The Centaur is missing the deflector, the double pylons, these bridging elements between the pylons, the bump in the middle of the saucer-top, the two bumps on the to the side of that. The whole backside looks different. Apart from that they are basically the same. Like a Ferrari 458 is basically the same as a Ford Model A.
When will the Constitution Class make an appearance?
- Thread starter Syd Shanshala
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The Centaur is missing the deflector, the double pylons, these bridging elements between the pylons, the bump in the middle of the saucer-top, the two bumps on the to the side of that. The whole backside looks different. Apart from that they are basically the same. Like a Ferrari 458 is basically the same as a Ford Model A.
A fitting analogy would have been the Ferrari F430 and the 488. Then you might have had a point. But as it’s stands...
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...Actually, the Centaur does appear to have a dorsal bow deflector just like the Shenzhou. That bit constructed out of a gold-painted Excelsior shuttlebay isn't merely too tiny to hold shuttles, it's also bent so out of shape that there's no way to open those doors (not that there ever really was even originally, but never mind).
Three of the DS9 kitbashes had gold-painted Excelsior shuttlebay doors abused that way, facing forward in a ship downscaled by other bits to a size fraction of the Excelsior. All could be forward-pointing deflector dishes. Or domes, or whatever.
Timo Saloniemi
Three of the DS9 kitbashes had gold-painted Excelsior shuttlebay doors abused that way, facing forward in a ship downscaled by other bits to a size fraction of the Excelsior. All could be forward-pointing deflector dishes. Or domes, or whatever.
Timo Saloniemi
They're iconic for Star Trek, considering how often they're reused and redressed. And considering you made this exact same argument with regards to the Klingon battlecruiser for PRECISELY this reason, you know that perfectly well.
It's almost as if you're confusing your own personal preferences with artistic quality...
Again that’s not what iconic means. Iconic means widely recognized and well-established. It has nothing to do with stock scenes or model reusability.
The TOS Enterprise is widely recognized. Even someone who has never watched Star Trek will instantly recognize it. It has earned its place in the sci-fi fictional spaceships pantheon. That’s why it is in the in the Milestones of Flight Hall exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
Maybe (again maybe) you could make the argument that the TMP Enterprise model is also quite recognized and iconic. You’d have a valid point. You could even make the same argument about the TNG Enterprise-D. Less valid, but still be quite plausible.
But arguing that the Grissom and the Reliant are iconic because of some reusable stock scenes? That’s beyond ludicrous. Ask non Trekkies if they recognize those ships and you’ll be lucky if a couple of them even recognize that they’re from Star Trek.
It seems that it’s you whose confusing your own personal preferences with artistic quality and wide spread recognizability and projecting that to me.
... because those things are recognized as being of high quality in the first place. Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" is considered to be an iconic song. Tom Hanks gave what many consider an iconic performance in "Forest Gump."
On the other hand, there's "the room" which is widely recognized as one of the most films ever made. And pretty much everyone knows what you're alluding to when you use the phrase "wardrobe malfunction." Just because something is widely recognized doesn't make it GOOD, nor does it tell you about the thing's future in TV and cinema.
So has the wilhelm scream. That doesn't mean it belongs in modern action sequences.
I'm not arguing that they're iconic. I'm arguing that, unlike the TOS Enterprise model, they are actually reusable.
Hell, the original robot from "Lost in Space" is at least as iconic as the TOS Enterprise, but you won't see an unmodified version of it on film any time soon (and in fact, the reimagined robot in that terrible Lost in Space film adaptation was one of the few things that nobody actually complained about).
Not at all. Again, just because everyone RECOGNIZES the TOS Enterprise doesn't mean it's a great design or even a great model, let alone one that would stand up to the preferences of modern audiences. The pantheon of science fiction is FULL of things that were great for their time but we will never see again because they are not all that great for OUR time. The TOS Enterprise is one of those designs. I will expect to see that design as a regular on a TV series again when somebody reboots Lost in Space with the original unmodified Jupiter II and Robot
What does TOS design even mean? We only see Constitution class ships in the series that a light years from Federation space and nothing more. I'd say TOS is the most ambiguous of all the series in terms of look since it is the least defined. Every other show created an in-universe look minus TOS (which in the real world is due to budget) but still there is no hard look unless you want to stick to the Franz Joseph designs that in theory are not canon.
