Kirk Enterprise - the Enterprise(a)?

[HIjol]

Was an explanation ever given for the significance of the name "USS Biddeford"? Is someone on the production team from Maine?

Something to do with the shipyards there?

 

[HIjol]

Some armchair research:

UTF-8 (binary) for 0718 is 11011100:10011000

Hmmm...

 

[Saul]

I think the model looks awesome! I love the idea that the old Constitution-class existed or exists in this timeline also.

"Ericson" was how the film was scripted and shot. They re-dubbed "Harrison" in post, believing it to be too obvious a giveaway.
(From either Orci's posts at Trekmovie or his Twitter, I don't remember exactly)

Ericson was too obvious? How so?

 

[SeerSGB]

I think the model looks awesome! I love the idea that the old Constitution-class existed or exists in this timeline also.

"Ericson" was how the film was scripted and shot. They re-dubbed "Harrison" in post, believing it to be too obvious a giveaway.
(From either Orci's posts at Trekmovie or his Twitter, I don't remember exactly)

Ericson was too obvious? How so?

Probably the line from Space Seed comparing Khan to Lief Ericson.

 

[Saul]

I think the model looks awesome! I love the idea that the old Constitution-class existed or exists in this timeline also.

"Ericson" was how the film was scripted and shot. They re-dubbed "Harrison" in post, believing it to be too obvious a giveaway.
(From either Orci's posts at Trekmovie or his Twitter, I don't remember exactly)

Ericson was too obvious? How so?

Probably the line from Space Seed comparing Khan to Lief Ericson.

I see. Harrison is kind of a giveaway too though since that crew man was mentioned in the same episode.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

In an early draft of Space Seed, Khan was named Ericson, if I recall my Star Trek Compendium correctly.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

...have there not been 718 episodes, all told, of the various incarnations of Star Trek?...

The 718 actually refers to the telephone area code for Brooklyn, NY. I think it's a reference to JJ Abrams' place of birth (he was born in NYC).

 

[Brutal Strudel]

http://io9.com/inside-secrets-of-the-making-of-star-trek-ii-wrath-of-457250013

Relevant quote: "In Wilber's original ["Space Seed"] proposal, the Botany Bay contains a criminal named Harold Erickson, who's a blond, Aryan character."

 

[M'Sharak]

...have there not been 718 episodes, all told, of the various incarnations of Star Trek?...

A few more than that, I think.

...

The 718 actually refers to the telephone area code for Brooklyn, NY.

Is one of the filmmakers on record as saying so? If yes (please cite source, if possible) what would you say is the connection between Brooklyn (not the sole occupant of area code 718, btw) and a coastal locale in Maine settled even before the Mayflower landed and which was known by a number of names before being designated "Biddeford" in 1718?

 

[Brutal Strudel]

My theory: The Connies were probably in development when the Narada came out of the wormhole. In the prime time-line, the Federation never felt the need to develop a bigger, stronger ship and so the Connies were the best they had. In this time-line, however, they rushed R&D on a supership--much bigger, much stronger, much faster. The Connies, in this timeline, are probably considered light cruisers. The first of these super ships is the Enterprise we see. (Of course, we also see the primary hull of an even bigger ship in the wreckage around Vulcan but then, Starfleet almost certainly never had an R2 class so we can chalk that up to poetic license.)

 

[JJohnson]

I think that Aridas and other postulated an non-Stargazer Constellation class that came before the consitution class. I might consider the three footer with the flat top and bottom saucer to be part of this. Shaw showed alternative nacelle mounting points where the naceles were swapped . Datin had them high on the mounts, where others had it lower down. The AMT model shown on screen might be considered a refit.

I don't see any evidence there was any Enterprise between the NX-01 and the NCC-1701. Absence of evidence doesn't mean it didn't exist. Just look at evolutionary biology. We didn't know that dinosaurs had feathers till recently. But as for Star Trek, I tend to go with:

*NCC-1700 is the USS Constitution, launched in the 2240s
*NCC-1701 is the USS Enterprise, launched in 2245 under Robert April. Then Pike had 2 5-year missions (Spock served under him 11 years, so some time for refit there before Kirk). then Kirk.
*USS Constellation, Exeter, Excaliber, Potemkin, and Intrepid were upgraded from a prior ship's class to Constitution class; or the registries were reserved and for various reasons, re-assigned to new-build Constitution-class vessels. Starfleet was either in need of ships in the 2240s to refit to a new class, or their numbering system was not managed well.

To me, that seems to be the simplest explanation, contrary to yenny's hypothesis of a new, unknown, Enterprise with a registry between NCC-01 and NCC-1701.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't see any evidence there was any Enterprise between the NX-01 and the NCC-1701.

