Why not just use the pilot design?

[sebialex]

I think the constitution class is rather ugly, but I'm still going to watch the movie. I wasn't too crazy about the Galaxy class (it grew on me, I actually like it quite a bit), I still watched TNG. DS9 station was not too attractive, but I still watched the show because I liked the characters (the introduction of the Defiant was awesome though). The ship that I actually like the most is the Sovereign class. I really wonder how they would redesign the Galaxy and the Sovereign, using the new artistic approach.

 

[Trekker4747]

I think the constitution class is rather ugly, but I'm still going to watch the movie. I wasn't too crazy about the Galaxy class (it grew on me, I actually like it quite a bit), I still watched TNG. DS9 station was not too attractive, but I still watched the show because I liked the characters (the introduction of the Defiant was awesome though). The ship that I actually like the most is the Sovereign class. I really wonder how they would redesign the Galaxy and the Sovereign, using the new artistic approach.

And this is all I need to know.

 

[3D Master]

At the point in Star Trek in which the technology is proven enough that they are building starships with M-AM reactors at their core, then I think they have a grasp on the technology enough to build a ship safely on the ground.

Hell we have nuclear reactors on Earth today, and if one went off, it would cause great destruction. However, we have proven the technology as safe enough to build many nuclear reactors, and have fleets of ships powered by them.

Sorry, but no, a nuclear reactor melting down does NOT cause great destruction. It causes some leaking of radiation, which could cause a lot of death, and some diseases, but not much destruction.

A M-AM reactor goes wrong though, there's no in between, there's no leaking a bit, there's no time to rectify a problem; there's only BOOM. And depending on how much anti-matter you have stored near your reactor, that's going to be a mighty boom.

Besides, it doesn't matter whether it's safe or not, what matters is what happens to the Starship construction if and when it fails. One Earth, that equals crashing down and killing who knows how many engineers instantly. In space, nothing happens.

 

[Sci]

No, it's a sign that I'm intolerant of intolerance. That I believe in giving new works of art a legitimate chance and not assuming that only one fundamental premise for a work of art is valid...

No. It's not that I don't see where others are coming from. I do. It's that I think they're wrong, and more to the point, that the attitudes they're espousing are actually dangerous to artistic freedom.

Intolerance of intolerance is intolerance.

Of intolerance.

You can't advocate tolerance without also advocating intolerance of intolerance. To do otherwise is logically inconsistent.

But from this I'm guessing that you will attack anyone who is critical of anything.

Hardly. I'm critical of the new ship design. I don't like the way the nacelles almost look like jet engines.

But I will attack the idea that they shouldn't even do something new in the first place.

And you are placing yourself in the position of the thought police? You'll kindly let us know exactly how we should react to other things in the world I suppose. Everyone should have the exact same taste (defined by you) and anyone who thinks differently should be beaten into submission... is that it?

That is not an expression of artistic freedom... that is totalitarianism.

Again with the victimization hyperbole. I didn't say I'd do anything to anyone. I said I'd argue back against someone who argued against someone else's creative freedom. That's it. I'm not bringing down the power of the state upon you or threatening violence, and your inability to distinguish between someone making an argument and actually threatening others is absurd.

Sorry, but that is saying that you want us all to march in lockstep, think only with approved thoughts and don't question authority.

Only if by saying that people ought to accept that other people have the right to make whatever art they want to and that it's inappropriate to argue that they should or should not make certain types of art equates to saying that people should only have approved thoughts. I'm not sure how exactly arguing that artists should be able to create works of art people may not approve of equates to saying that people should only think approved thoughts, but, hey, don't let me stop you from getting on the victimization train.

And I know you are going to say... but wait, I just want to give something new a chance. But that isn't what you are showing. You want us all to see it as you see it,

I want everyone to think the new Enterprise is ugly, has way too much blue and white and not enough red, and its interiors look like an Apple store?

I don't even like the new Enterprise or the new aesthetic. The difference is, I don't think there's anything wrong with a work of art whose aesthetic I dislike. I think it's wrong to advocate for the suppression of an artist's creative vision.

Spider-man, Superman, Batman, Bond... those works are very extensive and have been ever growing... like Star Trek. The King Arthur story stopped growing and has not had additional story arcs added for years.

