What's so great about the TMP refit?

[I-Am-Zim]

I love the TOS and TMP Enterprises, but if you're so far into blind devotion you can't see the 50's sci-fi style cheesy plain cylinders and saucer on the TOS Enterprise and the paper-thin nacelle pylons on the TMP one then you're beyond help.

And call it "fugly" all you want, but the STXI ship is the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. No amount of "mine's better!" will make it go away - but feel free to try. Reach for the sky, kid!

Sorry to break it to ya junior, but the Abramsprise is a misshapen, haphazard disaster of a design that doesn't deserve to wear the name Enterprise. The TOS and TMP versions, however are elegant in their intentional simplicity and perfectly proportioned in their designs. Mr. Church could learn quite a bit about starship design from Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Probert. He probably should have stuck to Star Wars ship designs. Perhaps if he had studied the original ships a little bit more closely, the resulting design wouldn't have looked so much like a badly put together kitbash.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

I love the TOS and TMP Enterprises, but if you're so far into blind devotion you can't see the 50's sci-fi style cheesy plain cylinders and saucer on the TOS Enterprise and the paper-thin nacelle pylons on the TMP one then you're beyond help.

The TOS-E's tapered cylinder nacelles aren't cheesy; they're simple, elegant and functional-looking. And the slender, swept-back pylons on the TMP refit are sleek and graceful.

The JJ-prise's proportions are ALL wrong. And you want to talk 1950s sci-fi esthetics? What's with those cowls, scoops and fins on the nacelles? They look like Harley J. Earl designed them -- while he was drunk.

De gustibus non est disputandum, to coin a phrase.

Oh yeah! I couldn't agree more!

BTW - Love the Harley Earl reference!! Cuz it s true!

 

[scotpens]

I like the design [of the TOS Enterprise], but it's in the same niche as the Adam West batmobile now.

Which is also a classic, BTW.

. . . Beyond a certain point all of this is a fetish, though - most human beings are bored during the extraordinarily lengthy fly-around of the vessel in ST:TMP, and Kirk's fascination with the ship came over time to verge on the creepy.

But Trek geeks aren't “most human beings”! We're a different subspecies.

The long 360-degree tour of the Enterprise Refit is exactly what it's meant to be -- a set piece to delight and fascinate the fans who waited ten years to see their beloved starship and its crew on the big screen. And the old girl looked better than ever.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Fortunately, the advent of home video technology quickly followed ST:TMP and it became possible to fast-forward through several of the "set-pieces." That probably didn't hurt in rehabilitating the movie's reputation.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I love the TOS and TMP Enterprises, but if you're so far into blind devotion you can't see the 50's sci-fi style cheesy plain cylinders and saucer on the TOS Enterprise and the paper-thin nacelle pylons on the TMP one then you're beyond help.

And call it "fugly" all you want, but the STXI ship is the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. No amount of "mine's better!" will make it go away - but feel free to try. Reach for the sky, kid!

Sorry to break it to ya junior, but the Abramsprise is a misshapen, haphazard disaster of a design that doesn't deserve to wear the name Enterprise. The TOS and TMP versions, however are elegant in their intentional simplicity and perfectly proportioned in their designs. Mr. Church could learn quite a bit about starship design from Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Probert. He probably should have stuck to blah blah blah

There's no such thing as "starship design". It's all made up, Zim. None of it's real.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

Really? Aw crap. Now my life's ruined.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

I like the design [of the TOS Enterprise], but it's in the same niche as the Adam West batmobile now.

Which is also a classic, BTW.

And my personal favorite Batmobile ever! (Probably because it's based on the 1956 Lincoln Futura show car, and I love my Lincolns)

Followed closely by the Batmobile from the 1989 Tim Burton movie.

But Trek geeks aren't “most human beings”! We're a different subspecies.

The long 360-degree tour of the Enterprise Refit is exactly what it's meant to be -- a set piece to delight and fascinate the fans who waited ten years to see their beloved starship and its crew on the big screen. And the old girl looked better than ever.

Agreed.

 

[A beaker full of death]

... Kirk's fascination with the ship came over time to verge on the creepy.

It was always intended to be unhealthy. It's part of what made him interesting. It was also something viewers in postwar U.S. could understand and somewhat relate to.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

Kirk: "Alas, my ship, whom I love like a woman, is...disabled..."

 

[BolianAuthor]

The TMP refit is my second favorite version of the Enterprise... personally, IMO, the absolute best-looking Enterprise was and will always be the Galaxy-Class ship... IMO, nothing will come close to the perfection, detail, and beauty of that filming model and its lines.

 

[Praxius]

Still not a big fan of the D, but I think we're all in agreement that the Ent-J is a pretty horrifying piece of shit, isn't it?

As per my previous post on the subject, I like the new Enterprise over the previous incarnations.... so one can not say "All"

 

[T'Girl]

The original Enterprise is a saucer with three cylinders. There is little detail. It's not far in advance of rocket ships and flying saucers of really old sci-fi.

