Why not just use the pilot design?

[3D Master]

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd534.jpg

This doesn't reflect the current/modern design aesthetic.

Actually, it does.

There is nothing of that ship that couldn't be designed today. You only THINK it doesn't because you happen to be watching it for however long you've been watching Trek, and you know it's designed in the 60s.

But if you didn't know it, and you'd never seen a starship design before, you wouldn't notice anything out of time at all.

The reason given by people in favor of the change is that "the ship would be rejected by modern audiences." This is a totally unproven (and so far unprovable) hypothesis.

This is a new take on Star Trek. The idea is to take a franchise that has been exhausted and sterile for many many years, and to retool it for a mainstream audience. In order to make the plan work, the idea you gotta sell to the general audience is that "this is not your father's Star Trek". It's not the same old thing. It's something new.

Except for that annoying problem that the NEW Trek, that the producers called, "not your daddy's Trek", was the sterile and exhausted franchise, and not TOS.

Nor that the design of the ship has anything to do with the why the franchise had gone stale.

Since we're talking about a story that takes place on a starship, it is vitally important that said starship, while still recognizable as the Enterprise, is distinct from the original model. Otherwise, what you're telling the audience is "this is not your father's Star Trek, but for some inscrutable reason, it takes place on your father's Enterprise". That wouldn't work. Simple common sense.

Except for that annoying problem, that the audience supposedly can NOT see the difference between the old and the new ship. So by your account, the ship isn't different enough. It should be triangle with rectacular nacelles underneath, or something.

Simple fact is, if they designed a ship that the audience can't tell from the old ship, than they could have just as easily used the old ship. Or in other words, they did NOT redesign the Enterprise to show "it wasn't your daddy's Trek" and your just sucking bullshit out of your thumb.

The JJprise will become dated more quickly. Sure, it looks new now but it won't hold up over time. It's too showy and stylized.

So what? It's pop culture - what does it matter if it looks dated in ten years as long as it look good now?

It doesn't look good now, it's a mismatched turd.

 

[Blip]

The ship underwent just as radical a redesign between TOS and TMP, and no one cared.

Have you honestly ever heard anyone say the refit was fugly? Because it sure as hell isn't - even to the most intellectually and visually stunted fanw@nking 12 year-old, that ship is a beautiful design.

This ...thing... from Abrams is most certainly not.

 

[ST-One]

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd534.jpg

This doesn't reflect the current/modern design aesthetic.

Actually, it does.

There is nothing of that ship that couldn't be designed today. You only THINK it doesn't because you happen to be watching it for however long you've been watching Trek, and you know it's designed in the 60s.

But if you didn't know it, and you'd never seen a starship design before, you wouldn't notice anything out of time at all.

True, there is nothing on that ship which couldn't be designed today.
But that ship also doesn't look like anything which would be designed today.

 

[Sci]

The ship underwent just as radical a redesign between TOS and TMP, and no one cared.

Have you honestly ever heard anyone say the refit was fugly? Because it sure as hell isn't - even to the most intellectually and visually stunted fanw@nking 12 year-old, that ship is a beautiful design.

This ...thing... from Abrams is most certainly not.

Well, first off, yes, I have, honestly, heard people say that they found the TMP design to be ugly. I've been on this board for over five years, I've seen thousands of posts, and, yes, there is, invariably, someone out there who hates what almost everyone else loves.

Secondly, when I said, "No one cared," I wasn't referring to their evaluation of whether or not the ship was ugly, I was referring to whether or not they cared about a so-called "continuity violation." And no one cared about the contradiction between the Enterprise's appearance in TOS vs. TMP because they could just say that the refit she'd undergone explained the difference (even though the film itself never actually claimed that the refit had changed the ship's appearance -- for all someone watching TMP with no knowledge of TOS might know, the ship had always looked that way and the new stuff was all on the inside).

Anyone who's really bothered by the apparent contradiction between the TOS and Abrams ships can just say there was a refit before TOS.

(BTW, I actually agree that I find the new ship ugly. But I believe that a willingness to be creative and experiment and to be willing to fall flat on their faces is a good thing, so I'll take a bad ship design and a willingness to take creative chances over a good ship design and an unwillingness to take creative chances.)

 

[Vance]

True, there is nothing on that ship which couldn't be designed today.
But that ship also doesn't look like anything which would be designed today.

The USAF, USN, Chinese Navy, Chinese Air Guard, Russian Armed Forces, and the European Space Administration would all like to have a word with you.

 

[3D Master]

Did TMP claim that was the way the ship always had looked?

No. TMP claimed that the ship underwent an extensive refit, such to the point that its technology level jumped from something from a low-budget 60s sci-fi show to a high-budget late 70s sci-fi film.

The ship underwent just as radical a redesign between TOS and TMP, and no one cared.

