The OFFICIAL new Enterprise - Let the critiques begin!

[Vance]

Vektor, obviously it isn't all that important (nothing on this site really is). But it is a silly demand to make that I watch the movie before, you know, deciding if I want to watch the movie. I'm sure Paramount would love that idea, mind you...

After all, I might enjoy bitching on this thread with you lot more than spending two hours watching this new movie. Have you thought of that?

 

[ST-One]

Vance said:
Vektor, obviously it isn't all that important (nothing on this site really is). But it is a silly demand to make that I watch the movie before, you know, deciding if I want to watch the movie. I'm sure Paramount would love that idea, mind you...

After all, I might enjoy bitching on this thread with you lot more than spending two hours watching this new movie. Have you thought of that?

No one is demanding that you watch the movie (when it is out).

All I was saying is that you will be in no position to criticise that film when you haven't seen it. But you will of course have had your reasons why you didn't want to see the film - you didn't like the production design, or some of the actors, or the very fact of the re-casting; all valid reasons - just no grounds for a critique of the movie as a whole.

 

[ST-One]

Vektor said:
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to decide whether or not I should read the rest of this thread or stop right here because the consequences… the consequences…

You... you better go back modelling!

 

[Sean_McCormick]

By the time, the movie hits the cinemas there will be ample material out (trailers, tv-reports, articles, toys) to form a judgement on liking or not liking it, but just from the first teaser...

Hey, judged from the first teaser, Star Wars - The Phantom Menace was a great movie,

 

[ThomastheCat]

Vektor said:
You know, this is a very important consideration because if the movie really does suck, everyone who watches it could suffer permanent blindness, chronic constipation, severe heartburn, irreversible mental implosion and spontaneous combustion. Shoot, the world as we know it might end! By all means, we absolutely must form a definitive opinion about the movie before seeing it because there is so much at stake!

Quoted for Epic Win...

We're not talking about reading War and Peace or learning to play Jazz Flute. $9 and two hours of your time to form an opinion.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to keep super-passionate verdicts about the new E to oneself until we've at least seen the whole thing after it has finished being built.

All that said, I wish they had gone down the road Vektor did with his design. I am still looking forward to getting a better idea of what she looks like after she's been put together, though.

 

[ST-One]

ThomastheCat said:

Vektor said:
You know, this is a very important consideration because if the movie really does suck, everyone who watches it could suffer permanent blindness, chronic constipation, severe heartburn, irreversible mental implosion and spontaneous combustion. Shoot, the world as we know it might end! By all means, we absolutely must form a definitive opinion about the movie before seeing it because there is so much at stake!

Quoted for Epic Win...

We're not talking about reading War and Peace

I bought that book and read about 80 pages and then 'judged' that I cannot continue to read this book...

 

[ChuckPR]

Vance said:

ChuckPR said:
How about we see the movie before pronouncing her dead or alive?

This is one of the most annoying and stupid, but also most common, fanboisms that I've ever seen. You're demanding that I see the movie before I judge whether or not I should see the movie?

That's about the dumbest response, I won't call it annoying because I'd have to care one way or another, I've seen.

My point was pretty clear.

You are basing all you criticisms on next to no information.

The people who are making the movie aren't even sure how it will be handled before everything is said and done.

Yet you pronounce the movie absurd based on nothing more then internet rumor(talk about fanboy nonesense!) and a preliminary teaser reel.

You don't have to see anything.

You could wait until everyone you know has seen it and told you every little detail.

Then decide.

That's a legitimate option.

But right now you are going on and on and blathering about how terrible the movie is based on nothing more then internet fanboy rumor.

 

[ChuckPR]

ThomastheCat said:

Vektor said:
You know, this is a very important consideration because if the movie really does suck, everyone who watches it could suffer permanent blindness, chronic constipation, severe heartburn, irreversible mental implosion and spontaneous combustion. Shoot, the world as we know it might end! By all means, we absolutely must form a definitive opinion about the movie before seeing it because there is so much at stake!

Quoted for Epic Win...

We're not talking about reading War and Peace or learning to play Jazz Flute. $9 and two hours of your time to form an opinion.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to keep super-passionate verdicts about the new E to oneself until we've at least seen the whole thing after it has finished being built.

Agreed.

What we saw in the preliminary teaser won't even necessarily be included in the final product.

Plus what can really be made out from it?

The support structures around the hull might mean that sections of top of the hull may not even have been completely lowered and connected to the rest of the ship.

Which would make all the carefully overthought comments about contours, etc pretty much a waste of time.

About the only thing that seems obvious is the size of the ship has been upscaled - not that any of the basic contours have been screwed with.

Upscaling her without changing the overall basic look I can live with.

Based on their shuttlebay, CBS has slightly upscaled their version too. I wish they would have had the guts to upscale her to the degree that has been done here.

