TREK XI Enterprise models on display (Now w/even more pics)

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

From a purist's standpoint I tend to agree Ptrope, and while I've grown to live with the redesign (if not the reasons behind it) I still wonder why fix something that's essentially not broken?

If, however, I may channel Abrams a moment, I think it was done to make the movie visually distinct. I think he believes that people would recognize the old design enough to make them feel like there's nothing new here. I also think it's part of a certain plot point of his, which I also believe is more of a justificiation than anything else.

Now the merits of the plot itself will be something worthy of debate too when the time comes.

 

Hey, why aren't there any models of Spock's Time ship 'or' the NARADA!?

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

3 more new pictures I found

credit to op



click thumbs to get bigger picture

 

I just noticed, the nacelle struts have lights shining down brightly illuminating them.

http://i689.photobucket.com/albums/vv251/SalvorHardin00/JJPrise Replica/Image13.jpg?t=1237479179

I hope they would be turned off in a firefight otherwise you're shining a hugh spotlight on a major targeting area.

Then again, those hugh-ass bussards present a pretty big target as well.

 

Well, you can't use reality or common sense as a measure of these things - if you did, the first thing you'd come to is that space battles wouldn't depend on that kind of visual targeting to begin with.

 

You're correct.

It's just the countdown to this thing is really starting to become an ordeal so thought I'd amuse myself by seeing how it feels to bitch about something.

 

I think it's growing on me but still have a couple of issues...

• Someone went ape-shit with the aztecing
• The nacelles are way too close together

It would look alot better to my eye if those two things were addressed.

 

Ain't it just, though?

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

It wouldn't.

Proven? To whom, Trek fans who are already enamoured with the Enterprise? Come on, Ptrope, we're hardly a representative sample of the general moviegoing public. I liked Vector's subtle take on the E quite a bit, but putting the old E up on screen would prompt guffaws from the audience. Star Trek would become a parody of itself (if that hasn't happened already.)

Most people won't notice the change in shape from the old to the new, but they would notice and deride the general lack of detail on the original E.

Who says that the redesign isn't as 'substantial' as the refit of TMP?

What does that even mean, other than "I don't like it and I'm going to invent a reason why."

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

Absolutely Right(TM). The correct phrase would not be "proven" but instead "In the opinions of some people on this board..."

I don't think anyone would "guffaw" at Vektor's skillful work, but there's no strong reason to think that an update to the details of the TOS ship would be sufficient for a film of this scale directed at a general audience.

 

Re: TREK XI Enterprise models on display (Now w/pics)

Heh. Me too.

 

A detailed TOS E would work just fine on the screen if they keep it backlit, or in blurred motion, or partially hidden behind other objects, or in closeups, but it woudn't look different enough as a toy.

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

Already addressed in the other thread about the ship - there are simply no facts to support the knee-jerk reaction that "it wouldn't work." No facts, and damn little in the way of even informed opinions - just "nuh-uh." Which is not an argument; it's not even an opinion.

Again, no facts support this. Maybe you would laugh, but, c'mon, let's take fandom and emotion out of it and look at the work - you claim the new ship will be better on the big screen and the ones I pointed out won't - yet you haven't seen the JJ-prise on the big screen either, except for flashing glimpses - certainly nothing like the long views you get in the various stills, which are at the same resolution as anything else on your monitor. Having seen the TOS-R of "The Cage" on the big screen, where it held its own but clearly wasn't designed for such a resolution, and it being plainly obvious that both Vektor and deg3d's models are considerably more detailed and considerably better modeled and lit than the TOS-R Enterprise, yeah, I can say with a straight face that there's absolutely no argument I've seen to prove the original design "wouldn't work." It doesn't take a fan to look at a good design and appreciate it for that, without coloring it with nostalgia or a resistance to change. And obviously, in many respects, you think the original design would work, because most of its layout is there in the JJPrise - only the details and proportions are changed. Basically, that boils your argument down to, "the original's proportions won't work on the big screen and with the modern audience," and even amongst many who do like the new ship, its proportions are the biggest complaint! So that boils your argument down to "I like the new ship," and has nothing to do with whether the old one would work.

Obviously, you didn't bother to read my post(s). Not once have I said that the level of detail of the original shooting model, or even the TOS-R CGI version, was sufficient to look appropriate on the big screen. It's the level of detail that distinguishes the examples from the original model, and, according to your statement above, the JJPrise from the original, as well, because as you correctly observed, most people won't notice the difference in shape. So we're back to my original contention that if the average moviegoer can't tell the difference (other than the amount of detail, of course), then there's no rational argument, and certainly no facts supporting the opinion that the original design wouldn't work. And by "design," I mean Matt Jefferies's design, not the execution of it for the TV series - the updated examples are still Jefferies's design.

No need to "invent" a reason - I've been pretty clear, if not concise, as to why I think it's a bad design. As for substance, the original was design by someone who was an actual engineer, not just an illustrator - a man who thought about what he was doing not just in the context of what would look pretty and futuristic and sexy onscreen, but in the context of what technology could achieve at the time and what it might achieve in the future, and how that growth in knowledge and technology might be used in the design and construction of something like a starship. Sure, he had some purely artistic constraints, not the least of which were simply Roddenberry's own aesthetics, but Matt thought about how power would flow, how the ship's crew might maintain their vessel, how they would access the ship with cargo and support craft. That is substance. The new ship includes the most functional aspects of Jefferies's design not only because they are familiar, but because they worked, and that's obvious even to those who aren't engineers or designers - but it then adds gimmicky details and shifts proportions that are purely superficial, and that superficiality is just as obvious.

