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USS Constellation, NCC-1017

Vance said:
SonicRanger said:
That makes no sense... The Lexington is another Connie. Why would it be any larger?
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There's a VFX shot of the Lexington BEHIND the Enterprise where the Lexington saucer is LARGER than the whole of the Enterprise. Oddly, this shot was chosen as a promo screenie.
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Funny, I happen to have this image sitting on my desktop right this minute (unless you're thinking of an image OTHER than the debris field scene, in which case I don't have a clue what you're talking about). The Lexington's saucer appears to be the same size as the Enterprise's saucer, the only difference being the former is turned perpendicular to the latter, and Enterprise is rolled almost 45 degrees to port.

Design intent, in my case, which has her being just a little over the TMP version of the ship.
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Intents change as the desired result changes. Remember, Gene originally intended Enterprise to turn transparent whenever it was at warp; likewise, the Klingon bird of prey was originally intended to be a Romulan vessel.

Intent only goes so far, at some point you still have to reconcile it with the FINAL design through some kind of in-universe logic.
 
GilmourD said:
You don't happen to have an image of this, do you? I'm curious.
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There's a big one in the Trek XI forums, as part of the early screenies. (Please, please, please don't make me go through there to find it). It's obviously a VFX error, with the Enterprise appearing in front of the Lexington rather than behind it.
 
Vance said:
GilmourD said:
You don't happen to have an image of this, do you? I'm curious.
Click to expand...

There's a big one in the Trek XI forums, as part of the early screenies. (Please, please, please don't make me go through there to find it). It's obviously a VFX error, with the Enterprise appearing in front of the Lexington rather than behind it.
Click to expand...

I'm off to find it. If I do I'll link to it in here.
 
There's one more that's even more clear (where you can make out "Lexington" and the registry) but that's the sequence. It's definately a VFX scaling error there, particularly since the Lexington is supposed to be a pre-altered Constitution class...
 
GilmourD said:
Are these the pics of which you speak?

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xi/screencaps/trailer2/atrailer061.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xi/screencaps/trailer2/atrailer060.jpg

If so, I see what you mean. That saucer is definitely larger than the Big E's.
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That can't be the Lexington because the partial name on the other side ("...LOWE...") suggests it is the Mayflower or something like that. Besides, if this is an older ship that is bulky and perhaps doesn't have a secondary hull, it might need a huge saucer. Another possibility is that, despite the apparent name on the other side, this is part of a space station in orbit of Vulcan.
 
There's another shot, same sequence, which has 'USS LEXINGTON' plain as day on it (and NCC-16?? discernable), with the saucer of the ship being HUGE... Face it, Sonic, they're FX errors.
 
Vance said:
There's another shot, same sequence, which has 'USS LEXINGTON' plain as day on it (and NCC-16?? discernable), with the saucer of the ship being HUGE... Face it, Sonic, they're FX errors.
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It isn't an "error" (like a rendering error) -- it was a choice. They obviously wanted something huge the Enterprise had to dodge quickly and damage the nacelle. A small or Enterprise-sized saucer wouldn't have sufficed or looked nearly as dramatic and dangerous. So they simply chose to put a really big saucer in the way. If Starfleet can built saucers the size of the ones on the Earth space station, I see little problem other than fans who think the they know and we've seen everything that could exist in a fictional universe.
 
Ah, so that's it, Sonic.. Abrams and his crew are just incapable of making a mistake. Thanks for clearing that up... far better than to admit that maybe you were wrong about the basic point, that you can't always rely on VFX for 'canon' datapoints.

So, you tell me then, if this isn't a mistake, how is the Lexington, whose saucer is that of a TOS Constitution class, now having a saucer that dwarfs a Galaxy Class starship? Did it inflate during the battle? Does the NuEnterprise grow and shrink based on the tension of the moment, using similar technology to Zaphod's glasses?
 
Vance said:
Ah, so that's it, Sonic.. Abrams and his crew are just incapable of making a mistake. Thanks for clearing that up... far better than to admit that maybe you were wrong about the basic point, that you can't always rely on VFX for 'canon' datapoints.

So, you tell me then, if this isn't a mistake, how is the Lexington, whose saucer is that of a TOS Constitution class, now having a saucer that dwarfs a Galaxy Class starship? Did it inflate during the battle? Does the NuEnterprise grow and shrink based on the tension of the moment, using similar technology to Zaphod's glasses?
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I think he's saying that the Abrams crew made a deliberate choice on the matter and that it wasn't a mistake from their point of view. And while you do have a valid point about VFX being unreliable at times, it is commonly held that what appears onscreen trumps dialogue and other sources unless explicitly stated by people involved in the production (like Andromeda).

And where are you getting the size for the Lexington saucer from anyway? If it's from TOS, then it's pretty much worthless since TOS happens in an alternate universe. Things don't (and probably won't) turn out the same as you get further from the point of divergence.
 
Vance said:
... So, you tell me then, if this isn't a mistake, how is the Lexington, whose saucer is that of a TOS Constitution class, now having a saucer that dwarfs a Galaxy Class starship? Did it inflate during the battle? Does the NuEnterprise grow and shrink based on the tension of the moment, using similar technology to Zaphod's glasses?
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOxt3cMTDZE

Okay, if artistic choice isn't a good enough explanation and you need a "technical" one, let's imagine, Vance... How's about this? Obviously the new timeline's Constitution-class project was delayed and significantly, so radically that the Enterprise is launched about 13 years later and might be the first of its class. We've seen that Starfleet likes to reuse the new Lexington in the prime timeline, so let's expect that there was a Lexington before the TOS Connie. Perhaps this huge beast, like the Kelvin, had a huge saucer and wasn't retired in the new timeline because there wasn't a Connie to replace it. Or perhaps the much larger nuEnterprise is part of the new timeline's zeitgeist: built huge ships because there is a monster Romulan ship out there, perhaps more than one. So like the nuEnterprise, this Lexington belongs to a new starship class that is really big. Anything in there conflict with the history classes from your imaginary PHD In Star Trek Technology?

P.S. - I don't think JJ and crew can't make a mistake or bad choice. For example, I pointed out in the "minor changes" thread that I'd be much happier if the lifepod computer had said "Eridani III" or something like that instead of "Delta Vega."
 
I don't think we can trust the VFX in those shots since there's a person in the background and they're taller than the rim of the Enterprise saucer. Unless we are meant to believe that the Lexington is manned by a crew of giants.
 
So how then Vance, are we to reconcile the vast distances often alluded to in dialogue but usually shown as a mere few hundred meters or less?

Could it be... *Covers mouth in faux surprise* a VFX error?
 
Captain Fine said:
I don't think we can trust the VFX in those shots since there's a person in the background and they're taller than the rim of the Enterprise saucer. Unless we are meant to believe that the Lexington is manned by a crew of giants.
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Hey, why not? If the Intrepid can be crewed entirely of Vulcans, surely the Lexington could have been crewed entirely by a race of giants. :techman:
 
Or perhaps the Lexington is crewed by humans and we have thus far seen only the adventures of Lilliputian crews.
 
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