There is no indication whatsoever that this new film will claim that the new design is how the Enterprise had always looked, and there is no reason to think that the ship couldn't have undergone an extensive refit some time prior to TOS to bring it in line with the original depiction of the ship.

Except for that annoying problem that we have seen the ship quite a chunk BEFORE the original series, aka The Cage, and looks pretty much the same then as in the series. It most certainly didn't look like that misshapen, cobbled together turd that is the JJprise.

As I said in another thread:

Why not change it? Why does the decision to change it have to be justified, especially since, as I noted above, it's completely arbitrary either way and neither option is objectively superior?

Why can't you just have creativity for creativity's sake instead of justifying it like it's a goddamn senior thesis?

Because it is NOT creative. It is UNcreative, not to mention LAZY. (On top of that, it's UGLY, misshapen, a ship that seems to be built rapidly at a desperate time, taking a saucer from one ship-class, a engineering hull from another, and then stuffing the nacelles from another ship on it. Lay it side by side with one of similar ugly kitbashes you see flying around in the BOBW starship graveyard, you'll find they have similar eastethics; that is misshapen, missized, and missmatched.)

Anyone can take a design that's been around for 40 years, declare it "too sixties", then do a quick, uncreative redesign to supposedly make it look more sleek, and "kewl", and then bounce around at how "kewl" your ship is and have it fly about.

It would actually take creativity and effort, to do some research, find technical manuals, find out how the ship works, why it works, find fan remodels, and let the design work on you, and banish your pre-conceived notions, and realize; "Dang! This ship is majestic and amazing; I don't need to redesign this; I just need to give it the big screen treatment, both in the remodeling and showing it on screen."

Now THAT would have been creative.

 

[Sci]

True, there is nothing on that ship which couldn't be designed today.
But that ship also doesn't look like anything which would be designed today.

The USAF, USN, Chinese Navy, Chinese Air Guard, Russian Armed Forces, and the European Space Administration would all like to have a word with you.

Am I the only one who doesn't even GIVE A SHIT if the ship looks like something that would be designed today?

Besides, if the film's set 300 years into the future, shouldn't it look like something that wouldn't and couldn't be designed today? The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan or the Ohio-class submarines certainly don't look like anything that could have been envisioned in 1695.

 

[JuanBolio]

The ship underwent just as radical a redesign between TOS and TMP, and no one cared.

Have you honestly ever heard anyone say the refit was fugly? Because it sure as hell isn't - even to the most intellectually and visually stunted fanw@nking 12 year-old, that ship is a beautiful design.

This ...thing... from Abrams is most certainly not.

I dunno... it doesn't look too bad to me at all:

...from Ancient.

 

[Vance]

Besides, if the film's set 300 years into the future, shouldn't it look like something that wouldn't and couldn't be designed today? The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan or the Ohio-class submarines certainly don't look like anything that could have been envisioned in 1695.

I was just saying that his point was invalid, nothing more.

 

[Sci]

Did TMP claim that was the way the ship always had looked?

No. TMP claimed that the ship underwent an extensive refit, such to the point that its technology level jumped from something from a low-budget 60s sci-fi show to a high-budget late 70s sci-fi film.

The ship underwent just as radical a redesign between TOS and TMP, and no one cared.

There is no indication whatsoever that this new film will claim that the new design is how the Enterprise had always looked, and there is no reason to think that the ship couldn't have undergone an extensive refit some time prior to TOS to bring it in line with the original depiction of the ship.

Except for that annoying problem that we have seen the ship quite a chunk BEFORE the original series, aka The Cage, and looks pretty much the same then as in the series.

"What do you think, Jose? Like the new ship?"

"Yes, I do, Captain Pike! I especially like those new warp nacelles they installed. They may not look as curvy as the old ones, but I can tell from only a few days out of spacedock that they're faster. You might say that we've cracked a 'time barrier,' even!"

"Hahahahaha!"

"Oh, by the way, I'm getting a signal from the SS Columbia from Talos IV. Wanna head down there?"

As I said in another thread:

Why not change it? Why does the decision to change it have to be justified, especially since, as I noted above, it's completely arbitrary either way and neither option is objectively superior?

Why can't you just have creativity for creativity's sake instead of justifying it like it's a goddamn senior thesis?

Because it is NOT creative. It is UNcreative, not to mention LAZY. (On top of that, it's UGLY, misshapen, <SNIP>

We get it, you dislike the ship. Guess what? I do too. I would have preferred to see the TOS Enterprise onscreen.

But when I used the term "creativity," I wasn't referring to individual creative choices. I was referring to a willingness to do something different to take creative chances. Yes, that means some of their choices will fall on their face. I would argue that this new ship is an example of a creative choice that fell on its face, and so would you.

