Spoilers Visual continuity - Does Discovery strictly need to show past designs... at all?

[USS Triumphant]

I wonder if that wireframe shot of Defiant was from the USS Discovery's database, or from the recovered Klingon data core. I'm thinking the latter, because (I think?) the events that led to USS Defiant's disappearance haven't happened yet for our Discovery folks. If so, perhaps that wireframe represents the Defiant after changes made by the Terran Empire? Extra weapons and such?

 

[CaptainMurdock]

I wonder if that wireframe shot of Defiant was from the USS Discovery's database, or from the recovered Klingon data core. I'm thinking the latter, because (I think?) the events that led to USS Defiant's disappearance haven't happened yet for our Discovery folks. If so, perhaps that wireframe represents the Defiant after changes made by the Terran Empire? Extra weapons and such?

That's what my conclusion of that scene was.

 

[Ithekro]

If the first star trek had come out in the late 1930's, would people be clamoring for the new show to be in black and white with a flimsy Flash Gordon rocket on a silk string?

If they kept making show and spin-offs for the next 40 or so years and ever time they referenced their past, it was still that same rocket (likely minus the string), than the answer would be yes, you keep the rocket.

That's the point. Star Trek is now over 50 years old, and yet every time the USS Enterprise from Kirk's five year mission is referenced on screen for the next 40 years, its that same ship designed in the mid-1960s. From the picture of the old TV Enterprise on the wall in TMP to the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise and the golden model in Star Trek: Nemesis, it was always that ship. So another Star Trek comes out, it is expected that the USS Enterprise, will be the same design again. At least one that advertised itself as being "Prime Universe", as the Kelvin Timeline gets its own pass for being an alternate timeline. And even then, the shape is similar.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

I wonder if that wireframe shot of Defiant was from the USS Discovery's database, or from the recovered Klingon data core. I'm thinking the latter, because (I think?) the events that led to USS Defiant's disappearance haven't happened yet for our Discovery folks. If so, perhaps that wireframe represents the Defiant after changes made by the Terran Empire? Extra weapons and such?

Nah, they had zero need to change it and not change designs based off it. BUt the Discovery crew made zero comments on it. We are seeing the Cage Era Connie they all know, its only a 10 or 15 year old ships at this point and well known class as its been brought up before. I mean its a heavy warship. They know what it looks like.

 

[seigezunt]

Chalk it up to "artistic license" and let it go. Expecting the new shows and movies to slavishly replicate the art direction of decades gone by is just asking for frustration. Activate your "willing suspension of disbelief" circuits and pretend that things always looked this way, just like we did when the Klingons first got a makeover way back in '79, or when Kirstie Alley magically transformed into Robin Curtis.

STAR TREK is not a historical period piece.

Couldn't put it better.

To be honest, I'd be thrilled if a Constitution-Class starship showed up as portrayed in the past, but I'm not going to hit the streets in anger if that doesn't happen. I've been astounded by the callbacks to TOS that they have had, and have had no justification for, much to my satisfaction. I'm good.

 

[Lord Garth]

2001 and Star Wars redefined visual standards. TMP had to be able to visually keep up with them.

There was a major shift in visual standards that TOS happened to just narrowly miss. To this the day, the transition from TOS to TMP is the largest visual jump Star Trek has made.

In the past, I chalked up the difference between TOS and everything else as "Okay, for a while it looked like TOS" and just went along with it. With DSC taking place 10 years before TOS and two years after "The Cage", I really can't do that anymore. I can't make myself go along with it. So, that's the point when I finally said to myself, "DSC is a visual reboot." Having the way TOS looks would be completely out of place on this series.

Could DSC have done things differently? Sure. The "Axanar" fanfilm (as far as they got with it, anyway) shows you could. But DSC didn't do that, and this is what it is. I'm not saying it's good-or-bad or right-or-wrong, just what it is.

 

[Ithekro]

There are two possible explanations that don't break the older cannon (both visual and plot) of Star Trek in regard to USS Defiant as seen, so far, in Discovery.

