Size Of The New Enterprise (large images)
- Thread starter Strat
- Start date
- Status
Skimmed through this over-long and tedious post.
You provide a list of measurements we've received:
760m
718m
725m
760m
730m
As well as 600 and 900 metres.
Leaving an average of 741 metres.
Which substantiates my (and many others') point of the new Enterprise being ~700 metres.
And yet people still think it's 300
Thanks for providing the proof they ended up making the ship much larger than 370 metres. Perhaps around, I don't know... ~700 metres maybe??
Skimmed through this over-long and tedious post.
You provide a list of measurements we've received:
760m
718m
725m
760m
730m
As well as 600 and 900 metres.
Leaving an average of 741 metres.
Which substantiates my (and many others') point of the new Enterprise being ~700 metres.
And yet people still think it's 300
Thanks for providing the proof they ended up making the ship much larger than 370 metres. Perhaps around, I don't know... ~700 metres maybe??
You skimmed through and conveniently left out the original 370 meter figure quoted in that.
I did not say that it was definitely 300ish meters either, I said there is no one solid figure so you can not choose one number and say its official. You are essentially saying one number is more valid than another number when they didnt give us one, they gave us many.Alex Jaeger from ILM:
"The actual length of the the new E from the film is Big... 2500 ft according to my chart, but that was early in production, I forget if we shrank it back down some. It was basically what ever looked good in the shot :-P"
Yeah he seems pretty sure about the size there considering he can't even remember what size they settled on. Stop trying to make this a small ship vs big ship argument. I did not say it was either, I said it was both. They didn't have a concrete size from what they showed us in the movie, and they have admitted this much. My main problem with you is the fact that you chose one number and you said "this is the size because I said so" and then you ridicule anyone that does not agree with you.
Looks like this is the key quote.
No I haven't chosen anything, and it's not because "I said so".
7 sources have quoted an official length of over 600-700 metres.
7 sources! How can we say any one of those sources are official when they all give us a different number. That is ALL I'm saying. At this point, I don't care what size it is. If its big, its big, its its 300 some meters, its 300 some meters. I only have a problem with people claiming they are right when there is no concrete evidence to prove they are right without a doubt. Unfortunetely, the only correct answer at this point seems to be "whatever size looked good for the shot".
7 sources! How can we say any one of those sources are official when they all give us a different number. That is ALL I'm saying. At this point, I don't care what size it is. If its big, its big, its its 300 some meters, its 300 some meters. I only have a problem with people claiming they are right when there is no concrete evidence to prove they are right without a doubt. Unfortunetely, the only correct answer at this point seems to be "whatever size looked good for the shot".
That is because there is no such thing as an official masurement for a fictional spacecraft.If you're looking for someone to come out with detailed construction blueprints,good luck.Because this is a visual story,you'll never get a source more official than the effects staff, in this case represented by ILM.Looking for an official measurement of the Enterprise is as absurd as finding out the NOS shot used in Fast and the Furious-Hollywood makes movies,not blueprints.
And if Alex Jaeger had single-handedly done all of the effects himself, this would be pretty concise. The COMPANY, however, has disseminated multiple press releases at a size of 2357 feet. Apparently Alex's memory isn't as sharp as company documentation, although with more comments like that I'm increasingly starting to wonder how important his role actually was.
Then your comment is irrelevant, considering the official size has been released.
7 sources! How can we say any one of those sources are official when they all give us a different number. That is ALL I'm saying. At this point, I don't care what size it is. If its big, its big, its its 300 some meters, its 300 some meters. I only have a problem with people claiming they are right when there is no concrete evidence to prove they are right without a doubt. Unfortunetely, the only correct answer at this point seems to be "whatever size looked good for the shot".
That is because there is no such thing as an official masurement for a fictional spacecraft.If you're looking for someone to come out with detailed construction blueprints,good luck.Because this is a visual story,you'll never get a source more official than the effects staff, in this case represented by ILM.Looking for an official measurement of the Enterprise is as absurd as finding out the NOS shot used in Fast and the Furious-Hollywood makes movies,not blueprints.
Actually, thats exactly my point
Because the only one that was actually routed through ILM's PR department was the CG-society article. Most of the others are from insiders who either quoted the number off the top of their head (and aren't anal enough to have memorized it to two decimal points) or who don't actually know and give a ballpark figure.
Find me the MULTIPLE sources where they listed exactly 2357 feet.
Here's the quote from the article that is so often quoted as the companies "official document."
"Earl oversaw Asset Development and Look Development. He was experienced in art in both digital and traditional mediums, and did traditional miniature modeling at Berkshire Ridefilm Massachusetts, working with Doug Trumbull on the Back to the Future ride. Though all prior Star Trek films used miniatures in some way, Earl and VFX Supervisor, Roger Guyett, realized “due to the scale of the film and the compressed schedule, we ruled out [traditional] models early on.” There were no traditional models or miniatures used in the finished film.