But unlike you, I'm not going to let one or two creative choices I disagree with bother me, because I think that the WILLINGNESS TO DO SOMETHING NO ONE HAS DONE BEFORE is a good thing and is more important than individual creative failures.

And, no, there would have been nothing creative about using the TOS ship. That would have been playing it safe.

 

[3D Master]

This doesn't reflect the current/modern design aesthetic.

Actually, it does.

There is nothing of that ship that couldn't be designed today. You only THINK it doesn't because you happen to be watching it for however long you've been watching Trek, and you know it's designed in the 60s.

But if you didn't know it, and you'd never seen a starship design before, you wouldn't notice anything out of time at all.

True, there is nothing on that ship which couldn't be designed today.
But that ship also doesn't look like anything which would be designed today.

No, actually, it WOULD be designed today, if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't already designed, and thus copyrighted and trademarked, people would coming up with it today just as it could have been back then.

In fact, it DID. Look at new Battlestar. If it wasn't for the fact that it had to look somewhat like the old Battlestar, and it didn't have to be much more primitive than the Enterprise was; something we could potentially build before this century is even over, it's the Enterprise.

Same smooth look, same functional compact design, it's even got the ffing nacelles - 4 of 'em instead of 2, but it's got 'em. Compare it with the 70's industrial look of the old Battlestar, and then the Enterpirse. The same basic design aestethics as the original 60's Enterprise are in the new Battlestar. It's no wonder the original Enterprise is one of the ships in the rag tag fleet; it fits there.

Now take a look the new Enterprise. What does the new Enterprise look more like? The 70's battlestar. If there's a ship that looks dated; it's the new Enterprise, not the old.

 

[Blip]

Well, first off, yes, I have, honestly, heard people say that they found the TMP design to be ugly. I've been on this board for over five years, I've seen thousands of posts, and, yes, there is, invariably, someone out there who hates what almost everyone else loves.

I've been here for longer. Clearly, I forgot to point out the under-12s, and the over-30s who are still fanwanking over multi-vector assault mode, quantum bat-armour super-duper multitemporalphasic torpedofiring ships o' doom... Yes people, you know who you are.

Secondly, when I said, "No one cared," I wasn't referring to their evaluation of whether or not the ship was ugly, I was referring to whether or not they cared about a so-called "continuity violation." And no one cared about the contradiction between the Enterprise's appearance in TOS vs. TMP because they could just say that the refit she'd undergone explained the difference.

That's my point - if she hadn't been so great to look at, do you think there would have been as much acceptance of the refit? I certainly don't.

Anyone who's really bothered by the apparent contradiction between the TOS and Abrams ships can just say there was a refit before TOS.

Or wait for some creative soul to re-edit the movie like some gifted folks did to George Lucas' "special" editions of the SW trilogy.

 

[ST-One]

Besides, if the film's set 300 years into the future, shouldn't it look like something that wouldn't and couldn't be designed today? The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan or the Ohio-class submarines certainly don't look like anything that could have been envisioned in 1695.

I was just saying that his point was invalid, nothing more.

Have you had a look at todays car-designs, airplane-designs?

 

[Vance]

Have you had a look at todays car-designs, airplane-designs?

Obviously you haven't. Show me how these designs invalidate the classic Enterprise? Please. Just because something is 'blinged out' with chrome and high fenders and all that doesn't automatically mean that it's a good idea on every other structural design in existance.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

True, there is nothing on that ship which couldn't be designed today. But that ship also doesn't look like anything which would be designed today.

Depends on who's doing the designing, now, doesn't it?

Lots of things being designed today look more like the TOS ship than they do like the "new" version.

Let's talk interiors for the moment. Most of what you see in the interior is "Macintosh-ish." But look at the average PC-type computer today, and you'll see silver, grey, black... various multicolored lights.

The sets we see for the Enterprise in this film would have been perfectly matched to what we saw in "Space 1999." Seriously... compare the two side-by-side.

It's NOT ABOUT WHEN IT WAS DONE. It's just about "personal style." Nothing more, nothing less. The guys doing the design on this film are "Mac" guys... they're "arteeest" types. Nothin' wrong with that... it's just another style. The problem is that there are folks who are arrogantly presuming that any other style but their own is "bad" or "outdated" or whatever. That's ludicrous.

If this were something entirely new, the "new style" would be perfectly valid. Nobody's saying otherwise. The argument isn't that the new style is an inferior style... just that it's a style which is inconsistent with what we already know. (Now, the EXECUTION of that "new style" has been pretty shoddy... as the damned bar-code-scanners which the set-dressers assumed none of us would recognize... probably because they, personally, would never be caught dead in a store where those things are used, such stores being "so pedestrian")

The problem isn't that... it's that some of you guys are pretending that one style (the original) is inherently INFERIOR to the "new" style. And if anyone says otherwise, they're simply "bitterly clinging to their old trek" (right along with their guns and religion, I presume). It's insulting.

