TOS rethunk...

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Had a better look at the trailer today, and in some respects I'm really looking forward to this. The design of the film looks excellent. When delinquo-Kirk is doing his Easy Rider bit, you can see these vast monoliths hidden in the haze of the distance, some idea that the architecture and technology of future Earth is a little more than just the clean retro that Trek has given us so far.

Vulcan also looks amazing.

Still, the story may be absolute tat, given the current state of Hollywood, but I'm willing to give it a chance now, more than I could have said after seeing shaky Youchoob version two days ago.

 

[Warped9]

I'd expect "heavy on the action" and rather "thin on internal story logic." It might well have today's sense of over hyperactive sensibility to it.

 

[RAMA]

Looks familiar eh?

 

[Lord Garth]

Looks much better from the front and actually like the footage shown from earlier this year.

But I'll never warm up to the profile. The profile of the Enterprise-Abrams is like the underbelly of the Enterprise-E to me. 12 years later, I still only want to see the E-E from the top or front, preferably the top.

 

[Warped9]

Looks familiar eh?

That angle doesn't help. I just don't like the proportions and overall finish.


Yesterday I had a conversation with a younger coworker after he had raised the issue. He'd seen the new design, knew I had an interest in Star Trek and science fiction in general and wondered what I thought of the new ship design.

We've had similar conversations before. Yet he was still a little surprised to hear me say I didn't like the new design.

But it brought an issue to clarity. Our aesthetic sensibilities become accustomed to certain perspectives. For example: old cars some of us grew up with and we accepted as normal looking can now sometimes look off in proportions and other aspects because we've now gradually become accustomed to newer approaches to design and styling.

Science fiction in the popular mediums has always had a generic look to it that evolved over time. In the '20s-'30s we had art deco, phallic like rocket ships and lots of big knobs and levers and hard metal. In the '40s-'50s we got the shiny V2 like rocketships and flying saucer ships as well as usually ungainly looking robots. Throughout those decades we also had aliens that today like rather simple and even comical. In the '60s-70s we got the NASA influenced look that took its cue from the successful American and Soviet space programs and the very nascent computer age. In the late '70s we got Star Wars and its industrial look with loads of robot debris (various model kit parts) plastered over odd and exotic shapes to lend sci-fi tech a real hardware look. And that trend has continued for the most part unto the present.

However there was an exception in this. In '66 we got Star Trek and Matt Jefferies approach to design. In spite of the NASA inspired look he was quite aware of he elected to approach his design in somewhat of a more thoughtful manner and went for something different. I think this is partly why despite TOS' constraints in budget, time and resources the show often managed to seem so credible.

MJ's designs reflected a very real world aspect of our societies and our nature. Whenever we become proficient with a technology we inevitably begin to apply aesthetic elements to our tools and constructs. Notice how something as utterly utilitarian and mundane as eating utensils often have artistic patterns in their handles. Or the great diversity in car design and styling. And the fashion industry. And practically every aspect of our lives throughout history.

Look at the industrial machines of the 19th century--huge steam powered engines that still had artistic elements added to them.

We always do it. Now imagine a far future society that has mastered star travel and starship engineering and construction to the point that without thinking they impart aesthetic considerations to their vessels. The starship looks the way it does not only out of "form follows function," but also because the race that created it is expressing itself and its sense of self. The ship is meant to look inspiring and majestic as built by a race looking forward and outward and aspiring to better than what they have and what they've known.

Even military hardware down through the ages reflects aesthetic considerations even though it's meant to be purely functional.

This might have been an unwitting part of MJ's approach to design, but it is there in his work. He didn't design things just to look good--he strived for some measure of credibility to his ideas that made the fantastic seem more within reach and more acceptable.

This approach is what I think sets Star Trek TOS apart from most other SF in the visual media. They strived to convey TOS' hardware in a believable manner rather than just going for something visually appealing. The rest of Trek that followed TOS benefited to some extent because of what TOS had established.

But Star Wars comes along and has since dominated the look of SF. It even influenced the look of Trek ever increasingly as time passed from the '80s onward.

MJ was trying to look at things as best as he could from a genuine far future perspective rather than just layering a contemporary flavour onto a odd looking shape.