One challenge was to sell the weight and scale of the ships that ranged from a 30 foot shuttle to the new Enterprise at 2,357 feet long, to the nemesis ship, the Narada, five miles long. To show that scale and detail would require the building of so many physical miniature models it would be prohibitive. “As it was,” said Earl “we spent almost the entire show building detail into the computer model.”
Heres the link: http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5071
It does state the size of the ship in this article which I do not debate. NOW find me the "multiple press releases" that quote this EXACT length. It's in one article. If you can find me the multiple times it was listed that wasn't directly referring to this one article, I stand corrected.
So does that mean if you can't find me the multiple times ILM gave us that number your comment is irrelevant?
Basically if it has not been directly quoted by ILM in more than one article, its just as valid as any other of the multiple numbers ILM gave us. Now I'm not debating the ship could be 700 plus meters, I'm simply saying its possible it could be 366 as well. There really is no OFFICIAL size from ILM. Every official number we have gotten from ILM has been different. To say one of them is THE official number is just ridiculous.
There are two from Entertainment Weekly, but I don't have a link to the online article (since I'm not sure it IS online) that tallied up comparisons between the old and the new. In one article the size is given as "almost 2500 feet" while in the other--about a month and a half later--it's given as "nearly half a mile" and both reference publicity materials from ILM's PR department.
Alex Jaeger is not ILM; for that matter, neither is Gizmodo.
ILM Art Director Alex Jaeger explained the size in Cinefex #118:
"The reconfigured ship was a larger vessel than previous manifestations — approximately 1,200 feet [370 meters] long compared to the 947-foot ship of the original series. Once we got the ship built and started putting it in environments, it felt too small. The shuttle bay gave us a clear relative scale — shuttles initially appeared much bigger than we had imagined — so we bumped up the Enterprise scale, which gave her a grander feel and allowed us to include more detail."
Yeah you are right Alex Jaeger is not ILM, I guess Art Directors are not part of ILM.
I don't even care anymore, people will believe what they want to believe
And that is everyone's right to do so, I only have a problem with the tendency of some to ridicule those who do not share other's views. I was not aware of the Entertainment Weekly articles and good find on those, I would love to read them, but no offense intended "almost 2500 feet" and "nearly a half a mile" do not support the claim that 2357 feet was listed in "multiple press releases". By the way, Gizmodo listed the size as 2379.75 feet, in my understanding thats "nearly a half a mile".
360-370. Yeah, we do. It makes more sense that way.And yet people still think it's 300
Let's see what Alex Jaeger's role really was in the movie and whether or not what he has to say has any weight...
From Memory Alpha website...
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Alex_Jaeger
"Alex Jaeger is a long-time employee at Industrial Light & Magic. He has worked on two Star Trek films thus far. First, he was the Visual Effects Art Director for concept design and animatics on Star Trek: First Contact. Over a decade later, he served as ILM's Visual Effects Art Director on 2009's Star Trek.
On First Contact, Jaeger was principally responsible for the Borg battle at the beginning of the film. He designed several new CGI models for the film, including the Akira-class, Steamrunner-class, Saber-class, and Norway-class.
When Jaegar first joined ILM, he worked as a model maker on such films as Congo and Mission: Impossible. First Contact was his first project as a Visual Effects Art Director. Jaegar's other credits in this role have included Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, Pearl Harbor, and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. More recently, he worked on The Island, Mission: Impossible III, and Transformers, all of which were written by Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
Jaegar has also worked as a concept and storyboard artist for ILM on films such as Men in Black, Spawn, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. In addition, he was lead concept designer on the 2003 film Hulk, which, like Star Trek, starred Eric Bana"
From IMDB.com
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) (visual effects art director: ILM)
... aka Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version) - Star Trek (2009) (visual effects art director: ILM)
... aka Star Trek: The Future Begins (Malaysia: English title)
... aka Star Trek: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version) - Transformers (2007) (visual effects art director: ILM)
... aka Transformers: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version) - Mission: Impossible III (2006) (visual effects art director: ILM)
... aka M:i:III (International: English title: promotional abbreviation) (UK: promotional abbreviation) (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka Mission: Impossible III (Germany) - The Island (2005) (visual effects art director: ILM)
- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) (animatics compositor: ILM) (as Alex Jeager)
- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) (concept artist: ILM)
... aka T3 (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka Terminator 3 - Rebellion der Maschinen (Germany) - Hulk (2003) (lead concept designer: ILM) (visual effects art director: ILM)
- The Italian Job (2003) (concept designer: mini damage) (uncredited)
... aka Braquage à l'italienne (France) - Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) (visual effects art director: ILM)
... aka Attack of the Clones (USA: short title)
... aka Attack of the Clones: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version (promotional title))
... aka Star Wars II (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones (USA: video box title)
... aka Star Wars: Episode II (Australia: TV title) - Pearl Harbor (2001) (visual effects art director: concept design/animatics, ILM)
... aka Pearl Harbour (UK: promotional title) - Sweet November (2001) (concept artist: digital tears, ILM)
My question is why do you consider some magazine sources as official ILM press releases when Alex Jaeger, the Visual Effects Art Director is quoted in another magazine article in saying that the ship changed sizes based on the environment they placed the ship in? He also said on a comment in his own blog that he wasn't sure what the final size of the ship was. This leads me and anyone else who reads this to believe that it is indeed quite possible they never had a real size nailed down. This technical manual that is coming out next year could realistically have any one of a number of different sizes listed in it. In fact, I think it would be funny if I had no size listed at all
In 40 years of trek, what we call the “official” dimensions of a starship has always been established by the artist that imagined, planned and designed her. Jefferies, Probert, Sternbach, Eaves and Drexler, their words have always been final.