In the Abramsverse, there was.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There were also plans for a pre-TOS Enterprise in the unmade movie Star Trek: The Academy Years. Cadets Kirk, Spock, Scotty and McCoy would have ended up taking over on a training cruise gone wrong and save the day. Click for story. Click for concept art.

 

[OpenMaw]

Has anyone ever fleshed that concept out into an actual design?

 

[Devon]

Has anyone ever fleshed that concept out into an actual design?

Yes, they made a whole series out of it called "Enterprise"

 

[OpenMaw]

Has anyone ever fleshed that concept out into an actual design?

Yes, they made a whole series out of it called "Enterprise"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFGfWrJR5Ck

Damn you, sir.

 

[Dukhat]

Early plans for ST'09 had the TOS Enterprise be destroyed in the opening, which would have cemented it's construction pre-2233. Perhaps the class is that old?

I agree that there is no canon source for the christening of the Enterprise, so it's entirely possible that it could have been built pre-2230. This would have made for a better opening, rather than using an unknown ship, and would have offered some explanation for why the nu-E doesn't look like the old one. They also missed the opportunity to canonize Robert April beyond TAS (given the absurd number of nods in each film, I find it odd they didn't).

The rumor was that the ship that the Narada destroys at the start of the film was supposed to be the original TOS Enterprise under April's command (and the nuEnt would then have been the Enterprise-A), but Paramount had an edict that they didn't want any ship named Enterprise to be destroyed, so they changed the ship to the Kelvin and changed April to Robau.

However, I personally have never seen any quotes from production personnel or related proof that this rumor is actually true.

 

[M'Sharak]

Early plans for ST'09 had the TOS Enterprise be destroyed in the opening, which would have cemented it's construction pre-2233. Perhaps the class is that old?

I agree that there is no canon source for the christening of the Enterprise, so it's entirely possible that it could have been built pre-2230. This would have made for a better opening, rather than using an unknown ship, and would have offered some explanation for why the nu-E doesn't look like the old one. They also missed the opportunity to canonize Robert April beyond TAS (given the absurd number of nods in each film, I find it odd they didn't).

The rumor was that the ship that the Narada destroys at the start of the film was supposed to be the original TOS Enterprise under April's command (and the nuEnt would then have been the Enterprise-A), but Paramount had an edict that they didn't want any ship named Enterprise to be destroyed, so they changed the ship to the Kelvin and changed April to Robau.

However, I personally have never seen any quotes from production personnel or related proof that this rumor is actually true.

Copy/pasting from last time this came up:

That being said, I'd also have settled for the ship that's destroyed in the opening of ST XI being the original, TOS-era Enterprise (with Robert April in command). That's what was supposed to happen, but Abrams was ordered to remove it because TPTB would not under any circumstances allow him to destroy an Enterprise. So he had to change it to the Kelvin.

That's the first I've heard of this. Do you have a link?

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Kelvin#Identifying_the_Kelvin says only this:

In early stages of the film's development, the ship was named the USS Iowa. [4] While known by this eventually unused name, the vessel was given a registry number of 1201. [5] In a later interview with screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Kurtzman explained that the ship's initial name was to have been "our nod" to the fact that the prime universe James T. Kirk had been semi-established as having been born in Iowa. "Then we decided that was too radical," Kurtzman said of the reference. Technically statements in Star Trek IV stated that Kirk was from Iowa and only worked in outer-space (indicating he was not born there).

The part about destroying the Enterprise came from this 2009 Newsarama interview, if I'm not mistaken:

NRAMA: The script took six to eight months to bang out so what other ideas did you bandy around?

Kurtzman: There was no other macro idea. We knew we wanted to do an origin story with Spock Prime coming back. Obviously, details within the story changed wildly. We had a draft with Carol Marcus meeting Kirk as a child and goes on to be the mother of his son. We had Nurse Chapel have a potentially budding romance with Spock that we explored. At one point, we were bandying around the idea of destroying the Enterprise mid-battle.

Orci: That was actually the only time the studio even put the brakes on us. “Please don’t destroy the Enterprise.” We said “Okay, you’re right. Vulcan fine. Enterprise no.” There were a few million things like that along the way.

If the part about Robert April commanding was ever anything more than rumor or fan speculation, I don't know what its source might be.

 

[Dukhat]

^Thanks for that clarification, M'Sharak. So from how I read that Newsarama interview, it was the nuEnterprise that Orci & Kurtzman were considering to get destroyed halfway through the battle with Nero, not the ship that would eventually become the Kelvin. What Paramount then stated about not wanting the Enterprise destroyed makes way more sense.

So it sounds like some fan took what was said out of context, and the Internetz ran with it. Gee, that never happens with Star Trek fans...

 

[M'Sharak]

So it sounds like some fan took what was said out of context, and the Internetz ran with it. Gee, that never happens with Star Trek fans...

Oh, never ever.