTQwie_Y\


Edit: Ok, now it did give me trouble? Heres a direct link which seems to work:
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8247/e1701bgcrj3.jpg