ST:TMP: Was such a massive refit of the USS Enterprise logical?

[Mytran]

I fantasise about those black bridge panels having jelly bean buttons that morph into different configurations depending on user settings - much like some of the more future looking phone manufacturers talk about in terms of haptic, and screens that grow bubbles

Who says the panels couldn't do that?

I certainly imagine that they could. Plus, all those shiny black surfaces on the instrument panels which look like switched off Okudagrams - information display devices as and when needed. Any reason why that circular unit on the communicators can't project realistic 3-d holograms as required? Everything on board seems to be wirelessly powered, what's to stop Kirk picking up that screen off his desk (out of it's 1960s housing) and carrying on a videocall with it as he strolls down the corridor? Just because we never saw such things in TOS, doesn't mean they couldn't happen...

 

[Phoenix219]

If I'd been in charge of TOS:R, I wouldn't have stuck with the exact 1960's design. I'd have taken the TMP model and worked backwards, de-fitting it in the major areas, slapping on TOS decals and leaving the rest alone.

Is there any fan art like this? TMP design, with TOS nacelles, a dish, and no torpedo launcher?

 

[David cgc]

Is there any fan art like this? TMP design, with TOS nacelles, a dish, and no torpedo launcher?

DEG's "TOS.5" is along those lines, though not quite to the point of using the TMP proportions.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yep, that Mona Lisa sure is looking out of date. Technology has changed in 500 years, we don't have to paint pictures any more. Let's take 'er down and replace her with a photograph of a woman in modern clothes and hairstyle...

I realize you're making an attempt at sarcasm, but I also realize you don't really understand how "art" works.

Google search for "modern Mona Lisa" turned up this:

Basically: when someone wants to do a painting based on or inspired by the monalisa, they don't always just copy the monalisa's style, clothing, brush techniques and colors. They take the basic concept embodied in the monalisa and they create a slightly different version of it, modified, modernized, stylized, etc.

You're basically complaining that artists are being TOO original by not being similar enough to the original work. I would wager a guess that you are not actually an artist.

 

[Timo]

Since when has Trek had anything to do with art?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Since when has Trek had anything to do with art?

Sine this:

And this is maybe what I think Trek fans don't really GET about our collective obsession? It isn't a product of science or engineering. It isn't something created by technicians, futurists or visionaries. In the strictest sense, it isn't even a product of "writers."

It is a product of ARTISTS. Set designers, prop designers, musicians, actors, screenwriters, editors, photographers, special effects artists, graphic artists, painters, projectionists, gaffers, makeup artists, costume designers, riggers, sound designers, and so many more. We emphasize the technical minutia because that's what interests us and it's the easiest to grasp, but while things like the design of the Enterprise bridge is a very visible element in Star Trek, it is FAR from the most important.

Emphasizing my earlier point: If you're doing a Star Trek production that has Kirk, Spock and McCoy played by someone OTHER than Shatner, Kelly and Nimoy, then there is absolutely NO ground to call for the use of the original prop or set designs. Chris Pine is NOT William Shatner and doesn't look enough like him to be a perfect double, so he doesn't need to sit in a chair that looks exactly like Shatner's chair, or say dialog that sounds exactly like Shatner's dialog. Because this isn't a REMAKE of the original, it's a DERIVATIVE of the original, and a certain amount of cosmetic changes are inevitable.

The real hilarious thing is that even the original production team with the original actors and set designs available chose to make massive changes anyway (this is, after all, a thread about TMP!) and those changes angered and depressed fans for pretty much the same reason. As above, it's almost as if Da Vinci decided to do three additional portraits of Lisa Gherardini in various poses only to have all of his critics start screaming "Couldn't you have used the same background as before? And why is she wearing different clothes in the other portraits? And why isn't she smiling in the third painting? Why can't you respect the work that came before?!"

 

[Timo]

Naah. Trek artists don't get to do art. They deliver commissions, albeit mostly unpaid. The more creative they get, the more they have their work end up in a dustbin. Because they are never in a position to decide.

Importantly, neither are we in the audience. The decision on how much creative freedom to exercise is a commercial one, based on presumptions on what brings money in (and only very tangentially touching upon what we might possibly want to see). And so far it has always been safely conservative in the spinoff business. Why should it suddenly change?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Naah. Trek artists don't get to do art. They deliver commissions, albeit mostly unpaid. The more creative they get, the more they have their work end up in a dustbin. Because they are never in a position to decide.

Yeah... that's pretty much exactly what being an artist is like.

And so far it has always been safely conservative in the spinoff business. Why should it suddenly change?

