Perfect example of what they SHOULD have done with the TNG-R FX

[Maurice]

The original battelcruiser was designed to evoke a manta ray (just look at the main fuselage), and that sea-animal aspect to it was forgotten in later ships. The BOP at least has some lines that evoke the original battlecruiser and the K'tinga. The Vorcha suffers from a common problem with later ships: a cross section that's basically octagonal, so it's got really only one interesting sihouette (from above) and from the side it looks like a series of stacked boxes. Beveled edges don't make it interesting. It's a problem it shares with the Cardassian ship. Hell, it resembles the Cardassian ship so much it looks like someone flipped that around and stuck nacelles on it.

 

[davejames]

I thought the BoP looked plenty elegant, especially when those long wings would be angled upward slightly.

I will say that it never looked quite as good in TNG as in the movies though. It was shot way too static, without any of those cool swooping shots that we saw in TSFS or TVH.

 

[Captain Fine]

Personally I think the BOP is a great design. But then I also like the Negh'Var, D'deridex and Valdore-style ships.

 

[Christopher]

Now, the Valdore-type ship (designed by John Eaves) is kind of nice -- except that I think it looks more Klingon than Romulan, and in fact would be a better Klingon ship design than just about anything we've gotten post-1979.

 

[Dukhat]

Case in point with "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the "K'Vort class battlecruisers," which were just unrealistically upscaled BoPs. They hadn't yet built the Vorcha model, which is most likely what they would have used if they had it.

If they wanted Klingon battlecruisers, I don't know why they didn't just use the lovely K'tinga-class miniature instead of the ugly, wrong-sized BoP.

While I agree with you that the K'Tinga class ship is a terrific design, even if it was scaled to its normal dimensions, it would have been no match for the Enterprise-D. The whole reason they had to upscale the BoPs to ridiculous dimensions was so that the Ent-D had an equally-sized adversary to fight. Unfortunately they had no corresponding model at the time (although I suppose they could have used that Planet of the Creeps/Promellian ship painted green like they eventually did in DS9...when scaled to the station, it was huge...)

 

[sojourner]

Hey Christopher, Here's a Klingon ship you may like. One of the best fan designs ever created and it's a physical model to boot!

 

[Christopher]

^Sorry, no, I don't care for it at all. Not very graceful contours. And why is it that all Klingon ships from the BoP onward have had to be that sickly olive green? I prefer the battleship gray of the D-7 and K'tinga.

To Dukhat: Okay, the K'ts are smaller than the E-D, but I think three of them could've been a match for it -- well, at least for the Prime-universe version, though I assume the YE version was more heavily armed and armored. At the very least, it wouldn't have been quite as ridiculous a scale mismatch as using the BoP.

 

[davejames]

Seems like the Ent-D being twice the size of the original Enterprise is something that was written once, early on, in the series bible.... and then immediately forgotten as production began on the actual series. Lol

I mean, was there ever any shot that showed the ship being much larger than other established ships? I can't think of one. Even the Bozeman/Reliant from Cause and Effect was twice as big as it should be.

Seems like the only time they got the scale right was with the Excelsior model, but that was probably just by accident.

 

[Timo]

Hmh? The E-D dwarfs basically every alien design thrown against it, save for the Tamarian vessel and Q's spatial chainmail. "Enemy looming above the heroes" is a classic pose from the TOS movies and DS9, but in TNG, it's always the E-D that looms.

Only fellow Starfleet vessels appear to be of the same size, aren't positioned basically beneath the saucer in a standoff, and tend to fly side by side with the hero vessel for effect.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[davejames]

Hmh? The E-D dwarfs basically every alien design thrown against it, save for the Tamarian vessel and Q's spatial chainmail. "Enemy looming above the heroes" is a classic pose from the TOS movies and DS9, but in TNG, it's always the E-D that looms.

Only fellow Starfleet vessels appear to be of the same size, aren't positioned basically beneath the saucer in a standoff, and tend to fly side by side with the hero vessel for effect.

Timo Saloniemi

Well yeah, but I'm sure they would have had the Ent-D looming over those ships anyway, since most of those aliens were established as being not quite as technologically advanced.

Or they were piloting cargo ships, scout vessels, or small transports.

 

[sojourner]

^Sorry, no, I don't care for it at all. Not very graceful contours. And why is it that all Klingon ships from the BoP onward have had to be that sickly olive green? I prefer the battleship gray of the D-7 and K'tinga.

HUH??? Not very graceful?? Did we look at the same ship? That thing is a piece of art. (ok, yeah, the color may be a bit overused in modern trek, but that's easily changeable)

 

[Christopher]

No accounting for taste. I just don't like the shape of the "head" and neck.

 

[Maurice]

The K'tinga was olive green, not gray.

 

[Christopher]

Looks gray to me in that shot, and in the others I've seen.

 

[BillJ]

^Sorry, no, I don't care for it at all. Not very graceful contours. And why is it that all Klingon ships from the BoP onward have had to be that sickly olive green? I prefer the battleship gray of the D-7 and K'tinga.

HUH??? Not very graceful?? Did we look at the same ship? That thing is a piece of art. (ok, yeah, the color may be a bit overused in modern trek, but that's easily changeable)

I'm not really impressed with the design either (model work is great), reminds more of something the Cardassians would build.

 

[Maurice]

Looks gray to me in that shot, and in the others I've seen.

The model was green. I can see it in the film.

There're also some discussions about the original series model being a two-tone gray and green paintjob, as per these notes on Hobby Talk

Post referring to the history of the models built by AMT for the show.

"Scott "Captain Cardboard" Alexander on the colors of the model as deliver to the NASM

 

[Trekker4747]

To be fair it's a very gray green.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, it's a very different and much subtler shade than the one that became standard from the BoP onward. Not all greens are created equal. Green is actually my favorite color; that's why the heroine of my upcoming novel is named Emerald and is wearing a green top and boots on the cover. But some shades of green look nice and others look ugly. I don't like "Klingon-ship green."

 

[TommyR01D]

old people ...

You should respect "old people" because you might live to be one someday and then you'll have to listen to all the disrespectful young punks bitching and moaning about how stupid old people are and you'll yell at them to get off your lawn ... I can almost guarantee it.

What makes a young person's moaning any better or worse than an old person's moaning. What age you are is not the deciding factor in the validity of your opinion. The fact is, older people are used to model shots rather than that newfangled computer stuff, and younger people are accustomed to CG effects instead of that stupid old rubbish.

 

[Christopher]

^It's not that simple, because not all CGI is alike. CGI can be great if it's got enough time and money and talent going into it; for instance, I found the virtual sets and scenery and creatures in Andrew Stanton's John Carter to be pretty much flawless and stunning. But it's not at all easy to get CGI to look realistic, and if the time or money or talent isn't there, the results are not going to look as good as a well-done model shot. (And part of the reason JC's effects looked so good is that Stanton shot them as if they were live action, with restrained, physically believable camera moves, rather than the showy swooping about that makes so many CG shots look self-conscious and fake.)

In general, it's foolish to think a single technique is right for everything. The smart approach to visual effects is to make use of all the available tools in the kit, and pick the right tool for each job. There are still jobs for which miniatures work better than CGI -- which is why the CGI-laden Lord of the Rings trilogy made extensive use of miniatures for cities like Minas Tirith (not to mention full-size physical sets for a lot of things that most productions would fake with miniatures or CG). One of the ways CGI can be misused is relying on it too exclusively, using it for shots that can be more effectively done with a different technique.