It’s not that deep. They simply decided to retcon the older look for a slicker designer. If (or more likely when) they show the Kirk era, the ship will look like Discoprise, and have floating R2D2s everywhere.
USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?
- Thread starter EJD1984
- Start date
I don't take the short literally and neither should anyone else.
I don’t care about the short one way or another, but if CBS wanted the Enterprise to look like the TOS version going forward, it would look like the TOS version in Discovery. But they decided it needed updating, and that has nothing to do with “in-universe” concerns. The Band-Aid has already been ripped off.
I can see the TOS version continuing to show up on TOS merchandise. But unless the bean-counters decide the new look is hurting the bottom line, I don’t expect to see the original design while the current decision-makers are in charge.
I can see the TOS version continuing to show up on TOS merchandise. But unless the bean-counters decide the new look is hurting the bottom line, I don’t expect to see the original design while the current decision-makers are in charge.
Indeed. Just different interpretations with the same result-a ship that goes places.
Well for you model builders, theres a 1000 scale discoprise coming out, $50 or so, 18 inches long.
I mean, they also used it in the previously on for one episode of Season 2.
And I choose to interpret the Discoprise as not the same ship from TOS. Just like Christian Bale's Batmobile is not the same car as Adam West's Batmobile.
And that's fair.
But no one has claimed that Christian Bale's Batman is in the same continuity as Adam West's Batman.
To me, the logic behind my point is the same. The only difference is that Christopher Nolan didn’t feel the need to link his films to the same universe/continuity/whatever as the ‘60’s TV show in an effort to get more fans of the original show to go see his movies. He knew they could stand on their own. Too bad CBS didn’t feel the same way about their product.
There's a persistent pattern of backpedaling, though, that is probably the most relevant thing affecting CBS decisions today, trumping creativity or breakaway maneuvers. For whatever reason, and probably not to the benefit of the show, but the end result is that the 1960s aesthetic (and continuity minutiae, FWIW) keeps coming back, in various forms.
Will NCC-1701 be more "coming back" or "various forms", is the issue currently. Although the issue might go away if CBS stopped backpedaling. Which sure isn't happening in the next couple of years yet, given the folks in charge and the spinoffs under development.
Timo Saloniemi
The TOS Enterprise will - long term - always look like TOS. Because that's the iconic one, burned into mainstream pop culture.
Short term, with every re-imagening, a team is going to try to push their current interpretation (JJprise, Justin Lin-prise, Discoprise - hell, even the refit for the original movies in a way!) - that is going to be valid at long as this iteration runs (as long as DIS is on air, maybe even longer, depending on a Pike/S31 series, or if ST4 is happening).
But - in 20 years - the Discoprise will be put to rest on wiki-pages, and the TOS-era Enterprise will have either another rebooted look, or look exactly like in the 60s again. More likely the latter.
The Discoprise is not here to stay. The 60s model is.
Short term, with every re-imagening, a team is going to try to push their current interpretation (JJprise, Justin Lin-prise, Discoprise - hell, even the refit for the original movies in a way!) - that is going to be valid at long as this iteration runs (as long as DIS is on air, maybe even longer, depending on a Pike/S31 series, or if ST4 is happening).
But - in 20 years - the Discoprise will be put to rest on wiki-pages, and the TOS-era Enterprise will have either another rebooted look, or look exactly like in the 60s again. More likely the latter.
The Discoprise is not here to stay. The 60s model is.
It's a blessing and a curse. Nobody has tried to reimagine the E-D for the small or big screen, even though the E-D has been faithfully redone on both, and no doubt will be again. OTOH, if somebody reimagined the Discovery, or the Cabot, or the Phoenix, few eyebrows would lift. But the 60s design sits between those two takes: it gets both the attention and the veneration, sometimes at the same time, sometimes with one triumphing over the other.
It's just that until now, neither the attention nor the veneration has resulted in any reimagining: when the ship was given a new look in TMP and the 2009 film, it was extremely explicit that the original had not been erased from history. Instead, the whole point in both was that the original had been the history, and things were now different, in two different ways in the two different flicks.
So we have no good precedent for what might happen. Batman, say, has never been about telling stories in a setting: it's about telling the same story over and over again, in slightly different settings. But Trek always tries hard to pretend that things are moving forward, that the past is there in the annals and now something new is happening to the same guys or their successors. It's just that the annals on the 1960s starship are already chock full of footnotes and we might now be getting a few loose pages as well...
Timo Saloniemi
It's just that until now, neither the attention nor the veneration has resulted in any reimagining: when the ship was given a new look in TMP and the 2009 film, it was extremely explicit that the original had not been erased from history. Instead, the whole point in both was that the original had been the history, and things were now different, in two different ways in the two different flicks.
So we have no good precedent for what might happen. Batman, say, has never been about telling stories in a setting: it's about telling the same story over and over again, in slightly different settings. But Trek always tries hard to pretend that things are moving forward, that the past is there in the annals and now something new is happening to the same guys or their successors. It's just that the annals on the 1960s starship are already chock full of footnotes and we might now be getting a few loose pages as well...
Timo Saloniemi
One could argue Discovery is a reimagining of the unmade Planet of the Titans USS Enterprise, and the Phoenix is a reimagined version of the Bonaventure from technical manuals in the early 90's.
Just sayin'.
The latter certainly counts, since Trek has actually done "first-ever warp test rig" twice, the first time in an obscure but still perfectly visible onscreen graphic and the second in a major feature film. So for an in-universe take, we have to believe the test rig had two different appearances (which sure isn't difficult to believe with test rigs!) or then to think in terms of reimagining where the universe looks different depending on viewpoints.
With the former, we don't have to do anything of the sort, though: the design wasn't part of the Trek universe in both its forms (or all its half a dozen semi-finished forms, or whatever).
Timo Saloniemi
With the former, we don't have to do anything of the sort, though: the design wasn't part of the Trek universe in both its forms (or all its half a dozen semi-finished forms, or whatever).
Timo Saloniemi
I don't agree on the logic. I think they are two different animals.
That's fine.
Yup.
Just saw this on my Youtube feed, it's another video with my favourite Enterprise fan model. IMO this baby looks soooo much better than the Discovery Enterprise. Nice TOS/TMP/ST'09 mashup.
Does it really matter at this point? I like the TOS Enterprise too, but they'll probably just go on with Discoprise until the new show's end, at which point there will be a throwaway line of a refit before giving the ship to Kirk or something.
Also, I wonder if they'll write themselves out of the "No holograms ever again" bit. It seems now they should have saved that gimmick for the end of Strange New Worlds.
Rumors of them bringing in Kirk are going to muck with the line that Kirk only met Pike when he was promoted to Fleet Captain. Maybe Pike will get a temporary field promotion to fleet captain or something for kirk's appearance.
Indeed. I love the TOS Enterpise. It is my favorite ship, and the multi-colored uniforms will always scream "Star Trek" to me, as well as the design. It is iconic for a reason.
That doesn't make it immutable. Honestly, I know there is significant emotional attachment to the TOS aesthetic, but it's OK for the producers to move on. It doesn't change the status of the original Enterprise, nor does it impact how TOS is perceived. One doesn't supersede the other.
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