USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

[lawman]

It is Space age styling. A retro look, that the other designs lack. It does not fit the ship, its belongs on something Jetson would drive,

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the uniforms in DSC? More than anything else (short of the Klingons), those stick out to me. They look like a throwback — not just to 1960s stylings, but indeed to a 1950s vision of the "space age."

(And if you'd used the term "space age" rather than "retro," your meaning would have been a lot clearer, as the latter word is more commonly used in a colloquial sense and has no obvious "period" reference point. I'd still disagree, mind you, along the lines Belz laid out — basically, that the only reason TOS designs "look like" the '60s to you is because you already know that's when they originated — but at least it'd be clearer what the disagreement was about.)

 

[jaime]

Nonsense. "Stop!" doesn't mean something different to a mountain climber than it does on a VCR. Now they might imply different contextual procedure, but the definition of the word is exactly the same.

The crux here is that there are multiple ways to "reboot" something and people [incorrectly] use them interchangeably. And just because it's common usage doesn't make it correct. See: "literally"; "ironic"; etc. Or the one that particularly rubs my rhubarb: iconic.

With computers, there are multiple ways to reboot one. Users can run a software reboot or a hardware reboot. The software reboot can be high-level or low level. They can run one over the other. (While it's more common to reboot software without rebooting hardware, it is possible - with modern networking technology - to do the opposite.) This can be done concurrently or sequentially.

And even within those types or reboots, there are multiple processes that can be run. You can run initiation scripts to change your wallpaper and icons and fonts when the computer boots up again. You can set it to install updates or drivers for new hardware. Hell, you can set it up so that you turn it off before going to bed and wake up with a whole new operating system. Or, of course, you can close your laptop lid and turn the power off in good faith, knowing everything will be right where you left it in the morning.

Interestingly enough, all those things have their equivalent analog in fiction. And if more people recognized that, #Klingonswrong #Discotoobig, #Notprime, #Canonviolation, #Genesvision, #Notmystartrek would never be a thing.

I shall pull out all the stops to disagree, whilst recognising the eloquence of your analogy, and to an extent it’s accuracy, whilst perhaps agreeing with the spirit of the thing. DSC is not a reboot, it’s a continuation, a sequel, a prequel, an interquel, with updated design element. The question is of course, update to what? In some cases they are changed for chnanges sake, and certainly in the details. The enterprise is OK to good, middling...for being in keeping with the general feel of being betwixt enterprise and TMP, it works well, as an updated version of the Jeffries original, it does not work so well, largely because of the silly pylons which some have said are a late addition in the design process. Straight pylons would have pretty much ended all the arguments. That and the silly Sovvy style extended shuttle bay.

 

[jaime]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the uniforms in DSC? More than anything else (short of the Klingons), those stick out to me. They look like a throwback — not just to 1960s stylings, but indeed to a 1950s vision of the "space age."

(And if you'd used the term "space age" rather than "retro," your meaning would have been a lot clearer, as the latter word is more commonly used in a colloquial sense and has no obvious "period" reference point. I'd still disagree, mind you, along the lines Belz laid out — basically, that the only reason TOS designs "look like" the '60s to you is because you already know that's when they originated — but at least it'd be clearer what the disagreement was about.)

The original enterprise design looks more fifties truth be told, but then that style hangs around longer than it should, and it becomes something to ponder as to whether 2001 counts as sixties design school or the beginnings of seventies, as far as sci fi screen design goes. The Enterprise seems very fifties, and I wonder how the people over at Century21 would have done it in 66.

 

[PixelMagic]

Yes. It is Space age styling. A retro look, that the other designs lack. It does not fit the ship, its belongs on something Jetson would drive,

If they don't get it by now, they aren't going to no matter how many times you go around in a circle. I've given up. lol

 

[Belz...]

Straight pylons would have pretty much ended all the arguments. That and the silly Sovvy style extended shuttle bay.

Ugh, please god no. They are the weakest part of the original design. Good riddance.

 

[jaime]

If they don't get it by now, they aren't going to no matter how many times you go around in a circle. I've given up. lol

Ugh, please god no. They are the weakest part of the original design. Good riddance.

I have never liked the deflector saucer, precisely because it is that ‘space age/atomic age’ look, and hard, and never liked the straight pylons for pretty much the same reasons. Best choice they ever made was stocking the sphere on the back of the nacelles, and yanking the spikes off.
But in this case, the pylons would not look so bad with the updated textures going on, and keep it closer to the original. The biggest problem in terms of the original looking dated is how very simple it is, and how smooth it is. Texture fixes both of these things.