TOS' constraints in f/x resources often actually served to get things more right than wrong. Usually not seeing two combating starships in the same frame underlined the idea that these ships were believably hundreds and thousands of miles apart and maneuvering at unholy speeds. The ships were never shown moving in acrobatic "dog fight" fashion a la Star Wars because that's not how real spacecraft would move in space. By accident or design this all enhanced TOS' general sense of sci-tech credibility.

Another issue brought into clarity during my conversation with my coworker yesterday underlines why the Star Wars approach is so successful: the majority of the audience is not critical or scientifically conversant enough to worry about. If it looks and sounds good then that's enough to rake in the cash.

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Another issue brought into clarity during my conversation with my coworker yesterday underlines why the Star Wars approach is so successful: the majority of the audience is not critical or scientifically conversant enough to worry about. If it looks and sounds good then that's enough to rake in the cash.

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

Don't forget, Star Trek was made at a time when most people (or their fathers) had served in the war. They knew what a "ship" was; knew how it was supposed to move, and what it could and couldn't do. Of course, so did the creators of the series. Today, neither the audience nor the people behind the camer.... uh, computer -- have that experience under their belts.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Another issue brought into clarity during my conversation with my coworker yesterday underlines why the Star Wars approach is so successful: the majority of the audience is not critical or scientifically conversant enough to worry about. If it looks and sounds good then that's enough to rake in the cash.

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

Don't forget, Star Trek was made at a time when most people (or their fathers) had served in the war. They knew what a "ship" was; knew how it was supposed to move, and what it could and couldn't do. Of course, so did the creators of the series. Today, neither the audience nor the people behind the camer.... uh, computer -- have that experience under their belts.

These are ships that move like ocean liners and maintain a constant 2D aspect to each other...

I agree that it's impressive to see starships move slowly, gracefully and ponderously, and much better than seeing them flit around the screen like F16s but that shouldn't be mistaken for realism.

 

[Warped9]

My essential point is that the fantastic is more impressive when it conveyed in a believable manner. It isn't a virtue to be deliberately wrong when the right way is easily understood.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

But it's no more 'right' than the 'wrong' way. The motion of starships on screen is arranged to pander to audience sensibilities. With naval designations and nomenclature, we were meant to think that the ships in Star Trek were equivalent to the sea going ships of today. And so they moved as such. Then along came Star Wars and added the aircraft carrier to the fleet, with fast moving fighters supporting much larger battlewagons.

At which point audiences demanded that action be fast and furious, and so even larger ships began to flit about like gnats, but large or small, fast or majestic, they all swoop or lumber as if they are in a medium that provides friction. It's the way our eyes have been educated to see motion. When the Captain of a Starship orders full stop and the Impulse engines power down, we expect the ship to come to a halt, when in reality, the ship ought to continue on its previous heading at its previous velocity. Just once, I would have liked to see a Starfleet ship pivot on a central axis and fire forward weapons back in the direction it was coming from.

But moving like sea going vessels, or swooping like birds, it has to conform to audience expectations. Which is why we get ships' orientations conforming to a 2D plane, battle fought in that plane, and ridiculous fleet action (DS9's weak point) that sees ships clustered together in a relatively compact area when they could have been millions of kilometers apart. In fact, the four Connies cruising in formation in The Ultimate Computer were just as ridiculous.

Oddly enough, the most believable I have ever found depictions of space travel in mainstream sci-fi, were in Babylon 5.

But believable is in the eye of the beholder, and if we want utterly believable and realistic as I see it, then we are looking at 2001, with a barely lit spacecraft, silent in space, (a space which is practically black and absent of starlight), with no apparent motion regardless of the craft's absolute velocity.

 

[Warped9]

^^ We've had spacecraft in space and we know how objects behave in a free fall zero g environment. There is creative license to some extent and then there's outright nonsense. I find pandering to ignorance and perpetuating ignorance offensive particularly when we know better. Audience expectations be damned.

I agree B5 showed ships in action more believably. Contemporary Trek has gotten as bad as Star Wars.

 

[3D Master]

At which point audiences demanded that action be fast and furious, and so even larger ships began to flit about like gnats, but large or small, fast or majestic, they all swoop or lumber as if they are in a medium that provides friction. It's the way our eyes have been educated to see motion. When the Captain of a Starship orders full stop and the Impulse engines power down, we expect the ship to come to a halt, when in reality, the ship ought to continue on its previous heading at its previous velocity.