If you're seriously going to say that, then I would say you are incorrect. Just look at the works of Marion Zimmer Bradley, for instance, whose novel The Mists of Avalon completely re-developed the Arthurian legend from a feminist perspective and then launched a series of its own. Or Peter David's Knight Life cycle, about a reincarnated King Arthur becoming Mayor of New York and President of the United States. Or Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles. Or literally dozens of artists who are not just re-telling the Arthurian legend but who are using it to tell NEW stories.

I'm astonished that you hold such a beautiful and classic story in such low regard. As far as I'm concerned, comparing Star Trek to The Wizard of Oz is a compliment.

I never said low regard, it is not comparable in the same way that the King Arthur story isn't (or Shakespeare's works for that matter).

There are very few artistic canvases as extensive as Star Trek's. With a small canvas, you can't help but paint over the same area again, and again, and again. Star Trek has let tons of people express different visions in a collaborative work of art. This movie marks the first time that someone has decided to paint over someone else's work rather than pick a blank area on the canvas to start.

It's not painting over someone else's work -- it's doing a new painting based on the old one. The old one isn't being eliminated -- it'll still be out there for anyone to see and enjoy.

And again, why shouldn't they be allowed to do a new version of the old story? What's wrong with that? Clearly you'd prefer that they just add to the pre-existing canvas, but why shouldn't they be able to take a selection from it and make a new painting based upon it? Why shouldn't Star Trek grow to encompass multiple canvasses instead of just one?

Your examples fail to take this into account.

No, I just think it's a false distinction. Especially considering that the Oz stories are themselves a large canvass encompassing many different novels, of which only one has been adapted and re-adapted and re-interpreted multiple times over multiple media. Yet no one here complains that multiple interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz -- from the original novel to the 1939 film version to the animated TV series to The Wiz to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire to the Broadway musical Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, in any way undermines Baum's original works, or that the fact that he wrote other Oz novels means that the original can't be re-interpreted for new audiences in new circumstances.

I've explained already: I get angry at people that seek to inhibit other people's creativity and artistic freedom, so I argue back at them. It's really that simple.

Who is inhibiting here?

No one is inhibiting anyone. I said, "I get angry at people that seek to inhibit other people's creativity and artistic freedom." In other words, yes, I get angry when I hear that someone wants to prevent an artist from creating a work of art and I argue against the validity of that desire.

I didn't imply anything... I stated that you are (based on your posts) incapable of seeing beyond your own arguments.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not I understand the benefits of a shared and consistent continuity. Are you chronically incapable of sticking to one topic at a time?

No, you're talking about feelings. I'm talking about artistic freedom and always have been.

And yet you advocate totalitarianism... which isn't freedom.

Arguing against the desire of others to inhibit an artist's creative vision is not totalitarianism, and the fact that you are making such an absurd equation undermines everything you say.

The fact that you actually think you can is far worse than the strawman argument people (like you) bring about others supposedly thinking Trek science is real. You are (appearently) living in a delusional world where we all have the power to stop this movie from coming out and you are fighting against that. Do you know how bizarre a position that is?

Thank you for putting more words in my mouth. Except, of course, that I never said that. What I said was that the general attitude, the general desire, to inhibit an artist's ability to create a work of art is itself dangerous to artistic freedom in general. I wasn't talking specifically about Star Trek when I said that -- I was referring to artistic freedom in general.

I have no empathy -- nor sympathy -- for people who want to inhibit other people's works of art.

I'll ask again... is there some kill switch for Star Trek XI that I don't know about?

No. But there are, for instance, New York City Mayors who seek to shut down museum displays of art they don't approve of. If people argue against the general attitudes of wanting to inhibit artistic freedom at the ground level, at the person-to-person level, then hopefully in the future, with regards to other forms of art, those who seek to censor others will never gain the kind of widespread support they'd generally need to censor (whether through the power of the government or through the power of the pocketbook).

<SNIP>My home wasn't threatened (I live on the other side of the street) but I can have both empathy and sympathy for those people. But nothing will bring back what they lost.

That's a horrible story. But no one is losing anything by JJ Abrams' new Trek film.

You have no empathy... nor sympathy, for people even though Star Trek XI is inevitable at this point

No. I have no empathy or sympathy for people who want to engage in censorship, irrelevant of whether or not they actually can or actually do.