Do a new show... go crazy with any new style you want. Do a new ship in the same universe, and you can do the same... just pretend that whoever designed this ship had a different design style.

But for cryin' out loud... stop pretending that somehow the "old style" is IMPLICITLY INFERIOR and thus has to be replaced. That's a lie, nothing more or less.

The "old style" is seen, far more commonly, in today's "high-tech" than the supposed "new one" (which isn't really "new" at all) is.

 

[ST-One]

Actually, it does.

There is nothing of that ship that couldn't be designed today. You only THINK it doesn't because you happen to be watching it for however long you've been watching Trek, and you know it's designed in the 60s.

But if you didn't know it, and you'd never seen a starship design before, you wouldn't notice anything out of time at all.

True, there is nothing on that ship which couldn't be designed today.
But that ship also doesn't look like anything which would be designed today.

No, actually, it WOULD be designed today, if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't already designed, and thus copyrighted and trademarked, people would coming up with it today just as it could have been back then.

In fact, it DID. Look at new Battlestar. If it wasn't for the fact that it had to look somewhat like the old Battlestar, and it didn't have to be much more primitive than the Enterprise was; something we could potentially build before this century is even over, it's the Enterprise.

Same smooth look, same functional compact design, it's even got the ffing nacelles - 4 of 'em instead of 2, but it's got 'em. Compare it with the 70's industrial look of the old Battlestar, and then the Enterpirse. The same basic design aestethics as the original 60's Enterprise are in the new Battlestar. It's no wonder the original Enterprise is one of the ships in the rag tag fleet; it fits there.

Now take a look the new Enterprise. What does the new Enterprise look more like? The 70's battlestar. If there's a ship that looks dated; it's the new Enterprise, not the old.

The new Galactica has nothing, at all, in common with the design aesthetics of the original Enterprise.

And the addition of the old Enterprise into that shot was an in-joke of the VFX-company and not really welcomed by those in charge of the mini-series.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Well, first off, yes, I have, honestly, heard people say that they found the TMP design to be ugly. I've been on this board for over five years, I've seen thousands of posts, and, yes, there is, invariably, someone out there who hates what almost everyone else loves.

I've been here for longer. Clearly, I forgot to point out the under-12s, and the over-30s who are still fanwanking over multi-vector assault mode, quantum bat-armour super-duper multitemporalphasic torpedofiring ships o' doom... Yes people, you know who you are.

Secondly, when I said, "No one cared," I wasn't referring to their evaluation of whether or not the ship was ugly, I was referring to whether or not they cared about a so-called "continuity violation." And no one cared about the contradiction between the Enterprise's appearance in TOS vs. TMP because they could just say that the refit she'd undergone explained the difference.

That's my point - if she hadn't been so great to look at, do you think there would have been as much acceptance of the refit? I certainly don't.

Anyone who's really bothered by the apparent contradiction between the TOS and Abrams ships can just say there was a refit before TOS.

Or wait for some creative soul to re-edit the movie like some gifted folks did to George Lucas' "special" editions of the SW trilogy.

I'm hoping that they can also "Gump-ify" the interior sets to accomplish the same thing. Even if it's low-res, video-resolution only, it'll be worth seeing.

 

[ST-One]

Have you had a look at todays car-designs, airplane-designs?

Obviously you haven't. Show me how these designs invalidate the classic Enterprise? Please. Just because something is 'blinged out' with chrome and high fenders and all that doesn't automatically mean that it's a good idea on every other structural design in existance.

The point is the design is dated.
As evidenced by it being 40 years old.
It has 1960s written all over it.
It's a beautiful design. So was the RMS Titanic. Both are still dated designs.

 

[ST-One]

But for cryin' out loud... stop pretending that somehow the "old style" is IMPLICITLY INFERIOR and thus has to be replaced. That's a lie, nothing more or less.

You don't even accidentally get something right, do you?
I never even would imply that she is inferior.
I love the old Enterprise.
That still doesn't mean that her design isn't dated.

 

[Vance]

The point is the design is dated.
As evidenced by it being 40 years old.
It has 1960s written all over it.
It's a beautiful design. So was the RMS Titanic. Both are still dated designs.

And, to me, this 'new' design looks like it came out of a 1978 NBC program from Glen Larson. It looks more dated now because it has nothing about it that's functional as the main aspect of the design. So, yes, when I see the TOS-R Enterprise next to this one, the new design looks more dated.

Why? Because it's very faddy, very CGI, and very much born of the 'kewl for the moment' mindset which plagues everything Hollywood touches these days. Like the Enterprise-E, the ship will have to be redone and retouched AGAIN if there's a sequel, because it will already look 'hopelessly old and dated', because the design fads will have passed in the meantime.