Oh I also hate the glowing spinning wtf are they bussards. Plain red glow is fine.
But then, I could never get the hang of TOS visual style, it always always put me off. I was lucky in that my first exposure to TOS came from reading the Blish novelisations.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think the Bussards on the NX-01 also spun.

 

[Belz...]

I think the Bussards on the NX-01 also spun.

No, I think the NX-01 had a vague plasma thing inside, like the 1701-E.

ETA: Having checked, it seems like there's some spinning in there but it's very hard to see.

Best choice they ever made was stocking the sphere on the back of the nacelles, and yanking the spikes off.

I hate those stupid balls. I mean, what the hell are they supposed to be? I'm glad to see the vents/holes back.

 

[Gepard]

I mean, what the hell are they supposed to be?

Magic.

 

[Longinus]

If they don't get it by now, they aren't going to no matter how many times you go around in a circle. I've given up. lol

I do get it. Even this updated Enterprise still has 60's style, it just has more detail. What you and Mirror Mirror don't get, is that many of us see this as a good thing. They used similar approach with the props, and the costumes of Stella and her dad. 60's design with modern quality. I want to see more of this, not less. It looks way more interesting than just trying to chase what we think is 'futuristic' in 2018. The future will not look like that anyway. The style is not tied to the tech level. Mirror Mirror said it was dated like Art Deco. Well for all we know they'll design Art Deco space ships in the future. Or maybe they'll have baroque aftcastles like pirate ships. Who the fuck knows, but aping Mass Effect is not inherently more appropriate way to depict future than Mid-century Modern, Art Deco or Gothic style (they use the last one in Warhammer 40 000.) Embrace the retro, I say, don't fight it!

 

[jaime]

No, I think the NX-01 had a vague plasma thing inside, like the 1701-E.

ETA: Having checked, it seems like there's some spinning in there but it's very hard to see.



I hate those stupid balls. I mean, what the hell are they supposed to be? I'm glad to see the vents/holes back.

The warp coils don’t generate thrust as such, so spheres that emit some kind of energy or wave make more sense.

 

[jaime]

I do get it. Even this updated Enterprise still has 60's style, it just has more detail. What you and Mirror Mirror don't get, many of us see this as a good thing. They used similar approach with the props, and the costumes of Stella and her dad. 60's design with modern quality. I want to see more of this, not less. It looks way more interesting than just trying to chase what we think is 'futuristic' in 2018. The future will not look like that anyway. The style is not tied to the tech level. Mirror Mirror said it was dated like Art Deco. Well for all we know they'll design Art Deco space ships in the future. Or maybe they'll have baroque aftcastles like pirate ships. Who the fuck knows, but aping Mass Effect is not inherently more appropriate way to depict future than Mid-century Modern, Art Deco or Gothic style (they use the last one in Warhammer 40 000.) Embrace the retro, I say, don't fight it!

I don’t like much of Mass Effct style. (It was better when it was in Final Fantasy anyway...) but I also don’t like sixties modern either. The sixties is pretty much when style died in so many things, and I think to really love the TOS stuff you kind of had to have been there. Once the late seventies happened, Trumbull, Mead, Meddings etc, everything before just seems unfinished. Even the later stuff can seem a retrograde step (I don’t like the design work in so many more recent things, and even Star Wars overall aesthetics become..simplistic. Ironically, I think the prequels were fine.) especially now we have cgi doing the heavy lifting (texture brushes are the worst thing to happen to art since picasso spent more time screwing his models than painting them, and that Duchamp chap took the piss.) It’s only recently we see some actual decent steps (hated firefly, liked the Rasa, thought the Event Horizon was waaay too busy, but the ship in Passengers was cool.) possibly because art departments stopped the mixture of aping and rebelling and started actually building on things that came before again. Probably that and the eighties trend has helped I think. (Model making at some stage of the process seems to have popped back as well. Nothing helps more than looking at something real. The real is the foundation of good art, no matter how fantastical.)
I am not sure where DSC sits on that (ok, I know where some it sits. Fuck off shit Klingon designs...yes I feel that passionately about the lazy work there.) because there’s no sense of detail or scale in so many shots. The ships look better in STO than they do on screen, but the discovery is growing on me. I prefer the previews solid saucer to the flip flop frisbee though.

 

[Belz...]

The warp coils don’t generate thrust as such, so spheres that emit some kind of energy or wave make more sense.

That actually makes zero sense. They could be vents for the heat, for all you know. I'm just saying that the balls are ugly.

 

[Emperor Norton]

All TOS means to me is the future with style and flair. AKA, Steve McQueen cool.