The final word regarding this new Enterprise should be given by Ryan Church and only him. Not to the cgi modelmakers that can shrink or expand a model just to fit to the scene. (In his previous trek movie Jeager dwarfed the Defiant in relation to the E-E).
The final word regarding this new Enterprise should be given by Ryan Church and only him. Not to the cgi modelmakers that can shrink or expand a model just to fit to the scene. (In his previous trek movie Jeager dwarfed the Defiant in relation to the E-E).
Here you have pointed out two problems with your own argument:
1) So what if Alex Jaeger didn't have the final number memorized when he was asked about it during an interview? I don't have all the numbers I use in my job memorized. He said that he wasn't sure. Why, then, shouldn't we doubt that he had the right figure? Why shouldn't we put more faith in the press releases written by people who had time to look up the final number?
2) If the ship really did get rescaled from scene to scene so that it did change size in the different environments, it doesn't matter. Why? We are necessarily interested in the in-universe size of the Enterprise, that's why. Clearly in-universe, we can't have the ship change size, just like we ignore the differences in the different TOS and TNG Enterprise models from shot to shot. We don't care how long those models are, and we don't care how long the new CGI model virtually is. We are trying to figure out, in universe, the size of the new Enterprise. We've left that matter to the folks who made the ships before (i.e., we typically consider the TMP Enterprise to be 1000 ft because Probert said so). In this case, if we are consistent, then ILM must be the final word: the ship is 741 ± 25 meters. And the ship obviously evolved a great deal after Ryan Church handed them his rough draft.
P.S. To take the obviously grossly rounded "2000 feet" and "3000 feet" as serious values is rather disingenuous.
You raise a good point, however Mr. Jaeger gives us very specific numbers in this Cinefax interview...
"The reconfigured ship was a larger vessel than previous manifestations — approximately 1,200 feet [370 meters] long compared to the 947-foot ship of the original series. Once we got the ship built and started putting it in environments, it felt too small. The shuttle bay gave us a clear relative scale — shuttles initially appeared much bigger than we had imagined — so we bumped up the Enterprise scale, which gave her a grander feel and allowed us to include more detail."
Once again I do not debate that most of the numbers list the ship being around 700 + meters. I have said all along that the ship could easily be any of the sizes we have been given, including the 366 meter ship that Mr. Church designed. If we except the figures Jeffries and Probert gave us, why don't we except the number Ryan Church designed the ship to be?
"Why shouldn't we put more faith in the press releases written by people who had time to look up the final number?"
It seems to me Mr. Jaeger had looked up the specific numbers by the time he interviewed in the Cinefax magazine article. The other comment was made I believe a month ago on his own blog. The Cinefax article came out about a week ago, so its actually the most recent article we have.
I would suggest the figure of 3000 feet for the new Enterprise supported by Alan Dean Foster in his novelization.
As for blueprints, given the interest and profit of the film, book of blueprints could be designed with the size chosen by JJ Abrams from the various figures and then look at the internals of the ship like was done by the late Franz Joseph in his class Book of General Plans of the TOS ship which I think would sell very well.
In TMP, a limited set of plans were made for publication and TNG also had a blueprint book, this one with interior details deck by deck as in the FJ TOS ship.
Could we all get along on this?
As for blueprints, given the interest and profit of the film, book of blueprints could be designed with the size chosen by JJ Abrams from the various figures and then look at the internals of the ship like was done by the late Franz Joseph in his class Book of General Plans of the TOS ship which I think would sell very well.
In TMP, a limited set of plans were made for publication and TNG also had a blueprint book, this one with interior details deck by deck as in the FJ TOS ship.
Could we all get along on this?
- Status
Similar threads