 

[3D Master]

Hell we have nuclear reactors on Earth today, and if one went off, it would cause great destruction. However, we have proven the technology as safe enough to build many nuclear reactors, and have fleets of ships powered by them.

Hell, after three million years we still have horrible accidents with fire.

Nonetheless, positing that people who have endless energy would prioritize saving energy over other kinds of convenience is foolishness. It's like suggesting that because there are power failures sometimes during thunderstorms people wouldn't own television sets - I mean, why would you waste energy on something so trivial when the power might go out?

Now imagine if your tv set was the size of your room, and hanging on the sealing, being kept up there by a power hungry anti-grav machinery. And if the power went out, that tv comes crashing down and crushes you, killing you instantly.

Now what are you going to choose; the anti-grav machinery, because hey, I've got cheap power? Or a set of clips you can hook your tv into?

 

[sebialex]

I think the constitution class is rather ugly, but I'm still going to watch the movie. I wasn't too crazy about the Galaxy class (it grew on me, I actually like it quite a bit), I still watched TNG. DS9 station was not too attractive, but I still watched the show because I liked the characters (the introduction of the Defiant was awesome though). The ship that I actually like the most is the Sovereign class. I really wonder how they would redesign the Galaxy and the Sovereign, using the new artistic approach.

And this is all I need to know.

Yup, it is my opinion that the Sovereign is the best Trek ship design. All trek ships have the same basic design which originated with the constitution (a saucer, a body and two nacelles), but the Sovereign is the only design which actually makes me appreciate the original. In 2008, the constitution class looks silly. I was pretty disappointed when I saw that they kept the old design, instead of a radical new one.

 

[3D Master]

Whether it CAN be done, is a very different thing, from whether it WILL be done. And let me tell you, there are NO advantages for building on the ground such massive ships, only DISadvantages. Thus you will NOT be building them on the ground, you'll be building them IN SPACE and nowhere else, where any sane person will tell you they'll be built.

Wrong again. There are several advantages to building on the ground. Plentiful workforce for one - most construction workers even in the 23rd century are not going to be trained spacewalkers, and those who are will demand much higher wages.

Wrong. Not only will there be plentiful workforce that are perfectly trained spacewalkers - every single last of them will be. This is the 23rd century friend. Where people are born, grow up, and live on space stations and starships. Where when you are nine, the family vacation was going into space and floating about. When you were 12, you went skying on a low-grav world in an environmental suit. When you were 15 you and your friends went orbital sky diving for fun.

There will be less people that do not know how to space walk, then there are people who do.

Ask an astronaut how easy it is even to assemble something in space from components fabricated on the ground.

Ask the nine-year-old in the 23rd century went to the no-grav theme park in space.

Then ask him how easy it would be to build everything, from the components on up, in a vacuum, in free fall.

You won't be in a vaccum in free fall, they have artificial gravity in the 23rd century. And they can pressurize work bays where it is necessary, if it isn't even a detriment.

He'll laugh in your face.

Actually, he would do no such thing. You see, he's a guy stuck in 21st century with horrendously primitive technology. You would have to ask him if he had a space suit that allows him to move as freely as on Earth, with all the technologies of the 23rd century and the things he had to build were full-size starships.

I'll tell you what he'll say; space would be easier.

Then there's resources - do you think most of the factories building starship components are going to be space-based? Unlikely. Would it be more energy efficient to boost up lots of small loads, or one big one? Even Roddenberry knew that building a starship would take place primarily on the ground. For every disadvantage working on the ground has, there are ten for working in space.

Actually, they ARE going to be mostly in space. Because most of the raw resources required to build them will come from space. There is then, no need to bring them all the way down to a planet.

Which brings us to another disadvantage of building on a planet. Every planet is different, every engineer would have to undergo multiple training courses to deal with the multiple planets and the machinery that works under those planetary conditions he might get stationed on. However, if you put them all in space, around planets, you need just one training course, for one condition, because no matter where he's stationed, the constructions conditions will all be the same: space.

I would have preferred to see in on the ground in separate sections, but there's nothing inherently wrong with doing most of the assembly on the ground. You're just having a knee-jerk reaction because it goes against your preconceptions.

