In my opinion, the TOS design is only second to the perfection that was the refit from TMP. It’s hard for me not to compare any new design to that beautiful ship. I’m sure he must have found it daunting to have taken on the task of re-designing such a beloved character that is so important to so many people—especially a vocal group like us Trekkies.
Overall, I really like design. It works much better for me than Ryan Church’s Enterprise. That one had too many areas that seemed cramped, bulbous and cluttered. On this design, the only area that will take me some getting used to is the connection point of the neck and saucer. I think I see what he’s done there, and can certainly understand the choice made due to the events of the movie. The original and refit appeared a bit more elegant with the connection further back at the very edge of the saucer, but having it connect more inward would undoubtedly make for a stronger point of contact. I look forward to seeing more of the design in motion in the next film.
Anyone care to comment on this next bit?
As techniques and technology have evolved, I’ve noticed that the aesthetics of starship design have come to the point where they often appear odd from some angles, such as schematics, but can seem very different when seen in the actual film. In my opinion, I find that the older designs, such as the original and refit Enterprise, seem to look fantastic from every angle, whereas newer designs tend to have some unusual elements when seen on paper, but in motion, can look much more elegant due to lighting, angle, depth of field, etc. This is no more evident that in the last movie. Seen from above or beside, I think the modifications made to the Enterprise 1701 make that ship look far worse than it does in the actual film. The swept-back pylons and thinned neck, coupled with the narrow distance between the nacelles, make the ship look unappealing to me, but during the film I was surprised that the design transitioned so well that I actually really liked the look of it far more than in the first two movies. I may be wrong, but I attribute this to the choices in cinematography as seen in Star Trek Beyond. So why is this? Is it because in the past, before everything was created in the digital realm, designs were done with blueprints and physical models? So when the original series and movies were made, the camera was mainly positioned outside the model, looking back at it. The angles that were filmed were limited to how close the camera could physically get to the model. Perhaps this meant that more often than not, the design may have been refined until it was perfect as seen through the camera lens. In comparison, with CGI models, one can position the camera anywhere around or within the structure of the ship to make it appear much more elegant than the overall design might be. I believe it allows the final design to be somewhat less refined, because some awkward-looking areas can be made to look more impressive by simply altering the depth of field and lighting with ease in the computer—a technique that was simply not possible with physical models just a few feet long. I’m not implying that this has made digital designers any less caring in their work, I’m just wondering if certain elements are chosen because they look more dramatic from some angles then others? An example of this would be the nacelles of Ryan Church’s design. Seen from the front, the narrowness between the port and starboard nacelles make the ship look sleek, almost aggressively fast, but when viewed from the top of bottom, they look too close together when compared to everything that came before. The same look with a physical model may have been achieved by selecting a certain focal length that added that additional depth to the shot.
Sorry for the long winded nature of this post and I hope I made it clear at what I’m trying to get at.