It really makes more sense,

unless you believe the Enterprise uses Dr. Who's Tardis Technology.

Plus let's remember that this also isn't supposed to represent the series ship.


Let's also not forget the final product is probably at least almost a year away, assuming the writers strike or something else doesn't screw up the schedule.

I still remember seeing(I think I even have a couple of copies) TMP promo posters coming out just a couple of months before the movie was released that featured artwork of the Refit Enterprise that didn't come close to resembling what the Refit looked like in the movie.

The artwork released within a couple of months of the movie was still of the design done for the aborted second TV series!

For all these reasons I think it's a little premature to say we know very much at all about the redesign other then she appears to be bigger.

 

[trevanian]

ancient said:

Starship Polaris said:

ChuckPR said:
As far as Patrick Stewart is concerned,
let him spend a few years signing autographs at Car Shows
for a living the way Shatner had to for years...

Stewart doesn't have to do that because his show was a success the first time.

It's harder doing something first.

Also ... "there's no accounting for taste." (for more extreme example, see TITANIC.)

 

[Vektor]

Vance said:
Vektor, obviously it isn't all that important (nothing on this site really is). But it is a silly demand to make that I watch the movie before, you know, deciding if I want to watch the movie. I'm sure Paramount would love that idea, mind you...

First, nobody is demanding that you do anything. Let’s try to leave the hyperbole out of this. I don’t think anyone really cares whether you actually wind up seeing the movie or not. If you’re convinced that you won’t like it or it just doesn’t interest you, that’s your prerogative. I pass on seeing dozens of new movies every year on the basis of even less information than we have about Trek XI. Occasionally, I see one that I wish I hadn’t wasted my time on, but I have also been dragged to more than one film that pleasantly surprised me with how good it was.

Just a couple of days ago, I watched somebody in another thread make some of the most incredible logical leaps I’ve ever seen to the conclusion that Trek XI is going to desecrate Roddenberry’s optimistic and enlightened vision of the future. Why? Because it’s a TOTAL rip-off of nuBSG. In what way? It’ll be all dark and moody and industrial and filled with flawed and evil characters and stuff. How do you know? Because the teaser showed it that way. How? Well, it was dark. And…? Like at night. And…? The welders were all dirty and sweaty and stuff.

Oh. My. God.

It’s that kind of pre-judgment and rational convolution that so many of us object to. I see all kinds of people deciding the entire movie and everything about it will suck, but I see hardly anyone deciding that it’s going to be the best Star Trek movie ever made and will sweep the board at the next Oscar Awards ceremony. I do see cautious optimism as well as people who simply like what they’ve seen so far, but the only people who seem to be going completely off the deep end around here are on the negative side.

So, criticize the film all you want, but don’t expect to do it with absolute impunity and no argument to the contrary, and don’t expect everyone who hasn’t already decided to hate it as much as you do to just shut up and go away and let you have the soap box all to yourself. And stop mischaracterizing the slightest objection to your criticism as some kind of police state attempt to “demand” your total silence on the matter. I’m sure that gives you lots of justification for your outrage but that ain’t what’s happening here and you know it.

After all, I might enjoy bitching on this thread with you lot more than spending two hours watching this new movie. Have you thought of that?

The thought had occurred to me, yeah. Just try to keep in mind that people have as much right to judge your criticisms as you have to judge this movie.

 

[trevanian]

Sean_McCormick said:
By the time, the movie hits the cinemas there will be ample material out (trailers, tv-reports, articles, toys) to form a judgement on liking or not liking it, but just from the first teaser...

Hey, judged from the first teaser, Star Wars - The Phantom Menace was a great movie,

You don't remember how awful Yoda looked in that? Geez, even Rick Baker was publically criticizing it.

 

[Vance]

That was me (well, one of them was), but I was only commenting on the effects. I questioned (and still do) how this movie can be Fresh and Innovative while doing everything the NuBSG way, with harsh lighting, lots of metal plates, dark dark dark... Again, only talking about the effects.

One thing that made Trek unique was that it was a very clean environment for science-fiction, it also made it a bit more believable, in so far as the major sets go. It represents a difference in feel, however, which may or may not reflect on the movie as a whole.

 

[Vektor]

Vance said:
That was me (well, one of them was), but I was only commenting on the effects. I questioned (and still do) how this movie can be Fresh and Innovative while doing everything the NuBSG way, with harsh lighting, lots of metal plates, dark dark dark... Again, only talking about the effects.

And this is a perfect example of what I was talking about. We have one 30 second teaser showing the ship in a very specific context, under construction at night. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that any other effects shot in the entire movie will look anything like this, yet you have already conclusively decided that they are going to be “doing EVERYTHING the nuBSG way.” Even if you turn out to be right, which I highly doubt, it’s nothing more than a wild guess at this point and simply not worth the kind of heartburn you seem to be stirring up over it.

