Star Trek XI Enterprise Engineering set?

[Captain Rob]

Don't get me wrong, I liked the idea of the Budweiser warp engine, but in execution both from an aesthetic standpoint and in universe "technical" standpoint it failed.

Aesthetically, there was no focal point. Nothing to look at. Nothing to identify as THE most powerful engine you've ever seen. Instead you just got a mismatch of pipes going every which way. Now, yeah, ok, In the real world an engine room is a cramped thing with an engine which probably doesnt look what you'd expect, but this isnt the real world, this is freakin' Star Trek. Its a film set 250 years into the future! I want to see glowing shit illuminating the faces of the characters for the same reason JJ wanted lens flare - it makes it look futuristic.

Secondly, from the "in universe" standpoint - The engine room was more like half the engineering hull. One hull breach and the entire engineering section is fucked. Open plan is great for your living room, not so great when your moving on a ship in the vacuum of space.

I get why it was there and it was a good stopgap solution, but that's all it is.

Now, don't get me started on the bloody spinning phasers.

Absolutely agree with you guys. The silly brewery sets completely took me out of the movie. Made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Your post sounds just like my post a few months ago comparing the Enterprise to a modern-day warship. Bottomline is that Enterprise is a warship and has to be designed to take damage and survive, even with the loss of forcefields to seal hull breaches. Which we never saw in TOS.
As for the brewery; I just saw a replay of the PBS miniseries "Carrier" which follows the USS Nimitz on it's tour to Iraq. The brewery makes about as much sense as the Nimitz's chief engineer taking cameras into the reactor space and we see a big giant glowing, spinning, floating sphere in place of it's nuclear reactor. "We got an upgrade of alien tech from Area 51"

 

[Therin of Andor]

The silly brewery sets completely took me out of the movie.

Well, I thought the brewery made a pretty convincing starship interior when it appeared in the original "V", and it served its purposes in JJ's ST. Didn't even notice the concrete floors till they were pointed out here ad infinitum.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

I think there are overlapping reasons regarding what draws fans to Star Trek. Depending on the individual, there is greater or lesser overlap.

I suspect that there are people out there who tear through every Trek novel that they can get their hands on, yet have never held a tech manual or blueprints in their hands.

Others may memorize blueprints and tech manuals, but are bored by reading Trek literature.

Some read any and ALL things Trek!

Other fans are mainly interested in seeing Trip and T'Pol to get together (or Picard and Crusher)(or Kirk and the Gorn Captain!....).

Some want impressive space battles and 'splosions!'.

I suspect many of the people who enjoy the logic/sensibilities of previous Star Trek Tech (like me) were the ones disappointed with what was so obviously a brewery playing dress-up. I also suspect that a good number of others who aren't very interested in this aspect of Trek did not get worked up into any sweat over the look of the "lower decks"..... For example, my girlfriend was thrilled to see Spock & Uhura together in STXI, but she really would not care if the crew was traveling through space in a starship, a decommissioned battlestar or a Winnebago with hyperdrive!

To each their own, I guess!

 

[Sabataage]

Yeah, engineering was unforunate. As soon as I saw that I knew some fans would hate this movie since they love making up technical schematics for pretend warp cores based on imaginary technology. Hopefully the next movie will have more scenes set within the ship and fewer scenes outside it. That way they can actually use their substantial budget to build a real engineering set.

Now, don't get me started on the bloody spinning phasers.

[quivering with rage] Now you leave the phasers out of this!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yeah, engineering was unforunate. As soon as I saw that I knew some fans would hate this movie since they love making up technical schematics for pretend warp cores based on imaginary technology. Hopefully the next movie will have more scenes set within the ship and fewer scenes outside it. That way they can actually use their substantial budget to build a real engineering set.

It's funny, I used to be into that technical stuff years and years ago, but this film had me searching the internet (sadly without success) for floorplans of the San Fernando Valley brewery in an effort to see where and how it would all fit inside the Enterprise. I was gonna scale the floor plans of the brewery and superimpose them on pics of the ship. It would have been a little bit like Franz Joseph's old TOS Enterprise floorplans from the 70's.

It's because this Enterprise was so different that I wanted to see if I could figure out what made it tick.

 

[Kelso]

Yeah, engineering was unforunate. As soon as I saw that I knew some fans would hate this movie since they love making up technical schematics for pretend warp cores based on imaginary technology. Hopefully the next movie will have more scenes set within the ship and fewer scenes outside it. That way they can actually use their substantial budget to build a real engineering set.

Damn right.

 

[Galileo7]

Yeah, engineering was unforunate. As soon as I saw that I knew some fans would hate this movie since they love making up technical schematics for pretend warp cores based on imaginary technology. Hopefully the next movie will have more scenes set within the ship and fewer scenes outside it. That way they can actually use their substantial budget to build a real engineering set.

Damn right.

I absolutely agree. Let's see more on the nu1701 in Star Trek XII.

