USS Kelvin communicator and phaser props
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
The description does say "screen-used". I remember at the time those pics originally appeared being under the impression that the items on display had been used during filming. (Some were in scenes which ended up not being part of the finished film. Snickering at the caption "Stuff that was never used (Probably because it was too ugly!)")
I remember seeing that - can't remember off the top of my head who it was, but not going to go digging around over there just now trying to track it down.
That phaser's definitely fugly, but I love how "prototypey" it looks. It's a very believable predecessor to the phasers seen in The Original Series. It also has the added bonus of not resembling a space age hair dryer, as the ones in Enterprise did. Nor a kids toy, as the ones later in the film did.
And it looks nothing like the Pike era pistols (called "lasers") which would have fallen in between.
Someone dropped the ball.
Are we to assume the near-TOS design at the time of Kirk's birth was discontinued, and (in the original timeline) they went to the Pike style, only to later still revive the earlier design, slightly modified?
Makes no sense.
They should have made the Kelvin phasers and communicators look like predecessors of the Pike era.
Stuff like this convinces me the reboot takes place in an alternate universe, not an altered timeline.
Or they just had different models in use concurrently. Or the "The Cage" stuff proved unpopular, and Starfleet went back to what worked before.
Like the wrist comminicators in TMP, which were replaced with a step backward to TOS-style flipups.
Like the wrist comminicators in TMP, which were replaced with a step backward to TOS-style flipups.
Indeed, the TOS movies already set the pattern for a flippy-floppy Starfleet that doesn't "progress" in a linear fashion when it "evolves".
The real world doesn't, either, not really. Say, today's hypermodern stealth aircraft are an apparent giant step backward from the graceful curves of an F-16, and in many ways more reminiscent of the earliest jet experiments in the late 1940s. In some regards, this is just an illusion: the shape is unrelated to any "degree of advancement", and indeed the most futuristic thing flying in the 2020s might turn out to look remarkably like the Wright Flyer... In other regards, modern planes do look clumsy for the very same reason their 1940s equivalents did: because the engineers don't really know what they are doing with the most recent inventions, not yet, and have to start out simple, basing their designs on what they know will work.
As for the "Pike style" phaser-lasers, they appear closely related to the latest movie weapons in that they have separate barrels for separate functions. Kirk in the movie has two barrels to choose from: stun and kill. Pike might have had three: stun, kill, and laser. Which would necessitate a somewhat bulkier frame for the gun, but not preclude the parallel existence of sleeker sidearms with fewer functions, the same way there exist multiple phaser designs with varying degrees of clumsiness in the TOS movie era.
Timo Saloniemi
The real world doesn't, either, not really. Say, today's hypermodern stealth aircraft are an apparent giant step backward from the graceful curves of an F-16, and in many ways more reminiscent of the earliest jet experiments in the late 1940s. In some regards, this is just an illusion: the shape is unrelated to any "degree of advancement", and indeed the most futuristic thing flying in the 2020s might turn out to look remarkably like the Wright Flyer... In other regards, modern planes do look clumsy for the very same reason their 1940s equivalents did: because the engineers don't really know what they are doing with the most recent inventions, not yet, and have to start out simple, basing their designs on what they know will work.
As for the "Pike style" phaser-lasers, they appear closely related to the latest movie weapons in that they have separate barrels for separate functions. Kirk in the movie has two barrels to choose from: stun and kill. Pike might have had three: stun, kill, and laser. Which would necessitate a somewhat bulkier frame for the gun, but not preclude the parallel existence of sleeker sidearms with fewer functions, the same way there exist multiple phaser designs with varying degrees of clumsiness in the TOS movie era.
Timo Saloniemi
You clearly underestimate how important everyone on the Kelvin must have been.
Thanks to the untimely deaths of multiple crewmembers, Starfleet lost the guys and gals who:
Asked "why do we need a 0 at the front of our registry code?".
Pointed out "Why do we need a big window on the front of our bridge when we have viewscreens that can give us a better view without risking structural integrity?".
Stated "You know, it might not be the best idea to give command of the flagship to a cadet"
Enquired "Don't you think we will work better without lights being shone in our faces from every frickin' angle?"
Commented "You know, wouldn't it be easier to build a great big starship in space, where we don't have to worry about gravity?"
Declared "Hey, i think it's time we started building our own engine rooms again, the guys we contracted it to at Budweiser just fill up all the empty spaces with brewing vats. Crew efficiency has dropped 25% because all the engineers are pissed"
Invented laser-pistols better than their current phaser prototypes.
It's absolutely the same continuity, obviously. It's just that the crew of the U.S.S Kelvin were the most important officers who ever lived who would have shaped the future of Starfleet for centuries.
Or its a reboot and the makers just didnt have the balls to state it outright so came up with this "alternate timeline" crap to avoid making Trekkies cry.
It's the same continuity in broad strokes, just like every other version of Star Trek, starting with The Motion Picture.
That's clearly going well.
Or, even more likely: it doesn't matter.
That's good, too!
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