As I've said, I expect the ship to be basically the same. I expect it to have a new lighting rig for self illumination, cause that's standard. I expect it will have more surface detail due to TV screens being 4K and stuff. But the shape of the ship and its previous details will remain intact otherwise on the exterior. Especially since we've seen ships with at least some of those details already on them.
The only odd one that I am not certain about is the insignia that is on the side of the ships in TOS...the one that was replaced by the Starfleet Delta on later ships and in DCS. Will that insignia be a special use things for the Constitutions or just replaced with the Delta?
The only odd one that I am not certain about is the insignia that is on the side of the ships in TOS...the one that was replaced by the Starfleet Delta on later ships and in DCS. Will that insignia be a special use things for the Constitutions or just replaced with the Delta?
It's really all or nothing, though.
There are fans that will scream bloody murder if even the slightest detail is changed. Nobody cares about them, though.
Then there are fans that will not care either way. And nobody cares about them, either.
It's just that showing the ship "as is" is a working publicity gimmick that is going to win hearts and minds, while doing anything else is... not. There is no upside to modernizing or modifying the ship, nothing at all to be won. Nobody will cheer and pay more for that.
Things could still be neutral, as there's nothing to be won or lost by showing a fifteen-nacelled NCC-1701, either. It's just that Trek has never done anything of the sort, and DSC specifically has not tried that stuff, either. Trek often goes forward with stuff that makes us go "Huh?" or "Rapedchildhoodgonnawatchsolelytogripe!", depending. But Trek doesn't go back that way. Because, well, nostalgia only works if it's the old stuff all over again.
Timo Saloniemi
There are fans that will scream bloody murder if even the slightest detail is changed. Nobody cares about them, though.
Then there are fans that will not care either way. And nobody cares about them, either.
It's just that showing the ship "as is" is a working publicity gimmick that is going to win hearts and minds, while doing anything else is... not. There is no upside to modernizing or modifying the ship, nothing at all to be won. Nobody will cheer and pay more for that.
Things could still be neutral, as there's nothing to be won or lost by showing a fifteen-nacelled NCC-1701, either. It's just that Trek has never done anything of the sort, and DSC specifically has not tried that stuff, either. Trek often goes forward with stuff that makes us go "Huh?" or "Rapedchildhoodgonnawatchsolelytogripe!", depending. But Trek doesn't go back that way. Because, well, nostalgia only works if it's the old stuff all over again.
Timo Saloniemi
The TOS Enterprise was recently restored and is being displayed in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Unless The Room was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, or unless the American Film Institute chose The Room as part of its AFI 100 Years... series, I hardly see it as a fitting analogy.
That’s because Akiva Goldsman and Stephen Hopkins made such a terrible stinking mess of a movie that the Robot was the least of its problems.
And because LiS '98 was a REMAKE, not a prequel.
Imagine if somehow the BBC made a modern production of Doctor Who and they still used that 1960s stupid blue police box of a starship! Maybe it was great for its time but we will never see that again because it will look silly in OUR time and MODERN audiences won’t have that! Oh, wait...
And yet it is still being used in modern films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Pirates of the Caribbean! It was in both Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens and in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story! Why? Because it’s iconic! And because in STAR WARS they RESPECT their HISTORY AND ICONOGRAPHY!
In Star Trek, too, certain alien makeup issues notwithstanding. 
But Rogue One goes a step further and not merely reproduces the 1970s spacecraft in excruciating detail but also applies the 1970s aesthetic on aspects of the universe previously unseen, such as the facial hair of all-new side characters... That's really going the extra lightyear.