No, I have reaction to how idiotic it is, because it goes against logic.

Not to mention that we've seen starships build in space docks, repaired in space docks, refitted in space docks over and over and over again.

Scientific accuracy IS a value that is added to the movie. It is one of the most IMPORTANT values in fact added to the movie. We want to watch Science Fiction, not Star Wars.

I've seen nothing so far that separates this movie from scientific accuracy any more than any other incarnation of Trek.

The ship is built on the GROUND!

And if some of the other rumors are correct; yikes.

 

[sebialex]

I’m really curious, is the bridge of a ship on top of the saucer section for every trek ship? If so, why would it be placed there, that is the worst place to put a bridge. It’s in a very vulnerable position, really easy to take out. Destroy the bridge and bam, almost all the senior officers are dead, the ship is useless. Why not put it in the middle of the saucer section. Shouldn’t it be one of the most protected places, besides the warp core?

 

[3D Master]

If you're seriously going to say that, then I would say you are incorrect. Just look at the works of Marion Zimmer Bradley, for instance, whose novel The Mists of Avalon completely re-developed the Arthurian legend from a feminist perspective and then launched a series of its own. Or Peter David's Knight Life cycle, about a reincarnated King Arthur becoming Mayor of New York and President of the United States. Or Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles. Or literally dozens of artists who are not just re-telling the Arthurian legend but who are using it to tell NEW stories.

No, it's still just re-telling the same old legend. They may have added some spins to it, but it's still the same story. Nothing is added to Arthur, just a different take on him.

It's not painting over someone else's work -- it's doing a new painting based on the old one. The old one isn't being eliminated -- it'll still be out there for anyone to see and enjoy.

And again, why shouldn't they be allowed to do a new version of the old story? What's wrong with that? Clearly you'd prefer that they just add to the pre-existing canvas, but why shouldn't they be able to take a selection from it and make a new painting based upon it? Why shouldn't Star Trek grow to encompass multiple canvasses instead of just one?

Because it means it does NOT grow. It gets shrunken back to just one little bit, then shrunken again, and again, and again, each time removing everything that was done before.

 

[Trekker4747]

I’m really curious, is the bridge of a ship on top of the saucer section for every trek ship? If so, why would it be placed there, that is the worst place to put a bridge. It’s in a very vulnerable position, really easy to take out. Destroy the bridge and bam, almost all the senior officers are dead, the ship is useless. Why not put it in the middle of the saucer section. Shouldn’t it be one of the most protected places, besides the warp core?

This is hardly the forum for it, but...
First and foremost: Gene wanted it that way.

More pracitcally and "in universe" Starfleet does everything it can to avoid battles and doesn't go around getting into fights so why even need the protection if most of the time your ship is crusing for space, researching nebulae or doing other peaceful stuff?

Further, I don't see why targeting the bridge would be anymore vital and deadly to a ship than targeting weapons, the engines or the deflector. You take out the bridge of a ship, oh boy you just killed 7 people on a ship of hundreds. Hundreds of people in a chain or system of command to snap into action and continue the fight.

But of course, again, Starships aren't going INTO fights. They're explorers. Not wariors.

 

[SonicRanger]

Wrong. Not only will there be plentiful workforce that are perfectly trained spacewalkers - every single last of them will be. This is the 23rd century friend. Where people are born, grow up, and live on space stations and starships. Where when you are nine, the family vacation was going into space and floating about. When you were 12, you went skying on a low-grav world in an environmental suit. When you were 15 you and your friends went orbital sky diving for fun.

There really is no evidence in Trek to suggest that the average citizen of Earth (or any other planet) spends much time in space (or doing anything like orbital skydiving).

Back to the Navy analogy, humanity has had boats for thousands of years, but the vast majority of people on Earth or in the US do not spend significant time on the water. Sure, some people take a cruise now and then, and others like to scuba dive or snorkel on vacation... but they don't spend months at sea while living on a ship or dive deeply to repair oil rigs. Only specialists do those sorts of things, notably people in the Navy and those who work on big ships and oil rigs.

I think that, even in Trek's 23rd century, the evidence suggests that the majority of humans live out their lives mostly on Earth or on its colonies. We only tune in to watch the adventures of those who trek through the stars.