 

[PixelMagic]

I do get it. Even this updated Enterprise still has 60's style, it just has more detail. What you and Mirror Mirror don't get, is that many of us see this as a good thing. They used similar approach with the props, and the costumes of Stella and her dad. 60's design with modern quality. I want to see more of this, not less. It looks way more interesting than just trying to chase what we think is 'futuristic' in 2018. The future will not look like that anyway. The style is not tied to the tech level. Mirror Mirror said it was dated like Art Deco. Well for all we know they'll design Art Deco space ships in the future. Or maybe they'll have baroque aftcastles like pirate ships. Who the fuck knows, but aping Mass Effect is not inherently more appropriate way to depict future than Mid-century Modern, Art Deco or Gothic style (they use the last one in Warhammer 40 000.) Embrace the retro, I say, don't fight it!

Mirror Mirror and I aren't saying that at all. Who are we to say you can't like the 60s style? Of course you can.

Our frustration is with folks who say that TOS doesn't look dated even by modern TV/Film standards. That, as a statement, is ludacious. They are arguing that the Enterprise is NOT 60s styled. You acknwoldge that it is indeed 60s style but love it anyway. That's 100% fine. You are at least acknowledging reality.

People who don't recognize the dated nature of the TOS Enteprise's Atomic Age Retrofutrism when compared to modern design aethetics either have no eye for such things, and thus shouldn't be arguing that it's modern looking, or as I suspect is the case with most, are wearing the thickest of rose tinted goggles.

 

[jaime]

That actually makes zero sense. They could be vents for the heat, for all you know. I'm just saying that the balls are ugly.

Lol. There’s a lot of stuff about the engines on screen and in tech manuals etc. The vent look is why so much gold-key era stuff has cheesy rocket exhausts flying out the back. Spheres stop it looking like Flash Gordon scaffolded to The Day The Earth Stood Still more than is absolutely necessary.

 

[jaime]

Mirror Mirror and I aren't saying that at all. Who are we to say you can't like the 60s style? Of course you can.

Our frustration is with folks who say that TOS doesn't look dated even by modern TV/Film standards. That, as a statement, is ludacious. They are arguing that the Enterprise is NOT 60s styled. You acknwoldge that it is indeed 60s style but love it anyway. That's 100% fine. You are at least acknowledging reality.

People who don't recognize the dated nature of the TOS Enteprise's Atomic Age Retrofutrism when compared to modern design aethetics either have no eye for such things, and thus shouldn't be arguing that it's modern looking, or as I suspect is the case with most, are wearing the thickest of rose tinted goggles.

Play nice. I am on some page, but no need to be mean about. Also...retrofuturism? Intriguing. I would say it’s more modernist...I would go with futurism, but they all pretty much died in the Second World War. Retrofuturist would only apply if it was designed now really. It can’t be retro anything, because that was how it was in its time. It also dates because it influences stuff in the following decade, but not necessarily screen stuff...the colours and textures used throughout TOS basically end up in fairground rides in the seventies and eighties (same reason the whomobile over in doctor Who looks absolutely awful really quickly. Maybe it was cool and futuristic in 74, but within a decade it’s disco kids ride awful.) Which cheapens any credibility. (The bright colours in TOS take a long time to stop feeling cringeworthy. I can watch STC now and admire it, but I am older and it’s a period piece.)
As to the enterprise itself, with a lot of surface detail changes, and a way to show those, it could work with almost zero structural changes. But that’s not going to happen on a budget in a hurry, for a five minute cameo. So they changed bigger structures, and like everything else in DSC pushed it to the industrial TMP look. I think the sweep pylons are a push too far, and the shuttle bay is just pure Eaves elongation and flattening (Which again, I sort of understand, because the old shuttlebay, like the deflector, is extremely of its time.)

 

[jaime]

All TOS means to me is the future with style and flair. AKA, Steve McQueen cool.

He didn’t go much for flair. And he only gets to be a cool icon once the sixties revival kicks in, before that, he’s just that dude our dads liked in slightly dull films. Which...pretty much does describe the TOS aesthetic falling in and out of fashion I suppose.

 

[Ronald Held]

He didn't say.

The warp coils are the hardware that changes the shape of space-time for propulsion.
Can someone ask Scott if he is allowed to tell how many revisions they proposed before the one we saw?

 

[Emperor Norton]

He didn’t go much for flair. And he only gets to be a cool icon once the sixties revival kicks in, before that, he’s just that dude our dads liked in slightly dull films. Which...pretty much does describe the TOS aesthetic falling in and out of fashion I suppose.

...why do you hate Quentin Tarantino?