The OFFICIAL new Enterprise - Let the critiques begin!

I imagine people like that would also have trouble distinguishing between two women with different color hair, eyes, skin and clothes.

 

And you would, of course, be mistaken in so imagining.

Most people pay attention to what matters to them, and are pretty good at making important distinctions in the real world.

The average intelligent, observant and educated person is not, however, terribly conversant with the minor details of images well outside of any frame of reference that matters to them.

Most folks can not quickly tell the difference, for example, between different designs of WW I biplanes in a film or various classes of U.S. Naval destroyers from the WW II time period unless the images are placed side-by-side, attention is drawn to the distinction or they have some direct experience or expertise to bring to bear.

Same with imaginary spaceships from movies that they're interested enough in to watch but not obsessive about.

 

Heck, I knew a bright, intelligent girl who, when presented with pictures of the Enterprise-E and the Enterprise-D side by side, couldn't see the difference between them. Me, I can't tell the difference between an F-15 and a MIG-whatever. In fact, I only know that the main fighter in use today is an F-22 because Michael Bay was apparently in love with the things, at least if you go by his commentary on Transformers, and I doubt that I'd be able to pick it out of a lineup. Fighters haven't interested me since I was 11, so my knowledge of them is quite low.

 

^ My wife can't understand why I keep building the same model kit over & over. "No, see, this one has an oval that points the other direction. See?" (To be fair, from a casual fan's standpoint, the Enterprises all look pretty similar.)

 

You show most people a picture of the 1701-D and they're as likely to identify it as Kirk's ship as Picard's - possibly a little moreso, given Kirk's greater familiarity - if they recognize it as "that Star Trek ship" at all.

 

As long as the design has a saucer, two rocket engines in the back, and is sporting the name "Enterprise" that will be more than sufficient for most non-fans to identify it as the new Star Wars ship.

 

On that note, I was known as a Star Trek fan in my web design class in college--hardly a bastion of non-nerdliness--and someone mentioned this in relation to a video he wanted to show me. When I watched the video, it turned out to be the Jedi Kid...

 

Exactamundo! :thumbsup:

 

Well, the average viewer couldn't tell the difference between the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and the USS Ranger, which portrayed the former ship in STIV, despite what those familiar with the ships would see as "obvious differences," so I don't really think this will be a problem outside of Trekkiedom.

 

And this is supposed to encourage long time fans to see this thing....why?

 

"Not as long as they're fans doing it for fun, and Paramount isn't using those meshes to replace the existing Enterprise in an official production. Or is the difference between fan projects and real movies too hard to grasp?"



So, Paramount should use these designs instead of Star Trek XI's but Paramount shouldn't?





"And this is supposed to encourage long time fans to see this thing....why?"

Because we longtime fans are not the target audience. The film is designed to bring in New Star Trek Fans. :thumbsup:

Remember why Nemesis and Enterprise flopped?

 

They also took steps to keep the audience from immediately telling that the ship on screen wasn't the Enterprise (like not lighting the numbers in those night shots, especially when you have the gangway in clear view with "USS ENTERPRISE CVN-65" in big block letters on the side).

This trailer is like staging the same shot, only from the aft, with a spotlight shining right on the "USS RANGER" on the fantail, while Chekov is on the line with Kirk, "And sir, it is the Enterprise!"

Basically, the Groucho Marx argument: "Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"

 

My point was that someone who is familiar with these ships could tell it wasn't the Big E by the shape of the conning tower, while those without an intimate knowledge of naval vessels just saw an generic aircraft carrier. Those of us who are very familiar with the design of the 1701 are likely to notice every little difference, while the average viewer is going to just see a generic Enterprise like Star Ship.

 

I remember seeing a book about television shows of the 60s and in the section on Star Trek, they had the third-season promo pic of the cast in the transporter and the Enterprise-D side-by-side. To compound the error, the ship was upside down (okay, there is no up in space but relative to what "we" the audience see).

 

It's not necessary to encourage "long time fans" to see the movie - almost all of us will.

It's very nearly traditional for the mainstream press to print upside-down pictures of the Enterprise.

This is because it doesn't make enough difference to most people for them to notice.

 

While I find all this talk of non-fans kinda fascinating, I don’t think that they changed it just because they could ‘get away with it’.

I doubt they sat around the design room going 'Since no one will notice if we make the ship twice as big/change the bridge/etc, we should do it to attract new fans!'

They did it because they didn’t want to use the classic design. They wanted to do it again, but different. Now, many of us will disagree with that, including me, because we spent a long, long time with the Old Girl. How we handle it will vary though. Some of us will shrug off the disappointment and see the movie anyway. Others will decide that after 40 years, some new ship just doesn’t work at all and say adios. The question is: Will the new Enterprise be appealing to new fans? I guess we’ll find out...We haven't see that much of it yet. If it looks all squashed like the ENT-E...

 

How in the world did you interpret it that way?!

 

Man, you're just dripping cynicism.

I'll laugh my ass off if the Enterprise isn't even IN the final movie. All this obsession will have been for naught.

 

Exactly. I think what's driving JJ and crew (admitted fans) in the movie is the same mindset that drives fans to recreate variations on a theme ("new" Trek ships that feature the same basic layout or arrangement of the E Nil, but change minor points here and there - even changingthe scale).

So, how can I findfault with that, as someone who's done the same damn thing? I can't.

None of us can. The difference between them and us is they have the budgetto make it film-worthy and GET it seen by millions of people. So, maybe what's at work here is a little bit of jealousy?

 

To me, it's worse when the TOS crew used a commercial model kit to make the USS Constellation for "Doomsday Machine".

Fanon explanations aside, it was cheap, cheesy, and an insult to the fans. It basically said "I don't believe you'll be able to tell the difference between these two models of the hero ship".