Hopefully, by the time the next Trek Flick hits the theaters, more Trek-Tech minded production designers will have taken over the reigns...
I hope not. The problem with tech-minded people is that they have a truly GHASTLY sense of character development. There's really a direct correlation there... I mean, arguably the most tech-heavy show in the franchise (sometimes explicitly and proudly so) involved gratuitous use of the reset button and a shameful amount of "That was a profound life changing event that will forever alter our relationship... let's just forget this ever happened and do something else."
The real trick here is to realize that it's not a "this, or that, mutually exclusive" issue we're discussing.
The best Trek stories, IMHO, were told by people who were storytellers and who wanted to stir things up... who didn't care about the backstory, or the technology, or any of that. A good Trek story NEEDS that.
But those people were not given free reign to do whatever they wanted to. They were counterbalanced by people who cared about those other issues... history, characterization, etc, etc.
The best stories, like the best designs or the best... well... the best ANYTHING... comes out of conflict. You NEED conflict.
I think that if Abrams had been the director, but someone else (someone who loved Trek) had been the producer, we'd have gotten a much better end product.
There's nothing that Abrams did in this film that really wouldn't have been just as effective (maybe MORE effective) if done in more "Trek-classic" style. Just as one small example... is there anyone who seriously thinks that the scene on Narada would have been less effective if they'd used, unaltered, the classic TOS phasers instead of the "nuPhasers?" Honestly, except for the one "marketing requires it, so show the phaser barrel flip!" scene, you'd never have noticed ANYTHING about those... or the communicators.
There is literally nothing in this film that would have been HARMED by keeping the exact, unaltered TOS design. There was barely a scene when we got a close look at any set on the ship, except for the Busch-inspection-tubes scene.
So... have an executive producer who is the "caretaker" for the history... and a producer/director who doesn't care a whit about any of that, but really, really wants to tell a good story at any cost. These two guys (non-gender-specific meaning there) are in conflict, but the end result is something better than you get with just one perspective being forced.
The good things in this film would have won any arguments in a case like that... we'd have all of that. The bad things, on the other hand, would have lost their arguments, and we'd have a lot less of those.
I'm really loving this idea if the engineering section being so vastly different from the saucer section. That kind of modularity has a very appealing logic to it that "trek-tech minded" producers never much aspired to.
Well, I think that everyone would agree that "living room spaces" throughout the ship, dressed up with plexiglass "circuit traces" and lots of bright, primary color lights, don't make for a convincing "high-technology" presentation... nor did they ever, honestly. (Shame that this seemed to get adopted in lots of places in this film ... sigh).
There are big design-issues with that set, though, and I'm sure you've seen them repeatedly. Not just the obviously concrete floor, the fact that the Anheuser Busch signage was hastily covered up with "starfleet livery" or whatever... but safety-related issues associated with huge, uncompartmentalized spaces. It was a bad design.
Still... the idea of working spaces in the ship having a different style than the control-room spaces or the living spaces... provided that they seem to be the same CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY... is perfectly reasonable. Having the "engineering spaces" seem like clean, living-room environments (per TNG/VOY/DS9, and to a lesser extent, ENT) is just sort of... silly.
I could see a little more dressing up of those engineering spaces--more blinking lights, more consoles, and Scotty needs a big distinct workstation so he'll have something to look at whenever he needs to say "She's can't take much more, Captain!" but other than that, the general pattern works. Like the difference between the space shuttle's flight deck and the crawlspace in and around its engine compartment; even if the latter is pressurized, its an equipment bay, not a motel.
My single biggest issue was that it was so blazingly obvious as a brewery. I kept expecting to see Laverne and Shirley just around the corner! The only worse decision for a location they could have made might have been doing at the Jack Daniels Distillery... though the oak casts would be only slightly more jarring than what we saw there.
"Next time," I'd like to see something patterned on the TOS engineering set, but perhaps a bit more expansive. Have the "tubes" section be full-size rather than "forced perspective." Have the floor be perf'ed metal and have equipment visible underneath it. Have the consoles be free-standing rather than built into the walls, with the "ladder" going up to a catwalk leading into the "tubes bay" (what I call the energizer). Replace "blinky light" panels with actual large-format displays, of approximately the same size and arrangement.
I actually can't imagine the brewery being used if there's a sequel... it's the single most mocked aspect of this film. But then again, I'm not directly involved in the making of this film or any potential sequel, so I don't get to make that decision.
But... if another film IS made, I really hope that they don't just say "JJ, you can do whatever you want without any checks or balances." The problems in this film... and there are plenty of them... come from the fact that this guy had full control, rather than having to argue points and defend his positions.
That sort of discussion... yes, that sort of argument... leads to a better final product, every single time.
