I say that mostly because it wouldn't fit the look they have established for the series. In Discovery, this is apparently what TOS and pre-TOS ships look like, but this look could plausibly evolve towards the sleek TMP era ships.
USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?
- Thread starter EJD1984
- Start date
Which ships would you say aren’t smooth?
The TMP refit, reliant, Grissom, and excelsior are smooth and greebleless. There are no random cutouts on the hulls, no excessively stepped saucer sections. They’re pretty smooth relative to the DSC era.
Also I agree that the TOS Connie is damn amazing
The DSC Connie isn’t excessively detailed either when compared to the Refit.
A majority of the disruptions in the surface are cut into it, not sticking out.
Agreed.
The whole DSC era fleet is out of kilter with both the DSC Enterprise and the TOS aesthetic. That’s really my issue with the look of the series.
The prime Enterprise would have stood out like a sore thumb if they’d not changed it - I still think (as I’ve said before) that the DSC Enterprise stands out relative to the rest of the ships we’ve seen so far.
The DSC Enterprise does look like a plausible retrograde step from the TMP design in light of the changes they’ve made. The other ships on DSC don’t. There’s a disparity in the designs which - to me at least - means that either the DSC Enterprise stands out relative to the DSC ships or all the DSC ships stand out relative to the Enterprise.
For me, I would have preferred it if the whole thing had been more suggestive of TOS (like Enterprise before it should have been).
Not the same as TOS - I’m not crazy - but closer.
You do realize that at least a few fans have for decades been quite earnestly proposing more or less exactly this to explain why the Enterprise was constantly switching back and forth between at least three different configurations from shot to shot throughout TOS, right?Maybe its a convertible. You press a button and the nacelle pylons slide backwards, the front opens up into a window...
Mind you, I was never one of them myself, always having viewed it from the perspective that re-using stock footage shot for earlier episodes was a simple necessity and didn't indicate this was something going on in-universe. Yet, I have to admit I always found it a rather clever and imaginative suggestion when it came up. You may recall that, a while back, I half-facetiously proposed that the so-called D7 from DSC might be imagined to be capable of performing a similar feat, with the neck extending and nacelles unfurling from beneath and the "shoulder pads" retracting to take their place!
Laugh it up all you like, but it's scarcely as if ships with moving parts and variable geometries are an unfamiliar thing to us in Trek, including examples of such in use by both the Klingons (STIII) and the Federation (VGR).
And with Matt Jefferies as well:
Although they now had a shape, it was not the end of Jefferies’ efforts. He theorized that since space was an extremely dangerous place, starship engineers would not put any important machinery on the outside of their vessel. This meant that, logically, the hull would be smooth.
Not everyone agreed with Jefferies and he had to fight his corner. “I constantly had to fight anyone who wanted to put surface details on the thing,” he says. Another advantage of the smooth design was that it would reflect light, and at this point it was not a foregone conclusion that the ship would be white. “I thought the atmosphere or lack of it out there in space might produce different colors, and this gave us a chance to be able to play light and to throw color on it.”
http://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-first-enterprise/Not everyone agreed with Jefferies and he had to fight his corner. “I constantly had to fight anyone who wanted to put surface details on the thing,” he says. Another advantage of the smooth design was that it would reflect light, and at this point it was not a foregone conclusion that the ship would be white. “I thought the atmosphere or lack of it out there in space might produce different colors, and this gave us a chance to be able to play light and to throw color on it.”
However, we should note that in doing so, he gave conscious consideration to how the ship might nevertheless physically evolve into the familiar TOS version over time, little by little, even if some of his specific concepts ended up being further modified later. For instance, as quoted somewhere upthread: "...we split the struts so in time the cooling vent side could be removed to make it more like the Original TOS strut."
-MMoM
Yeah, absolutely.
Funnily enough, while the JJprise from Star Trek 09 also is a drastic departure from the original TOS design, the background fleet of ST09 - the one that was made from USS Kelvin parts in different configurations and was destroyed over Vulcan - would have made for a perfect "updated" TOS era fleet.
The Enterprise we saw at the end of S1 should have stood out by remaining like WNMHGB.
For the most part I agree with you.
The only things I’d change would be the supersizing of the ships and the bridge windows (but I don’t want to reopen that can of worms here!!!). But the overall look of the exterior of the 09 background fleet seemed closer to the TOS aesthetic and more plausible as an update of the 60s show.
Or better yet the rest of DSC could have been designed to more closely resemble the Enterprise from WNMHGB
But, for whatever reason, they went the way they did. I’m hoping it’s not 25 years before we get BTS documentaries that explain why they changed what they changed and how much they were influenced by other sci-fi shows, or the Kelvin universe, or whatever.
Or, the likely culprit, CBS merchandising.
Most of the ships in the Kelvin Timeline look better than most of the ones on DSC. Except for the Enterprise herself and the Shepard-class starships like the Gagarin and the Kerala there are very few that I'd choose over vessels of the recent big screen Starfleet.
However I find that they have some sort of progression to them, mostly. The ships we see in the 2009 movie, Enterprise aside, look a bit more primitive than the ones we see on DSC, so I'm satisfied with them.
The Grissom, from TSFS, had a really low registry number. NCC-638. I wonder if it was of the same period as the Kelvin?
Or if it was even older? NCC-0514 implies Starfleet had four-digit registries and a larger fleet in mind. NCC-638 doesn't.
Or if it was even older? NCC-0514 implies Starfleet had four-digit registries and a larger fleet in mind. NCC-638 doesn't.
Perhaps NCC-0514 was a refit of NCC-514 done after they'd gotten into the four-digit range?
For those who have not yet seen this aft view from Anovos' twitter:
Edit: Full spread of photos:
https://www.anovos.com/collections/...class-studio-scale-starship-filming-miniature
Edit: Full spread of photos:
https://www.anovos.com/collections/...class-studio-scale-starship-filming-miniature
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Maybe the Enterprise had lights during the Cage but they were just flip ups. 
Maybe the Enterprise had lights during the Cage but they were just flip ups.
Reminds me of the Amphicar. Hey, maybe the JJprise had them too, when it was submerged, but they just didn't show us!
G
Gonzo
Guest
I do like the JJPrise, I like the JJPrise-A even more.
Looks great, everything fits as well.
Really? I like the A but I'm not sure I can say that the parts fit that well. The 2009 Enterprise, proportions aside, looks like a single piece to me. Very elegant.
G
Gonzo
Guest
Yeah the 2009 version does flow well, with the A looking a little more angular in places and more streamlined.
I am fine with both of them.
Then again I would have been quite happy if they had repaired the Vengeance, painted it white and called it the 1701-A, was never going to happen of course.
It would have been fair enough after losing Vulcan and the extra size and capabilities could have really mixed things up plot wise moving forward.
We really should see some of the advanced technologies in the Vengeance being used by the 1701refit in Beyond but I guess there was no point as the ship was doomed by plot anyway.
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