I expect nothing less from a franchise that gave us the retro of ST 2009, ST:ID and ST:B (even if they chose a different decade to retro initially).
Timo Saloniemi
But Rogue One goes a step further and not merely reproduces the 1970s spacecraft in excruciating detail but also applies the 1970s aesthetic on aspects of the universe previously unseen, such as the facial hair of all-new side characters... That's really going the extra lightyear.
I expect nothing less from a franchise that gave us the retro of ST 2009, ST:ID and ST:B (even if they chose a different decade to retro initially).
Timo Saloniemi
Probably an unpopular opinion but as iconic as it is, the TOS Enterprise looks bland and would look out of place in Discovery.
If it ever shows up the Constitution class has to be redesigned, it needs more surface detail, new nacelle struts and nacelles, no satellite dish and way more and bigger windows.
The difference with Star Wars is that those ship designs were being build more than a decade later for a cinematic release with a higher budget, that gave them a huge advantage. Of course you can still use a star destroyer or the millenium falcon, just like you can still use the movie enterprise and other ships from that era.
If it ever shows up the Constitution class has to be redesigned, it needs more surface detail, new nacelle struts and nacelles, no satellite dish and way more and bigger windows.
The difference with Star Wars is that those ship designs were being build more than a decade later for a cinematic release with a higher budget, that gave them a huge advantage. Of course you can still use a star destroyer or the millenium falcon, just like you can still use the movie enterprise and other ships from that era.
So was the space shuttle Discovery. Just because something is a place in history doesn't mean it still works in the present.
Interesting that Goldsman is now in charge of revamping Discovery in much the same way...
In what has become a deliberate and obvious anachronism such that even characters IN THE SHOW think it looks silly? I'm not sure that would work for Star Trek.
Saru: "There's a ship approaching to starboard... Constitution class. NCC-1701."
Lorca: "The Enterprise. Captain Pike in command."
Saru: "I've never seen a Constitution class in person Sir... why does it look like it was designed by a 1960s pulp magazine artist?"
Lorca: "Come on, Saru, it's a classic design! It's like the '68 Camaro! Don't mess with perfection!"
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of...
Are you somehow under the impression that this is a good thing?
I see your point, but I think you are mixing two very distinct things up here:
One being adding detail and the other being redesigning.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that if the classic Enterprise appears in DIS, it needs to have massively more detail. But it shouldn't be re-designed. The design itself is iconic. But! They need to add hull textures. Gice the dish more details. Make it so you can actually look into the windows. Add modern light effects to the nacelle bulbs. It needs to be at the same level of surface detail as the rest of the series (in the same way, the Connie on ENT had the same level of surface texture as the NX_01, or the model in DS9's Tribble episode was on par with the station in surface detail. But it shouldn't be changed.
In fact: That's exactly what happened in Rogue One. if you think those Star Destroyers were the same ones as in A new Hope, you're wrong. The one's in A new Hope didn't have any light effects (aka "windows") and were lacking many other hull details. Those appeared the first time in Empire Strikes Back, when they created an entire new model for the standard star destroyer. Yet, the makers of Rogue One decided to use the far less detailed "New Hope" versions (there are visible differences between the two), but add so many details and hull texture that they look like they came from a newer production.
What Rahul said. You can make TOS Constitution class work, it needs a lot of very careful loving work. It needs lots of detail. It IS an iconic design, that everyone knows. But that doesn't mean it can't be visually updated so that it doesn't look like a cheap plastic toy next to more detailed models.
TMP Enterprise on the other hand still "works" .
TMP Enterprise on the other hand still "works" .
Funny you should mention that, because the exterior of the TARDIS has changed, and quite a few times over the years too. I personally can't spot the differences, but a dedicated Whovian probably can, just like we can spot any minuscule difference to the Enterprise. But a more casual fan probably doesn't see much difference between the TOS Enterprise and the 2009 Enterprise.
Now the interior of the TARDIS, that's where it gets interesting.