Uh, no. When a captain of a starship orders full stop, the ship will come to a full stop, because that's the order. You don't simply shut down the engines, you literally stop the ship. In other words, a counter thrust, or breaking thrust, is generated to stop the ship. Seriously, when a captain says full stop, and the people don't stop the ship but just let the ship keep going at .8c or more, is suicidal and stupid.

Just once, I would have liked to see a Starfleet ship pivot on a central axis and fire forward weapons back in the direction it was coming from.

I don't. That is one of the most idiotic maneuvers you could ever make when going at speeds significant fractions of light. Continuing to coast along not changing direction while you do that, makes you a sitting target. Before you can move on from that direction, you first have to turn your ship back into the direction you were going to (which makes you an even bigger sitting duck); simply adding thrust without changing direction, or a slightly different angle, would mean you slow down and come to a (near) full stop before moving off in that direction - which indeed would make you an even a greater sitting duck than the first increase in sitting-duck-ness.

In fact, a good space ship, (and/or fighter) would have a (near) 720 degree firing arc, making turning your ship around unnecessary and thus idiotic.

But moving like sea going vessels, or swooping like birds, it has to conform to audience expectations. Which is why we get ships' orientations conforming to a 2D plane,

I wish they finally actually changed that.

battle fought in that plane,

STII did not have that by the way.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

At which point audiences demanded that action be fast and furious, and so even larger ships began to flit about like gnats, but large or small, fast or majestic, they all swoop or lumber as if they are in a medium that provides friction. It's the way our eyes have been educated to see motion. When the Captain of a Starship orders full stop and the Impulse engines power down, we expect the ship to come to a halt, when in reality, the ship ought to continue on its previous heading at its previous velocity.

Uh, no. When a captain of a starship orders full stop, the ship will come to a full stop, because that's the order. You don't simply shut down the engines, you literally stop the ship. In other words, a counter thrust, or breaking thrust, is generated to stop the ship. Seriously, when a captain says full stop, and the people don't stop the ship but just let the ship keep going at .8c or more, is suicidal and stupid.

Listen to the sound of the engine not in TWOK when that order is given, it's the sound of an engine powering down, not reversing thrust, same with every other instance of that order being given.

Just once, I would have liked to see a Starfleet ship pivot on a central axis and fire forward weapons back in the direction it was coming from.

I don't. That is one of the most idiotic maneuvers you could ever make when going at speeds significant fractions of light. Continuing to coast along not changing direction while you do that, makes you a sitting target. Before you can move on from that direction, you first have to turn your ship back into the direction you were going to (which makes you an even bigger sitting duck); simply adding thrust without changing direction, or a slightly different angle, would mean you slow down and come to a (near) full stop before moving off in that direction - which indeed would make you an even a greater sitting duck than the first increase in sitting-duck-ness.

In fact, a good space ship, (and/or fighter) would have a (near) 720 degree firing arc, making turning your ship around unnecessary and thus idiotic.

That's what's so counterintuitive. There is no friction in space. Once you achieve your target velocity, it's like being at rest, there's no problem with applying thrust in any other direction, You're not going to shake the ship apart. As I mentioned before, you can see these maneuvers in Babylon 5, where a fighter would spin on axis while maintaining forward motion, and firing directly on a pursuer.

battle fought in that plane,

STII did not have that by the way.

[/quote]

Yeah, but after 200 years of space exploration and tactics, it was presented as a groundbreaking strategy by Kirk and Spock. Oooh wow, they pulled one over on that Khan didn't they!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Yeah, but after 200 years of space exploration and tactics, it was presented as a groundbreaking strategy by Kirk and Spock. Oooh wow, they pulled one over on that Khan didn't they!

True.

Though it would be weird in Star Trek to see a bunch of ships flying together but with some upside down and some skewed sideways and so on. After so many years of seeing upright vessels I think that would throw me.

 

[3D Master]

At which point audiences demanded that action be fast and furious, and so even larger ships began to flit about like gnats, but large or small, fast or majestic, they all swoop or lumber as if they are in a medium that provides friction. It's the way our eyes have been educated to see motion. When the Captain of a Starship orders full stop and the Impulse engines power down, we expect the ship to come to a halt, when in reality, the ship ought to continue on its previous heading at its previous velocity.

Uh, no. When a captain of a starship orders full stop, the ship will come to a full stop, because that's the order. You don't simply shut down the engines, you literally stop the ship. In other words, a counter thrust, or breaking thrust, is generated to stop the ship. Seriously, when a captain says full stop, and the people don't stop the ship but just let the ship keep going at .8c or more, is suicidal and stupid.