What I've always found beautiful about the original Enterprise was most of it wasn't designed with a ruler, but with a french curve. While the engines alone are cylinders (tapered cylinders) both the saucer section and the engineering hull have fairly complicated shapes. The underside of saucer had a shallow concavity that was unfortunately lost with the refit. While it does lack the busy "Turkish bazaar" of body panels, sensors, weapons and thrusters, the gentle subtly of it's design does makes it distinctive from it's later offspring.

There are in-universe explanations for it's smoothness (and not just because Kirk was it's Captain). One of the lines you often hear going into combat is "Target their weapons," if you were encountering the Enterprise for the first time, exactly where are those weapons? Even when the Enterprise would do a close fly-by of the camera you couldn't see the phaser ports or the torpedo tube outlets, I believe they were simply covered with doors. Every third episode it seemed Captain Archer's ship was being boarded, Kirk's ship's docking ports are covered with doors (locking doors), same with the thrusters they opened when you needed them.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yeah, I've thought the TOS ship (assuming it "really" did look the way we saw it in TOS) may have been some sort of experiment in non-agressive minimalism that was quickly abandoned (when you apply reverse-continuity from Enterprise and the Kelvin). When you think about it, which is worse - a heavily armed ship with visible gunports, or a heavily armed ship with hidden gunports? What kind of message is that?

 

[JarodRussell]

Real world examples of smooth and undetailed surfaces because important systems are hidden to protect them from the environment, to reduce the radar profile or to be as compact and stable as possible. Things that apply to interstellar travel with possible combat situations as well.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/USS_Jimmy_Carter_%28SSN-23%29_flying_Jack.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/A380_Reveal_1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/USS_Greeneville_in_dry_dock.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/F-35A_in_testing.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ngborg_Anchored-of-Gotska-Sandoen_cropped.jpg

Make of that what you will. I say the TOS design is realistic.

 

[T'Girl]

If you compare a US Navy cruiser and a Russian cruiser, let's be honest, the Russian ship looks truly scary. They're just bristling with weapons. The US ship looks like it has a single little deck gun.

But in a fight the US ship would eat the Russian ship.

 

[RyanKCR]

The original Enterprise is a saucer with three cylinders. There is little detail. It's not far in advance of rocket ships and flying saucers of really old sci-fi.

What I've always found beautiful about the original Enterprise was most of it wasn't designed with a ruler, but with a french curve. While the engines alone are cylinders (tapered cylinders) both the saucer section and the engineering hull have fairly complicated shapes. The underside of saucer had a shallow concavity that was unfortunately lost with the refit. While it does lack the busy "Turkish bazaar" of body panels, sensors, weapons and thrusters, the gentle subtly of it's design does makes it distinctive from it's later offspring.

There are in-universe explanations for it's smoothness (and not just because Kirk was it's Captain). One of the lines you often hear going into combat is "Target their weapons," if you were encountering the Enterprise for the first time, exactly where are those weapons? Even when the Enterprise would do a close fly-by of the camera you couldn't see the phaser ports or the torpedo tube outlets, I believe they were simply covered with doors. Every third episode it seemed Captain Archer's ship was being boarded, Kirk's ship's docking ports are covered with doors (locking doors), same with the thrusters they opened when you needed them.

Every pic and model I have of the reft does have the concavity.

 

[StarryEyed]

While the concavity looks nice, it's dumb. A huge amount of interior volume is lost with a trivial mass savings. It's the only thing the hideous NuEnterprise got right.

 

[sojourner]

The original Enterprise is a saucer with three cylinders. There is little detail. It's not far in advance of rocket ships and flying saucers of really old sci-fi.

What I've always found beautiful about the original Enterprise was most of it wasn't designed with a ruler, but with a french curve. While the engines alone are cylinders (tapered cylinders) both the saucer section and the engineering hull have fairly complicated shapes. The underside of saucer had a shallow concavity that was unfortunately lost with the refit. While it does lack the busy "Turkish bazaar" of body panels, sensors, weapons and thrusters, the gentle subtly of it's design does makes it distinctive from it's later offspring.

There are in-universe explanations for it's smoothness (and not just because Kirk was it's Captain). One of the lines you often hear going into combat is "Target their weapons," if you were encountering the Enterprise for the first time, exactly where are those weapons? Even when the Enterprise would do a close fly-by of the camera you couldn't see the phaser ports or the torpedo tube outlets, I believe they were simply covered with doors. Every third episode it seemed Captain Archer's ship was being boarded, Kirk's ship's docking ports are covered with doors (locking doors), same with the thrusters they opened when you needed them.

The TMP refit definitely still has the undercut concavity. The very similar main hull in Trek XI does not.

 

[scotpens]

While the concavity looks nice, it's dumb.

A saucer-shaped hull is dumb. Especially with a streamlined, teardrop-shaped bulge on top of it. The TOS Enterprise was designed to look sleek, elegant and powerful. Fitting an arrangement of decks and functional spaces into it was of secondary importance to the Hornblower Effect.