Wow, look how making the JJ ships bigger doesn't give them more sense of scale. They didn't rethink the scale and level of detail needed at this size. That's why in the film its 200% increase in size meant nothing. Except that it took a large craft brewery to run it. Now look at the E. Its surface detail and sense of scale is apparent. The registry numbers on the JJ ships can be seen from Earth. Much like Vulcan can be seen from Delta Vega or wherever.
I thought the huge internals of the Kelvin time line ships, as well as exterior cues like the bridge windows and domes gave them a fantastic sense of scale. As much as I like the Enterprise-E design, her internals (with the exception of the 3 floor engine room) were the same corridors and rooms of the Trek TV series. Voyager was meant to be much smaller but you wouldn't know from the sets. I'm hoping the Discovery Starfleet sets give the correct impression of size. I'm curious if they'll use greenscreens and CG for large engineering areas.
True, they were actually narrower. But the E movies were all relatively low budget even for their time. I don't really like the E design (or any of Eaves' designs for that matter), but I felt the E from the outside looked bigger than the D, meaning it had convincing scale. I didn't feel that in Trek'09. I'm pretty sure we'll see lots of CG set extension in engineering as well as other common areas.
This 100% is not the USS Shenzou in my opinion,there are so many clues! First I'll go through what I think the options are.I think that there are a few options for what the craft really is. 1) This is the USS Shenzou. A rapidly scaled up NX-01 for an emergency mission. It is attacked or destroyed and undergoes saucer separation. The saucer is mated with the body of damaged Klingon D5. The craft is christened USS Discovery with a Human / Klingon crew. 2) This is the USS Shenzou. The main ship of the show. They are searching for the USS Discovery. 3) A ship from the Kelvin 'verse. There is, in my opinion, ZERO chance that this will involve the Kelvin Timeline. A lot of fans seem to miss out on the fact that Kelvin timeline is as much a legal fiction to allow two corporations access to the franchise. They aren't friends, they are rivals. Hence the 'non compete' on when the show could be broadcast. That's why the Kelvin timeline couldn't be seen to just replace the Prime timeline, which would have been much easier. I suspect that they don't have rights to TNG era either. CBS doesn't have access to Kelvin timeline and they can't take assets from it or undermine it. I don't know but I suspect the reverse is true for Paramount. If I'm right, we won't see Winona Ryder as Spock's mother in a cameo. Which means we won't see Kelvinized Romulans, Kelvinized Klingons. Maybe we will see similar clones? 4) Trek Yards don't call this the USS Shenzou at certain key points. They call it the other craft from Discovery! The video is actually titled 'Discovery Ship Detailed Followup'. Not 'USS Shenzou Detailed Followup'! The registration does not say USS Shenzou. It says USS Eaves. This craft looks heavily based on the NX-01. Designed by Eaves. Whatever this is it's not the Shenzou. How about this being the Discovery. The Discovery is a hastily built, scaled up NX-01 designed for a very secret mission. The only thing I don't get, regardless of any of these option being right, are the Nacelles. They look stolen and modified from the Enterprise E!
WTF? The "wireframe ship" looks just like the USS Centaur! It even has those two winglets in the saucer that the Centaur had from the kitbashed Excelsior saucer!
Nah, I doubt that the wireframe ship will be bigger the TOS Connie. Looks at the rendering windows. They look bigger than what the Connie and others size. And the hangar look bigger, but not a kind of aircraft carriers hangar. I'm sure that the hangar can only carry a handful of shuttles. Maybe 1 or 2. So this ship should be smaller than Connie.
Well, they do have some connections to the industry, a lot of the CG models they use in their episodes are actual production models. The ship model up there is a recreation though, the only claimed 'official info' is the size. The full model isn't official, it is speculation. As far as I can tell the wireframe doesn't even have windows.
If the JJ ships had a regular sized registry number and the aztec pattern was not scaled up, but instead the same "panel" size as on the Prime ships it would appear noticeably larger. Also lighting a ship that size with a single light source almost never happens (explosion or direct sunlight for half an orbit, etc). So lighting the ship with dozens if not scores of tiny spotlights (like TMP but moreso) will go a long way to making the ship look its size. The interior was convincingly larger though. Especially engineering.
I have a theory that there is no USS Discovery. We are so used to the location being in the title (DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) that the producers using that to play with our expectation. Think about it. Why use a 70's design as the title ship? Because they actually have no intention of using it on the show. So they use an existing design (no need to put any effort into it), which wasn't actually featured on screen before. It would also explain the relatively low quality CGI we saw in the trailer (because why throw money on a misdirection) and why there was no footage of the Discovery design on the production start teaser (only stills). It would also explain why we have so much case members as characters on the Shenzhou, while having so little (if any?) on the Discovery. The Shenzhou is the probably the actual "hero" ship. So that is why I think the title refers to the spirit\motif of the show, not an actual ship.
I don't doubt the have some connections. I also don't doubt they exaggerate how well connected they are. If you are on a production WHY would you EVER risk your career to leak anything to a vlogger? Even Foley said he thinks maybe they screwed up the conversions of the numbers somehow. So yeah, taking this with a HUGE grain of salt.
Except for the lead of the show was specifically anounced as being "Number One" on the Discovery, along with 2 of the first cast anounced being Science officers on her. We'll definitely see Discovery and she's a real ship; that's not to say Discovery isn't being used as a McGuffin, though. I still think ultimately the crews of Discovery and Shenzou will end up being fused ala Voyager. We're already a couple weeks into filming and they haven't announced complete crews for either ship. However, if you combine all of the announced roles, then we are looking at a more complete command crew. For that to happen, one of the ships likely would likely have to be lost. I could definitely see a scenario where Discovery saves Shenzou in a battle with the new (old Klingons) but is destroyed as a result. The survivors from Discovery are integrated into the crew and the ship adopts the name and registry of the Discovery in tribute.