 

[sebialex]

From what's I've seen, Starfleet doesn't look for a fight, but oh boy, do they get picked on. Since life is very valuable to the Federation, and saving lives is "in universe", the bridge (where the people with the most experience, command codes, orders, valuable info etc. as well as the command hub for all the ship are located, should be protected regardless of the ship's function.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

First and foremost: Gene wanted it that way.

Not much of a reason, at this point.

Where when you are nine, the family vacation was going into space and floating about. When you were 12, you went skying on a low-grav world in an environmental suit. When you were 15 you and your friends went orbital sky diving for fun.

What, the whole human race are upper middle-class Americans?

 

[ST-One]

(an argument I find interesting re: this film is that those who defend the new ship most vociferously often also say that the ship design shouldn't make any difference - unless it's the 'old, tired' ship design, in which case they can understand why no one would want to watch it ... )

Don't you get it?
We can't defend the film, yet.
We want you to, at least, give it a chance.

The ship's design itself doesn't indeed make any difference - story-wise.
But this is a new movie, with a new design-aesthetic.
Are you so inflexible that you cannot accept or even understand that a film that is made today would also use designs that are modern today?

In 10 years this film and its design-aesthetic will be as dated as the original design-aesthetic was when the time came that TMP was produced.

 

[JuanBolio]

The ship is built on the GROUND!

As it probably would be, for the most part. I'm not going to talk in circles with you. I'll just say I disagree with almost all of your points most emphatically.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Don't you get it?
We can't defend the film, yet.
We want you to, at least, give it a chance.

Actually, I don't care what they do. I just like the new ship, more and more.

 

[ST-One]

Don't you get it?
We can't defend the film, yet.
We want you to, at least, give it a chance.

Actually, I don't care what they do. I just like the new ship, more and more.

Me too. Especially after ancient's and jux... jud... that other poster (sorry, can't remember the name) posted their 2D-versions.

 

[Ptrope]

Don't you get it?
We can't defend the film, yet.
We want you to, at least, give it a chance.

The ship's design itself doesn't indeed make any difference - story-wise.
But this is a new movie, with a new design-aesthetic.
Are you so inflexible that you cannot accept or even understand that a film that is made today would also use designs that are modern today?

In 10 years this film and its design-aesthetic will be as dated as the original design-aesthetic was when the time came that TMP was produced.

Of course I get it. I'm not so sure you do, though. I wasn't talking about defending the film - I was considering the double-talk of you who stand your ground about the new design of the ship, doing everything you can to dismiss and chide anyone who questions the decision or the need to change it, while in the same breath saying that the ship design doesn't matter. Obviously, it does - to you, it matters that you get the new design, the same way it matters to others that they get the old one. What you really don't get about me is that no matter how many times I say it, you don't seem to comprehend that it's not about the ship design itself, but the illogic that "updating" it, while keeping it indistinguishable by non-fans from the original, will somehow not signal to these non-fans that this is still the same ol' Star Trek that they don't care about in the first place. As long as the ship looks something like the original, it's a detriment to their stated goals, just as calling it Star Trek is a detriment.

I don't need to give the new design "a chance" because there's no reason to - it's not the problem. It's everything else around the ship - the flash, the pomp, the tired clichés of time travel and resets - that are the problem. I don't have to see the movie to know they're there - the movie's creator has told us so. The new ship is just a symptom, not the disease.

And I hardly think that pointing this out is any more inflexible than the strident insistence that we simply accept everything that's new or we "just don't get it," post after post after post, or the ridiculous notion that it's more creative to throw out good work and reasonable restrictions than to find a way to create a fresh approach within them - it's more creative to achieve the latter, and the results are usually a lot more convincing.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Don't you get it?
We can't defend the film, yet.
We want you to, at least, give it a chance.

Actually, I don't care what they do. I just like the new ship, more and more.

Me too. Especially after ancient's and jux... jud... that other poster (sorry, can't remember the name) posted their 2D-versions.

judexavier. Amazing work.

 

[ATimson]

You can't advocate tolerance without also advocating intolerance of intolerance. To do otherwise is logically inconsistent.

Hardly. Advocating tolerance is saying "you should be tolerant of other people". Advocating intolerance of other people is saying "you should not be tolerant of people who are not tolerant". They're mutually exclusive.