Reactions to the Kelvinverse Enterprise

I loved the 09 Enterprise - and the Beyond Refit version topped that one, to a even greater degree (in my books).

One of my all-time fav Star Trek designs!

 

The nacelles are too big and the saucer doesn’t fit the curvier stardrive, but the larger conceptual issue is that we can see the debt owed to one specific Enterprise — the Enterprise-class design — not just to the basic, saucer-and-two-raised-nacelles concept of what the Federation flagship should look like.

If you examine an Enterprise lineup, can you say that any one of the ships was specifically inspired by another one, rather than whittled down into an unexpected version of the basic Enterprise shape through iterations upon iterations of refinement? The NX, perhaps, but more by the Akira class in its case.

The underlying reason, of course, is the need for the Kelvin Timeline to represent the evolution of TOS as boosted by the Narada, but still it means that its 1701 remains a riff on the Enterprise class, just as these movies are mostly riffs on the original film series. As with everything in this timeline, we’re going where we’ve already been… but with a twist.

 

Yes, and it does it quite well, in my opinion. I generally agree that the nacelles are a bit big, mostly towards the front end, but that doesn't change the overall sweeping shape that I like in this ship.

Mileage will vary, but Kelvin Trek takes these concepts in a very fun way, as well as different enough to serve its story purposes.

 

At first I didn't like it, All the proportions were off, neck moved back really honked me off.. but given time, Ive grown to like it, I even got the Revell Germany Model kit of it, (Good sized too!) But then Beyond happened, and they thined the neck and naccelles .. which to me, looks horrible.. for the movie reason of it would look weak when the ships buzz saw them.. ugh..

The Character of the Enterprise in the new movie, they treated her like a bastard child, just hurt it, crack it, blow holes in it.. and even crash her just to get a few novilty points.. She was used and abused.. and never really got to know her..

 

They did the same to earlier Enterprises, but JJ Trek shouldn’t have riffed on what’s already been done.

 

This might just be me, but my observation is that the Enterprise in the Kelvin films is not a character like the TOS or TOS films one was. In my opinion, that's a good thing. I love starships but I do not regard them as "characters" like other do, and I think that the Enterprise became far more of an analog for Kirk's journey in the Kelvin films, than a character of itself.

This, again, is my observation.

What, then, should they have done?

 

honestly, it's my second favorite ship after the enterprise-D. but my love of the enterprise-D is skewed by 25 years of nostalgia and my appreciation for the kelvin enterprise is more aesthetic.

yes the ship incorporated a lot of little details from the motion picture era refit, but in silhouette the two ships are vastly different because (unlike eaves' discovery enterprise) ryan church didn't just tweak the original ship, he re-thought it. it's low hanging fruit to compare this ship to the ones showing up in discovery, but to my taste, i love that the kelvin timeline enterprise is based on architectural styles from the atomic age, rather than aircraft from the 1940s as with discovery's ships.

we keep complaining that the discovery ships could easily slot into the 24th century series and films, the kelvin timeline enterprise is its own thing and belongs only in those films. i consider that distinctiveness a successful reimagining. and honestly, the thing just looks badass.

 

I'd never thought about that before, but you have a really good point. The more I think of it, Kelvin-Enterprise, especially in its interiors, is the most Googie thing ever made for Trek. The interiors of the ship were both alien, beautiful but still recognizable. Kirk kicking at the reactor arm gizmo towards the end of ID could have been taken off a Doc Savage cover (and Pine IS Doc Savage, if there's ever a Doc Savage movie, the casting begins and ends with our favorite evergreen)

It's sad we might never get to see where that line of development would continue, but I'm glad we got what we got.

 

They should’ve created stories that have nothing to do with those in TOS films. Even if we argue that certain events will remain (but with a twist!), the camera need not be there on those occasions.

 

1. thank you for using the term "googie"
2. i deleted a sentence in my post about it being both alien and recognizable because i couldn't quite phrase it, but you're spot on. the fluid, almost organic forms of the kelvin enterprise really appeal to me as a projection of the future and a throwback to the 60s... the ship is operating on multiple levels: it's alien and recognizably human, it's retro and distinctly futuristic, it's a totally new design and pays homage to the original.

as a feat of production design, of course it's not going to be everyone's taste, but i think it stands up against anything in the franchise and in genre film at large. put thanos' ship, the first order star destroyers, the USCSS covenant or prometheus, and the kelvin enterprise in a lineup and tell me which one stands out as the clear representative of its franchise.

 

I'm a big fan of the aesthetic and in atomic age design in general. I feel it was abandoned too quickly when it was a very liveable optomistic soaring and light hearted ideal. Instead we got some supermarkets and bowling alleys, most original googie is long gone. My universe would have kidney shaped swimming pools in every back yard, chrome vs non-chrome would not be a decision one would think about too long, and fins belong on cars. Fins belong on buildings too. Coffee tables can have any shape but rectangular. but I don't get this universe. We marched right into International Style, Brutalism, the brown and avacado hell of the 70's and post-modern banality ever since.

 

With Into Darkness I agree, however I don't think they did TOS with a twist as much as many would claim. Kirk as a character goes through a substantial arc that we did not get to see in TOS. So, while some of the beats were similar (that's what Star Trek has been for the past 40 some odd years) the characters are what make the difference.

 

That ship makes me want to be on that ship, or at least get the chance to visit it like the italian training ship Amerigo Vespucci lol so much beauty. I wish they showed more of its interior such as crew apartments, labs, etc. It's a pity how little they showed of the ship, if you think about it.

I love the bridge, it's big and not dark with all that silly 60s Saturday night fever colors and black/orange contrast - that were the go-to 'looking futuristic' of the 60s to 80s -. It looks polished and more believable to me, more like an actual ship I could go and visit lol

 

Not a fan of the design, particularly with the secondary hull and the pylon/nacells coming too close to each other.

But I never had a complaint about this version of the Enterprise being "too big". Truthfully, I never got the fuss over it being bigger than the TOS version.

 

I do too. The more I see of the interior the more I'm like "I could visit that."

 

Most sci fi shows, the ship that the lead characters, even the villian, is a character of there own.. Alumminum Falcon, Firefly, Various Enterprises, Andromeda, hell even with the Promethius was shot down in Stargate "Ethon" I was sad to see it go..
Most of the main characters like the Captains usually treat the ship with great care, love it even... But Pine "Kirk" and crew just seemed to be like Meh.. load up 72 untest torpedos over the Engineer's protests.. Etc.
So with the Kelvin prise, it was a "we barely got to know you, wish we did.. "

 

amen. as a kid, i wanted to live on the enterprise-D. as a grown up kid, i want to live in the kelvin enterprise. frequent catastrophic hull breaches notwithstanding.

 

And yet, Kirk has a very touching moment of watching the loss in Beyond. It is key to his own development.

I would shed no tears for this ship's loss.

 

I wasn't gonna say anything cos autocorrect does it to me all the time, but I giggled for 5 minutes at "aluminium falcon"

And although I felt nothing for the Kelvinprise's destruction, I did feel the struggle of the crew fighting and struggling for her every last breath. Particularly that shot of Kirk's reflected face as his pod launches and the saucer glides down.

And I loved that her last gasp squished whats-her-name who led them into Krall's trap.

 

This is similar for me. I personally do not regard ships like characters. But, seeing characters react makes the ship more important to me. And the Kelvin Enterprise is exactly that for me.

But, I cannot stand the Millennium Falcon, so I guess my sympathy for ships only extends so far.