Why does the Kelvin look ahead of its time?

[Sharr Khan]

^It is definitely clunky and used looking. Damn Star Wars aesthetic!

That's one of things I liked about this movie things had a certain function-ness/used look to them. Even the brand new Enterprise everything felt really tactile.

And I loved the Kelvin uniforms. For some reason I have the impression that each ship has its own uniform in this reality.

Sharr

 

[Cyke101]

I actually do think the Kelvin looks more primitive than the Prime 1701. It has a big clunky nacelle and a big ol' chunky Baton Rouge-y saucer section. And it looks used. Really used.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with that, too. For one thing, I love that the Kelvin has a TOS style saucer but close to NX-01-style phase cannon turrets (if you can call them that, but clearly a descendant of the pop-out design). The bridge looks cramped and dirty, less advanced than the TOS bridge. For all we know, those "simplistic" panels in the Prime universe do more than the Kelvin, and we certainly know they did more than the NX-01 (for that matter, the NX-01 itself looks almost too advanced for its time). On top of that, Kelvin's engineering section looks like a complete and utter steampunk mess, a far cry from James Doohan's usual digs.

 

[starburst]

The argument about the Kelvin (and the Enterprise) looking more advanced than that shown in TOS rests mainly on one thing, exposed hull panels. There was the same argument when the NX-01 was first released that seeing the plates made it look more advanced because we were used to seeing that as the post TMP aesthetic.

If anything I would expect a pre TOS ship to have exposed hull plating, the only argument externally for it looking more advanced would be the TMP style phasers (could be said werent present on the TOS ship due to lack of detail on the model) and the glowing deflector dish which nicely merges features of the original and refit Enterprise.

Just a few thoughts

 

[roguephoenix]

because plastic curtains are always in style!

 

[Jeri]

Well, that is true; those vinyl strips on the hatches were pretty fashion forward. I liked 'em. They make a nice crinkle sound.

 

[Sector 7]

Personally I think we should all just forget TOS and how things looked there. It doesn't look like OUR future. It was the future of the 60s. The future of the 00s is clearly different. We cannot accept that what was portrayed as the 2200s in the 1960s is what could possibly come after what we have now in the 2000s. It's just entirely illogical. Some things like the design of the Enterprise I can accept, or the uniform in general. But the design of the bridge? I'm totally cool with that being changed completely.

Damn you and your logic! This has been my belief since the first stills were released.

 

[Cyke101]

On the issue of TOS looking more primitive than the Kelvin or the NX-01...

As much as we deride the bridge of the Enterprise as looking like an Apple store, I'm reminded of the dial. A decade ago we laughed off the dial as being primitive. We got rid of it from our TVs and music devices, and car radios are becoming increasingly button-based. Yet an Apple product, specifically the iPod, brought back the dial and expanded it to be far more intuitive and versatile.

I imagine that TOS essentially did to jelly bean-colored buttons what Apple did to the dial. The Kelvin could, in that respect, look more complicated but actually be more primitive than TOS' "streamlined" controls.

 

[Nick Ryder]

Oh the dial... how I miss you so. You used to go to 11.

 

[Cyke101]

Oh the dial... how I miss you so. You used to go to 11.

Pike always punched it to 11!

 

[NickInABox]

Robau made a few modifications.

/thread

 

[Sparky]

And I loved the Kelvin uniforms.For some reason I have the impression that each ship has its own uniform in this reality.

Sharr

I kind of like this idea. Really, why not? Everything else seemed to have a different uniform. I think we saw more uniform styles in this movie than all 6 original movies combined.

 

[Akalabeth]

Eh what's with this comparison to the apple store?
"Oh gosh! Computers! Oh goodness! White Computers! White + Computers = Apple!!!!"

please.

It just looked clean and sterile, something you would expect from the federation in my mind. And whenever the Klingons hit the screen we'll see just what a difference there is in aesthetics and choices of decor. The white also helps the characters in their blue and red uniforms to better stand out in my opinion.


As for the Kelvin, who knows. Look at the Star Wars prequel. Everything in those movies look SO much more advanced than the original trilogy. And then they show the Corellian Corvette at the end of ep3 and it looks totally out of place, like some square block hammered into a round hole for the sake of continuity.

I think some of the concepts are different. But more advanced? Hmmn. Like other people have said, it looks more advanced compared to the TOS Enterprise but compared to the ST09 enterprise it is very inferior especially in terms of weaponry. Those little pop gun turrets seem pretty lacking.

Regarding uniforms, recall that the Kelvin episode happened 22 years before the rest of the movie so it makes sense that the uniforms would or could have changed.

The idea of different uniforms was already in effect in TOS. Recall from Doomsday that the captain had a different insignia on his chest. Other officers have had other insignia as well. Though I don't think anything similar was introduced in this movie. Could be wrong.

 

[teacherbrock]

Is there an in-universe explanation for why the Kelvin looks ahead-of-its-time prior to the timline-altering meet-up with Nero? It already looks like the Con-refit-style from TMP-TFF era. The uniforms and interior design are all different from what would have been a generation before WNMHGB.

If the answer is simply, "It's a movie," I can live with that fine.

Are we perhaps not seeing, at the film's start, the "original timeline" we had come to know, but a slightly different one that itself gets altered by Nero?

Because when Ent-E when back in time and altered First Contact the worldline diverged giving rise to ENT-NX(named such because Zephrim was told the name of the ship from the future). The divergent past gave rise to the Kelvin which in turn was destroyed when Spock Prime and the Narada went in the blackhole cuasing the abramsverse to begin.