That was the intent of the designers, we don’t know if the writers/producers are thinking that themselves.
We know what Ted Sullivan was thinking, for one. But you are
absolutely right to point out that others could be thinking of it differently...which is exactly the point I set off to make here when
you and others claimed we somehow
know it to be intended purely and definitively as a visual retcon without in-universe change or explanation! Various intents can certainly conflict, and often have.
No one's off-screen intent is canon, nor binding in and of itself. Re-interpretation is always possible, both at present and in future. (That's exactly why Memory Alpha isn't going to state anything conclusive on the matter until/unless it becomes further clarified on screen. But I'm confident they'd have zero problem including Eaves' and Sullivans' statements as background notes, so long as they were neutrally presented.)
Of course. And this change is even more extensive.
I'm not really seeing it, honestly...
However plausibly or implausibly, if the middle one can change into the latter, then the former can equally change into it.
I think we're all simply well
used to rationalizing the TMP version, because it's been around for so long, and has cemented itself in our minds as part of some neat-and-tidy progression, whereas the DSC one feels shoehorned-in to us merely because it's new and messes with our preconceptions and expectations. Much like the NX-01 did at first in ENT. But the thing is, that's entirely
our issue, not the show's. In other words...
How many ship changes between WNMHGB and TOS early episodes? Before DSC how many changes between the Cage and WNMHGB?
As many as it takes? As many as they/we want? Why does there need to be a definite answer? What does it matter? These shows
aren't about documenting precisely how many overhauls and/or smaller modifications the
Enterprise went through during its service, nor precisely how or why, and certainly shouldn't be, IMO. A handwave is plenty for me, thanks. (Like
@Groppler Zorn , I
do appreciate being granted that much, though.
)
At any rate, the DSC version
does already incorporate at least a few details
similar to those present on the second pilot version that distinguished it from
both the first pilot and series-proper incarnations. Besides the aft nacelle vents and bridge "window" mentioned above, there are also the dark strips around the running lights on the dorsal saucer, for instance:
For my own conjecture at the moment, based on the timeframe between each, I'd like to think that it went from "The Cage" to "Will You Take My Hand?" (DSC) in more or less one great bite, akin to the eighteen-month TMP redesign. Then it evolves and gets tweaked little by little over the following decade, as Eaves suggested. But alternatively, another major refit could take place in the two-or-more-year-span that she was apparently under Kirk's command
prior to the 5YM, per oblique references in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Amok Time" (TOS) that may be clarified through Whitfield and Roddenberry's
The Making Of Star Trek. Then the bit-by-bit, er,
bit could happen during the course of that, as she incurs wear and tear, and coinciding with the changes in engine room configuration, etc. (Or in between WNMHGB and the 5YM, since we can't even really say for sure
that is, in fact, part of that mission at all! It does lack the monologue...
)
DISCLAIMER: All of this may well require re-evaluation based on whatever is to be said/shown of the
Enterprise in the upcoming second season of DSC. We'll see soon enough! And undoubtedly, little of it would hold up to scrutiny if zealously nitpicked. But what ever does, really?
Do you understand that I was talking about relative size? DIS Ent shuttlebay is much smaller relative to the size of the ship than TOS one.
I guess I don't follow why that presents such a big problem if
both iterations of the ship are on the order of size suggested by the TOS interiors and
Drexler's cutaway utilized for "In A Mirror Darkly, Part II" (ENT), rather than Jefferies' "originally intended" (except not, because that
itself was a scale-up from Roddenberry's initially downright
puny conception of a mere 200ft) length of 947ft—which was never established in dialogue or otherwise discernably onscreen, AFAIK. (It
is technically on
this display from "The
Enterprise Incident" but even today in HD that's not clearly legible, let alone would it have even
approached being remotely so back in the '60s! The numbers on that little scale bar could say virtually
anything, for all we can make them out! And there is a looooong litany of such set dressings being freely contradicted or otherwise modified throughout
Trek's history. So no issue there, from where I'm standing.)
My admittedly-not-well-studied understanding is that many of the TMP refit's interior sets like the Rec Deck and such suggest a potentially larger size for her as well, even if we would
then have to fudge a couple of
seemingly more scale-defining scenes like the travel pod docking and the wing walk. (But were even
those ever
truly consistent to begin with? IDK. We're getting into Size Argument Thread™ territory here, and to be quite honest I simply don't care that much. Never really been my thing...not to mention I'm generally too poor in maths to effectively compete with
anyone on that front, anyway.
) But even
if the TMP ship winds up
having to be smaller, it seems to me that
@TrickyDickie's assessment of it as a
condensation of its predecessor(s) might simply prove all the more apt!
I don't think the remastered episodes had that issue.
Yet even despite that, and their replacement of the
Constellation's noticeably differently-shaped bridge module from the original, they nevertheless
still implied that, in-universe, the
Enterprise and her various sister ships
weren't always
identical in arrangement at a given time:
"We changed the window patterns slightly on the four guest ships in 'The Ultimate Computer,' keeping the deck lines the same... There's also a single shot of the main viewscreen on the Lexington
bridge in which we modified the screen slightly from the stock Enterprise
screen."
-Mike Okuda, via
Ex-Astris-Scientia
You can say whatever the heck you want.
My stance is the Enterprise in DSC is a retcon of the one in 'The Cage'.
My point in the last couple pages was just within the realm of TOS-R Pre-DSC. Pike's Enterprise looked different from Kirk's.
I know you weren't addressing me directly here, but just for the record, I hope it's been clear that I certainly don't think that's an unreasonable position at all. As I've said, "The Cage" was a rejected pilot cannibalized for segments in "The Menagerie" (TOS) that therein represented
entirely a Talosian illusion, albeit one
alleged to be accurate to
"the actual events...as it happened." (But only within what ultimately turned out to be
another Talosian illusion!) So I would have no issues whatever with
it being visually retconned outright,
if that's in fact what has happened—though I'd still say we can't be
certain of that as yet. It's only jumping ahead and extending this reasoning to
all of TOS at once (plus TNG's "Relics" and DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations"
et al.) that I consider too far a leap at present. That's
my stance.
The only problem I have between TOS and TMP is the word 'Refit'
Had they just said complete rebuild, it would be fine.
Well, to be fair, Scotty does say that they
"have just spent eighteen months redesigning and refitting the Enterprise
." But I think "refit" is the word that we fans have come to most closely identify with that process as depicted there, and thus, again, that would be why it was dropped into "Despite Yourself" (DSC). Make no mistake, that message was meant for
us.
-
MMoM