One thing that made Trek unique was that it was a very clean environment for science-fiction, it also made it a bit more believable, in so far as the major sets go. It represents a difference in feel, however, which may or may not reflect on the movie as a whole.

We can debate the believability of the Trek environments, even the ship designs. As much as I love the classic look of TOS, it’s not because I ever considered it particularly believable. One of my biggest problems with Trek over the years is that it progressively moved further and further away from something I could accept as a possible future and into the realm of pure fantasy, in both aesthetic and philosophical terms. I’m all in favor of J.J. Abrams and his team moving the look and feel of Trek back toward something that might be real some day; although, I think it is possible to do that without totally abandoning the aesthetic character of TOS, as evidenced by my own approach to the redesign of the Enterprise. Based on the teaser, they appear to have gone further than I would have, but I’m not prepared to condemn it as totally unacceptable on the basis of a few incomplete views of it while under construction in the middle of the night.

 

[Vance]

Actually, I think was I pretty clear that it seems like this is the direction we're going... but it's also a teaser that's meant to largely be metaphorical. It may not be the ship we see after all. Not a lot of heartburn on my side about that.

My comments were replies, after all, to people who explicitly WERE pushing a NuBSG look (as 'new and different', no less, despite it being the dominant look of sci-fi for better than 15 years). Yes, the teaser does look like it's going that direction, but it's also a teaser.

 

[ancient]

Vance said:
Right... because the world works that way.

Experiencing a movie sure does.

So, before you can decide if you might like something or not, you HAVE to try it first.

Not something, this movie.

You have to commit the time, energy, whatever needed, BEFORE judging whether or not you commit the time, energy, and whatever's needed.

It's not like watching the movie requires a significant expendature of either time or energy. Don't be afraid to try new things, eat a new food, try a new flavor. What's the worst that'll happen?

You don't live life this way, it's a completely stupid fanboi demand designed to do nothing at all except say 'well, you can't disagree with me'.

It's a demand that you not form uninformed, and therefore meaningless, opinions. You can disagree all you want, assuming you know what you're talking about.

If you lot really walked this walk, your signatures wouldn't be filled with expectant praise of the movie, either. Why? Because you can't be mindlessly positive about the film you haven't seen either.

So being hopeful and having a positive attitude is the same as being whiney and pissy. Got it.

I've never said I'm not going to see this movie. I've said that at this point it hasn't sold me yet. Don't you guys bullshit me and everyone else with some 'great moral claim' about pre-judgment that you, yourselves, aren't even following.

Actually, we are. We haven't judged the movie. We're giving it a chance. Even though some things have disappointed me, such as the redesign, I don't see why being positive about it is suddenly bad, while bitching is suddenly good.

 

[largo]

ancient said:
It's not like watching the movie requires a significant expendature of either time or energy. Don't be afraid to try new things, eat a new food, try a new flavor. What's the worst that'll happen?

have you tried excruciating pain? its okay, some people like it, and you can experience it easily enough -- possibly, even for free.

just, you know, to get THAT out of the way.

 

[aridas sofia]

Okey dokey...there are so many threads going on about the design of the ship and the welding and the ground construction and such, that I just have to choose one and get all dorky and stuff and complain that as a fan of the artistic vision of future San Francisco illustrated by Matthew Yuricich and his assistants for TMP (you know, this vision...)

...I object to construction taking place totally on the surface. I think GR would have had much of construction take place underground, leaving the pristine city uncluttered, as portrayed in this conception of an underground arcology:

I really don't give a hoot whether construction takes place in space, you see. It don't shake my bag either way, baby. But if they show it on the ground, go the Soleri way, the Yuricich way, the TMP way, and do it underground.

Cart the chunks outside and get the grimy gamma welders to do their thing, since we're a robot-averse society, and then launch the big hunks into orbit.

Thats the way aridas wants it. :thumbsup:

 

[Outpost4]

So, by Star Trek's era, not only have we eliminated war and poverty, but also dirt, noise and messiness?

How could Decker have abandoned the Constellation in such a beat up, decrepit state? He'd probably get court marshaled just for that!

 

[Harry]

Okay.. where did you conjure up that vintage seventies shot of 23rd century San Francisco? I don't remember that angle from any movie...

 

[aridas sofia]

Outpost4 said:
So, by Star Trek's era, not only have we eliminated war and poverty, but also dirt, noise and messiness?

How could Decker have abandoned the Constellation in such a beat up, decrepit state? He'd probably get court marshaled just for that!

You becha' ass, rolleyes. My Trekkie future is squeaky clean! :thumbsup:

BTW, Harry, that was an unused matte from the laboratory of MY himself, published once upon a yesteryear in Enterprise Incidents. Of course, there are several other views done by Yuricich et al that were used in that movie.