Because conservativism is a losing formula in TV and film production. That's the reason Discovery is using totally new set and prop designs rather than simply copying the designs from TOS or TMP.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Naah. Trek artists don't get to do art. They deliver commissions, albeit mostly unpaid. The more creative they get, the more they have their work end up in a dustbin. Because they are never in a position to decide.

It's still art. They get paid because it's part of their job. Bill Theiss and Matt Jefferies took home a paycheck for what they did.

Michelangelo didn't just show up at the Sistine Chapel and start painting. He was hired to do it. It was commissioned and it's still art. Leonardo was commissioned to paint the Mona Lisa, by the subject's husband. Leonardo's sketches are art and worth millions.

 

[Spot261]

Naah. Trek artists don't get to do art. They deliver commissions, albeit mostly unpaid.

Ummmm,

yeah, that's mostly how art works

 

[Forbin]

I realize you're making an attempt at sarcasm, but I also realize you don't really understand how "art" works.

Google search for "modern Mona Lisa" turned up this:

Basically: when someone wants to do a painting based on or inspired by the monalisa, they don't always just copy the monalisa's style, clothing, brush techniques and colors. They take the basic concept embodied in the monalisa and they create a slightly different version of it, modified, modernized, stylized, etc.

You're basically complaining that artists are being TOO original by not being similar enough to the original work. I would wager a guess that you are not actually an artist.

And you felt the need to be an insulting prick why?

 

[John Sinclair]

In universe I think there could be many reasons such a massive refit was done.

I agree with Timo, the Organian Treaty probably put a limit on how many star ships the Federation and Klingon's could have but do we know how old the Constitution Class actually was? On screen we see the Constellation with a lower number. Did it go through a massive refit to make it look like the Enterprise of TOS? Maybe the Constitution Class as a whole lasted 80 years and the Enterprise-A was the last in service by the time of TUC.

Plus in TNG "Relics" LaForge says to Scotty that the warp drive "hasn't changed much in the last 100 years" which would be around the time of TMP. That would make the original Enterprise the test bed for this new warp drive system much like the Excelsior was supposed to be the test bed for transwarp.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

And you felt the need to be an insulting prick why?

Partially for the same reason you felt the need to be a sarcastic prick, but mostly because I'm a terrible person.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

John Sinclair,

Here is the quote from "Relics". It is after Scotty describing the systems aboard the Jenolen as obsolete.

Well you know, that's interesting because I was just thinking that a lot of these systems haven't changed much in the last seventy five years. This transporter is basically the same system we use on the Enterprise. Subspace radio and sensors still operate under the same basic principle. Impulse engine design hasn't changed much in the last two hundred years. If it wasn't for all the structural damage, this ship might still be in service today.

The USS Nash, a sister ship to the Jenolen, was operational in the early 2370s. She can be seen in a handful of DS9 episodes.

 

[John Sinclair]

Ah my bad. Thanks for the correction Lakenheath 72

 

[Forbin]

Partially for the same reason you felt the need to be a sarcastic prick, but mostly because I'm a terrible person.

Did you think I was addressing you personally? 'cause I wasn't, I was addressing the subject generally. I don't get why you felt the need to personally insult me over a general wisecrack.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I don't get why you felt the need to personally insult me over a general wisecrack.

Exactly which part of "I'm a terrible person" didn't you get the first time?

 

[Unicron]

In any case, I'd prefer nobody get personal.

 

[Irishman]

Oh, I'm not saying that retro-futuristic is a bad idea. For instance, the game Alien Isolation did retro exceptionally well. In fact, you could probably set all of Star Trek in an alternative multiverse where where certain modern technologies and trends never happened, thus allowing true consistency across all the series.

However, the more narrowly tailored the premise of the show becomes, the more difficult it becomes for it to remain relevant. One of science fiction's strengths is the ability to take something modern and extrapolate an extreme future version of it, allowing you to explore moral and philosophical implications thereof. Retro sci-fi can't do this as easily, because it would immediately draw attention to the fundamental conceit upon which it's based. That's not to say that a "Transistorpunk" Star Trek series can't be done. It's just that your stories will tend to have more to do with who we were than what we will become.

Yes. The nostalgia outweighs the messages, in fact, when I've watched Star Trek Continues, I'm reminded of how they cast the original actor who played Apollo back in the 60s, at his current age, with a script that explained his appearing so old.

For me, it was just visually jarring and took me out of the future world of Star Trek. It was as though the two elements were working at cross purposes to each other .

 

[Irishman]

Exactly - so a modern show should use that conceit - it looks like retro 60s tech, but look closely and you can see it's some bad ass future tech.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, the fact is that starship sailed back when the Motion Picture was made.