Ship sizes: ALL LIES! (big pics)

[Crazy Eddie]

newtype_alpha

Well it was supposed to be either 302 or 366 initially, but the design was eventually scaled up to 1,200 by the time the shuttle bay and bridge were incorporated. That seems to be the determining factor -- making everything fit.

I think it's a ridiculously big size -- but hey, that's the size they made it.

Briefly, that is, before scaling it back down to 725.

They may have scaled the CG to that size for some of the scenes, but it's unfortunate that the details on the model don't fit at that size.

We've been through this more times than I can count; they fit it just fine.

It's 1200 meters
Sorry it's official,

Case closed

The official size is actually 725 meters.

newtype_alpha

Briefly, that is, before scaling it back down to 725.

But 1,200 goes better with the shuttle-bay size and the bridge-window.

Depending on what model you're using, the shuttlebay works at a scale as low as 600 meters. It fits 725 perfectly well.

The bridge window is more ambiguous only because the official orthos from the film aren't available to anyone and the closest thing we have is Tobias Richter's mesh. Close as that is, at the best resolution I've ever seen it there's still 17% uncertainty in the actual scale just from counting pixels alone. But even assuming an 8-foot bridge window, that puts a range limit between 920 and 670 meters.

Are you maybe using a different model to make these measurements? The last time we had this discussion six months ago it was pretty definitive.

 

[Kemaiku]

Any quotations, links or sources at all for the 725?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Pretty much sums up your last 5 posts on this thread.

While I am dubious of your claim that only a fraction of "existing fanbase" saw the new movie...

But it's obviously untrue.

Every Trek fan in the world SAW the movie. The question is whether or not anyone LIKED it. Based on the film's reviews and the overall response, it's clear that quite a lot of people did.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Any quotations, links or sources at all for the 725?

Boris quoted the text from the "Art of the Film" book, the one Lord Garth is trying to use as his source. There's a graphic that shows the original scale of the ships and their proportions, and a paragraph that explains the Enterprise (and therefore the Narada and the Kelvin) was scaled down to a smaller size during the design process. If I had to guess, I'd say it was scaled down when it was realized the external bridge window would be too large compared to the actual set design.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Any quotations, links or sources at all for the 725?

The Bluray "Starships" feature and the note at the back of the "Art of the movie" book.

 

[Kemaiku]

Ahh, thanks. That's pretty much the only shot in the film that to me suggests anything smaller than the 725-1200 mark, but I do tend to think of her as 725 and chalk it up to the 'artistic pan' out of the window.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Any quotations, links or sources at all for the 725?

Boris quoted the text from the "Art of the Film" book, the one Lord Garth is trying to use as his source. There's a graphic that shows the original scale of the ships and their proportions, and a paragraph that explains the Enterprise (and therefore the Narada and the Kelvin) was scaled down to a smaller size during the design process. If I had to guess, I'd say it was scaled down when it was realized the external bridge window would be too large compared to the actual set design.

Except, as the scaled diagram I posted earlier shows, 1200m is the only size that the bridge window on the model is 7 foot tall - the size it is on the bridge set (7' bridge window from a partial set diagram in the "Art of the Movie" book)

Hence, if you were building the 2009 Enterprise as seen, with no compromises, to fit the bridge window and shuttle hanger, it would have to be 1200m long. Similarly, the Excelsior would have to be 700+m (up from it's official size of 457m), to have windows bigger than stamps and decks taller than 6 feet.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Except, as the scaled diagram I posted earlier shows, 1200m is the only size that the bridge window on the model is 7 foot tall...

Yes, I saw that. And I have explained to you why I thought you were wrong. To do a quick recap:

1) You're using a clear outline of a person against a blurry background, which produces a VERY large sampling error and
2) I've done these measurements myself, converting pixels for unit measurements, and never got any measurement anywhere near that high.

The first time I did the analysis the bridge window measured three pixels high and the entire ship from stem to stern added up to 1160 pixels; ballparking 3 pixels as 2 meters, this added up to about 773 meters. Converting that into feet first, I got 2706 feet, or 824 meters. When I found a larger model with better resolution, similar calculations came out to beween 716 and 820 meters.

There's something very basic you're not taking into account, but I'm not sure how (or if) you did your analysis so I'm not sure what it is.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Newtype Alpha

Then 762 is the closest size

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ From my loose estimates based on an analysis of a non-canon CG model with a 15 to 20% margin for error, YES, 762 is the closest size.

Which doesn't change the fact that the slightly smaller 725--which is well within that margin of uncertainty--fits perfectly well with the ship's actual proportions. Significantly, 1200 meters DOES NOT fit that range given the proportion of the bridge window to the overall length of the ship.

 

[Gepard]

So... The pretty starships are real big. Got it.

 

[Broccoli]

While I am dubious of your claim that only a fraction of "existing fanbase" saw the new movie...

But it's obviously untrue.

Which was why I was dubious of it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Except, as the scaled diagram I posted earlier shows, 1200m is the only size that the bridge window on the model is 7 foot tall...

Yes, I saw that. And I have explained to you why I thought you were wrong. To do a quick recap:

1) You're using a clear outline of a person against a blurry background, which produces a VERY large sampling error and
2) I've done these measurements myself, converting pixels for unit measurements, and never got any measurement anywhere near that high.