 

[Peter the Younger]

If ST09 was a cheesy 70s scifi movie, it would have fit right in, but next to the other sets it was very jarring. I don't mind the more contemporary industrial look, but some of the specific features - the obviously concrete walls, the suspended ceiling lights, and the actual beer vats - really threw me out of it. Even if they don't want to completely change the look of engineering, a couple of relatively modest changes could make a lot of difference. Hell, just drape some green screens in the far background near the walls and ceiling, and CGI in some curved bulkheads, something that suggests the secondary hull, and I would be immensely happier.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I don't mind the more contemporary industrial look, but some of the specific features - the obviously concrete walls

What walls?

Seriously, I have to ask that question now because I've seen that movie, like, eight times now and I keep running into people saying "The walls in the engine room are obviously concrete" and I keep wondering "When the hell did did we ever seen the engine room's walls?"

Side point: it's been claimed in here, but even the "obviously concrete" floors don't look like concrete to me.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

^ I need to go back and look, but I think the example where concrete jumped out at me was a scene on U.S.S. Kelvin where Captain Robau is on his way down to the shuttle where he is going around a corner and down a stairway.

Everything there looks too much like the familiar poured concrete slab floors and walls (if I recall correctly) and grated metal staircase steps like I see in warehouses, factories, grocery store back rooms, parking garages, etc.

 

[Nerd unRage]

But isn't it possible to have those same grated metal staircases on a starship? People need traction you know.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I guess that ST XII's Engineering set, if that film will have one, could be anything; they could just use the excuse that in XI, the set wasn't yet completed (the ship *was* brand new after all).

 

[Captain Rob]

^^ Ditto for sure. How long would the ship have to be in dock for repairs of all of those cracks she received at the end of the last movie?
And maybe the Enterprise will get her ass back too. ( The aft lower portion of the engineering hull that appears to be missing).

 

[Galileo7]

I guess that ST XII's Engineering set, if that film will have one, could be anything; they could just use the excuse that in XI, the set wasn't yet completed (the ship *was* brand new after all).

I think you have given the writers of Star Trek XII the answer.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ I need to go back and look, but I think the example where concrete jumped out at me was a scene on U.S.S. Kelvin where Captain Robau is on his way down to the shuttle where he is going around a corner and down a stairway.

Everything there looks too much like the familiar poured concrete slab floors and walls (if I recall correctly) and grated metal staircase steps like I see in warehouses, factories, grocery store back rooms, parking garages, etc.

Yeah, I caught that on Kelvin. It's not something that "jumped out" at me until the 7th time I'd seen it and even then because I was actually freeze-framing the scene looking for details of the Kelvin's engine room. There's nothing in evidence that indicates a slab floor, though.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

^ I guess it jumped out at me because in high school and college I worked in a large grocery store, and the stock room out back had the same sort of floor, walls, and metal stairways that we saw on screen (our store room lacked the stretches of steaming machinery, though!). It jumped out at me because it was so strikingly familiar. All they needed to show near the bottom of the stairs was a coffee maker and an empty Dunkin' Donuts box on a table surrounded by milk crates used for seats and the illusion would be complete: a break area in the back room of a grocery store from the early 1980s. It did not impress me. It was a disappointment.

To add to nostalgia from the past (rather than a vision from the future), Robau later walks through a curtain of heavy plastic strips (in the shuttle, I believe) that we had in our walk-in freezers twenty years ago. Not exactly 23rd century technology. These curtains help hold in the cold when the walk-in freezer door is open. Not sure in an era of tractor beams and force fields what the barrier of plastic strips is protecting him from.

Then again, most people probably haven't seen these things, so they look novel and strange and perhaps even futuristic. The set dressing may have worked for some others, but it did not work for me.

 

[Peter the Younger]

^ I need to go back and look, but I think the example where concrete jumped out at me was a scene on U.S.S. Kelvin where Captain Robau is on his way down to the shuttle where he is going around a corner and down a stairway.

Everything there looks too much like the familiar poured concrete slab floors and walls (if I recall correctly) and grated metal staircase steps like I see in warehouses, factories, grocery store back rooms, parking garages, etc.

Yeah, I caught that on Kelvin. It's not something that "jumped out" at me until the 7th time I'd seen it and even then because I was actually freeze-framing the scene looking for details of the Kelvin's engine room. There's nothing in evidence that indicates a slab floor, though.

I'm at work so I can't get screengrabs, but the scene I recall that really took me out of it was when Cupcake corners Kirk and Scotty on the catwalk, above the fermentation va - er, deuterium tanks. To my eyes, it was very clearly a big concrete box.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

^ "All these arguments have happened before, and all these arguments will happen again."

Man! A truer statement will probably never be written on these boards, Peter the Younger!

 

[RAMA]

It was pretty much due to lack of budget, expect to see something closer tot he original production design paintings:

 

[kkozoriz1]

I can see it. Why try to look all science-fictiony if you can get free beer while shooting?