Listen to the sound of the engine not in TWOK when that order is given, it's the sound of an engine powering down, not reversing thrust, same with every other instance of that order being given.

You mean dropping out of warp? You don't keep coasting at superluminous speeds. You go faster than light because there's a space-time warp. No more space-time warp, no more faster than light. And since you're standing still within the warp-bubble, you're standing still after dropping out of it.

That's what's so counterintuitive. There is no friction in space. Once you achieve your target velocity, it's like being at rest,

:sighs:

First, NO, it does NOT mean you're at rest, or even that is LIKE you're at rest. The forces on you - while you don't maneuver - may equal to 0, but ultimiately it is NOT like you're at reast.

The problem IS that you're continuing on while changing the orientation of your ship. It means that while your changing the orientation of your ship, there is NO change in the direction and speed you're moving. And thus, you are EASY to HIT. If you want to KEEP from getting hit, you need to be constantly maneuvering and changing directions BUT keeping your speed high.

there's no problem with applying thrust in any other direction, You're not going to shake the ship apart. As I mentioned before, you can see these maneuvers in Babylon 5, where a fighter would spin on axis while maintaining forward motion, and firing directly on a pursuer.

Wrong.

Now remember, changing the ORIENTATION of your ship, is different from actually changing the direction the ship is going in. Why changing the orientation of the ship is bad, I've explained above, now actually changing the direction the ship is going in:

First, a fighter, would not be going very fast; so the speed acceleration isn't that great when instantly changing direction; but still, even then, the g-forces on the pilot are going to be far greater than a normal jet-fighter if you have no inertial dampers - and also, those forces will be working on the ship. Now, in air, you can easily go full burn in another direction; you have to fight the friction of the air, you don't speed up in another direction as much, the amount of g-forces you can generate aren't going to be that great; but that's with fighters that only go very slow. Also, the relative speed differences - not counting g-forces - are going to be SMALL.

And this is the rub:

Starships is going to be different, first they are FAR faster. Instead of not much faster than a jet plane, these are going to be significant fractions of the speed of light. If you'r going:

<<<< in this direction at .8c (each < is .2c)

applying thrust in the other direction, is going to cause the following:

<<<
<<
<
-
>
>>
>>>
>>>>

FIRST you're going to slow down, come to a full stup, and then speed back up. Which at .8c is a MASSIVE speed differential. Even if the whole event would take only a fraction of a second - and it most likely won't - at .8c that is like an eternity. An eternity in which you are a sitting duck. When you go at significant fractions of C, you do NOT slow down in a battle, if you want to live.

Then you get the inertial forces, the g-forces, you generate. They will still be generated. At which point you get, do you have inertial dampers, and how much inertia can those dampers, well, dampen. Or in other words; is there a limit to your inertial dampers it isn't going to matter much. If there IS (and judging by how starships can shake and the crew can be tossed around, there indeed are limits) your going to have to keep this into account. You can only change direction and speed as fast as your inertial dampers can keep up wit, (which will probably slow the above scenario down, it'll take longer than a fraction of second, which makes the sitting duck time even longer.)

And indeed (most likely if you have no intertial dampers) if the acceleration is big enough, you can tear your ship apart. Parts of and in the ship will want to continue onward in the direction they were going, while the parts that the thrust is placed upon will go in the other direction already. The differential is big enough, not only can it reduce people inside the ship to heaps of mishapen flesh, it can also reduce the ship itself to a heap of misshapen metal, if not be torn to shreds altogether.

And all of that, is completely unnecessary if your ship has a proper 720 degree firing arc.

battle fought in that plane,

STII did not have that by the way.

Yeah, but after 200 years of space exploration and tactics, it was presented as a groundbreaking strategy by Kirk and Spock. Oooh wow, they pulled one over on that Khan didn't they![/quote]

Uh, no. It was presented that Starfleet and their enemies have been using it all the time, but Khan who never fought in space (and likely under water), was still stuck thinking in our 2D (SF) world.

 

[Neopeius]

I guess it comes down to how much people really liked Kirk/Spock/Bones as opposed to how much they loved Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley.

That's the thing - there's no difference to me. The actors ARE their parts, the characters ARE those actors. I don't see how they can be replaced.