1. The image is most likely of the USS Defiant as ship appears in the present day in the mirror universe. Thus she's been heavily modified and rebuilt over the last century. Possibly to keep her the most heavily armed ship in the Empire, but also possibly because they couldn't replicate the parts early in the ship's imperial career and they made do with what they could make back then. In recent years they probably fully caught up and started building new Constitution-class starships similar to how USS Defiant originally looked and how ISS Enterprise looked.

2. The image is similar to how a USS Defiant looks in the 2250s, prior to some refit she gets before being lost around 2269. Maybe the Constitutions use to look like this prior to some kind of technology refit that made them look more like USS Enterprise does in the "The Cage" and by the time Kirk takes command, more of the fleet has had that refit. It could be the combat variant, or a pre-tech version more long the lines of the USS Shenzhou as it is entirely possible for the Constitution-class to be older than we think it is based on the USS Constellation and USS Republic.

There are always possibilities.

 

[Tuskin38]

Looks just fine to me.

Looked fine in the 1960s. Not now, not in Enterprise, not in DS9.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Looked fine in the 1960s. Not now, not in Enterprise, not in DS9.

Whatever you say.

 

[The Wormhole]

Star Wars keeps visual and aural continuity with art direction and prop design of 1976/7

Why is visual continuity with 1966 so unthinkable?

To be fair, you simply can not take something that was done on a 1960s TV budget and present it as cutting edge state of the art technology from the 23rd century. Star Wars takes advantage of the fact that many of the ships and technology we see there are considered in-universe to be outdated.

 

[Tuskin38]

Whatever you say.

It reeks of a 60s TV budget.

The TOS Movie aesthetic is what TOS call backs should be based on..

 

[Lord Garth]

Looked fine in the 1960s. Not now, not in Enterprise, not in DS9.

I thought it looked fine in DS9. The whole point of "Trials & Tribble-ations" was to pay tribute to the '60s.

I'm not a fan of ENT, so I couldn't care less about what anything looks like in that series.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

It reeks of a 60s TV budget.

The TOS Movie aesthetic is what TOS call backs should be based on..

Maybe the interiors but the exterior is just fine in my book.

 

[Tuskin38]

I thought it looked fine in DS9. The whole point of "Trials & Tribble-ations" was to pay tribute to the '60s.

I'm not a fan of ENT, so I couldn't care less about what anything looks like in that series.

It was fine in DS9 because it was a deliberate homage to the show on its anniversary.

Enterprise did the same thing, near recreation of the TOS set.

 

[BillJ]

I'm really not optimistic about the Constitution class, especially after seeing the wireframe Defiant. If it has indeed been changed, then the producers really need to shut their mouths about the Prime Universe and just admit this show is its own continuity.

It has been a century since the Defiant crossed over, from the perspective of the Mirror universe. So I think what we are seeing is a refit version done after the crossover. I sure hope so. Because that thing is dire in comparison to the original design.

Why is visual continuity with 1966 so unthinkable?

I tend to think because Star Trek is supposed to be our future. There's just no way to explain away some things.

The TOS Movie aesthetic is what TOS call backs should be based on..

Then reboot. Don't disrespect the people who worked just as hard as the writers, directors and actors by steamrolling their work under the guise of this all supposedly fitting together in one universe.

 

[Tuskin38]

Then reboot. Don't disrespect the people who worked just as hard as the writers, directors and actors by steamrolling their work under the guise of this all supposedly fitting together in one universe.

It isn't disrespecting their work. it is building on it.

Because that thing is dire in comparison to the original design.

But it is nearly identical.

 

[Ithekro]

But it is nearly identical.

Not really. It has a saucer, and secondary hull, and cylindrical nacelles. But all the details change it up more so than the 2009 USS Enterprise does.

 

[Tuskin38]

But all the details change it up more so than the 2009 USS Enterprise does.

Not at all, this has less changes by far.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Those two indentations in the saucer are just ugly. I hope the non MU-Connie if and when we ever see them don't have those. I'm fine with the Nacelle pylons having that 90 degree angle going into the Nacelle but those wedges don't do it for me.

 

[Feron]

Maybe the interiors but the exterior is just fine in my book.

I agree. There is nothing inherently retro about the original exterior. It is still a perfectly fine sci-fi ship, IMHO.