The first time I did the analysis the bridge window measured three pixels high and the entire ship from stem to stern added up to 1160 pixels; ballparking 3 pixels as 2 meters, this added up to about 773 meters. Converting that into feet first, I got 2706 feet, or 824 meters. When I found a larger model with better resolution, similar calculations came out to beween 716 and 820 meters.

There's something very basic you're not taking into account, but I'm not sure how (or if) you did your analysis so I'm not sure what it is.

I resized the ships, and (6ft) Spock, so one pixel = one inch.

Yes, there's a margin for error with the bridge window (and I'll admit it's a big one - especially since it's a fan model and that in the movie, the window's exterior housing is noticably different in the pullback/flipover shot compared to every other scene) but what about the shuttlebay? The (40-foot) shuttles parked in there are tiny. It would be a LOT more cramped in there than we saw at 725m.

Dammit, why doesn't anyone who works at ILM post here!

 

[Kemaiku]

So... The pretty starships are real big. Got it.

Even the dusty old ones are big, no skimping on materials in this 'verse.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

but what about the shuttlebay? The (40-foot) shuttles parked in there are tiny. It would be a LOT more cramped in there than we saw at 725m.

I'm not sure "tiny" is the word I would use.

Anyway, I calculated--again, counting pixels--that at 725 meters long, the Enterprise' hangar deck would be about 40 meters wide. For a 12 meter shuttle, that's almost four shuttle lengths from one side of the hangar to the other. When you look at images like the shuttlebay opening, that seems about right to me.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I could write an essay on what's wrong with that article!

As for the shuttlebay shots, in the one where Pike's shuttle leaves, look at the numbers on the hull to get as idea how much closer the camera is to the ship (and shuttle as it swoops out) compared to the shot where the shuttle's land. The bay doesn't change size at all, it's simple perspective. I have a feeling the writer knows that.

I also can't help but note the complete non-mention of the corridor network behind the bridge (which obviously wouldn't fit in a TMP-sized ship), and that the assertation of 60cm tall saucer windows is a joke when every external shot in the movie shows that the saucer rim windows are the same height (and width, in the rectangular ones) as the window on the bridge.

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

I prefer 1200 Meters. I like my TOS Enterprise to dwarf the fugly Next Genny ships with there zillions of portholes and boundless, seeminly extraneous glowing neon

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I could write an essay on what's wrong with that article!

I know, but a good screencap for the shuttle bay is hard to find and that's the best one I've come across. The ARTICLE is complete garbage, of course.

 

[JJohnson]

Why do people get overly stressed out about the JJPrise being big? Fair play, it's not the most beautiful if ships (I prefer the kelvin by a long way), and it's nacelles look like they were made to vibrate on 3 different settings and make ladies happy. Did anyone get all worked up when TNG first aired because the galaxy class was huge?

No, I didn't. I accepted it was a new Enterprise with a new crew a hundred years later. The uniforms I didn't like till the third season, but I enjoyed the conscious thought people like Andrew Probert put into laying out the ship, its scale, and where everything should be. It felt like a ship, and its size didn't change from shot to shot or episode to episode. Things felt proportional on it, the secondary hull had a real engineering section and reactor, and not a huge brewery (XI, XII) that didn't look like it could possibly fit in it, or a massive column of empty, wasted space with precarious walkways spanning them (Into Darkness), a window looking at space with no protection, horribly placed lighting that looks designed to blind the crew while they try to do their jobs, and on and on.

The JJ-Prize, in addition to that, the nacelles are too high, the bussard collectors (or what is normally in that position) are blocked by the saucer, the pylons are spindly and don't look like they could possibly support such large nacelles, the pylons are placed way too far back, the neck is placed oddly too far back on the engineering hull, the engineering hull apparently has room for what appears to be a multi-story brewery that is incredibly thinly disguised (I can tell the floors are concrete, and for some reason felt I saw brewery windows, as opposed to the TMP or TNG engineering areas), the engineering section is way undersized for the way oversized saucer, the saucer is too flat and large, the upper and lower decks don't flow very well, the bridge has a window that any alien could simply shoot at to decompress and kill the bridge crew, and the saucer apparently has a column of open space with precarious walkways whose sole function is "looking cool" over making valid use of all that wasted space for cargo, rooms, labs, computer core, or any myriad possibilities. The JJ-Prize just doesn't seem very well thought out, and its overriding design consideration is "look cool above all else, and don't be consistent if it interferes with looking cool."

I would have chosen deg3D, Vektor, or the Prime Alternative as the ship to be seen in these two movies over what we got.

 

[JJohnson]

This seems to be how all threads end that have anything to do with the Abrams Enterprise size. This could have been avoided if someone took a few hours and scaled the ship properly. Yes, Star Trek is fiction, but at least the guys who designed the ships and technology from TOS to ST: Enterprise took pride and great care in the work they did and treated the audience with respect. I can't say the same about some of the stories the writers came up with

I can't believe Mr. Abrams and company treated Star Trek this way. This is the show that was so popular that the US Government named a real spaceship, the first Space Shuttle, after the TOS Enterprise. When I watch the new movie I keep reminding myself this is a bizarro alternate universe.

Haha, yes. Unfortunately, Spock got himself stuck here, or at least, until he makes it to a suitable ion storm and uses the transporter to get back to the real Star Trek universe, then uses either the slingshot effect or the Guardian of Forever to get back to his time.

I take some solace in the fact that the real Trek universe continues in the form of Star Trek online's backstory, and it was not wiped out, since, as Data said, "everything that can happen, does happen, but in an alternate reality."