I showed the available pictures to a friend who's another old-time trekkie, and he said "Oh my. This really isn't for us, is it."

Have you guys ever tried watching the NEW VOYAGES films? Different actors, same sets, same look to the ship and tech...

I saw the first episode. It was nigh unwatchable.

Starship Exeter was better though it's been years and they still haven't finished ep. 2. I don't think they ever will.

I always liked the idea of a Star Trek show based in TOS which featured several different Starships. Each week, you'd follow a different crew. Occasionally the ships would work together or Captains would hang out. Lost showed you can do a show where you focus on a different ensemble every week.

It'll never happen. But it would be cool. Everyone says Trek is Kirk/Spock/McCoy. It's not. Trek is the gestalt composed of everything that made TOS TOS--being on a wave of a science fiction tradition, coming right out of the television of Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits, and a real desire to make something new and visionary.

No Trek has done that since.

 

[Neopeius]

TOS' constraints in f/x resources often actually served to get things more right than wrong. Usually not seeing two combating starships in the same frame underlined the idea that these ships were believably hundreds and thousands of miles apart and maneuvering at unholy speeds. The ships were never shown moving in acrobatic "dog fight" fashion a la Star Wars because that's not how real spacecraft would move in space. By accident or design this all enhanced TOS' general sense of sci-tech credibility.

Another issue brought into clarity during my conversation with my coworker yesterday underlines why the Star Wars approach is so successful: the majority of the audience is not critical or scientifically conversant enough to worry about. If it looks and sounds good then that's enough to rake in the cash.

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

Quoted for perfection.

Uh, no. It was presented that Starfleet and their enemies have been using it all the time, but Khan who never fought in space (and likely under water), was still stuck thinking in our 2D (SF) world.

*laughs ass off*

Yeah. And then the Enterprise went back into the 2d Plane to fire. Heaven forbid they just angle the bow up.

 

[ST-One]

TOS' constraints in f/x resources often actually served to get things more right than wrong. Usually not seeing two combating starships in the same frame underlined the idea that these ships were believably hundreds and thousands of miles apart and maneuvering at unholy speeds. The ships were never shown moving in acrobatic "dog fight" fashion a la Star Wars because that's not how real spacecraft would move in space. By accident or design this all enhanced TOS' general sense of sci-tech credibility.

Another issue brought into clarity during my conversation with my coworker yesterday underlines why the Star Wars approach is so successful: the majority of the audience is not critical or scientifically conversant enough to worry about. If it looks and sounds good then that's enough to rake in the cash.

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

Quoted for perfection.

Uh, no. It was presented that Starfleet and their enemies have been using it all the time, but Khan who never fought in space (and likely under water), was still stuck thinking in our 2D (SF) world.

*laughs ass off*

Yeah. And then the Enterprise went back into the 2d Plane to fire. Heaven forbid they just angle the bow up.

They wouldn't even have to do that. There are eight separate phaser-turrets able to fire in z+-direction.

 

[ST-One]

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

Incredibly arrogant.
Tell us a bit more about this sophistication-dripping product 'Spock's Brain'.

 

[Warped9]

And the "dumbed down" approach is prevalent in the vast majority of film and television work. It isn't that most people will disagree with you when you raise your own criticisms, it's just that they usually aren't considering those things when it comes to escapist entertainment. They aren't concerned whether their entertainment has any measure of credibility or logic to it because that's not the level of awareness they're at when watching the screen--that part of their brain is dormant.

Incredibly arrogant.
Tell us a bit more about this sophistication-dripping product 'Spock's Brain'.

I certainly never claimed "Spock's Brain" was perfect or that TOS itself was perfect. I said earlier up thread that generally speaking they made an effort to be credible. "Generally" does mean not all the time.

And the simple fact is no one likes the most of everything in any entertainment. People are generally selective in their tastes. But I've also found very often that a lot if not most people I talk to don't seem to have much awareness in a critical manner in terms of many film or TV logic flaws. If it was fast paced enough and/or generally hit the right notes then often they couldn't care less about inconsistencies within the story and or its ideas.

A perfect example is TWoK. Wildly hailed as perhaps the most popular Trek film, and yet it's riddled with dumb thinking.

 

[Neopeius]

The only way we will get stories based on TOS now is to do backstory, the original casts' past. That means a young cast.

Or other ships--the Federation is rather large.