Hey, I like sexy and superficial as much as the next guy - as a car design aficionado, I see it all the time on 4 wheels (sometimes more, sometimes fewer). Pretty much everything I'm into is design-related. With that as my background, I can easily separate my love of Star Trek from my appreciation or criticism of its visuals. And if it's my opinion that the original design, with resolution-appropriate details, would work on the big screen and with a modern audience, it's with considerably more objectivity than those whose sole argument is, "No, it wouldn't."

 

Of course, there hasn't been a real "TOS-E Toy" in many, many years... and the market for that (kids) wasn't even born yet when that came along, were they?

Right now, we've got the Art Asylum stuff (nice, but rare), and the old Playmates version (widely available, once upon a time).

The only folks who might have been "put off" by the classic ship being used would be parents who'd be buying something for their kid and might remember that they still have one of their own sitting in a bin in the basement someplace.

 

After we have all seen a closer look at neck design on the new Enterprise or JJ-prise. I think we can all agree that it is a superior design to the original and Refit design. Matt Jeffires did a good job designing the original but for someone like Matt, an actual engineer. I don't see logic designing so fragile connection from the saucer to engineering hull.

 

Exactly so.

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

How DARE you suggest rational, logic-based argumentation?

Ah, but there you go with that whole "logic" thing again.

I'm convinced that most of the folks making this argument aren't making it because they really believe it. There are a handful... but they're ones who have been adamant about hating the TOS style for years (usually because they grew up watching TNG and feel "threatened" in some way by there being something out there other than what they're familiar with, I suspect).

No, most of the folks making this argument, if they were REALLY faced with a movie using the classic TOS design, wouldn't REALLY have a problem with it at all, and they don't REALLY think anyone else would, either.

The reason for the argument is to tweak other fans. That's pretty much the whole rationale behind it, it seems to me. By saying "the TOS design sucks" or "the TOS design would be laughed at" or whatever, what they're really trying to do is foment arguments with people who aren't, as they are, playing games.

And neither has anyone else. NEVER. Nobody has suggested "take the model out of the Smithsonian and use it in a movie."

The issue, as you point out, is the design, not the presentation. For anyone who doesn't get what I'm saying... let's take a real-world example. And for the sake of the argument, let's pick our example to be the U.S.S. Enterprise... the REAL one which is currently in the service of the U.S. Navy.

You can have a little metal "tabletop game miniature" which keeps the same general proportions, but may be significantly off. It's still replicating a real design, but it's an approximation, with far less detail than the real thing.

You can have a "mini-model" say, a foot long or so... with maybe fifty or so total parts. That model will probably be more accurate, proportionally, but will still be very low-detail... and much of the detail will be represented by "false details"... raised lines (way out of scale) representing panel detailing, solid ribs representing railings, etc.

You can have a really finely-detailed model, with photoetch details throughout, three feet or so in length, with near-scale detailing and a paint-job that's good enough to make it look like the real thing, given the talents of a skilled photographer.

You can have a motion-picture-quality model, which may be eighteen feet long or so and will have virtually every feature in the real thing present (at least the externally-visible features!) which is capable of representing this real ship in ways that, in high-resolution imagery, are difficult to tell from real images of the real ship.

And, of course, you have the real ship itself.

The point is... all vary GREATLY in terms of the level of detail, and more significantly, in terms of how the details are represented. But all represent the same design.

That's the argument which has been, repeatedly, made... and has been repeatedly ignored in favor of the "say the TOS ship sucks, and watch the canonistas have fits!" game being played here.

Nobody is saying that the 3-foot-miniature, or the 11-foot-miniature, or the TOS-R CGI model, or any other representation we've seen to date has been "perfect." But you could EASILY use the original ship design and give us a far more detailed, more believable presentation of that design... without changing a single thing that anyone would object to.

I'm not just talking about "aztek" stuff, either, before anyone jumps on that straw-man.

I've tried using this sort of real-world example before, but every time I do, the inevitable counter-attack is "you moron, that's real and Star Trek isn't." And somehow, despite the fact that nobody (least of all ME) has ever stated that "Star Trek is real," the "arguing just to piss people off" crowd always bring it up, knowing full-well that this is just a way to avoid the real issue which is being addressed, regressing it from "a discussion of the issue" to "namecalling" (even if done in supposely-subtle, but nevertheless always very clear, fashion, as some of the posters on this board seem to have developed as an art-form).

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

One question that occurs to me is how did the people who object to this Enterprise react to the TMP one?

I recall (back in 1979) finding it rather hard to believe that the TMP interiors were the same ship from TOS. I hated the set designs. I was also a bit disappointed that they had gone for the swept back pylons as they looked "commercial".

However, it appears to be that the TMP design is the most popular Enterprise (at least in the last poll I recall).

 

Well, model kits are still available, and collectables show up on eBay and Amazon all the time. I was just saying that a new model or toy would look like one of those if they used the original design in the movie.

Agreed. Or the kids getting a new toy and it looking like Dad's, bummer. The movie merchandise industy is potentially huge business. All the marketing is already in place, even though the movie's still two months away. I seriously think this was a big reason why the ship was "updated" so drastically.

 

Re: New photos from the Enterprise replica

I was disappointed that they'd changed the design as much as they did, even though I thought that the new version looked wonderful.

The thing is, this was explained (by the perspective of non-Trek-fans, EXCESSIVELY explained!) through the whole drydock sequence, the "loving flyovers," the "Kirk is lost on the new ship" bit, the line from Decker about it being an "almost totally new" ship, etc, etc. In other words, they didn't tell us that it was the same ship... it was a replacement, but one that followed on past the original one and didn't say that "the original always looked like this" to the audience.

Most of the quibbles for the TMP Enterprise were about the nacelles, and those are still my least-favorite element of the design.